CfP EVOLVABILITY AND SENSOR EVOLUTION SYMPOSIUM

[Daniel Polani]

Please accept our apologies should you receive this call repeatedly.

This is a short version of the call. For more information, see 

	    http://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~jfm/evol-sensor.htm

or contact the chairs, Julian Miller (j.miller at cs.bham.ac.uk) or
Daniel Polani (d.polani at herts.ac.uk)

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

		   Call for Papers & Participation:
    EPSRC Network on Evolvability in Biological & Software Systems

	     EVOLVABILITY AND SENSOR EVOLUTION SYMPOSIUM
             -------------------------------------------

			     sponsored by
     The Natural Computation Research Group (Univ. of Birmingham)
   The University of Hertfordshire Adaptive Systems Research Group
				EPSRC

  24-25 April 2003 (Thursday-Friday), University of Birmingham, U.K.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


SYMPOSIUM AIMS
--------------

This EPSRC symposium follows upon the growing awareness from academia,
industry, and research communities of the importance of evolvability,
tentatively defined as, the capacity of populations to exhibit
adaptive heritable variation.In partcular, the symposium focuses on
the relation between evolvability and sensor and effector
evolution. The symposium aims to encourage a dialogue between various
workers in areas that might benefit from a possible common framework
addressing evolvability and sensor/effector evolution.

The symposium addresses two aspects that are believed to be central in
understanding fundamental biological mechanisms, like information
information discovery, acquisition, processing and transmission, both
on the level of populations and individuals: these mechanisms are
evolvability and sensor evolution.


Evolvability

Darwinian evolution characterized by heritable variation and selection
is not by itself sufficient to account for the capacity to vary and
inherent phenotypic expressions of fitness. Rigidity of
genotype-phenotype mappings, as often used in evolutionary
computation, constrains the dynamics of evolution to a small space of
possible biological or artificial systems. Open-ended evolution is not
possible under such constraints. Evolution, by itself, cannot fully
explain the advant of genetic systems, the flexible genotype-phenotype
mappings, heritable fitness. This presents a challenge both to
biologists seeking to understand the capacity of life to evolve and to
computer scientists who seek to harness biological-like robustness and
openness in the evolution of artificial systems.


Sensor Evolution
----------------

In natural evolution one finds impressive examples of the principle of
exploiting and creating new sensory channels and information they
carry. Olfactory, tactile, auditory and visual, but also
e.g. electrical and even magnetic senses have evolved in a multitude
of variants, often utilizing organs not originally "intended" for the
purpose they serve at present. Biologically evolving systems are able
to adaptively construct their own hardware and software. The new
sensors create new ways of giving meaning to and interpreting the
world. Many biological sensors reach a degree of structural and
functional complexity and of efficiency which is envied by engineers
creating man-made sensors. Sensors enable animals to survive in
dynamic and unstructured environments, to perceive and react
appropriately to features in the biotic and abiotic environment,
including members of the own species as well as predators and
prey. 

Synthesizing artificial sensors for hardware or software systems
suggests a similar approach taken for generating life-like behaviour,
namely using evolutionary techniques in order to explore design spaces
and generate sensors which are specifically adapted with respect to
environmental and other fitness related constraints. The creation of
channels of sensory input and effectory output lead to higher
evolvability as new relevance criteria are developed that confer a
survival advantage to future offspring.



CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
----------------------

We solicit abstracts for poster or oral presentation (appox. 25-30
minute talk) reporting working in this exciting area. Talks should
address an interdisciplinary audience, but may nevertheless deal with
issues at the cutting edge of research.

Send submissions in plain text (ASCII) format only to
j.miller at cs.bham.ac.uk. The submission should show author name(s),
full addresses, submission title, and an abstract of not more than 500
words. Submissions should include a statement of the preferred mode of
presentation: poster / oral.


PROGRAM CHAIRS
--------------

    Julian Miller (University of Birmingham) 

    Daniel Polani (University of Hertfordshire, UK) 


CO-ORGANIZERS 
-------------

    Chrystopher Nehaniv (University of Hertfordshire) 


PARTICIPATION
-------------

Participation is open to all students, researchers, or industry
representatives with interests in evolvability in biological and
software systems. Please register by sending an e-mail
j.miller at cs.bham.ac.uk giving your name and affiliation.

There is no registration fee.

Participation is limited to about 60 participants. Non-presenters are
welcome to participate if places remain, so please register your
interest as early as possible.




IMPORTANT DATES
---------------

20 February 2003: Symposium Abstract Submissions Due
7 March 2003: Notification to Authors
24-25 April 2003: Symposium