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CALL FOR PAPERS Workshop on the Evolution of Complexity June 3rd, 2006, Bloomington, IN, USA http://ecco.vub.ac.be/ECO/ as a part of the Tenth International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems: ALife X http://www.alifex.org Motivation The evolution of complexity is a central theme in Biology. Yet it is not without any ambiguity. Complexity has been used to refer to different things. For instance, complexification has been interpreted as a process of diversification between evolving units or as a scaling process that is related to the idea of transitions between different levels of complexity. Other meanings of complexity have been introduced, both inside and outside the realm of Biology. What concerns most researchers is to get insight into the mechanisms that produce their notion of complexity. The focus of this workshop will be on biological interpretations of complexity and the driving mechanisms: primarily we want the focus to be on evolutionary and related dynamics as mechanisms for producing complexity. Furthermore, we want to bring together historical and novel research in this context. Questions to be addressed at the workshop include: - - What are the environmental constraints of complexity growth in living systems? - - What is the origin and role of developmental mechanisms in evolution? - - Are the principles of natural selection, as they are currently understood, sufficient to explain the evolution of complexity? - - What are the limits at different levels to the evolution of complexity, and which conditions could reduce evolved complexity? - - <Which models are | What language is> more appropriate to <understand | speak about> the evolution of complexity in living systems? - - How could complexity growth be measured or operationalised in natural and artificial systems? - - How can data from nature be brought to bear on the study of this issue? - - What are the main hypotheses about complexity growth that can actually be tested? - - Is it possible to <direct|manipulate> the evolution of complexity, or which benefits would bring its understanding? Paper Submission: Submitted papers should follow the format guidelines for the ALife X proceedings (http://www.alifex.org/submissions/ ). Papers should not exceed 6 pages in length and must be made in PDF format. The submissions will be made electronically at the workshop website. Submissions are open. Papers will be judged by members of the Programme Committee by their relevance to the workshop and conference, originality, clarity of the presentation, and overall quality. Important Dates: Submission deadline: February 28th, 2006 Notification of acceptance: April 1st, 2006 Camera-ready papers due: April 15th, 2006 Workshop date: June 3rd, 2006 Workshop Structure: The workshop will take place in Bloomington, IN, USA, on June 3, 2006, the first day of the conference. The aim is to have 2-4 invited speakers, and talks by the authors of groundbreaking contributions. We feel that it is important to have a discussion on the presentations and submissions at a workshop and hence will introduce a workshop format that achieves this goal. Invited speakers (* indicates confirmed): Mark Bedau* Jim Crutchfield* Stuart Kauffman Ricard Solé Proceedings: Workshop proceedings will be published in a special volume distributed at the conference. (This volume will be different from the MIT press conference proceedings). Depending on the quality of submissions, a special issue of the Artificial Life journal may be created. Programme Committee: Lee Altenberg Mark Bedau Hugues Bersini John Bonner Dominique Chu Jim Crutchfield Bruce Edmonds Carlos Gershenson Mario Giacobini Franics Heylighen Tom Lenaerts Juan Julián Merelo Barry McMullin Melanie Mitchell Jorge Pacheco Tom Ray Jon Rowe Stanley Salthe Cosma Shalizi Peter Schuster Eörs Szathmáry Richard Watson Organising Committee: Carlos Gershenson Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160, Brussels, Belgium cgershen at vub.ac.be Tom Lenaerts IRIDIA CP 194/6, Université Libre de Bruxelles Av. Franklin Roosevelt 50. B-1050, Brussels, Belgium tlenaert at ulb.ac.be Websites: Workshop: http://ecco.vub.ac.be/ECO/ Conference: http://www.alifex.org
