The 3rd international Metaheuristics Summer School – MESS 2024 – is aimed at qualified and strongly motivated MSc and PhD students; post-docs; young researchers, and both academic and industrial professionals to provide them with an overview on the metaheuristics techniques, and an in-depth analysis of the state-of-the-art. It is a full-immersion four-days course in the beautiful city of Catania whose goal is to offer all participants with a stimulating environment to study and learn advanced concepts and recent research in the fields of Metaheuristics, Optimization, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, in general.
The main theme of this third edition is focused on “Automated Deep Learning Meets High-Performance Computing”, that is how these research areas may interact and affect each other in order to develop reliable and robust solving methodologies for Big Data analysis, and data-driven problems.
The courses will be taught by world-renowned experts in the field and will involve a total of 36-40 hours of lectures, therefore according to the academic system, all PhD and master students attending the summer school will can get 8 ECTS points. To this end, during the school the students will tackle homework, and/or project development for final evaluation. Furthermore, during the four days, the participants will have plenty of opportunities to debate and work with leaders in the field, benefiting from direct interaction and discussions in a friendly environment.
MESS 2024 also offers the possibility to all attendants to present their recent results and/or their works in progress through interaction with their scientific peers, in a professional and constructive environment.
As carried out in the past editions, also in this edition all participants will be involved in the “Metaheuristics Competition Race”, where each of them, individually or divided in working groups (no more than 3 people), will develop a metaheuristic solution for a given problem presented during the school. The top three of the competition ranking will receive the MESS 2024 award and will be involved in the writing of a manuscript dedicated to the competition that, afterwards, will be submitted to an international journal for possible publication. In addition, the remaining best ten in the ranking (excluding the top three, of course) will be invited to report their work in a manuscript which will be published in the special MESS 2024 Volume of the AIRO Springer Series.
See the publications of the previous Metaheuristics Competitions:
April 29, 2024: due to local problems the notification and registration deadlines have been postponed. Have a look to the new deadlines.
December 1, 2023: Prof. Thomas Bartz-Beielstein confirmed Speaker.
November 5, 2023: Prof. Aaron Klein confirmed Speaker.
September 6, 2023: the application deadline has been fixed to 16th March 2024.
Lecture 1
Introduction to Surrogate-Based Hyperparameter Tuning in Classical Machine Learning, Online Machine Learning, and Deep Learning
Lecture 2
Exploring Hyperparameter-Tuning Applications:
Optimizing scikit-learn, River, and PyTorch with SPOT and Other Tuning Techniques
Lecture 1
Introduction into AutoML:
Hyperparameter Optimization
Lecture 2
Introduction into AutoML:
Neural Architecture Search
Lecture 1
Metaheuristics for policy search in continuous control
Lecture 2
Beyond policy search: optimizing body and brain of simulated robotic agents
Lecture 1
Multi-objective optimization
Lecture 2
Speeding-up Hyperparameter Optimization with transfer and meta learning
Lecture 1
Metaheurististics for neural architecture search and hyperparameter optimization
Lecture 2
Parallel and multi-objective metaheuristics for neural architecture search and hyperparameter optimization
Application Deadline: April 16, 2024
Notification of acceptance: May 5, 2024
Early Registration: by May 10, 2024
Late Registration: from May 11, 2024
MESS 2024 is addressed to motivated, qualified, and pre-selected candidates interested in the topics proposed by the school. Thus PhD students; Post-Docs; and young researchers (both academic and industrial) as well as advanced graduate and undergraduate students are welcomed and encouraged to apply.
Applications to attend MESS 2024 must be received before 16th April 2024 filling the module below. All accepted applicants will be notified by 25th April 2024 in accordance with the application time.
SCHOOL FEE:
Early registration (by April 30, 2024): € 550;
Late registration (from May 1, 2024): € 700.
The registration fee covers, respectively:
Note that extra costs for bank wire transfers or credit card service are not covered by the school.
Those who would like to give an oral presentation on their recent results, or works in progress may include Title and Abstract in the relative application section.
Application Form
The Metaheuristics Summer School aims to provide a stimulating environment for all participants, where they may interact and exchange ideas with their scientific peers in a friendly and constructive way. To this end to all participants are offered the opportunity to present their research activities on the Metaheuristics by an oral presentation.
During the application, all participants, by filling the relative section, may submit an abstract of their recent results, or works in progress, to be presented in a dedicated session as an oral presentation. The abstract must be submitted before March 16, and must be written in English. Each abstract will be reviewed by the Workshop Chairs and/or Scientific Committee. All abstracts, in any format, will be included in an electronic book of MESS 2024, which will be both put online on the website and provided to all participants during the school.
For more information send an email to: mess.school @ ANTs-lab.it
Metaheuristics Competition Chairs
Local Organizing Committee
Vincenzo Cutello (Chair), University of Catania, Italy
Claudia Cavallaro, University of Catania, Italy
Carolina Crespi, University of Catania, Italy
Angelo Cavallaro, University of Catania, Italy
Angela Pappalardo, ANTs Research Laboratory, Italy
Antonino Di Stefano, ANTs Research Laboratory, Italy
Alessandro Vitale, ANTs Research Laboratory, Italy
Alessio Mezzina, University of Catania, Italy
Attilio Di Natale, University of Catania, Italy
Publicity Chair
Francesco Zito, University of Catania, Italy
Stephan Petrone, ANTs research laboratory, Italy
MESS 2024 will take place at the Department of Economics and Business of the University of Catania. The Department is located in the Palazzo delle Scienze, a beautiful and historical building situated in the city center, in Corso Italia 55.
Corso Italia 55, 95129 Catania, Italy
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Catania is an ancient port city on Sicily’s east coast. It sits at the foot of Mt. Etna, an active volcano with trails leading up to the summit. The city’s wide central square, Piazza del Duomo, features the whimsical Fontana dell’Elefante statue and the richly decorated Catania Cathedral. In the southwest corner of the square, La Pescheria (a weekday fish market) is a rowdy spectacle surrounded by seafood restaurants.
It is a modern, sparkling city, always full of vitality; indeed it is recognized as the liveliest city in Sicily. The black and white of its buildings contrasts with the blue of the sky and sea; and at night, its squares and avenues are populated with young people who love to have fun in the hundreds of clubs that fill the historic center.
Catania offers a wide choice of accommodation from small family-run guest houses to traditional B&Bs; from Vacation Rentals to modern Hotels. Here you can also find a broad selection of excellent restaurants and cosy trattorias where you can taste the genuine, true flavours of the authentic sicilian cuisine.
