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In September 1993 a unique dialogue took place. Humanists from around the country gathered in Salt Lake City, Utah, to exchange ideas with Mormons on the topics of feminism, freedom of conscience, academic freedom in Mormon universities, and clashes between "dissident intellectuals" and Mormon church authorities. Of particular concern in the discussion was the recent excommunication of members of the Mormon church and the departure of two professors from Brigham Young University for allegedly expressing ideas at variance with church teachings. Ironically, despite such conflicts, Mormons officially and individually endorse freedom of conscience; the dignity of the human right to exercise free agency is a principle rooted in the Mormon as well as the humanist tradition. On this basis for mutual understanding, the dialogue between the two diverse cultures of Mormonism and humanism proceeded. George D. Smith has collected twelve essays, all but one of which were presented at the Utah conference, for this thought-provoking volume. Among the subjects covered are ecclesiastical abuse and the excommunicated "September Six", academic freedom at Brigham Young University, the politics of exclusivity, and free inquiry in a religious context. Paul Kurtz, editor of Free Inquiry, introduces the discussion with an overview of "Humanism and the Idea of Freedom". The volume concludes with a 1939 essay by noted American journalist Walter Lippmann entitled "The Indispensable Opposition".

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

The increasingly active eld of Evolutionary Computation (EC) provides val- ble tools, inspired by the theory of natural selection and genetic inheritance, to problem solving, machine learning, and optimization in many real-world app- cations. Despite some early intuitions about EC, that can be dated back to the - vention of computers, and a better formal de nition of EC, made in the 1960s, the quest for real-world applications of EC only began in the late 1980s. The dramatic increase in computer performances in the last decade of the 20th c- tury gave rise to a positive feedback process: EC techniques became more and more applicable, stimulating the growth of interest in their study, and allowing, in turn, new powerful EC paradigms to be devised. In parallel with new theoretical results, the number of elds to which EC is being applied is increasing day by day, along with the complexity of applications and application domains. In particular, industrially relevant elds, such as signal and image processing, computer vision, pattern recognition, industrial control, telecommunication, scheduling and timetabling, and aerospace engineering are employing EC techniques to solve complex real-world problems.

This book consitutes the refereed joint proceedings of the First European Workshop on Evolutionary Computation in Image Analysis and Signal Processing, EvoIASP '99 and of the First European Workshop on Evolutionary Telecommunications, EuroEcTel '99, held in G teborg, Sweden in May 1999. The 18 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the volume. The book presents state-of-the-art research results applying techniques from evolutionary computing in the specific application areas.

This is the third in a series of conferences devoted primarily to the theory and applications of artificial neural networks and genetic algorithms. The first such event was held in Innsbruck, Austria, in April 1993, the second in Ales, France, in April 1995. We are pleased to host the 1997 event in the mediaeval city of Norwich, England, and to carryon the fine tradition set by its predecessors of providing a relaxed and stimulating environment for both established and emerging researchers working in these and other, related fields. This series of conferences is unique in recognising the relation between the two main themes of artificial neural networks and genetic algorithms, each having its origin in a natural process fundamental to life on earth, and each now well established as a paradigm fundamental to continuing technological development through the solution of complex, industrial, commercial and financial problems. This is well illustrated in this volume by the numerous applications of both paradigms to new and challenging problems. The third key theme of the series, therefore, is the integration of both technologies, either through the use of the genetic algorithm to construct the most effective network architecture for the problem in hand, or, more recently, the use of neural networks as approximate fitness functions for a genetic algorithm searching for good solutions in an 'incomplete' solution space, i.e. one for which the fitness is not easily established for every possible solution instance.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Due to the very old age and scarcity of this book, many of the pages may be hard to read due to the blurring of the original text.

Due to the very old age and scarcity of this book, many of the pages may be hard to read due to the blurring of the original text.

Due to the very old age and scarcity of this book, many of the pages may be hard to read due to the blurring of the original text.