voestalpine Stahl GmbH invited the Heureka! project consortium to Linz for a retrospection on the first year of the centre. The meeting commenced at 3:00 p.m. with an exciting tour of the voestalpine Stahlwelt exhibition, followed by presentations and a buffet. In detail, Heureka! researchers presented results on the following topics:

1. Research group head Michael Affenzeller summarized accomplishments of the first year and introduced the research branches.
2. Gabriel Kronberger presented new approaches for the evaluation of complex process models.
3. Stephan Winkler showed intermediate results on th...

The Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences (FH OÖ) honors outstanding scientists and scholars actively engaged in research in an annual award ceremony. We are delighted to announce that two prizes went to our research team this year: Michael Affenzeller was awared first place in the category Researcher of the Year and Stefan Wagner received the Junior Researcher Award 2009 for their contributions to the field of heuristic and evolutionary optimization. Congratulations!

A review of our book "Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming - Modern Concepts and Practical Applications" has been published in Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines. The reviewer, Gisele L. Pappa from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, points out that the book covers the basics of GA and GP for optimization and presents results of interesting research on new methods capable of preserving relevant building blocks; she also describes it as a good buy for students and researchers interested in genetic algorithms and their application in optimization problems! The full review is avai...