Parallel Problem Solving from Nature — PPSN VII [electronic resource] : 7th International Conference Granada, Spain, September 7–11, 2002 Proceedings / edited by Juan Julián Merelo Guervós, Panagiotis Adamidis, Hans-Georg Beyer, Hans-Paul Schwefel, José-Luis Fernández-Villacañas.

Evolutionary Algorithms Theory -- Representation/Codification Issues -- Variation Operators: Analysis, New Techniques -- Evolutionary Techniques: Coevolution -- Multiobjective Optimization -- Evolutionary Algorithms: New Techniques -- Hybrid Algorithms:Neurogenetic Algorithms, Evolutionary Techniques Applied to Neural Nets -- Hybrid Algorithms: Memetic, Other -- Learning Classifier Systems -- Comparison of Different Techniques -- Evolutionary Algorithm Implementations -- Applications -- Other Bioinspired Algorithms: Cellular Automata,Ant Colony Optimization.

We are proud to introduce the proceedings of the Seventh International C- ference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, PPSN VII, held in Granada, Spain, on 7–11 September 2002. PPSN VII was organized back-to-back with the Foundations of Genetic Algorithms (FOGA) conference, which took place in Torremolinos, Malaga, Spain, in the preceding week. ThePPSNseriesofconferencesstartedinDortmund,Germany[1].Fromthat pioneering meeting, the event has been held biennially, in Brussels, Belgium [2], Jerusalem, Israel [3], Berlin, Germany [4], Amsterdam, The Netherlands [5], and Paris, France [6]. During the Paris conference, several bids to host PPSN 2002 were put forward; it was decided that the conference would be held in Granada with Juan J. Merelo Guerv´ os as General Chairman. The scienti?c content of the PPSN conference focuses on problem-solving paradigms gleaned from natural models, with an obvious emphasis on those that display an innate parallelism, such as evolutionary algorithms and ant-colony optimization algorithms. The majority of the papers, however, concentrate on evolutionary and hybrid algorithms, as is shown in the contents of this book and itspredecessors.Thiseditionoftheconferenceproceedingshasalargesectionon applications,betheytoclassicalproblemsortoreal-worldengineeringproblems, which shows how bioinspired algorithms are extending their use in the realms of business and enterprise.