In the field of genetic and evolutionary algorithms (GEAs), a large amount of theory and empirical study has been focused on operators and test problems, while problem representation has often been taken as given. This book breaks with this tradition and provides a comprehensive overview on the influence of problem representations on GEA performance. The book summarizes existing knowledge regarding problem representations and describes how basic properties of representations, such as redundancy, scaling, or locality, influence the performance of GEAs and other heuristic optimization methods. Using the developed theory, representations can be analyzed and designed in a theory-guided matter. The theoretical concepts are used for solving integer optimization problems and network design problems more efficiently. The book is written in an easy-readable style and is intended for researchers, practitioners, and students who want to learn about representations. This second edition extends the analysis of the basic properties of representations and introduces a new chapter on the analysis of direct representations.

This book covers a broad range of topics related to digitalization. Specifically, it views digitalization across different organizational levels, such as the level of individuals, teams, processes, firms, and ecosystems. It includes a collection of recent research and reflections on the topic that helps to understand the technological foundations of digitalization and its impacts. It also reflects on the process of digitalization and how it changes established ways of working, collaborating, and coordinating. With this book, the editors and authors honor Professor Dr. Armin Heinzl for his enormous and ongoing contributions to information systems research, education, and practice.

Most textbooks on modern heuristics provide the reader with detailed descriptions of the functionality of single examples like genetic algorithms, genetic programming, tabu search, simulated annealing, and others, but fail to teach the underlying concepts behind these different approaches.

The author takes a different approach in this textbook by focusing on the users' needs and answering three fundamental questions: First, he tells us which problems modern heuristics are expected to perform well on, and which should be left to traditional optimization methods. Second, he teaches us to systematically design the "right" modern heuristic for a particular problem by providing a coherent view on design elements and working principles. Third, he shows how we can make use of problem-specific knowledge for the design of efficient and effective modern heuristics that solve not only small toy problems but also perform well on large real-world problems.

This book is written in an easy-to-read style and it is aimed at students and practitioners in computer science, operations research and information systems who want to understand modern heuristics and are interested in a guide to their systematic design and use.

This book is written in an easy-to-read style and it is aimed at students and practitioners in computer science, operations research and information systems who want to understand modern heuristics and are interested in a guide to their systematic design and use.

This book is written in an easy-to-read style and it is aimed at students and practitioners in computer science, operations research and information systems who want to understand modern heuristics and are interested in a guide to their systematic design and use.

Logistics and supply chain management deal with managing the ?ow of goods or services within a company, from suppliers to customers, and along a supply chain where companies act as suppliers as well as customers. As transportation is at the heart of logistics, the design of tra?c and transportation networks combined with the routing of vehicles and goods on the networks are important and demanding planning tasks. The in?uence of transport, logistics, and s- ply chain management on the modern economy and society has been growing steadily over the last few decades. The worldwide division of labor, the conn- tion of distributed production centers, and the increased mobility of individuals lead to an increased demand for e?cient solutions to logistics and supply chain management problems. On the company level, e?cient and e?ective logistics and supply chain management are of critical importance for a company's s- cessanditscompetitiveadvantage. Properperformanceofthelogisticsfunctions can contribute both to lower costs and to enhanced customer service. Computational Intelligence (CI) describes a set of methods and tools that often mimic biological or physical principles to solve problems that have been di?cult to solve by classical mathematics. CI embodies neural networks, fuzzy logic, evolutionary computation, local search, and machine learning approaches. Researchersthat workinthis areaoften comefromcomputer science, operations research, or mathematics, as well as from many di?erent engineering disciplines. Popular and successful CI methods for optimization and planning problems are heuristic optimization approaches such as evolutionary algorithms, local search methods, and other types of guided search methods.

In the field of genetic and evolutionary algorithms (GEAs), much theory and empirical study has been heaped upon operators and test problems, but problem representation has often been taken as given. This monograph breaks with this tradition and studies a number of critical elements of a theory of representations for GEAs and applies them to the empirical study of various important idealized test functions and problems of commercial import. The book considers basic concepts of representations, such as redundancy, scaling and locality and describes how GEAs'performance is influenced. Using the developed theory representations can be analyzed and designed in a theory-guided manner. The theoretical concepts are used as examples for efficiently solving integer optimization problems and network design problems. The results show that proper representations are crucial for GEAs'success.

