[BiO BB] 2006 BioGEC Workshop

[Jason H. Moore]

WORKSHOP ON BIOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS OF GENETIC AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTING
(BioGEC)

http://www.epistasis.org/biogec2006.html

To be held as part of the 

2006 GENETIC AND EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION CONFERENCE (GECCO-2006)

July 8-12, 2006 (Saturday-Wednesday)

Renaissance Seattle Hotel
http://marriott.com/property/propertypage/SEASM
Seattle, Washington, USA

Organized by ACM SIG-EVO
http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2006/

SUMMARY

The field of Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (GEC) has greatly benefited
by borrowing ideas from the biological sciences.  Recently, it has become clear
that GEC can help solve biological problems, and thereby irepay its debti.

The fifth annual workshop on Biological Applications of Genetic and
Evolutionary Computation (BioGEC), organized in connection with the 2006
Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO-2006) in Seattle,
Washington, USA, is intended to explore and critically evaluate the application
of GEC to biological problems.  Specifically, the goal is to bring biologists
and computer scientists together to foster an exchange of ideas that will yield
emergent properties that will move the field forward in unpredictable ways.

The 2006 BioGEC workshop will span two four-hour sessions.  The first session
will feature a community analysis of a real biological dataset.  An important
feature of this session is that the biologist that generated the data will be
present to provide feedback on the results.  The second session will feature
poster presentations of new or incomplete work in the BioGEC domain.  The goal
of this session is to provide a forum for receiving critical feedback on ideas
and research results that might not yet be mature.  More details on both
sessions are provided below in the Request for Papers section.

REQUEST FOR PAPERS

Session 1 (4 hours): Community Analysis of a Biological Dataset

Papers are requested that report results from the analysis of a published human
scleroderma microarray dataset using genetic algorithms (GA), genetic
programming (GP), evolutionary computing (EC), grammatical evolution (GE), ant
colony optimization (ACO), estimation of distribution algorithms (EDA),
artificial immune systems, or any other biologically-inspired algorithm or
method.  The data were originally published by Whitfield et al. in PNAS
(100:12319-24, 2003).  The PNAS paper is freely available from
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=218756&blobtype=pdf.  The raw
data and the filtered/normalized data are freely available from
http://genome-www.stanford.edu/scleroderma/data.shtml.

The scleroderma question addressed and the biologically-inspired approach used
is open-ended and up to the authors.  However, all papers should include a
section at the end titled iBiological Inferencei that summarizes the biological
interpretations and inferences drawn from the analyses.  Dr. Whitfield will
attend the BioGEC workshop to provide feedback about the results and to answer
questions about the disease endpoints and the data.

Please send 4-8 page papers (PDF or Word) to Jason H. Moore
(jason.h.moore at dartmouth.edu) and Marylyn D. Ritchie
(ritchie at chgr.mc.vanderbilt.edu) by March 31, 2006.  The format for manuscripts
submitted to the workshop is that used for ACM SIG proceedings.  Paper
templates can be found at http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html. 
Please see the GECCO-2006 website for additional details.

Authors of accepted paper will be invited to give oral presentation at the
Workshop.  There are also plans to publish the best papers in an online
journal.

Session 2 (4 hours):  Critical Feedback Poster Session

Papers are requested that report new or otherwise preliminary results and
ideas.  Papers presenting new hypotheses without experimental results are
encouraged. For example, students could present thesis or dissertation ideas.
Authors of accepted papers will be expected to present a poster at the
workshop.  This will provide a forum for critical feedback from participants.

Please send 1-3 page papers (PDF or Word) to Jason H. Moore
(jason.h.moore at dartmouth.edu) and Marylyn D. Ritchie
(ritchie at chgr.mc.vanderbilt.edu) by March 31, 2006.  The format for manuscripts
submitted to the workshop is that used for ACM SIG proceedings.  Paper
templates can be found at http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html. 
Please see the GECCO-2006 website for additional details.

Important Dates

March 31, 2006: papers due
April 5, 2006: acceptance notices
April 19, 2006: camera ready revisions due
July 8 or 9, 2006: BioGEC workshop

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS

Jason H. Moore, Ph.D.
Dartmouth College
http://www.epistasis.org
jason.h.moore at dartmouth.edu

Marylyn D. Ritchie, Ph.D.
Vanderbilt University
http://chgr.mc.vanderbilt.edu
ritchie at chgr.mc.vanderbilt.edu