Matheuristics 2018, Tours

18-20 june 2018, Tours, France

The Matheuristics workshop series is proposed as a primary forum for researchers working on exploiting mathematical programming techniques in a (meta)heuristic framework, granting to mathematical programming approaches the problem robustness and time effectiveness which characterize heuristics, or exploiting the mathematical programming model formulation in the customization of a heuristic for specific or general problems.

Metaheuristics such as tabu search, simulated annealing, GRASP, VNS, genetic algorithms and ant colonies, have been originally proposed and developed when the available Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) algorithms and software or Constraint Programming methods were not an efficient as today, nor even feasible alternative for solving real-world problem instances, or significant subproblems thereof.

However, research on mathematical programming, and in particular on discrete optimization, has led to a state of the art where MIP solvers or customized MIP codes can be effective even in a heuristic context, both as primary solvers or as subprocedures.

Matheuristics 2018 aims at collecting contributions that define the state of the art for the computational effectiveness and efficiency or the theoretical properties of «matheuristics», which are algorithms and codes that integrate (meta)heuristics and MIP strategies and software. The workshop will be entirely devoted to this subject of research and to its applications. The conference program will consist of plenary presentations, enriched by a couple of keynote or tutorial lectures.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):

• Model-based metaheuristics,
• Hybridizing (meta)heuristics and exact methods,
• MIP techniques used for defining heuristic solvers (such as local branching and RINS),
• Problem relaxations to guide (heuristic) search,
• Information from exact algorithms to develop heuristics,
• Decompositions and lower/upper bounds in matheuristic codes,
• Stochastic programming and heuristic search,
• Metaheuristics for stochastic problems,
• Design and configuration of matheuristic algorithms,
• Experimental analysis and modeling of algorithms,
• Real world case histories of matheuristic applications, and
• Automatic configuration of matheuristics and algorithm selection among others.

After successful matheuristic workshops organized in 2006 and 2008 in Bertinoro (Italie), in 2010 in Vienna (Austria), in 2012 in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), in 2014 in Hamburg (Germany) and in 2016 in Brussel (Belgium), the current edition will be held in the city of Tours (France) in the heart of the Loire Valley; a place reputed for science, magestic castles, and excellent wines.

Latest news:

• 01/09/2017: Submissions are now open
• 15/11/2017: Submission deadline extended up to 01/12/2017

Important dates:

• 1st september 2017: submissions open
• 15th november 2017: submissions close
• 1st december 2017: submissions close
• 15th february 2018: notifications
• 1st march 2018: camera ready papers
• 1st April 2018: early bird registration closes
• 18th-20th june 2018: workshop