Professor Kevin Warwick (University of Reading, UK)



Kevin Warwick is Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, England, where he carries out research in artificial intelligence, control, robotics and cyborgs.

Kevin's most recent research involves the invention of an intelligent deep brain stimulator to counteract the effects of Parkinson Disease tremors. The tremors are predicted and a current signal is applied to stop the tremors before they start - this is shortly to be trialled in human subjects. Another project involves the use of cultured/biological neural networks to drive robots around - the brain of each robot is made of neural tissue.

Perhaps Kevin is though best known for his pioneering experiments involving a neuro-surgical implantation into the median nerves of his left arm to link his nervous system directly to a computer to assess the latest technology for use with the disabled. He was successful with the first extra-sensory (ultrasonic) input for a human and with the first purely electronic telegraphic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans.

A Decade of Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimization

by Jens Gottlieb and Günther Raidl

In this year, the conference EvoCOP celebrates its 10th anniversary. Traversing through its history, we look back at the roots of the conference and its visions. Today, many combinatorial optimization problems can be solved effectively by evolutionary algorithms and metaheuristics in general. Diminishing boundaries between different algorithmic research fields is essential to develop better algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems. We present recent and promising research directions, like the usage of mathematical programming techniques together with heuristic approaches. The success of algorithmic approaches is demonstrated by successful applications in practice, exemplarily discussed in the context of solving a real-world vehicle scheduling and routing problem. Our conclusions give an outlook for the field, based on viewpoints from research and practice.



Dr. Jens Gottlieb is Development Manager at SAP, leading the Development Center Transportation in Walldorf, Germany. He was responsible architect for optimization algorithms in transportation, in particular for vehicle scheduling and routing, and headed development projects in supply chain management and transportation management. Jens holds degrees in business and computer science as well as a PhD in computer science. His research and development activities cover metaheuristics for combinatorial optimization problems, ranging from academic to real-world problems.



Prof. Günther Raidl heads the Algorithms and Data Structures group of the Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms at the Vienna University of Technology. In September 2005 he received a professorship position for combinatorial optimization at this University.