It is an honor and a great pleasure for us to present this special issue for WORK. This selection of papers is an outcome of our symposium organized during the IEA congress 2009 (Beijing, China) that followed up previous IEA symposia. Ever since the IEA Conference in Paris (1991), and at each of the subsequent triennial IEA conferences (Toronto, 1994; Tampere, 1997; San Diego 2000; Seoul 2003; ...

In this paper we describe an improvement to the popular IDA* search algorithm that emphasizes a different spacefor-time trade-off than previously suggested. In particular, our algorithm, called Iterative-Expansion A* (IEA*), focuses on reducing redundant node expansions within individual depth-first search (DFS) iterations of IDA* by employing a relatively small amount of available memory— boun...

Interactive Evolutionary Algorithms (IEAs) are a powerful explorative search technique that utilizes human input to make subjective decisions on potential problem solutions. But humans are much slower than computers and get bored and tired easily, limiting the usefulness of IEAs. Here two variations of a user-modeling approach are compared to determine if this approach can accelerate IEA search...

I want to thank the organizers of this conference for their kind invitation to me to present what I consider the important contributions that IEA has made to both research and education over the years. I have been a part of IEA and IEA has been a part of my and my family’s life for over forty years now. It has been an exciting ride, to say the least. Despite my continuous connection with IEA ov...

The Implementing Agreement This report on long-term R&D needs for wind energy was produced by the Implementing Agreement for Cooperation in the Research and Development of Wind Turbine Systems (IEA R&D Wind), which forms part of a programme of international energy technology collaboration which is undertaken under the auspices of the International Energy Agency (IEA). The IEA is the energy foru...