No coevolution track at GECCO next year - Computational Intelligence and Co-evolution

Message from discussion No coevolution track at GECCO next year
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Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:20:15 -0400
From: "Anthony Bucci" <abu...@gmail.com>
To: coevolve@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [coevolve] No coevolution track at GECCO next year
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I emailed Franz with this question.  The numbers he gave for # of
submisions, starting in 2003 I believe, were: 14, 18, 18, 12, 24, 8.
He mentioned that GECCO likes to have about 20 submissions to its
active tracks, but that theory is an exception.

These numbers could hardly be called a steady decline.  I'd say they
are the result of noise (expected fluctuations in a number that small)
and who was chairing the track.  It's also curious that theory is
excepted from the 20-submissions constraint.

This year there were a few coev papers submitted to other tracks that
could have just as well appeared in the coev track.  I tend to feel
that the number of submissions is a function of the level of activity
of the track chair -- an aggressive track chair could have solicited
papers from people who have submitted coev papers in the past and
probably upped the number of submissions.  I was never harrassed to
submit a paper, for instance, though if poked often enough I probably
would have (knowing I was going to be there anyway for the tutorial).

So, frankly, I'm a little disturbed that the track was dropped
altogether without first consulting with people who have known, active
interest in the field.  Not good.



On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 12:45 PM, R. Paul Wiegand <p...@tesseract.org> wrote:
>
> FYI: Because the submissions to the coevolution track at GECCO have
> gradually decreased (and were especially low this year), GECCO has
> dropped the track ... at least for the time being.
>
> When I spoke with Franz Rothlauf (chair for GECCO 2009) about this, he
> pointed out the steady decline, which surprised me.  Every year, I
> count the coev papers in the proceedings and until this year, they
> seemed relatively steady (around 12 or so).
>
> What appears to have happened is that people submitted coev papers to
> other tracks, of course.   Also, several of us with active interests
> in coevolution research are in the same place in our careers:  very
> early, post-PhD.  This means that conference submissions aren't
> particularly appealing to us at present, and we haven't necessarily
> had the opportunity to build a program sufficiently large to drag ...
> er, encourage ... GRAs into the field.  Sevan, Anthony, Edwin, and I
> had no coev papers in GECCO this year.  I haven't published a coev
> paper in a conference since 2006.
>
> But there is clear interest in coevolution.  The tutorials are always
> well attended, as are (usually) the sessions.  The group is small but
> relatively active (this past year being somewhat depressed).  And
> there are a few new researchers with serious interest in
> coevolutionary algorithms.
>
> It makes me wonder:  What was the average coev researcher's view of
> the track?  For those of us interested in coev theory, we have (as of
> last year) an uncomfortable choice (the EC theory track or the coev
> track).  For those interested in applications of coev, I suppose they
> are similarly split between the general GA or RWA tracks and coev.
> Perhaps there is no niche for coev (pun intended)?
>
> How many people are there out there where coevolution is their primary
> object of study (as opposed to, say, merely a technique they happen to
> apply to a class of problems of interest)?
>
> Paul.
>
>
> >
>