Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, or PPSN, is a research conference focusing on the topic of

natural computing Natural computing,G.Rozenberg, T.Back, J.Kok, Editors, Handbook of Natural Computing, Springer Verlag, 2012A.Brabazon, M.O'Neill, S.McGarraghyNatural Computing Algorithms Springer Verlag, 2015 also called natural computation, is a terminology intr ...

. Other conferences in the area include the ACM 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 Hans-Paul Schwefel (born December 4, 1940) is a German computer scientist and professor emeritus at University of Dortmund (now Dortmund University of Technology), where he held the chair of systems analysis from 1985 until 2006. He is one of the ...

, realised they shared a common field of study that was not covered by the conferences on

Operations Research Operations research () (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a branch of applied mathematics that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve management and ...

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

, or

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

they attended regularly. The field of

Genetic Algorithms In computer science and operations research, a genetic algorithm (GA) is a metaheuristic inspired by the process of natural selection that belongs to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms (EA). Genetic algorithms are commonly used to g ...

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 computing, computation in which many calculations or Process (computing), processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. ...

and the use of natural metaphors (such as

Darwinian evolution ''Darwinism'' is a term used to describe a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others. The theory states that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural sele ...

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 The immune system is a network of biological systems that protects an organism from diseases. It detects and responds to a wide variety of pathogens, from viruses to bacteria, as well as cancer cells, parasitic worms, and also objects such as ...

and

neural networks A neural network is a group of interconnected units called neurons that send signals to one another. Neurons can be either Cell (biology), biological cells or signal pathways. While individual neurons are simple, many of them together in a netwo ...

, as well as other paradigms, with Darwinian evolution being by far the most frequently used metaphor. In this way,

evolutionary algorithms Evolutionary algorithms (EA) reproduce essential elements of the biological evolution in a computer algorithm in order to solve "difficult" problems, at least Approximation, approximately, for which no exact or satisfactory solution methods are k ...

and

evolutionary computation Evolutionary computation from computer science 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 ...

became the common denominator for the PPSN approach to problem solving by mimicking evolutionary principles like population, birth and death,

mutation In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA or viral replication, ...

, recombination, and

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation ...

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), Dortmund (September 10-14, 2022), and Hagenberg (September 14-18, 2024). 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 Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

in the

Lecture Notes in Computer Science ''Lecture Notes in Computer Science'' is a series of computer science books published by Springer Science+Business Media since 1973. Overview The series contains proceedings, post-proceedings, monographs, and Festschrifts. In addition, tutorials ...

(LNCS) series (except in the second edition in 1992). * 2024: LNCS 15148, LNCS 15149, LNCS 15150, LNCS 15151, * 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 496Parallel 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,

Keynote speakers

References

{{Authority control Science conferences

History

Editions

Proceedings

External links

Keynote speakers

References