[alife] 2nd CFP International Conference on Morphological Computation

[Titus Brown]

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Call for Abstracts

International Conference on Morphological Computation
	March 26-28, 2007,
	ECLT, Venice Italy

Website:   http://www.morphcomp.org/
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*** Submission Deadline Extended! ***
Abstract Submission deadline: January 12, 2007


===== Scientific Content =====

We would like to invite you to attend the International conference
on Morphological Computation taking place at the European Center of
Living Technology (ECLT), Venice Italy.

The conference will be broadly interdisciplinary, including discussions
in the area of computation (robotics, computation theory), chemistry
and molecular biology (micro-patterning with biological polymers,
interacting self-assembled micro-structures), and material science
(intelligent micro materials, complex physical materials, complex
surface patterning). One key goal of the conference is to help identify
a new and fruitful center of gravity at the heart of these overlapping
research areas. Our guiding idea is that the time is ripe to formulate
and develop a new paradigm for fully embodied computation, which might
be quite different from the conventional Turing computational paradigm
based on symbol manipulation. The breadth of the endeavor will naturally
bring together people from different research communities, so that they
can learn of their overlapping interests and converging research.
Contributions should identify key open questions and key principles that
can be generalized to other contexts. They should also clearly identify
key results now in hand.

The constellation of areas that have strong overlap and potential
contributions to morphological computation include:

	- embodied computation (robotics, biology, cognitive science)
	- amorphous computing
	- organic computing
	- membrane computing (P-calculus, formal language theory)
	- DNA computing
	- self-assembled computing
	- molecular computing
	- models of complex physical materials like glass
	- micro-patterning, tiling systems
	- computational complexity theory, motion planning problem
	- non-computational cognitive science using dynamical systems


===== Invited Speakers =====

      Takashi Ikegami, University of Tokyo, Japan

      Akio Ishiguro, Tohoku University, Japan

      Thomas Knight, CSAIL MIT, USA

      Jun Tani, Riken, Japan

      John Reif, Duke University, USA

      Satoshi Murata, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan


===== Submissions =====

We solicit submissions of long abstracts (maximum length of 3 pages)
which report original results and insights (theoretical, empirical,
computational, conceptual) on the issues listed above. All
submissions should be sent electronically to [iida at csail.mit.edu] in
PDF format, which will be reviewed by the committee members. We are
planning to publish a follow-up proceedings after the conference.

IMPORTANT DATES: *** Submission Deadline Extended ***
	Abstract Submission deadline:      *January 12, 2007*
	Acceptance Notification:           *January 26, 2007*
	Early Registration:   		   February 16, 2007
	Workshop:                          March 26-28, 2007


===== Organizational Committee =====

	Norman Packard (ProtoLife)
	Rolf Pfeifer (University of Zurich)
	Mark Bedau (ProtoLife, Reed University)
	Fumiya Iida (MIT, University of Zurich)
			- scientific contact person -
		iida-at-csail.mit.edu
	Francesca Bernardi (ECLT)
			- organizational contact person -
		bernfran-at-unive.it
	

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Apologies for cross-posting. Please forward this announcement to all
those who might be interested. Thank you.
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-- 
Fumiya   IIDA     Dr. sc. nat.

Robot Locomotion Group
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
Office: 32-342

Phone: 	+1-617-324-9136
Fax; 	+1-617-253-0778
URL:	http://people.csail.mit.edu/iida/
e-mail: iida at csail.mit.edu