Call For Entries: 11th Annual (2014) "Humies" Awards

Call For Entries

11th Annual (2014) "Humies" Awards for Human-Competitive Results Produced by Genetic and Evolutionary Computation

www.human-competitive.org

To be Held at

Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference

(GECCO)

July 12-16, 2014

Vancouver, British Columbia

www.sigevo.org/gecco-2014

Entries are hereby solicited for awards totaling $10,000 for
human-competitive results that have been produced by any
form of genetic and evolutionary computation (including, but not
limited to genetic algorithms, genetic programming, evolution
strategies, evolutionary programming, learning classifier systems,
grammatical evolution, gene expression programming, differential
evolution, etc.) and that have been published in the open literature
between the deadline for the previous competition and the deadline
for the current competition.

The competition will be held as part of the 2014 Genetic
and Evolutionary Computation (GECCO) conference.
Presentations of entries will be made at the conference.
The awards and prizes will be announced and presented during
the conference. See http://www.sigevo.org/gecco-2014/

IMPORTANT DATES:

- Monday June 2, 2014 ó Deadline for entries (consisting of
one TEXT file and one or more PDF files).
Send entries to koza at human-competitive dot org

- Monday June 23, 2014 ó Finalists will be notified by e-mail

- Thursday July 3, 2014 ó Finalists must submit their presentation
(e.g., PowerPoint, PDF) for posting on the competition web site.
Send presentations to koza at human-competitive dot org

- July 12-16,2014 (Sat-Wed) ó The GECCO conference

- Monday July 14, 2014 (TENTATIVE) ó Presentations before judging
committee at public session of the GECCO conference

- Wednesday July 16, 2014 (TENTATIVE) ó Announcement of awards at
plenary session of the GECCO conference

If you plan to make an entry for this competition, please check the
web site at www.human-competitive.org for updated information prior
to submitting your entry.  If you make an entry, please re-check
this web site periodically prior to the conference for additional
(and possible changing) information and instructions.

 
JUDGING COMMITTEE
Erik Goodman
Una-May O'Reilly
Wolfgang Banzhaf
Darrell Whitley
Lee Spector


CALL FOR ENTRIES
Techniques of genetic and evolutionary computation are being
increasingly applied to difficult real-world problems ó often
yielding results that are not merely academically interesting,
but competitive with the work done by creative and inventive
humans. Starting at the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation
Conference (GECCO) in 2004, cash prizes have been awarded for
human-competitive results that had been produced by some form
of genetic and evolutionary computation in the previous year.

This prize competition is based on published results. The
publication may be a paper at the GECCO conference (i.e.,
regular paper, poster paper, or any other full-length paper),
a paper published anywhere in the open literature (e.g.,
another conference, journal, technical report, thesis,
book chapter, book), or a paper in final form that has
been unconditionally accepted by a publication and is
ìin pressî (that is, the entry must be identical to something
that will be published imminently without any further changes).
The publication may not be an intermediate or draft version
that is still subject to change or revision by the authors
or editors. The publication must meet the usual standards of
a scientific publication in that it must clearly describe a
problem, the methods used to address the problem,
the results obtained, and sufficient information
about how the work was done in order to enable the work
described to be replicated by an independent person.

An automatically created result is considered
"human-competitive" if it satisfies at least one of the
eight criteria below.

(A) The result was patented as an invention in the past,
is an improvement over a patented invention, or would
qualify today as a patentable new invention.
(B) The result is equal to or better than a result that
was accepted as a new scientific result at the time when
it was published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
(C) The result is equal to or better than a result that
was placed into a database or archive of results
maintained by an internationally recognized panel of
scientific experts.
(D) The result is publishable in its own right as a
new scientific result  independent of the fact that the
result was mechanically created.
(E) The result is equal to or better than the most
recent human-created solution to a long-standing problem
for which there has been a succession of increasingly
better human-created solutions.
(F) The result is equal to or better than a result that
was considered an achievement in its field at the time
it was first discovered.
(G) The result solves a problem of indisputable difficulty
in its field.
(H) The result holds its own or wins a regulated
competition involving human contestants (in the form of
either live human players or human-written computer programs).

Contestants should note that a pervasive thread in most
of the above eight criteria is the notion that the result
satisfy an "arms length" standard ó not a yardstick based
on the opinion of the author, the author's own institution
(educational or corporate), or the author's own close associates.
"Arms length" may be established in numerous ways. For example,
if the result is a solution to "a long-standing problem for
which there has been a succession of increasingly better
human-created solutions," it is clear that the scientific
community (not the author, the author's own institution,
or the author's close associates) have vetted the
significance of the problem. Similarly, a problem's
significance may be established if the result replicates
or improves upon a scientific result published in a
peer-reviewed scientific journal, replicates or improves
upon a previously patented invention, constitutes
a patentable new invention, or replicates or improves a result
that was considered an achievement in its field at the time
it was first discovered. Similarly, a problem's significance
may be established if the result holds its own or wins a
regulated competition involving live human players or
human-written computer programs. In each of the foregoing
examples, the standard for human-competitiveness is being
established external to the author, the author's own
institution, or the author's close associates. It is also
conceivable to rely only on criterion G ("The result solves
a problem of indisputable difficulty in its field"); however,
if only criterion G is claimed, there must be a clear
and convincing argument that the problem's "difficulty"
is indeed "indisputable."

The competition will be held as part of the annual Genetic
and Evolutionary Computation (GECCO) conference.
Presentations of entries are to be made at the conference.
The awards and prizes will be announced at the conference.

