Our paper on “Constrained Bayesian Optimization Under Partial Observations: Balanced Improvements and Provable Convergence” has been accepted to AAAI 2024. In this paper, Shengbo did a very beautiful and rigorous theoretical discussion on how to carefully explore constraint boundary in partially observable environments. Very well done! December 9

Our paper on “DaNuoYi: Evolutionary Multi-Task Injection Testing on Web Application Firewalls” has been accepted IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. Congratulations to Heng! Very well done! December 2

I have been recognized in the Stanford list of top 2% of scientists in the world in 2023. This is my third consecutive year to be listed. Thank you very much for the excellent work from my team and collaborators. October 10

Our paper on “Evolutionary Multi-objective Instruction Optimization via Large Language Model-based Instruction Operators” has been accepted to the Findings of EMNLP 2023. Congratulations to Heng! Very well done! October 7

I’m glad to be awarded the Kan Tong Po International Fellowship from the Royal Society! Congratulations and really appreciate the continuous support from the Royal Society. This fellowship will support to visit Prof. Kan Chen Tan in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and consolidate our collaborations. September 28

Our COLA-Lab team is in the second place of the AutoML Cup 2023. Congratulations to Fan, Peili and Heng! Well done for your hard work! This is our first time to participate the AutoML competition. Hope we can win the trophy cup next time. September 26

We have two papers accepted to NeurIPS 2023! Congratulations to Shuang and Phoenix! Shuang’s work is a very interesting and unique perspective to redefine the stopping criterion in Bayesian optimization. I see many further applications based on this criterion. Phoenix developed a very interesting adversarial attack method based on CamoPatch. Very cool idea! Very well done! September 21

Our paper on “Quality Indicators for Preference-based Evolutionary Multi-objective Optimization Using a Reference Point: A Review and Analysis” has been accepted to IEEE Trans. Evolutionary Computation. Congratulations to Ryoji! Very well done! September 19

Our paper on “DaNuoYi: Evolutionary Multi-Task Injection Testing on Web Application Firewalls” has been accepted to IEEE Trans. Software Engineering pending to minor revision. Congratulations to Heng! Very well done! This is part of the outcome from my Amazon Research Award. September 18

Our paper on “A Data-Driven Evolutionary Transfer Optimization for Expensive Problems in Dynamic Environments” has been accepted to IEEE Trans. Evolutionary Computation. Congratulations to Renzhi! Very well done! This works opens several new perspectives on how we can leverage the historical data in a manageable way. More information will be posted soon. August 7

Our paper on “PyABSA: A Modularized Framework for Reproducible Aspect-based Sentiment Analysis” has been accepted to CIKM 2023 Demo Track. Congratulations to Heng! Very well done! August 5

A new PhD studentship is opening in our lab!!! This project is mainly led by our colleagues in the Engineering department. The topic is about trustworthy and explainable AI for smart energy system management. Please feel free to contact me about more details. August 1

Our paper on “Multidimensional Resource Fragmentation-Aware Virtual Network Embedding for IoT Applications in MEC Networks” has been accepted to IEEE Internet of Things Journal. Congratulations to Yingying! Very well done! August 1

Shasha and Xiaotian have successfully secured their Exeter-CSC PhD studentships and will join us this fall. Congratulations to them both, and warm welcome to join COLA laboratory this September. June 22

Glad to announce that one project proposal (EASY-CROSS) is granted by MSCA Staff Exchange 2022. This project is about secure and modular boarder control supported by handheld biometric scanning devices. Look forward to seeing interesting collaborations coming out of this project. Congratulations to our colleagues. June 1

We have three papers accepted to IEEE SMC 2023. Congratulations to Renzhi, Shasha and Tian! Well done! June 1

I’m glad to be invited to join the Editorial Board for Mathematics journal (Impact Factor=2.592). April 21

Our paper on “Exploring Structural Similarity in Fitness Landscapes via Graph Data Mining: A Case Study on Number Partitioning Problems” has been accepted to IJCAI 2023. Congratulations to Mingyu! Very well done! April 19

Our paper on “A Surrogate Assisted Evolutionary Strategy for Image Approximation by Density-Ratio Estimation” has been accepted to CEC 2023. Congratulations to Phoenix! Very well done! April 15

COLA-Lab is now hiring!!! We have multiple fully funded PhD studentships available for September 2023 entry. Detailed information can be found from here.

