[alife] Reminder CFP: Artificial Life Special Issue - Picture This: The State of The Art in Visualizing Complex Adaptive Systems

[Tom Smith]

           - Artificial Life Special Issue -

               - Call for Submissions -

Picture This: The State of The Art in Visualizing Complex Adaptive Systems
==========================================================================

Guest Editors:

  Jon Bird, University of Sussex, UK; jonba at cogs.susx.ac.uk
  Seth Bullock, University of Leeds, UK; seth at comp.leeds.ac.uk
  Tom Smith, University of Sussex, UK; toms at cogs.susx.ac.uk

Editor-in-Chief: Mark Bedau, Reed College, US; mab at reed.edu

Submission Deadline: 18 July 2003

URL: http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/toms/Visualization/

Outline
-------

Complex adaptive systems (by which we mean to include organisms and
organizations as well as algorithms, agents and robots) are
high-dimensional, time-varying systems that exhibit complex and often
counterintuitive dynamics across a variety of time-scales and at many
different levels of organization.  Finding efficient and intuitive
ways to visualize the behaviour of these systems is a challenge faced
by researchers working in artificial life, evolutionary computation,
AI, cybernetics, robotics, and many areas of biology.  Without
effective visualization, even simple systems may be extremely
difficult to understand.  Moreover, the multi-disciplinary nature of
the study of complex adaptive systems demands intuitive, in addition
to formal, means of communication.

Surprisingly, until recently there has been relatively little
explicit, peer-reviewed visualization research within artificial life.
While many researchers have explored a range of standard methods, and
some have developed novel visualization techniques with which to
display the behaviour of particular systems, there is very little
systematic record of these explorations available to the community as
a whole.  ALife visualization research has remained largely informal
and has not been disseminated very widely.  Overall, this has
contributed to a reliance on a small number of rather simplistic
techniques - visualizations that by their nature disguise much of the
system complexity that interests ALife researchers.

The Artificial Life journal solicits high quality contributions to a
special issue devoted to these topics.  In this special issue, we
intend to provide a forum within which research on the visualization
of complex adaptive systems can be presented and progressed.  We are
particularly interested in gathering together a wide range of
visualization expertise in one easily accessible resource.  To this
end, papers should describe outstanding research exploring
visualization issues as they pertain to any aspect of complex adaptive
systems, whether software, hardware, wetware, or some other category.
Papers exploring or assessing the effectiveness and usability of
visualization are particularly welcome, as are very short
"visualization gem" papers briefly encapsulating relevant
visualization techniques that deserve to be "archived" in the journal
(see below).  Finally, the editors would welcome pointers to existing
relevant visualization work that may have been overlooked by the
community.

We look forward to your contributions.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

   * Theoretical Issues
     - Identifying the goals and challenges facing artificial life
       visualization research
     - What can we learn from existing visualization & human-computer
       interaction theory?
     - What kinds of visualization are we looking for?
   * Practical Issues
     - Understanding the different roles of artificial life visualization
     - Understanding the constraints imposed by different media
     - Understanding the needs of different audiences
     - Understanding the challenges raised by different target systems
   * Exemplars
     - Accounts of successes and failures, and what we can learn from them
     - Arguments for or against particular approaches
   * Visualization Gems (see below)
     - Brief accounts of visualization techniques with high utility
       for artificial life

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

Authors intending to submit papers are encouraged to contact the Guest
Editors as soon as possible to discuss paper ideas and suitability for
this special issue.  This is particularly important for authors
intending to submit a visualization gem.  Submission of manuscripts
should be made via anonymous ftp.  For details, please consult
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/toms/Visualization/

Significant dates:

Submissions deadline       - 18th July 2003
Notification of acceptance - 15th August 2003
Final paper deadline       - 19th September 2003

Two categories of submission will be considered:

1. Research Papers:

   These are papers describing new research into artificial life
   visualization.  They may critically assess existing techniques,
   discuss criteria for the success or failure of artificial life
   visualization, draw attention to extant problems and challenges,
   etc.  If new techniques are suggested, it is imperative that
   authors discuss their usability, their strengths and, most
   importantly, their **limitations**.

2. Visualization Gems:

   These are very short papers (2-4 printed pages) which detail a
   single visualization technique considered to be an excellent
   example of its type.  The paper will briefly describe the
   technique, its motivation, strengths, and limitations, and provide
   references to more detailed accounts, including, where possible the
   first instance of its use.

   It is intended that a collection of these papers will serve as a
   resource for the artificial life community, gathering useful
   information together in one easily accessible place.

Please consult the important submission instructions at:
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/toms/Visualization/


Artificial Life
---------------

The journal Artificial Life is devoted to a new discipline that
investigates the scientific, engineering, philosophical, and social
issues involved in our rapidly increasing technological ability to
synthesize life-like behaviors from scratch in computers, machines,
molecules, and other alternative media. By extending the horizons of
empirical research in biology beyond the territory currently
circumscribed by life-as-we-know-it, the study of artificial life
gives us access to the domain of life-as-it-could-be. Relevant topics
span the hierarchy of biological organization, including studies of
the origin of life, self-assembly, growth and development,
evolutionary and ecological dynamics, animal and robot behavior,
social organization, and cultural evolution.