[Opt-Net] Final CfP: Special Issue in Evolutionary Computation Journal (MIT Press) on Combinatorial Optimization Problems (September 1st, 2015)

[José Francisco Chicano García]

** Apologies for multiple postings **

===============================================================
                Special Issue in Evolutionary Computation Journal, MIT Press
                                   on Combinatorial Optimization Problems

                                                http://ecj.fhv.at
===============================================================

** DESCRIPTION

Combinatorial Optimization Problems consist in finding an optimal solution (according to some objective function) from a finite search space. These problems arise in Industry and Academia and, unfortunately, most of them cannot be solved efficiently, that is, they are NP-hard and no polynomial time algorithm is known to solve them. For this reason, in the last decades researches have investigated the use of stochastic search algorithms to find near optimal solutions to these problems. In particular, a great research effort has been devoted to the development of metaheuristic algorithms to solve combinatorial optimization problems. 

Successfully solved problems include scheduling, timetabling, network design, transportation and distribution problems, vehicle routing, travelling salesman, graph problems, satisfiability, energy optimization problems, packing problems and planning problems.

Prominent examples of metaheuristics include evolutionary algorithms, simulated annealing, tabu search, scatter search, memetic algorithms, ant colony optimization, particle swarm optimization, variable neighbourhood search, iterated local search, greedy randomized adaptive search procedures, estimation of distribution algorithms, hyperheuristics and hybrid algorithms.

We encourage authors to submit original high-quality research on the application of metaheuristic algorithms to combinatorial optimization problems or theoretical aspects of this application. 


** SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

All submissions have to be prepared according to the "guidelines for authors" as published in the journal website at http://ecj.fhv.at . Authors should submit their manuscripts to the Evolutionary Computation Editorial Manager at http://ecj.fhv.at . When submitting a paper, please send at the same time an email to Francisco Chicano (chicano at lcc.uma.es) and a copy to ecj at fhv.at mentioning the special issue, the paper title, and author list to inform about the submission.


** TENTATIVE SCHEDULE

     1 September 2015     submission deadline (extended)
   15 December 2015      authors notification
   15 March 2016            authors’ revisions
     1 July 2016	               final notification
   15 July 2016                final manuscript
   Winter 2016	               tentative publication


** GUEST EDITORS

Francisco Chicano
e-mail: chicano at lcc.uma.es
Universidad de Malaga, Spain

Christian Blum
e-mail: christian.blum at ehu.es
University of the Basque Country, Spain

Gabriela Ochoa
e-mail: gabriela.ochoa at cs.stir.ac.uk
University of Stirling, Scotland, UK