I’m pleased to announce that my Turing Fellowship has been extended to the end of this September. Look forward to engage with the Alan Turing Institute to develop a broader collaborative network. March 28

Our paper on “A Multi-Population Evolutionary Algorithm Using New Cooperative Mechanism for Solving Multi-Objective Problems with Multi-Constraint” has been accepted to IEEE Trans. Evol. Comput. Congratulations to our collaborators! March 25

I’m glad to be invited to join the Editorial Board for the Brain-Computer Intersection section of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience journal (Impact Factor=3.473). March 20

Our tutorial on “Preference-Based Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimization: Steppingstone to Involve Human in the Loop” has been accepted to IEEE CEC 2023 and SMC 2023. This is an emerging topic that has been explored in my group for more than five years. It is my pleasure to share with you some of our very recent advances along this direction. Look forward seeing you in Chicago and Hawaii. March 4

My paper on “ Batched Data-Driven Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimization Based on Manifold Interpolation” published in IEEE Tran. Evolutionary Computation this year has been invited to give a Journal to Conference talk in IEEE CEC 2023. March 2

COLA-Lab is now hiring!!! We have multiple fully funded PhD studentships available for September 2023 entry. Detailed information can be found from here.

Our papers on “Black-Box Sparse Adversarial Attack via Multi-Objective Optimisation” has been accepted to CVPR 2023. Congratulations to Phoenix! Very well done! February 27

COLA-Lab is now hiring!!! We have multiple fully funded PhD studentships available for September 2023 entry. Detailed information can be found from here.

Our papers on “Evolutionary Bi-level Optimization via Multi-objective Transformation Based Lower Level Search” has been accepted to IEEE Trans. Evol. Comput. Congratulations to our collaborators! January 2

COLA-Lab is hiring!!! We have multiple fully funded PhD studentships available for September 2023 entry. Detailed information can be found from here. December 1

Our papers on “Interactive Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimization via Learning-to-Rank” has been accepted to IEEE Trans. Evol. Comput. Congratulations to Guiyu! December 22

We have two papers accepted to EMO 2023. Congratulations to Renzhi and Phoenix! See you in Leiden! December 7

My UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship renewal has been approved as a prima facie case, i.e., without any further interview justification. There will be an additional three-year funding started from May 2023. Really appreciated the generous support from UKRI in the past nearly four years. Look forward to create a new research programme and fight for its future in the coming years. December 1

Our paper on “MTLP-JR: Multi-Task Learning-Based Prediction for Joint Ranking in Neural Architecture Search” has been accepted to Computers & Electrical Engineering. Congratulations to Bo and collaborators! December 1

We have three papers accepted to the NeurIPS Workshop on Gaussian Processes, Spatiotemporal Modeling, and Decision-making Systems. Congratulations to Renzhi, Peili and Jiangjiao, very well done! October 14

I am proud to be recognized in the Top 2% Scientists Worldwide in a latest study from Stanford University. This is my third consecutive year to be recognized in this list. October 13

Our paper on “Efficient Spectral Graph Convolutional Network Deployment on Memristive Crossbars” has been accepted to IEEE Trans. Emerg. Topics Comput. Congratulations to Bo and collaborators! September 29

The 12th International Conference Series on Evolutionary Multi-Criterion Optimization ( EMO 2023) is calling for papers. The deadline is November 30 October 12, 2022. This is biannual event for all EMO researchers and this time it will be on March 2023 in Leiden, the Netherlands. September 12 September 22

Our lab has been a bit slient for the last three months since I have been busy with a preparation of my project interview. Finger crossed and hope it will be secured at the end! September 5

We are going to organize a Exeter-Leiden Symposium on Data Driven Modeling and Optimization on June 6. Relevant information can be found here. It is running fully online and we are looking forward seeing you there. May 28

We are glad to announce a fully funded opportunity for undergraduate student(s) in the UK who are interested in experiencing a research placement at Exeter. The project is outlined in here and the proposed start date is 1st July, 2022. May 25

It is my great honor to be promoted as an IEEE Senior Member, which is an honor bestowed only to those who have made significant contributions to the profession. May 2

We are pleased to announce that we will host a summer school on Data-Driven Artificial/Computational Intelligence: Theory and Applications this August/September. This summer school is kindly supported by IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. We had a very successful one last year and hope to continue to prosperity this time and beyond May 1

We have two papers get accepted to GECCO 2022. Both of them are about adversarial attack for neural networks. Congratulations to Shasha and Phoenix! Mar 25

Our paper on “Batched Data-Driven Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimization Based on Manifold Interpolation” has been accepted to IEEE Trans. Evolutionary Computation. Congratulations to Renzhi! Mar 20

It is my great honor to join the Organization Committee of EMO 2023 as a Program Chair. We are looking forward to seeing you to join the biggest party in our EMO community in Leiden, the Netherlands! Mar 12

It is my great honor to participate the GREAT Talent campaign organized by the Cabinet Office. The story telling video is currently available online from here. Mar 1

