I've been trying to get a couple of book projects started in Bayesian network structure learning for a couple of years: one with Kluwer on using evolutionary computation for structure learning and parameter estimation in graphical models, and one with Springer on link analysis in social networks. The Kluwer one has languished a bit, because we've all been so busy with other things on the FIBR project.

A few weeks ago, however, our colleague Sanjoy Das got a solicitation from Idea Group Publishing for edited volumes on bioinformatics applications. He's responded and he, Steve Welch, Doina Caragea, and I are now planning a collection of papers on two of our bioinformatics research foci: genetic and evolutionary computation for parameter estimation (especially in dynamical systems models of gene expression, metabolism, and possibly protein interaction), and structure learning in graphical models (especially temporal Bayes nets).

I'm putting together part of the bibliography for our literature survey, expanding on our working group's existing collection of papers and the one from the Ecological Genomics journal group. My questions for all of you:

• Would you be interested in a filter, or a regularly-posted set of links that we put on geckies and bayesnets, describing our progress on this book? It would include solicitations from chapter contributors, if your advisor (or you yourself) are working on a relevant topic in gene expression modeling.


• I'll be posting these notes and selected (tagged) posts from the FIBR Tiki to _scientists_, ecologists, and possibly stat_geeks. There is also the RSS feed geckies_blog. Can you suggest any other venues of dissemination on LJ and similar networks?


• Are you aware of any work at the interface between GEC and graphical models? tvn posted in bayesnets a while back asking for references in this area, but other than Larranaga's work, our own, and that of Alan Bundy, I'm not as current as I would like to be on new approaches to "Bayes net evolution". I'll share a link to our initial bibliography once it is done. If you know of any work that I've missed, please let" me know at that time.


• Those of you from the GEC community: do you know of any ACM SIGEVO (formerly ISGEC) tracks, publications, etc. in this area? Would there be interest in, say, a GECCO-2007 track on this?

Please respond in comments or e-mail (to banazir[AT]gmail.com), and I will follow up.

Thanks,
Banazir