Written by: Thomas Weise

Created: 08 December 2017

• Benchmarking
• Operations Research
• Optimization
• Evolutionary Computation
• Combinatorial Optimization
• Discrete Optimization

The Black-Box Discrete Optimization Benchmarking Workshop (BB-DOB@GECCO) has just been accepted to be a part of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO 2018), taking place on July 15-19, 2018, in Kyoto, Japan (http://gecco-2018.sigevo.org/).

Quantifying and comparing the performance of optimization algorithms is one important aspect of research in search and optimization. The Black-Box-Optimization Benchmarking (BBOB) methodology introduced by the long-standing and successful BBOB-GECCO workshops series has become a well-established standard for benchmarking continuous optimization algorithms. The aim of this workshop is to develop a similar standard methodology for the benchmarking of black-box optimization algorithms for discrete and combinatorial domains. The goal of this first edition of the BB-DOB workshop series is to define a suitable set of benchmark functions for discrete and combinatorial optimization problems.

Our workshop is cordially inviting the submission of original and unpublished research papers. Here you can download the BB-DOB@GECCO Workshop Call for Papers (CfP) in PDF format and here as plain text file. The deadline for workshop submissions will be April 3, 2018.

Disclaimer: Two BB-DOB workshops will take place in 2018, i.e., the first edition as BB-DOB@GECCO and the second edition as BB-DOB@PPSN. Both are independent events of the same series.

Read more: Black-Box Discrete Optimization Benchmarking (BB-DOB@GECCO) Workshop Accepted at GECCO 2018

Written by: Thomas Weise

Created: 08 December 2017

• Industry 4.0
• Artificial Neural Networks
• Deep Learning
• Machine Learning
• Artificial Intelligence
• Made in China 2025
• 中国制造2025
• Computational Intelligence
• Language Processing
• Innovation

Today, I had the honor to attend and even speak at a panel of the China (Hefei) Artificial Intelligence International Youth Summit [中国（合肥）人工智能国际青年峰会] organized under the guidance of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence [中国人工智能学会] (CAAI) and the China Computer Federation [中国计算机学会] (CCF) as the delegate of our university [合肥学院]. The conference was a very nice experience and I enjoyed the different talks and discussions at the event. Here I want to shortly summarize some impressions. The summit agenda is preserved here.

Read more: China (Hefei) Artificial Intelligence International Youth Summit

Written by: Thomas Weise

Created: 27 November 2017

• Metaheuristics
• Evolutionary Computation
• Education
• Computational Intelligence

The University Curricula Committee of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (IEEE CIS) has created a new subreddit, named /r/CompIntellCourses, in order to build a collection of links to good quality courses on "everything CI." Teachers all over the world are invited to submit their courses, if the teaching material available for free. This is a very nice way to produce an organized catalog of high-quality lectures in the field, making it easier for the everybody to learn about some CI technologies from scratch, or to keep up-to-date with new trends.

Our course Metaheuristic Optimization is one of the first courses that has been included in this list. Metaheuristic optimization is concerned with solving computationally hard problems using soft computing methods and therefore is a field of Computational Intelligence. Our course is based on our previous courses Practical Optimization Algorithm Design taught by Prof. Weise at University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) [中国科学技术大学] and some of the units in the course Evolutionary Computation – Theory and Application which also were taught by Prof. Weise at USTC until 2016. It is, however, significantly extended, improved, and adapted to be an introduction to and overview of the field for both graduate students and research team members in our group at Hefei University [合肥学院].

Written by: Thomas Weise

Created: 16 November 2017

• Cloud Computing
• Germany and China
• Research Talk
• Quantum Computing
• Algorithm
• Computer Science
• Enterprise Application Development Group
• Hochschule Zittau/Görlitz

Prof. Dr. Jörg Lässig, head of the Enterprise Application Development (EAD) group of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Applied Sciences Zittau/Görlitz (HZG, Hochschule Zittau/Görlitz), gave the talk "Understanding Quantum Computing - Computing Model and Algorithms" on Tuesday, November 21, 2017 at 15:10 (3:10pm) in Hefei University [合肥学院] in the Lecture Room 308 at the third floor of Building 35 [合肥学院 计算机科学与技术系 合肥市 230601蜀山区 经济技术开发区 南2区/南艳湖校区 锦绣大道99号 35栋 308教室]. [poster]

The talk was open for all interested audiences and presented a really nice and easy-to-understand introduction to quantum computing from the perspective of algorithms. Quantum computing seems to become a real possibility in the near future, with IBM making a 20-qubit computer available through their "Q-Experience" program via the web for any user and announcing a 50-qubit computer. In his interesting lecture on this exciting topic, Prof. Lässig explained the basic mathematics and features of quantum computations and gave live demonstrations of two algorithms on the IBM system via the web. This way, the audience obtained a basic understanding on how to write programs for quantum computers within only 1.5 hours of time.

This talk followed directly the presentation "An Application Meta-Model to Support the Execution and Benchmarking of Scientific Applications in Multi-Cloud Environments" by Mr. Markus Ullrich in the same room, which started at 14:00.

Read more: Research Talk "Understanding Quantum Computing - Computing Model and Algorithms" by Prof. Dr. Jörg...