About Me
I'm Associate Professor in Computer Science at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Catania, Italy. My research is focused on the design and develops of Metaheuristics applied in Combinatorial Optimization; Computational Biology; Network Sciences and Social Networks.
I'm member of several Editorial Boards for international journals, as well as member of many Program Committees in international conferences and workshops. I have also an extensive experience of organizing successful workshops, symposium, conferences and summer schools. Indeed, I'm currently the Chief of the Scientific Directors of the Metaheuristics Summer School (MESS).
In my scientific activities, I was also Tutorial and Invited Speakers for several international conferences, and Editor of many special issues in: Artificial Life, Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (EAAI), Applied Soft Computing (ASOC), International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR), BMC Immunology, Natural Computing, and Memetic Computing.
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Teaching News
31th August 2023:
L'esame di Teoria di Sistemi Operativi si svolgerà il 5 Settembre alle ore 15 in aula 4 (al computer). La prova in Laboratorio invece avrà luogo venerdì 8 Settembre alle ore 15 sempre in aula 4.
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Research News
24th August 2023:
I will be speaker at the 15th International Conference on Evolutionary Computation Theory and Applications - ECTA 2023 (13-15 November 2023, Rome, Italy), with a tutorial entitled "Combining Metaheuristics and Machine Learning to Design Fast and Reliable Algorithms".
Announcements
15th June 2023:
MESS 2024 - Metaheuristics Summer School
Automated Deep Learning meets High-Performance Computing
15-18 July 2024, Catania, Italy
https://www.ANTs-lab.it/mess2024/
mess.school@ANTs-lab.it
Research
My research is focused on the design and development of metaheuristics and nature inspired methodologies for combinatorial optimization problems and in the research area of computational & systems biology. In particular, in these years my research works have been mainly focused on community detection in social and biological networks; integration between metaheuristics and machine learning; combinatorial optimization problems; dynamic interactions detection in social behaviours; parameters extraction in biological networks (Gene Regulatory Network in the S-system model); protein structure prediction in the HP model; and functions optimization.
Have a look also in our research group activities.
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Google Scholar Citations: 1420 —
h-index: 17 — i10-index: 23
(last updated: Jun. 23, 2023)
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Scopus Citations: 1205 —
h-index: 16
(last updated: Jun. 23, 2023)
Recent Publications
F. Zito, V. Cutello, and M. Pavone, "A General-Purpose Neural Architecture Search Algorithm for building Deep Neural Networks", 15th Metaheuristics International Conference (MIC), 2024.
C. Cavallaro, C. Crespi, V. Cutello, M. Pavone, and F. Zito, "Group Dynamics in Memory-Enhanced Ant Colonies: The Influence of Colony Division on a Maze Navigation Problem", Algorithms, 2024.
C. Cavallaro, V. Cutello, M. Pavone, and F. Zito, "Machine Learning and Genetic Algorithms: a fast algorithm for image reconstruction", Knowledge-Based Systems, 2023.
M. Aslan, and M. Pavone, "MBVS: A modified binary vortex search algorithm for solving uncapacitated facility location problem", Neural Computing and Applications, 2023.
V. Cutello, M. Pavone, and F. Zito, "A Machine Learning Approach to Simulate Gene Expression and Infer Gene Regulatory Networks", Entropy, 2023 (Selected Papers from the 11th International Conference on Complex Networks and Their Applications, 2022).
C. Crespi, R.A. Scollo, G. Fargetta, and M. Pavone, "A Sensitivity Analysis of Parameters in an Agent-Based Model for Crowd Simulations", Applied Soft Computing, 2023.
C. Cavallaro, V. Cutello, M. Pavone, and F. Zito, "Discovering Anomalies in Big Data: a review focused on the Application of Metaheuristics and Machine Learning Techniques", Frontiers in Big Data, section Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, 2023.
C. Cavallaro, V. Cutello, M. Pavone, and F. Zito, "A Tabu Search Algorithm for the Map Labeling Problem", XVII International Workshop on Artificial Life and Evolutionary Computation (WIVACE), CCIS Springer, 2023.
V. Cutello, M. Pavone, and F. Zito, "Inferring a Gene Regulatory Network from Gene Expression Data. An Overview of Best Methods and a Reverse Engineering Approach", From Computational Logic to Computational Biology, LNCS Springer, 2023.
C. Crespi, and M. Pavone, "Does a group's size affect the behavior of a crowd? An analysis based on an agent model", 18th Social Simulation Conference (SSC), Springer proceedings, 2023.
F. Zito, V. Cutello, and M. Pavone, "Deep Learning and Metaheuristic for Multivariate Time-Series Forecasting", 18th International Conference on Soft Computing Models in Industrial and Environmental Applications (SOCO), Springer proceedings, 2023.
C. Cavallaro, V. Cutello, M. Pavone, and F. Zito, "A fast methodology to find Decisively Strong Association Rules (DSR) by mining datasets of security records", International Conference on Optimzation and Learning (OLA), CCIS Springer, 2023.
A.G. Spampinato, R.S. Scollo, V. Cutello, and M. Pavone, "Random Search Immune Algorithm for Community Detection", Soft Computing, Springer, 2023.
R.S. Scollo, A.G. Spampinato, G. Fargetta, V. Cutello, and M. Pavone, "Discovering Entities Similarities in Biological Networks Using a Hybrid Immune Algorithm", Informatics, 2023.
M. R. H. Maia, M. Reula, C. Parreño-Torres, P. P. Vuppuluri, A. Plastino, U. S. Souza, S. Ceschia, M. Pavone, and A. Schaerf, "Metaheuristic Techniques for the Capacitated Facility Location Problem with Customer Incompatibilities", Soft Computing, Springer, 2022.
C. Crespi, G. Fargetta, M. Pavone, and R.A. Scollo, "An agent-based model for crowd simulation", The 16th International Conference on on Artificial Life and Evolutionary Computation (WIVACE), Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS), 2023.
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Events in Progress
International Conference on Optimization and Learning, OLA 2023, 3-5 May 2023, Malaga, Spain
The Distributed Ghost: Cellular Automata, Distributed Dynamical Systems, and Their Applications to Intelligence, workshop at ALIFE 2023,
July 27, 2023, Sapporo, Japan.
(Chairs: S. Nichele, H. Sayama, C. Nehaniv, E. Medvet, & M. Pavone)
4th International Conference on Computational Intelligence (ICCI 2023),
4-5 Nov. 2023, South Asian University Campus, New Delhi.
(Chairs: R. Tiwari, M. Pavone, & M. Saraswat)
2023 IEEE Symposium on Immune Computation (IEEE IComputation), part of IEEE SSCI 2023,
5-8 Dec. 2023, Mexico City, Mexico.
(Chairs: U. Aickelin, L. Jiao, W. Luo, & M. Pavone)
"Metaheuristics: Recent Advances and Applications", special issue in International Transactions in Operational Research (ITOR) - Editors: Luca Di Gaspero, Paola Festa, Amir Nakib, Mario Pavone, & Mauricio Resende
Metaheuristics Summer School - MESS 2024, "Optimization & Machine Learning meet High-Performance Computing", 15-18 July 2024, Catania, Italy
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Current teaching
Heuristics & Metaheuristics for Optimization & Learning, MSc degree in Computer Science, University of Catania
Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence, MSc degree in Computer Science, University of Catania
Operating Systems, BASc degree in Computer Science, University of Catania
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