After almost twenty years of efforts towards augmenting fuzzy systems with learning and adaptation capabilities, one of the most prominent approaches to do so has resulted in the emergence of genetic fuzzy systems. These kinds of hybrid systems meld the approximate reasoning method of fuzzy systems with the adaptation capabilities of evolutionary algorithms. On the one hand, fuzzy systems have demonstrated the ability to formalize in a computationally efficient manner the approximate reasoning typical of humans. On the other hand, genetic (and in general evolution-inspired) algorithms constitute a robust technique in complex optimization, identification, learning, and adaptation problems. In this way, their confluence leads to increased capabilities for the design and optimization of fuzzy systems.

GEFS2010 will become the fourth workshop in a series of highly successful symposiums dedicated to serving the needs of academics and practitioners in computational intelligence following the previous workshops in Granada (Spain), Ambleside (UK), and Witten-Bommerholz (Germany). The objective of GEFS2010 is to facilitate the promotion of novel problems, research, results, and future directions in the growing area of genetic and evolutionary fuzzy systems. GEFS2010 will provide an opportunity to meet old friends, make new contacts and exchange ideas.