Cash prizes of $5,000 (gold), $3,000 (silver), and bronze
(either one prize of $2,000 or two prizes of $1,000) will
be awarded for the best entries that satisfy one or more of
the criteria for human-competitiveness. The awards will
be divided equally among co-authors unless the authors
specify a different division at the time of submission.
Prizes are paid by check in U.S. dollars.

DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS FOR ENTERING THE "HUMIES"

If you plan to make an entry into this competition, please
check the web site at www.human-competitive.org for updated
information prior to submitting your entry. If you make an
entry, please re-check the web site prior to the conference
for possible changes in the instructions or the schedule.

All entries are to be sent electronically to
koza at human-competitive dot org. All entries will be
promptly acknowledged, so please make an inquiry if you do
not receive a prompt acknowledgment.

An entry must consist of one TEXT file and one or more
PDF files. If the same authors are making multiple entries,
please submit separate e-mails, each containing both the
requiredTEXT and PDF file(s) supporting the entry.

The TEXT file must contain the following 10 items.
Please be very careful to include ALL required information.
Contestants are alerted to the fact that items 6 and 9 are
especially important and will be the main basis by which
entries will be judged. The papers and presentations from
earlier competitions (starting in 2004) are posted at
the competition web site at www.human-competitive.org and
may be informative.

1. the complete title of one (or more) paper(s) published
in the open literature describing the work that the author
claims describes a human-competitive result;
2. the name, complete physical mailing address,
e-mail address, and phone number of EACH author of EACH
paper(s);
3. the name of the corresponding author (i.e., the author
to whom notices will be sent concerning the competition);
4. the abstract of the paper(s);
5. a list containing one or more of the eight letters
(A, B, C, D, E, F, G, or H) that correspond to the
criteria (see above) that the author claims that the work
satisfies;
6. a statement stating why the result satisfies the
criteria that the contestant claims (see examples of
statements of human-competitiveness as a guide to aid in
constructing this part of the submission);
7. a full citation of the paper (that is, author names;
publication date; name of journal, conference, technical
report, thesis, book, or book chapter; name of editors,
if applicable, of the journal or edited book; publisher
name; publisher city; page numbers, if applicable);
8. a statement either that "any prize money, if any,
is to be divided equally among the co-authors" OR a
specific percentage breakdown as to how the prize money,
if any, is to be divided among the co-authors; and
9. a statement stating why the judges should consider the
entry as "best" in comparison to other entries that may
also be "human-competitive;"
10. An indication of the general type of genetic or
evolutionary computation used, such as GA (genetic
algorithms), GP (genetic programming), ES (evolution
strategies), EP (evolutionary programming),
LCS (learning classifier systems), GE (grammatical
evolution), GEP (gene expression programming),
DE (differential evolution), etc.

The PDF file(s) are to contain the paper(s). The strongly
preferred method is that you send a separate PDF file
for each of your paper(s) relating to your entry. Both
the text file and the PDF file(s) for each entry will be
permanently posted on a web page shortly after the
deadline date for entries (for use by the judges, conference
attendees, and anyone else who is interested) and will
remain posted on the web as a permanent record of the
competition. If your paper is only available on the
publisher's web site and your publisher specifically
requires that your published paper may appear only
on your own personal page, the second choice is that you
send link(s) to a separate web page on your web site
containing link(s) to the PDF file(s) of the paper(s) that
constitute your entry. This separate web page is to contain
nothing else, so the interested parties may quickly locate
your paper(s). If you use this second-choice option, you
must ALSO supply a link to a permanent web site maintained by
your publisher where your specific paper may be viewed
or purchased (that is, not a link merely to the publisher's
general home page, but a link to the specific web page
containing your paper on the publisher's site). The objective,
in each case, is to provide a permanent record of the entries
and to make it easy for anyone to locate the entries.

Generally, only one paper should be submitted. Note that this
is a competition involving a result that satisfies the
criteria for being human-competitive (not a competition
involving an author's entire body of work). More than
one paper should be submitted only if no one paper fully
describes the result or methods.

The judging committee will review all entries and identify a
short list of approximately 6ñ10 finalists for presentation
at the GECCO conference. Finalists will be notified by an
e-mail to the corresponding author. Please acknowledge
receipt of this message, so the judges know that you received
your notice. Finalists must then make a short oral presentation
to the judging committee at a public session of the GECCO
conference. The presentations will be held on one of the
early days of the conference and the winners will be announced
a day or two later.

Finalists must submit their presentation (e.g., a PowerPoint,
PDF) by e-mail to koza at human-competitive dot org.
All submissions will be promptly acknowledged, so please make
an inquiry if you do not receive a prompt acknowledgment.
These presentations will be added to the web page for the
competition.

At the GECCO conference, there will be 10-minute oral
presentations by the finalists to the judging committee.
The presentations will be open to all conference attendees
at a special session of the conference. The oral
presentation should primarily focus on
1. why the result qualifies as being human-competitive and
2. why the judges should consider the entry as "best" in
comparison to other entries that may also be
"human-competitive" since, as previously mentioned, these
are the two main standards by which entries will be judged
by the judges.

In the short oral presentation to the judges,
a description of the work itself is decidedly secondary.
By the time of the presentation the judges will be familiar
with the papers. Thus, the focus of the presentation is
on reasons why the work being presented should win a prize
ó not an explanation or presentation of the work itself.
In the unlikely event that a presenter is scheduled
to make a presentation elsewhere at the GECCO conference
at the same time, please notify the judging committee, so
they can rearrange time slots. After the oral presentations,
the award committee will meet and consider the presentations.

The presenting author for each entry must register for the
GECCO conference.

A judge will recuse himself or herself if he or she is
closely associated with a finalist (e.g., a current academic
advisor, current collaborator, co-author with the finalist
of related work).

Additional information is at www.human-competitive.org