Logistics and supply chain management deal with managing the ?ow of goods or services within a company, from suppliers to customers, and along a supply chain where companies act as suppliers as well as customers. As transportation is at the heart of logistics, the design of tra?c and transportation networks combined with the routing of vehicles and goods on the networks are important and demanding planning tasks. The in?uence of transport, logistics, and s- ply chain management on the modern economy and society has been growing steadily over the last few decades. The worldwide division of labor, the conn- tion of distributed production centers, and the increased mobility of individuals lead to an increased demand for e?cient solutions to logistics and supply chain management problems. On the company level, e?cient and e?ective logistics and supply chain management are of critical importance for a company's s- cessanditscompetitiveadvantage. Properperformanceofthelogisticsfunctions can contribute both to lower costs and to enhanced customer service. Computational Intelligence (CI) describes a set of methods and tools that often mimic biological or physical principles to solve problems that have been di?cult to solve by classical mathematics. CI embodies neural networks, fuzzy logic, evolutionary computation, local search, and machine learning approaches. Researchersthat workinthis areaoften comefromcomputer science, operations research, or mathematics, as well as from many di?erent engineering disciplines. Popular and successful CI methods for optimization and planning problems are heuristic optimization approaches such as evolutionary algorithms, local search methods, and other types of guided search methods.

In the field of genetic and evolutionary algorithms (GEAs), a large amount of theory and empirical study has been focused on operators and test problems, while problem representation has often been taken as given. This book breaks with this tradition and provides a comprehensive overview on the influence of problem representations on GEA performance. The book summarizes existing knowledge regarding problem representations and describes how basic properties of representations, such as redundancy, scaling, or locality, influence the performance of GEAs and other heuristic optimization methods. Using the developed theory, representations can be analyzed and designed in a theory-guided matter. The theoretical concepts are used for solving integer optimization problems and network design problems more efficiently. The book is written in an easy-readable style and is intended for researchers, practitioners, and students who want to learn about representations. This second edition extends the analysis of the basic properties of representations and introduces a new chapter on the analysis of direct representations.

This book presents the refereed joint proceedings of seven workshops on evolutionary computing, EvoWorkshops 2006, held in Budapest in April 2006. 65 revised full papers and 13 revised short papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 149 submissions. The book is organized in topical sections including evolutionary bioinformatics, evolutionary computation in communications, networks, and connected systems, and more.

Evolutionary computation (EC) techniques are e?cient nature-inspired pl- ning and optimization methods based on the principles of natural evolution and genetics. Due to their e?ciency and the simple underlying principles, these methods can be used for a large number of problems in the context of problem solving, optimization, andmachinelearning. Alargeandcontinuouslyincreasing number of researchers and practitioners make use of EC techniques in many - plication domains. The book at hand presents a careful selection of relevant EC applications combined with thorough examinations of techniques for a successful application of EC. The presented papers illustrate the current state of the art in the application of EC and should help and inspire researchers and practitioners to develop e?cient EC methods for design and problem solving. All papers in this book were presented during EvoWorkshops 2005, which was a varying collection of workshops on application-oriented aspects of EC. Since 1999, the format of the EvoWorkshops has proved to be very successful and well representative of the advances in the application of EC. Consequently, over the last few years, EvoWorkshops has become one of the major events addressing the application of EC. In contrast to other large conferences in the EC ?eld, the EvoWorkshops focus solely on application aspects of EC and are an important link between EC research and the application of EC in a large variety of di?erent domain

Evolutionary Computation (EC) deals with problem solving, optimization, and machine learning techniques inspired by principles of natural evolution and - netics. Just from this basic de?nition, it is clear that one of the main features of theresearchcommunityinvolvedinthestudyofitstheoryandinitsapplications is multidisciplinarity. For this reason, EC has been able to draw the attention of an ever-increasing number of researchers and practitioners in several ?elds. In its 6-year-long activity, EvoNet, the European Network of Excellence in Evolutionary Computing, has been the natural reference and incubator for that multifaceted community. EvoNet has provided logistic and material support for thosewhowerealreadyinvolvedinECbut, inthe?rstplace, ithashadacritical role in favoring the signi?cant growth of the EC community and its interactions with longer-established ones. The main instrument that has made this possible has been the series of events, ?rst organized in 1998, that have spanned over both theoretical and practical aspects of EC. Ever since 1999, the present format, in which the EvoWorkshops, a collection of workshops on the most application-oriented aspects of EC, act as satellites of a core event, has proven to be very successful and very representative of the multi-disciplinarity of EC. Up to 2003, the core was represented by EuroGP, the main European event dedicated to Genetic Programming. EuroGP has been joined as the main event in 2004 by EvoCOP, formerly part of EvoWorkshops, which has become the European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimizatio