Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, or PPSN, is a research conference focusing on the topic of
natural computing.
Other conferences in the area include the
ACM
ACM or A.C.M. may refer to:
Aviation
* AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile
* Air chief marshal
* Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting
* Air cycle machine
* Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia
Computing
* ...
Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO), the
IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC) and
EvoStar (Evo*).
In 2020 PPSN got a CORE rank of A, corresponding to an ''"excellent conference, and highly respected in a discipline area"''.
History
The idea behind PPSN emerged around 1989-1990 when Bernard Manderick, Reinhard Männer, Heinz Mühlenbein, and
Hans-Paul Schwefel, realised they shared a common field of study that was not covered by the conferences on
Operations Research,
Physics, or
Computer Science they attended regularly.
The field of
Genetic Algorithms had already been established in the form of the ICGA conference in 1985, but the "fathers" of PPSN wanted a wider focus, with algorithms that included
problem solving
Problem solving is the process of achieving a goal by overcoming obstacles, a frequent part of most activities. Problems in need of solutions range from simple personal tasks (e.g. how to turn on an appliance) to complex issues in business an ...
,
parallel computing
Parallel computing is a type of computation in which many calculations or processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. There are several different fo ...
and the use of natural metaphors (such as
Darwinian evolution or
Boltzmann dynamics).
The success of the first PPSN event at Dortmund encouraged its organisers to start a biennial conference series, as a European counterpart to the American-based ICGA (which in 1999 merged with the Genetic Programming conference to give rise to
GECCO).
Analogies to natural processes included the thermodynamic process of
annealing,
immune systems and
neural networks
A neural network is a network or circuit of biological neurons, or, in a modern sense, an artificial neural network, composed of artificial neurons or nodes. Thus, a neural network is either a biological neural network, made up of biological ...
, as well as other paradigms, with Darwinian evolution being by far the most frequently used metaphor.
In this way,
evolutionary algorithms and
evolutionary computation
In computer science, evolutionary computation is a family of algorithms for global optimization inspired by biological evolution, and the subfield of artificial intelligence and soft computing studying these algorithms. In technical terms, they ...
became the common denominator for the PPSN approach to problem solving by mimicking evolutionary principles like population, birth and death,
mutation,
recombination, and
natural selection.
Editions
So far, seventeen PPSN conferences have been held:
Dortmund (October 1–3, 1990), Brussels (September 28–30, 1992), Jerusalem (October 9–14, 1994), Berlin (September 22–26, 1996), Amsterdam (September 27–30, 1998), Paris (September 16–20, 2000), Granada (September 7–11, 2002), Birmingham (September 18–22, 2004), Reykjavik (September 9–13, 2006), Dortmund (September 13–17, 2008), Krakow (September 11–15, 2010), Taormina (Sicily) (September 1–5, 2012), Ljubljana (September 13–17, 2014), Edinburgh (September 17–21, 2016), Coimbra (September 8–12, 2018) Leiden (September 5–9, 2020), and Dortmund (September 10-14, 2022).
The last-but-one edition, held in Leiden, counted on Thomas Bäck and Mike Preuss as General Chairs and Carola Doerr, Michael Emmerich and Heike Trautmann as Programme Committee Chairs. André Deutz and Hao Wang were Proceedings Chairs and Anna Esparcia-Alcázar, Ofer Shir and Vanessa Volz were Workshops, Tutorials and Competitions Chairs, respectively; Anna Kononova was Local Chair.
Proceedings
Proceedings of PPSN have been historically published by
Springer in the
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series (except in the second edition in 1992).
* 2020: LNCS 12269, LNCS 2070
* 2018: LNCS 11101, LNCS 11102
* 2016: LNCS 9921
* 2014: LNCS 8672
* 2012: LNCS 7491, LNCS 7492
* 2010: LNCS 6238, LNCS 6239
* 2008: LNCS 5199
* 2006: LNCS 4193
* 2004: LNCS 3242
* 2002: LNCS 2439
* 2000: LNCS 1917
* 1998: LNCS 1498
* 1996: LNCS 1141
* 1994: LNCS 866
* 1992: PPSN II
* 1990: LNCS 496
[Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, 1st Workshop, PPSN I, Dortmund, Germany, October 1–3, 1990, Proceedings. Hans-Paul Schwefel, Reinhard Männer (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science 496, Springer 1991, ]
External links
PPSN XVI in Leiden, 2020
PPSN XV in Coimbra, 2018
PPSN XIV in Edinburgh, 2016
PPSN XIII in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 2014
PPSN XII in Taormina, Sicily, 2012
PPSN XI in Krakow, 2010
PPSN X in Dortmund, 2008
PPSN VIII in Birmingham, 2004
Keynote speakers
References
{{Authority control
Science conferences