CFP Adaptive Behavior Special Issue

[Ezequiel Di Paolo]

 [Apologies for multiple copies. Please, do not forward to any other lists]


 **********  Call For Papers:  **********

 Adaptive Behavior Special Issue No 10
 ------------------------------------- 
 
 Plastic mechanisms, multiple timescales and lifetime adaptation
 ---------------------------------------------------------------
 
 Submission Deadline:  15 July 2002


 http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/ezequiel/ab-cfp.html

  
Guest Editor 					Editor-in-Chief
------------					---------------
 
Ezequiel A. Di Paolo 				Peter M. Todd 
Evolutionary and Adaptive	 		Center for Adaptive Behavior 
Systems,					and Cognition, 
School of Cognitive				Max Planck Institute
And Computing Sciences,				for Human Development, 
University of Sussex, 				Lentzealle 94, 
Brighton, BN1 9QH, UK				D-14195 Berlin, Germany

ezequiel at cogs.susx.ac.uk			editor at adaptive-behavior.org

 
 
The last few years have seen an increased interest in the design of 
plastic robot controllers, or controllers with inherent dynamical 
properties such as the interplay of multiple timescales, for the generation 
highly adaptive and robust behaviour. This research area in robotics draws 
important inspiration from neuroscience and may be applied to the testing 
and generation of hypotheses on the role of plasticity in brain function. 
Synthetic methods, such as evolutionary robotics, have provided a glimpse 
of how plastic neural mechanisms, like activity-dependent neuromodulation, 
that are often studied locally in reduced systems, can give rise to 
integrated and coordinated performance in a whole situated robot.

Recent studies have included the role of modulatory processes affecting 
neural activation, diffusing localized neuromodulation, the evolution of 
rules of synaptic change, the design of neural controllers acting on fast 
and slow timescales, and the evolution of stabilizing mechanisms of 
cellular activity. These studies have successfully revealed that such 
mechanisms are able to introduce highly desirable properties such as 
robustness, adaptation to bodily perturbations, and improved evolvability. 
But many questions remain open, such as what is the relation between 
plasticity and stability, how adequate is a given mechanism for the 
required task, how do alternative methods of obtaining plastic behaviour 
relate, and to what extent is environmental regularity responsible for 
successful tuning of neural controllers.

Adaptive Behavior solicits high quality contributions on these topics for 
its 2002 special issue (vol 10:3/4). Papers should describe work integrating 
mechanisms and adaptation at the behavioural level. They may present work 
using simulations or real platforms. Appropriate contributions addressing 
other levels of plasticity (such as sensory morphology or bodily structure) 
will also be considered. Papers drawing inspiration from, and contributing 
back to, neuroscience will be particularly appropriate.

Topics
------

	Multi-timescale controllers
	Activity-dependent plastic neural controllers
	Change and stability in robot performance
	Adaptation to radical perturbations
	Neuromodulation
	Re-configurable neural controllers
	Plastic controllers and simulation/robot transfer
 

 
Submissions 
-----------

Authors intending to submit are also encouraged to contact the Guest Editor 
as soon as possible to discuss paper ideas and suitability for this issue. 
Submission of manuscripts should be made to the Guest Editor at the address 
below. 

		***** Submissions due: 15 July 2002 *****

Submissions should be in English, with American spelling preferred, in the 
style described in the Fourth Edition of the Publication Manual of the 
American Psychological Association, be double-spaced throughout and not 
normally exceed 25 journal pages (40 manuscript pages including figures, 
tables and references). Electronic submission in PDF format is strongly 
preferred. Each submission should have a title page including: the 
submission's title; names, postal, and email addresses of the authors; 
the phone and FAX number of the corresponding author; and a short running 
title. The second page should contain an abstract of about 150 words and 
up to six suggested key words. The main text should start on page 3, with 
acknowledgements at the end. Detailed guidelines for submission layout 
can be ffound on the ISAB web site at http://www.isab.org.uk/journal/ 
by following the link there labelled "Instructions to Contributors".

Submit manuscripts to the Special Issue Guest Editor in PDF format by 
email with "Special Issue 10" in the subject line.

	Dr Ezequiel A. Di Paolo 
	School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences, 
	University of Sussex, 
	Brighton, BN1 9QH, UK 
	ezequiel at cogs.susx.ac.uk 
	Tel.: +44 1273 877763 
	Fax.: +44 1273 671320

 
Adaptive Behavior
-----------------

Adaptive Behavior is the premier international journal for research on 
adaptive behaviour in animals and autonomous artificial systems. For over 
10 years it has offered ethologists, psychologists, behavioural ecologists, 
computer scientists, and robotics researchers a forum for discussing new 
findings and comparing insights and approaches across disciplines. Adaptive 
Behavior explores mechanisms, organizational principles, and architectures 
for generating action in environments, as expressed in computational, 
physical, or mathematical models. Adaptive Behavior is published by Sage 
Publications, a leading independent publisher of behavioural journals, 
spanning human psychology to robotics to simulation modelling. A new 
editorial board, headed by Peter M. Todd of the Center for Adaptive Behavior 
and Cognition, is shaping the journal in novel directions. New technological 
infrastructure will allow faster publication turnaround, better feedback 
from reviewers to authors (and back again), and greater access to research 
results. The journal publishes articles, reviews, and short communications 
addressing topics including perception and motor control, learning and 
evolution, action selection and behavioural sequences, motivation and 
emotion, characterization of environments, collective and social behaviour, 
navigation, foraging, mate choice, and communication and signalling.