Computational Intelligence - February 2017 - 3

President's
Message

Pablo A. Estévez
University of Chile and
Millennium Institute of
Astrophysics, CHILE

Magic Realism and Smart Worlds

am writing this Presidential column from Cartagena de Indias,
Colombia... a land of magic realism as portrayed by the Nobel
Prize winning author, Gabriel García Márquez. Cartagena is an
historical city with hidden dimensions where magic becomes
reality. I have the strange feeling that at any minute I will meet
Colonel Aureliano Buendía, García Márquez's memorable character from One Hundred Years of Solitude, on the streets.
I am attending the IEEE Latin American Conference on Computational Intelligence, LA-CCI 2016, an event sponsored for the first time by the Computational
Intelligence Society (CIS). Although CIS has only 600 members in the region, the
number of researchers in the field of Computational Intelligence (CI) is likely to be
five times greater, so there is a strong potential for growth as a community. The top
ranked countries by number of CIS members are Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile,
and Ecuador. The next LA-CCI conference will be held in Arequipa, Peru, on
November 8-10, 2017.
The CIS has made outreach efforts geographically to several countries in South
America. In recent years the Executive Committee (EXCOM) has met and organized public workshops in Sao Paulo, Brazil; Lima, Peru; and Guayaquil, Ecuador. In
April 2017 the EXCOM meeting will be held in Chile, along with a one-day public
workshop. These outreach efforts have facilitated the formation and strengthening of
several CIS chapters in South America and have also helped to encourage more
membership growth in Region 9.
The biggest news for Latin-America is that the IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence, IEEE WCCI 2018, will be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
IEEE WCCI 2018 is a great opportunity to foster participation and improve the visibility of Latin-American researchers. Last year the IEEE WCCI 2016, held in Vancouver, Canada, received a record number of 3,015 paper submissions with more
than 1,800 registrations from over 70 countries.
During the year ahead our 4 main conferences will be held as follows:
❏ International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), Anchorage, Alaska,
May 14-19, 2017.
❏ IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (CEC), San Sebastian, Spain, June
5-8, 2017.
❏ IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE), Naples, Italy,
July 9-12, 2017.
❏ IEEE Symposium Series on Computational Intelligence (SSCI), Honolulu,
Hawaii, November 27-December 1, 2017.
We used to say "Small World", but from now on we will start saying "Smart
World" because this is the name of the brand new technical committee approved by
CIS ADCOM. The Smart World Technical Committee's (SWTC) scope is: "The
SWTC primarily aims at porting computational intelligence techniques in
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCI.2016.2627663
Date of publication: 6 January 2017

(continued on page 12)

CIS Society Officers
President - Pablo A. Estévez,
University of Chile, CHILE
President Elect - Nikhil R. Pal,
Indian Statistical Institute, INDIA
Vice President - Conferences - Bernadette
Bouchon-Meunier, University Pierre et Marie
Curie, FrANCE
Vice President - Education - Simon M. Lucas,
University of Essex, UK
Vice President - Finances - Enrique H. Ruspini, USA
Vice President - Members Activities -
Pau-Choo ( Julia) Chung, National Cheng
Kung University,TAIWAN
Vice President - Publications - Jim Keller,
University of Missouri, USA
Vice President - Technical Activities - Hussein
Abbass,University of New South Wales,
AUSTrALIA
Publication Editors
IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks
and Learning Systems
Haibo He, University of rhode Island, USA
IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems
Jon Garibaldi, University of Nottingham, UK
IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation
Kay Chen Tan, National University of Singapore,
SINGAPOrE
IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence
and AI in Games
Graham Kendall, University of Nottingham
Malaysia Campus, Malaysia
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and
Developmental Systems
Yaochu Jin, University of Surrey, UK
IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in
Computational Intelligence
Yew Soon Ong, Nanyang Technological University,
SINGAPOrE
Administrative Committee
Term ending in 2017:
David B. Fogel, Natural Selection, Inc., USA
Derong Liu, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CHINA
Sanaz Mostaghim, Otto von Guericke University
of Magdeburg, GErMANY
Ronald R.Yager, Iona College, USA
Gary G.Yen, Oklahoma State University, USA
Term ending in 2018:
Piero P. Bonissone, Piero P Bonissone
Analytics LLC, USA
Carlos A. Coello Coello, CINVESTAV-IPN,
MEXICO
Barbara Hammer, Bielefeld University, GErMANY
Alice E. Smith, Auburn University, USA
Jacek M. Zurada, University of Louisville, USA
Term ending in 2019:
Cesare Alippi, Politecnico di Milano, ITALY
James C. Bezdek, USA
Gary B. Fogel, Natural Selection, Inc., USA
Hisao Ishibuchi, Osaka Prefecture University,
JAPAN
Kay Chen Tan, National University of Singapore,
SINGAPOrE
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MCI.2016.2627661

FEBRUARY 2017 | IEEE CompUtAtIonAl IntEllIgEnCE mAgAzInE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Computational Intelligence - February 2017