The two volume set LNCS 7491 and 7492 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, PPSN 2012, held in Taormina, Sicily, Italy, in September 2012. The total of 105 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 226 submissions. The meeting began with 6 workshops which offered an ideal opportunity to explore specific topics in evolutionary computation, bio-inspired computing and metaheuristics. PPSN 2012 also included 8 tutorials. The papers are organized in topical sections on evolutionary computation; machine learning, classifier systems, image processing; experimental analysis, encoding, EDA, GP; multiobjective optimization; swarm intelligence, collective behavior, coevolution and robotics; memetic algorithms, hybridized techniques, meta and hyperheuristics; and applications.

We are proud to introduce the proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, PPSN VI, held in Paris, Prance, on 18-20 September 2000. PPSN VI was organized in association with the Genetic and Evolutionary Computing Conference (GECCO'2000) and the Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC'2000), reflecting the beneficial interaction between the conference activities in Europe and in the USA in the field of natural computation. Starting in 1990 in Dortmund, Germany (Proceedings, LNCS vol. 496, Sprin ger, 1991), this biannual meeting has been held in Brussels, Belgium (Procee dings, Elsevier, 1992), Jerusalem, Israel (Proceedings, LNCS vol. 866, Springer, 1994), Berlin, Germany (Proceedings, LNCS vol. 1141, Springer, 1996), and Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Proceedings, LNCS vol. 1498, Springer, 1998), where it was decided that Paris would be the location of the 2000 conference with Marc Schoenauer as the general chair. The scientific content of the PPSN conference focuses on problem solving pa radigms gleaned from a natural models. Characteristic for Natural Computing is the metaphorical use of concepts, principles and mechanisms underlying natural systems, such as evolutionary processes involving mutation, recombination, and selection in natural evolution, annealing or punctuated equilibrium processes of many-particle systems in physics, growth processes in nature and economics, collective intelligence in biology, DNA-based computing in molecular chemistry, and multi-cellular behavioral processes in neural and immune networks.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, PPSN 2006. The book presents 106 revised full papers covering a wide range of topics, from evolutionary computation to swarm intelligence and bio-inspired computing to real-world applications. These are organized in topical sections on theory, new algorithms, applications, multi-objective optimization, evolutionary learning, as well as representations, operators, and empirical evaluation.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, PPSN V, held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in September 1998. The 101 papers included in their revised form were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 185 submissions. The book is divided into topical sections on convergence theory; fitness landscape and problem difficulty; noisy and non-stationary objective functions; multi-criteria and constrained optimization; representative issues; selection, operators, and evolution schemes; coevolution and learning; cellular automata, fuzzy systems, and neural networks; ant colonies, immune systems, and other paradigms; TSP, graphs, and satisfiability; scheduling, partitioning, and packing; design and telecommunications; and model estimations and layout problems.

This two-volume set LNCS 13398 and LNCS 13399 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, PPSN 2022, held in Dortmund, Germany, in September 2022. The 87 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The conference presents a study of computing methods derived from natural models. Amorphous Computing, Artificial Life, Artificial Ant Systems, Artificial Immune Systems, Artificial Neural Networks, Cellular Automata, Evolutionary Computation, Swarm Computing, Self-Organizing Systems, Chemical Computation, Molecular Computation, Quantum Computation, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence approaches using Natural Computing methods are just some of the topics covered in this field.

The challenges in ecosystem science encompass a broadening and strengthening of interdisciplinary ties, the transfer of knowledge of the ecosystem across scales, and the inclusion of anthropogenic impacts and human behavior into ecosystem, landscape, and regional models. The volume addresses these points within the context of studies in major ecosystem types viewed as the building blocks of central European landscapes. The research is evaluated to increase the understanding of the processes in order to unite ecosystem science with resource management. The comparison embraces coastal lowland forests, associated wetlands and lakes, agricultural land use, and montane and alpine forests. Techniques for upscaling focus on process modelling at stand and landscape scales and the use of remote sensing for landscape-level model parameterization and testing. The case studies demonstrate ways for ecosystem scientists, managers, and social scientists to cooperate.

This monograph coherently presents a series of research results on concurrent production systems recently contributed by the author and several co-authors. Before going into the details of concurrent production systems the performance of a single system is discussed. Based on these considerations it is explained how to estimate the efficiency of production systems programs and how to automatically determine efficient join structures. Parallel systems, including algorithms for parallel rule firings, distributed systems under distributed control, and particularly multiagent production systems and the related control issues are investigated. Finally a meta-level control architecture is applied to the construction of the multiagent system CoCo for public telecommunication network control.