Editor for this issue: Anita Huang <anita
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INVITATION TO BECOME A MEMBER of the Program Committee for the 1999 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-99) http://www-illigal.ge.uiuc.edu/gecco/ Greetings: The 1999 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) would like to invite recent authors of papers related to genetic and evolutionary computation (GEC) to become members of the program committee of the GECCO conference to be held on July 13-17, 1999 in Orlando, Florida. As you may know, the 1999 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO) will be a combined meeting of the Eighth International Conference on Genetic Algorithms (ICGA) and the Fourth Annual Genetic Programming Conference (GP) in cooperation with the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), Parallel Problem Solving from Nature (PPSN) steering committee, the International Conference on Evolvable Systems (ICES) steering committee, and other organizations and conferences to be announced. GECCO will be held in lieu of ICGA-99 and GP-99, and as such, it combines the oldest continuously running GEC conference, and the two largest GEC conferences. We believe that the GECCO conference in 1999 will be a unique opportunity to bring together an exceptionally large number of people from all facets of genetic and evolutionary computation. Being on the program committee will involve reading, reviewing, and ranking about half a dozen submitted papers on genetic and evolutionary computation or related areas during the month of February 1999. (The paper submission deadline for GECCO-99 is Wednesday, January 27, 1999). The willingness of active contributors to help the conference in this way is absolutely critical to the success of GECCO. In the past, some have complained that their point of view has been excluded from the review process. By agreeing to join us, active GEC researchers will help make the GECCO review process fair, open, and broadly participatory. As part of the charter establishing this conference, extraordinary steps have been taken to ensure that (1) review representation is exceptionally broad and (2) the traditions, norms, and standards of the different flavors of GEC are respected. Let us take a brief moment to explain how this will be done. First, the charter of the conference says that reviewers are automatically invited based on their recent contribution of a peer-reviewed publication: A person may be a reviewer for the conference if he or she is an author of at least one peer-reviewed paper in a journal, conference proceedings book, or collected book of papers published since January 1, 1995 involving any aspect or combinations of aspects of [genetic and] evolutionary computation. Thus, becoming a reviewer is even-handedly based on recency of peer-reviewed contribution. Second, GECCO explicitly recognizes and respects the different traditions of different sub-fields within GEC and related disciplines. As such, the conference has established six different tracks each with its own chair/editor: 1. Evolution Strategies/Evolutionary Programming (ES/EP). A. E. Eiben, guszMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issuewi.leidenuniv.nl 2. Genetic Algorithms/Classifier Systems (GA/CS). Robert E. Smith, rsmith
btc.uwe.ac.uk 3. Genetic Programming/Evolvable Hardware (GP/EH). Wolfgang Banzhaf (also Proceedings Editor-in-Chief), banzhaf
LS11.informatik.uni-dortmund.de 4. Artificial Life, Adaptive Behavior, and Agents (AAA). Vasant Honavar, honavar
cs.iastate.edu 5. DNA and Molecular Computing (DNA/MC). Max H. Garzon, mgarzon
memphis.edu 6. Real-World Applications (RWA). Mark Jakiela, mjj
mecf.wustl.edu These separate "demes" will establish separate rules and standards for paper acceptance based on the practices within the sub-discipline. In this way, we hope to more closely group "birds of a feather" and thereby avoid the rejection of high quality papers by reviewers who are less than familiar with the standards that should apply to a particular kind of paper. With this kind of carefully constructed process, we believe that a large number of recent GEC authors will choose to join the program committee. If you are willing to be a member (reviewer) of the program committee, please email gecco
aaai.org (NOTE: Please do NOT use a "reply" command to respond to this message since Dave Goldberg will be out of town for most of June) and send the following information: (1) the exact way you want your name listed, (2) the institutional affiliation you want listed with your name, (3) your physical mailing address, (4) your phone number (for courier address labels), (5) your preferred e-mail address, (6) which of the six committees you would like to join (GP/EH, GA/CS, or ES/EP, AAA, DNA/MC, or RWA), and if you have a preference for one of the sub-categories within that committee (GP and/or EH, GA and/or CS, ES and/or EP, ALife and/or Adaptive Behavior and/or Agents, DNA and/or MC). (7) the title, date, and publication name of a peer-reviewed GEC or related paper (published after January 1, 1995) that qualifies you as a member of the GECCO committee (a complete citation is unnecessary). Authors who choose to join the GECCO program committee will be acknowledged in the conference proceedings as well as in various editions of the calls for papers, the conference brochure, and advertising. Physical copies of the papers will be sent to reviewers by UPS courier service in late January 1999, and the review form will be sent by e-mail. Reviewers will be given several weeks to read and review the papers. Reviews are returned by e-mail directly to the AAAI. The reviewer's name is removed from the message by the AAAI before the review is forwarded to the chair of the appropriate track and (eventually) the submitting author. If a reviewer's physical mailing address or e-mail address changes between now and February 1999, the conference office (gecco
