********* CALL FOR PAPERS, SPECIAL SESSIONS AND TUTORIALS **********

THE 10TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SIMULATED EVOLUTION AND LEARNING (SEAL 2014)
15-18 December 2014, Dunedin, New Zealand
http://seal2014.otago.ac.nz

AIMS AND SCOPE

Evolution and learning are two fundamental forms of adaptation. SEAL 2014 is the tenth biennial conference in the highly successful series that aims at exploring these two forms of adaptation and their roles and interactions in adaptive systems. Cross-fertilization between evolutionary learning and other machine learning approaches, such as neural network learning, reinforcement learning, decision tree learning, fuzzy system learning, etc., will be strongly encouraged by the conference. The other major theme of the conference is optimization by evolutionary approaches or hybrid evolutionary approaches.

More details about the scope and themes can be seen from

http://seal2014.otago.ac.nz/cfps.html


CONFERENCE COMMITTEES

General Chairs:

Prof. Mengjie Zhang (Victoria University Wellington)
Assoc. Prof. Peter Whigham (University of Otago)

Programme Chairs:

Dr. Grant Dick (University of Otago)
Dr. Will Browne (Victoria University of Wellington)


Technical Co-Chairs:

Prof. Lam Thu Bui (LQDTU Vietnam)
Prof. Hisao Ishibuchi (Osaka Prefecture University)
Prof. Yaochu Jin (University of Surrey)
Assoc. Prof. Xiaodong Li (RMIT, Australia)
Prof. Yuhui Shi (Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University)
Assoc. Prof. Pramod Singh (IIITM, Gwalior)
Prof. Kay Chen Tan (National University of Singapore)
Prof. Ke Tang (University of Science and Technology of China)


International Advisory Board:

Prof. Hussein Abbass (ADFA, Australia)
Prof. Carlos A. Coello Coello (CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico)
Prof. Kalyanmoy Deb (IIT Kanpur)
Prof. Garry Greenwood (Portland State University)
Prof. Jong-Hwan Kim (KAIST, Korea)
Prof. Bob McKay (Soul National University)
Prof. Zbignew Michalewicz (University of Adelaide)
Prof. Lipo Wang (National University of Singapore)
Prof. Xin Yao (University of Birmingham)


Local Organising Chairs:

Mrs. Heather Cooper (University of Otago)
Mr. Stephen Hall-Jones (University of Otago)


Tutorial Chair:

Dr. Mark Johnston (Victoria University of Wellington)


Special Session Chair:

Dr. Aaron Chen (Victoria University of Wellington)


Publicity Chairs:

Prof. Jing Liu (Xidian University, China)
Dr. Kourosh Neshatian (University of Canterbury, NZ)
Dr. Andy Song (RMIT University, Australia)
Assoc. Prof. Nguyen Xuan Hoai (Hanoi University, Vietnam)


IMPORTANT DATES:

Tutorial Proposals due: 16 May 2014
Special Session Proposals due: 16 May 2014
Paper submission due: 28 July 2014 (deadline has been extended)
Acceptance notification due: 29 August 2014
Camera ready due: 16 September 2014
Conference sessions: 15-18 December 2014

SUBMISSIONS

All papers should be submitted in PDF format via electronic submission at the SEAL 2014 conference submission site (via EasyChair):

http://seal2014.otago.ac.nz/submissions.html
or
http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=seal2014

The submitted papers must represent original works, and must not have been accepted for publication elsewhere or be under review for another conference or journal.


PUBLICATIONS

All accepted papers that are presented at the conference will be included in the conference proceedings, to be published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) by Springer. Selected papers will be invited for further revision and extension for possible publication in a special issue of two SCI journals after further review: Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines (GPEM, springer, Impact Factor 1.333) and Soft Computing (Springer, Impact Factor 1.124).


SPECIAL SESSIONS

Invitations are made to all parties interested in proposing special sessions to run as part of SEAL 2014 proceedings. Proposed special sessions should target relevant research themes, with emphasis on important outstanding issues in the field, or high-interest specialist topics relevant to simulated evolution and learning.

Special session proposals should include the title, aim and scope, and the names and short biographies of the organizers of the special session. Special session proposals will be evaluated based on the relevance to the conference and to the research community in general, the novelty of the topic and track record/qualifications of the session organiser(s). Proposals are expected to come from researchers with an established track record the area related to their proposed session. Accepted special sessions will be listed on the website. A final decision on accepted special sessions will be made two weeks after the submission deadline.
Manuscripts submitted to special sessions should be done through the EasyChair website of SEAL 2014 as per regular submissions. All papers submitted to special sessions will be subject to the same peer-review procedures as applied to regular papers. Special sessions having fewer than four accepted papers will be cancelled and the accepted papers will be moved to regular sessions.
All proposals should be submitted by May 16th, 2014. Early proposals are highly encouraged. All proposals should be sent to the Special Session Chair, Aaron Chen, via email (aaron.chen@ecs.vuw.ac.nz).


TUTORIALS

Invitations are made to all parties interested in proposing tutorials to run as SEAL 2014. Tutorials can be aimed at various levels of
expertise, with the overall intention of tutorials providing participants with new knowledge in the tutorial topic. Tutorials will be 100 minutes in duration, and held on the first day of the conference, 15th of December, 2014.

Tutorial proposals should be brief (~3 pages), and include an outline of the covered material, the proposed format, and overall goals of the tutorial. The proposal should identify the target audience and highlight the relevant qualifications of the proposer(s). The proposals will be evaluated as received and the proposers will be informed on the decision outcome two weeks after the submission deadline.

Tutorials will be organised and run by researchers with demonstrated expertise and a proven track record in a field related to the
tutorial. The tutorial format is flexible, but should be well-structured, and focus on providing solid foundations and practical examples. Organisers of tutorials may receive some compensation, in recognition of their contribution to the conference (details communicated later).

All proposals for tutorials should be submitted by May 16th, 2014. Early proposals are highly encouraged. All proposals should be
sent to the Tutorials Chair, Mark Johnston, via email (mark.johnston@vuw.ac.nz).


INQUIRIES

All inquiries about the conference should go to Dr Grant Dick (grant.dick@otago.ac.nz) or Prof Mengjie Zhang (mengjie.zhang@ecs.vuw.ac.nz)