Foreword

With the dawn of artificial intelligence (AI) and the rise of the fourth industrial revolution, it is easy to see how nature-inspired intelligent systems will play an even more fundamental role in improving and enriching human lives. While we may never agree on what constitutes AI, optimization is widely understood as one of its chief pillars. With the increasing computational processing power in modern times, nature-inspired optimization has produced considerable academic debate and successful solutions to many challenging numerical optimization problems. In my opinion, these two paths of theoretical and practical solutionoriented developments will continue to flourish in the future. And nature will continue to awe us with the treasures and beauties it holds on our way to its discovery.