I am proud to be recognized in the Top 2% Scientists Worldwide in a latest study from Stanford University. Oct 28

We are pleased to announce that our collaborative bid with Dr Hao Wang at Leiden University has been funded by Europe Network Fund 2021-22. Looking forward to have many exciting collaboration therein! Oct 20

We are pleased to announce that our collaborative bid with UTS in Australia has been funded by Royal Society under the International Exchange scheme. Looking forward to have many exciting collaboration therein! Oct 7

Our paper “Posterior Decision-Making Based on Decomposition-Driven Knee Point Identification” is accepted to IEEE Trans. Evolutionary Computation. Congratulations to Haifeng! Sep 15

It is honored to join Alan Turing Institute as a Alan Turing Fellow. I am looking forward new exciting opportunities in this UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. Sep 3

Collaborating with some colleagues, we have established a new theme focused on Trustworthy AI in Institute of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at Exeter. We are exciting to promote many follow-up activates associated with this theme in due course. Sep 1

After four days intensive talks from our prestigious speakers, we are pleased to announce that our first IEEE CIS Summer School on Data-Driven Artificial/Computational Intelligence is successfully finished. Related materials will be released in due course after the permission from our speakers and IEEE. Sep 1

Our paper “Neural Architecture Search for Portrait Parsing” is accepted to IEEE Trans. Neural Networks and Learning Systems. Congratulations to our fantastic collaborators! Aug 11

We have four papers accepted by IEEE SMC 2021. Congratulations to Renzhi, Phoenix and Jiangjiao! Aug 4

One proposal get funded by Hong Kong GRF. Congratulations to Prof. Kay Chen Tan and looking forward to working with you soon. Aug 1

Our paper on “Transfer Learning Based Parallel Evolutionary Algorithm Framework for Bi-level Optimization” is accepted to IEEE Trans. Evolutionary Computation. Congratulations to Lei and collaborators! Jun 30

I have been identified as 2% top scientists in the world across all disciplines from a report published by Stanford University. At the moment, I am ranked around #3200 in the AI subfield worldwide. Jun 20

We are pleased to announce that we will host a summer school on Data-Driven Artificial/Computational Intelligence: Theory and Applications this August. This summer school is kindly supported by IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. Jun 17

We are pleased to announce that Heng has successfully secured his PhD studentship from both CSC and Exeter. He will start his PhD journal in our lab since this autumn. Jun 3

We are pleased to announce that Peili has successfully secured his studentship and will start his PhD journal since this autumn. May 28

We are glad to announce that Maja Kaczmarek, a second year undergraduate student from the University of Manchester, has been awarded a REP studentship from SWBio DTP (only two in Exeter). We will work with Dr Yiliang Ding’s group from John Innes Centre on some exciting topics about RNA structure prediction. May 17

Proud to be one of three awardees in the UK to win an Amazon Research Awards 2020. Really appreciate the generous support from Amazon to carry on our interesting work on multi-task learning! Please see press news from [ Amazon Science 1], [ Amazon Science 2], [ About Amazon Blog UK], [ Exeter News], [ Linkedin], [ 机器之心], [ 新智元], [ AI科技评论]. Apr 29

Our paper “A Vector Angles-based Many-objective Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm Using Archive” is accepted to Applied Soft Computing. Congratulations to Lei! Apr 27

Our paper “Vertical Distance Based Clonal Selection Mechanism for Multi-objective Immune Algorithm” is accepted to Swarm and Evolutionary Computation. Congratulations to Lingjie! Apr 14

Our paper on empirical study of various control mechanisms in interactive evolutionary multi-objective optimization is accepted to IEEE CEC 2021. Congratulations to Guiyu! Apr 6

It is grateful to receive an unrestricted gift from Amazon Research Awards for multi-task learning semantic feature from various injections to test Web application firewalls. Thanks for Amazon’s generous support! Mar 24

After a wonderful three-year journey of founding and serving as the Chair of the IEEE Task Force 12 on Decomposition-based Techniques in Evolutionary Computation, I have stepped down as a Vice Chair since this year. It is my pleasure to witness the growing up of our community and a wider range of engagements worldwide. My colleague Prof. Bilel Derbel kindly takes up the new Chair position and will promote the activities further. Mar 4

Our paper on Bayesian Network Based Label Correlation Analysis For Multi-label Classifier Chain has been accepted for publication in Information Sciences. Congratulations to my collaborators! Dec 8

There are multiple openings in our lab for PhD students 2021 entry. The studentships are available for both UK/EU and international students. Please have a look at vacancies and feel free to contact with me for more details.

