Evolutionary Computation In Dynamic And Uncertain Environments

This book compiles recent advances of evolutionary algorithms in dynamic and uncertain environments within a unified framework. The book is motivated by the fact that some degree of uncertainty is inevitable in characterizing any realistic engineering systems. Discussion includes representative methods for addressing major sources of uncertainties in evolutionary computation, including handle of noisy fitness functions, use of approximate fitness functions, search for robust solutions, and tracking moving optimums.

Evolutionary algorithms are sophisticated search methods that have been found to be very efficient and effective in solving complex real-world multi-objective problems where conventional optimization tools fail to work well. Despite the tremendous amount of work done in the development of these algorithms in the past decade, many researchers assume that the optimization problems are deterministic and uncertainties are rarely examined. The primary motivation of this book is to provide a comprehensive introduction on the design and application of evolutionary algorithms for multi-objective optimization in the presence of uncertainties. In this book, we hope to expose the readers to a range of optimization issues and concepts, and to encourage a greater degree of appreciation of evolutionary computation techniques and the exploration of new ideas that can better handle uncertainties. "Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimization in Uncertain Environments: Issues and Algorithms" is intended for a wide readership and will be a valuable reference for engineers, researchers, senior undergraduates and graduate students who are interested in the areas of evolutionary multi-objective optimization and uncertainties.

Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) have grown into a mature field of research in optimization, and have proven to be effective and robust problem solvers for a broad range of static real-world optimization problems. Yet, since they are based on the principles of natural evolution, and since natural evolution is a dynamic process in a changing environment, EAs are also well suited to dynamic optimization problems. Evolutionary Optimization in Dynamic Environments is the first comprehensive work on the application of EAs to dynamic optimization problems. It provides an extensive survey on research in the area and shows how EAs can be successfully used to continuously and efficiently adapt a solution to a changing environment, find a good trade-off between solution quality and adaptation cost, find robust solutions whose quality is insensitive to changes in the environment, find flexible solutions which are not only good but that can be easily adapted when necessary. All four aspects are treated in this book, providing a holistic view on the challenges and opportunities when applying EAs to dynamic optimization problems. The comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of the subject, together with details of latest original research, makes Evolutionary Optimization in Dynamic Environments an invaluable resource for researchers and professionals who are dealing with dynamic and stochastic optimization problems, and who are interested in applying local search heuristics, such as evolutionary algorithms.

This book provides a compilation on the state-of-the-art and recent advances of evolutionary computation for dynamic optimization problems. The motivation for this book arises from the fact that many real-world optimization problems and engineering systems are subject to dynamic environments, where changes occur over time. Key issues for addressing dynamic optimization problems in evolutionary computation, including fundamentals, algorithm design, theoretical analysis, and real-world applications, are presented. "Evolutionary Computation for Dynamic Optimization Problems" is a valuable reference to scientists, researchers, professionals and students in the field of engineering and science, particularly in the areas of computational intelligence, nature- and bio-inspired computing, and evolutionary computation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, PPSN 2013, held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, in September 2014. The total of 90 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 217 submissions. The meeting began with 7 workshops which offered an ideal opportunity to explore specific topics in evolutionary computation, bio-inspired computing and metaheuristics. PPSN XIII also included 9 tutorials. The papers are organized in topical sections on adaption, self-adaption and parameter tuning; classifier system, differential evolution and swarm intelligence; coevolution and artificial immune systems; constraint handling; dynamic and uncertain environments; estimation of distribution algorithms and metamodelling; genetic programming; multi-objective optimisation; parallel algorithms and hardware implementations; real world applications; and theory.

Presents current developments in the field of evolutionary scheduling and demonstrates the applicability of evolutionary computational techniques to solving scheduling problems This book provides insight into the use of evolutionary computations (EC) in real-world scheduling, showing readers how to choose a specific evolutionary computation and how to validate the results using metrics and statistics. It offers a spectrum of real-world optimization problems, including applications of EC in industry and service organizations such as healthcare scheduling, aircraft industry, school timetabling, manufacturing systems, and transportation scheduling in the supply chain. It also features problems with different degrees of complexity, practical requirements, user constraints, and MOEC solution approaches. Evolutionary Computation in Scheduling starts with a chapter on scientometric analysis to analyze scientific literature in evolutionary computation in scheduling. It then examines the role and impacts of ant colony optimization (ACO) in job shop scheduling problems, before presenting the application of the ACO algorithm in healthcare scheduling. Other chapters explore task scheduling in heterogeneous computing systems and truck scheduling using swarm intelligence, application of sub-population scheduling algorithm in multi-population evolutionary dynamic optimization, task scheduling in cloud environments, scheduling of robotic disassembly in remanufacturing using the bees algorithm, and more. This book: Provides a representative sampling of real-world problems currently being tackled by practitioners Examines a variety of single-, multi-, and many-objective problems that have been solved using evolutionary computations, including evolutionary algorithms and swarm intelligence Consists of four main parts: Introduction to Scheduling Problems, Computational Issues in Scheduling Problems, Evolutionary Computation, and Evolutionary Computations for Scheduling Problems Evolutionary Computation in Scheduling is ideal for engineers in industries, research scholars, advanced undergraduates and graduate students, and faculty teaching and conducting research in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation, EvoApplications 2011, held in Torino, Italy, in April 2011 colocated with the Evo* 2011 events. Thanks to the large number of submissions received, the proceedings for EvoApplications 2011 are divided across two volumes (LNCS 6624 and 6625). The present volume contains contributions for EvoCOMPLEX, EvoGAMES, EvoIASP, EvoINTELLIGENCE, EvoNUM, and EvoSTOC. The 36 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. This volume presents an overview about the latest research in EC. Areas where evolutionary computation techniques have been applied range from telecommunication networks to complex systems, finance and economics, games, image analysis, evolutionary music and art, parameter optimization, scheduling, and logistics. These papers may provide guidelines to help new researchers tackling their own problem using EC.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Conference on the Applications of Evolutionary Computation, EvoApplications 2013, held in Vienna, Austria, in April 2013, colocated with the Evo* 2013 events EuroGP, EvoCOP, EvoBIO, and EvoMUSART. The 65 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 119 submissions. EvoApplications 2013 consisted of the following 12 tracks: EvoCOMNET (nature-inspired techniques for telecommunication networks and other parallel and distributed systems), EvoCOMPLEX (evolutionary algorithms and complex systems), EvoENERGY (evolutionary computation in energy applications), EvoFIN (evolutionary and natural computation in finance and economics), EvoGAMES (bio-inspired algorithms in games), EvoIASP (evolutionary computation in image analysis, signal processing, and pattern recognition), EvoINDUSTRY (nature-inspired techniques in industrial settings), EvoNUM (bio-inspired algorithms for continuous parameter optimization), EvoPAR (parallel implementation of evolutionary algorithms), EvoRISK (computational intelligence for risk management, security and defence applications), EvoROBOT (evolutionary computation in robotics), and EvoSTOC (evolutionary algorithms in stochastic and dynamic environments).