aaai.org) should be notified as soon as possible. Although the conference is over a year away, we already have an outstanding lineup of chairs, editors, senior members, and tutorial speakers (see http://www-illigal.ge.uiuc.edu/gecco/). The editors/chairs have already been mentioned, but among those joining us as senior committee members are Thomas Baeck, Hans-Georg Beyer, Michael Conrad, Ingo Rechenberg, Guenter Rudolph, Bir Bhanu, Bill P. Buckles, Runwei Cheng, Marco Colombetti, Herbert Dawid, Marco Dorigo, Emanuel Falkenauer, Mitsuo Gen, Randy L. Haupt, Sue Ellen Haupt, John H. Holland, Kim F. Man, Dirk C. Mattfeld, Zbigniew Michalewicz, Melanie Mitchell, K. S. Tang, Michael D. Vose, David Andre, Vladan Babovic, Forrest H Bennett III, Tobias Blickle, Dimitris C. Dracopoulos, Frank D. Francone, Andreas Geyer-Schulz, Wolfgang A. Halang, Hitoshi Iba, Christian Jacob, Martin Keane, Robert E. Keller, John R. Koza, Sam Kwong, W. B. Langdon, Peter Nordin, and Moshe Sipper. Among those joining us for an extensive offering of tutorials are Rik Belew, Forrest H Bennett III, Lawrence Davis, Kalyanmoy Deb, Ken DeJong, Stephanie Forrest, Max Garzon, Tetsuya Higuchi, John R. Koza, W. B. Langdon, Jean-Arcady Meyer, Melanie Mitchell, Randy C. Murphy, Peter Nordin, I. C. Parmee, Guenter Rudolph, Hans-Paul Schwefel, Leigh Tesfatsion, Michael Vose, Darrell Whitley, and Stewart Wilson. Other workshop and tutorial proposals as well as ideas for invited speakers and other activities may be sent to the business committee (deg
uiuc.edu or koza
cs.stanford.edu). As active researchers ourselves, we understand that it is difficult to take time away from research for the "administrivia" of the reviewing process. But researchers are often the first to complain when their conferences are guided by "political" not "scientific" considerations. Therefore we ask that all qualified committee candidates take this invitation very seriously, and we urge you to step up to the plate to make sure that the technical content of this conference is guided by our field's active contributors (qualified reviewers should send an email with the requested information above to gecco
aaai.org; please do not use a "reply" command to answer this message). NAMES OF REVIEWERS WHO RESPOND BEFORE JULY 1, 1999 WILL BE PUBLISHED IN THE FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS. Moreover, we issue a special invitation to past authors to consider submitting to GECCO 99. Although GECCO is a new entity it is the combine of the oldest and the two largest, high-quality conferences in the field of genetic and evolutionary computation. With six separate demes for different styles of work and a participatory review process, we expect an unusually author-friendly conference. Additionally, past attendance at ICGA and GP suggests that we should have over 600 researchers in attendance, but we will take steps to make sure that there is plenty of time for face-to-face meeting and interaction as well. In short, we believe that GECCO-99 will be a special event for the community of genetic and evolutionary computation. We hope you can take the time to join us in the review process and we welcome your paper submission, but in any event we look forward to seeing you in Orlando, July 13-17, 1999 at GECCO-99. Thank you, David E. Goldberg (Illinois) GECCO-99 Conference Chair and Business Committee and John R. Koza (Stanford) GECCO-99 Business Committee NOTE: Again, please do not use a "reply" command to answer this message. Instead, respond to gecco
aaai.org for fastest handling.
First Announcement and Call for Papers for the 1999 issue of Op. Cit.: A Journal of Anglo-American Studies, published by APEAA, the Portuguese Association for Anglo-American Studies Modernisms and Postmodernisms in English Studies: Accounting for the Century The 20th century has witnessed the growth, developments and border-crossings of English Studies as a major, complex, multidisciplinary, multicultural field. Alongside (not seldom in dialogue and confrontation with) the established English of literary studies, for many decades dominant in many ways and places, also language and culture studies have, with their various disciplines, methods and perspectives, moved centre-stage and re-shaped, re-defined, and re-orientated the field. It is the history of English Studies in the century now drawing to its close that Op.Cit.: A Journal of Anglo-American Studies invites prospective contributors to focus on and study: its significant chapters, individual authors and intellectual formations, periods and theoretical constellations; its disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary modes and approaches, its dominant, residual and emergent strategies and discourses; its established and new linguistic codes (English vs. english); its horizons, mappings and accents; its institutionally constituted scholarship(s) and its innovative projects. The theme proposed, Modernisms and Postmodernisms in English Studies: Accounting for the Century, offers one version of the narrative of beginnings, transitions and changes in English Studies in our century, one starting point for analysis, and one opportunity for alternative versions. Deadline for 2-3,000-word position and 7-8,000-word papers: Sept. 30, 1998. Submissions in diskette and two hard copies. Op.Cit. is a refereed Journal. All contributions should be submitted anonymously (author's name and address, and full title of the article on a separate sheet) For more information contact Alvaro Pina, editor, ferpiMail to author|Respond to list|Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issuemail.telepac.pt Carlos A. M. Gouveia, assistant editor, carlosmg
fc.ul.pt Material mail address: Prof. Alvaro Pina (or Prof. Carlos A. M. Gouveia) Depto Estudos Anglsticos, Faculdade de Letras, Universidade de Lisboa Cidade Universitaria 1699 LISBOA CODEX, Portugal Fax No. +351-1-7960063 - ------------------------------------ Carlos A. M. Gouveia Dept. Estudos Anglisticos Faculdade de Letras da Univ. de Lisboa Cidade Universitaria 1699 Lisboa Codex Portugal Fax: (351)(1) 796 00 63 e-mail: carlosmg
fc.ul.pt