Premature convergence is one of the best-known drawbacks that affects the performance of evolutionary algorithms. An alternative for dealing with this problem is to explicitly try to maintain proper diversity. In this paper, a new replacement strategy that preserves useful diversity is presented. The novelty of our method is that it combines the idea of transforming a single-objective problem into a multiobjective one, by considering diversity as an explicit objective, with the idea of adapting the balance induced between exploration and exploitation to the various optimization stages. Specifically, in the initial phases, larger amounts of diversity are accepted. The diversity measure considered in this paper is based on calculating distances to the closest surviving individual. Analyses with a multimodal function better justify the design decisions and provide greater insight into the working operation of the proposal. Computational results with a packing problem that was proposed in a popular contest illustrate the usefulness of the proposal. The new method significantly improves on the best results known to date for this problem and compares favorably against a large number of state-of-the-art schemes.

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ResumenLa transformación de la educación tradicional en una educación "SMART" (del inglés, "Sensitive, Manageable, Adaptable, Responsive and Timely") implica la modernización integral de todos los procesos educativos. Para dicha transformación, la incorporación de nuevas pedagogías se vuelve imprescindible a nivel metodológico, mientras que el uso de entornos interactivos e inteligentes de aprendizaje supone un hito fundamental a nivel tecnológico. En cualquier caso, el objetivo último de esta transformación es formar y transformar a los estudiantes del futuro para que desarrollen habilidades del siglo XXI y puedan convertirse así en ciudadanos de nuestro mundo en continuo cambio. La tecnología y las computadoras son un aspecto esencial para esta modernización, no solo en términos de soporte tecnológico, sino también en términos de ofrecer nuevas metodologías para el desarrollo de nuevas pedagogías y habilidades. En este contexto, el pensamiento computacional aparece como un mecanismo prometedor para fomentar estas nuevas competencias básicas, ya que ofrece herramientas que se ajustan a los intereses del alumnado y les da la posibilidad de comprender mejor los fundamentos de nuestra sociedad y de los entornos basados en las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC). En este trabajo, planteamos la necesidad de realizar un esfuerzo para fomentar el desarrollo del pensamiento computacional como una oportunidad para transformar las pedagogías tradicionales en metodologías adaptadas al futuro. Además, presentamos una visión general sobre el pensamiento computacional y analizamos el estado actual de la educación "SMART", haciendo hincapié en la falta de metodologías que permitan apoyar esta transición. Por último, proporcionamos -a aquellos educadores interesados en conseguir un cambio real-información sobre iniciativas dedicadas a la difusión o promoción del pensamiento computacional; herramientas o materiales de apoyo para el desarrollo del pensamiento computacional entre los estudiantes; así como una síntesis de las experiencias y los resultados existentes en relación a la aplicación del pensamiento computacional en entornos educativos. AbstractThe transformation of traditional education into a Sensitive, Manageable, Adaptable, Responsive and Timely (SMART) education involves the comprehensive modernisation of all educational processes. For such a transformation, smart pedagogies are needed as a methodological issue while smart learning environments represent the technological issue, both having as an ultimate goal to cultivate smart learners. Smart learners need to develop 21st century skills so that they can become into smart citizens of our changing world. Technology and computers are an essential aspect for this modernisation, not only in terms of technological support for smart environments but also in terms of offering new methodologies for smart pedagogy and the development of smart skills. In this context, computational thinking appears as a promising mechanism to encourage core skills since it ...

Traffic congestion, and the consequent loss of time, money, quality of life, and higher pollution, is currently one of the most important problems in cities, and several approaches have been proposed to reduce it. In this paper, we propose a novel formulation of the traffic light scheduling problem in order to alleviate it. This novel formulation of the problem allows more realistic scenarios to be modeled, and as a result, it becomes much harder to solve in comparison to previous formulations. The proposal of more advanced and efficient techniques than those applied in past research is thus required. We propose the application of diversity-based multi-objective optimizers, which have shown to provide promising results when addressing single-objective problems. The wide experimental evaluation performed over a set of real-world instances demonstrates the good performance of our proposed diversity-based multi-objective method to tackle traffic at a large scale, especially in comparison to the best-performing single-objective optimizer previously proposed in the literature. Consequently, in this paper, we provide new state-of-the-art algorithmic schemes to address the traffic light scheduling problem that can deal with a whole city, instead of just a few streets and junctions, with a higher level of detail than the one found in present studies due to our micro-analysis of streets.INDEX TERMS Traffic light scheduling problem, traffic management, diversity preservation, real-world application.

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