Our workshop on Decomposition Techniques in Evolutionary Optimization ( DTEO) has been approved by GECCO 2021! Please submit your latest work to DTEO. Dec 3

Our tutorial on Decomposition Multi-Objective Optimization: Current Developments and Future Opportunities has been approved by GECCO 2021! This is the 4th time we have this tutorial in GECCO. See you next year in Lille, hopefully the pandemic is over then. Dec 3

There are multiple openings in our lab for PhD students 2021 entry. The studentships are available for both UK/EU and international students. Please have a look at vacancies and feel free to contact with me for more details.

Our special issue on Advances in Decomposition-based Evolutionary Multi-objective Optimization ( ADEMO) has been approved by CEC 2021! Please submit your latest work on all decomposition-based approaches to ADEMO. Nov 19

All our three submissions to EMO 2021 are accepted for oral presentation. Congratulations to Jiangjiao, Joe and Xinyu! See you in Shenzhen (virtually)! Nov 13

Our paper on “Knee Point Identification Based on Voronoi Diagram” has been accepted to the IEEE SMC 2020 as a full paper for oral presentation. Congratulations to Haifeng! Aug 21

Our paper on “Performance Analysis of SDN and NFV enabled Mobile Cloud Computing” has been accepted to the IEEE GLOBECOM 2020 as a full paper for oral presentation. Congratulations to Joseph! Aug 17

Our paper on “Bilevel Programming for Automated Model Discovery in Cross-Project Defect Prediction” has been accepted to the ASE 2020 as a full paper (acceptance rate is 93/414 = 22.5%). We have developed a bilevel programming tool to automate the model discovery in cross-project defect prediction. More details will be released in our project page. Jul 30

Glad to be invited to join the Editorial Board of Complex & Intelligent Systems. Jul 22

Finally, I win the trophy for the Teaching Awards 2020 as a Outstanding Supervisor. Really appreciate the support and hard work from my team! Jun 26

It is so privilege and kind of unexpected to be shortlisted in the Teaching Awards 2020 as a Outstanding Supervisor. Really appreciate the nomination from my students. It is my pleasure to grow with you guys. Jun 16

Our paper “Adaptive Operator Selection Based on Dynamic Thompson Sampling for MOEA/D” has been accepted to PPSN 2020 for oral presentation. Congratulations to Lei! May 27

Congratulations to my students Phoenix Williams who win an competitive EPSRC DTP Studentship and Jiancheng Qian who wins the China Scholarship Council and University of Exeter PhD Scholarship. Both of them will join my lab this September. Phoenix previous worked with me under the support of EPSRC Vacation Internship last summer. May 13

Glad to serve as a PC member of PPSN 2020. Apr 20

Our paper “DeepSQLi: Deep Semantic Learning for Testing SQL Injection” has been accepted to ISSTA 2020 as a full paper (acceptance rate is 43/162 = 26.5%). We have developed a revolutionary view of taking advantage of the semantic information embedded in SQL injection cases. Thereafter, we use a state-of-the-art natural language processing tool to learn such semantic information and use that to automate the test case generation. More details will be released in our project page. Apr 15

Our paper “Surrogate Assisted Evolutionary Algorithm for Medium Scale Multi-Objective Optimisation Problems” has been accepted to GECCO 2020 as a full paper. We provide a new framework to scale up the surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithm for problems with up to 50 variables. Mar 20

Our paper “Routing-Led Placement of VNFs in Arbitrary Networks” and “Surrogate Assisted Evolutionary Algorithm Based on Transfer Learning for Dynamic Expensive Multi-Objective Optimisation Problems” have been accepted to WCCI 2020 as full papers. Mar 20

Our paper “Does Preference Always Help? A Holistic Study on Preference-Based Evolutionary Multi-Objective Optimisation Using Reference Points” has been accepted to IEEE Trans. Evolutionary Computation. We have several interesting findings first of their kind reported in this study. Project page will be released soon and please stay tuned to our latest information. Mar 17

I am thrilled to be finally awarded the Research Excellence Awards of the CEMPS Academic Recognition Awards 2020! Feb 19

I am glad to be shortlisted for the Research Excellence Awards of the CEMPS Academic Recognition Awards 2020! Look forward to getting the crown. Feb 6

I have been invited to serve as an Associate Editor for IEEE Trans. Evolutionary Computation, the flagship journal in artificial intelligence and the best in evolutionary computation. Jan 10

Our paper “On the Combined Impact of Population Size and Sub-problem Selection in MOEA/D” has been accepted to the 20th European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimisation ( EvoCOP 2020). Congratulations to my collaborators! Jan 8

Our paper “Reference Point Based Multi-Objective Optimization of Reservoir Operation: A Comparison of Three Algorithms” has been accepted to Water Resources Management. Congratulations to my collaborators! Jan 7