[alife] CFP: Workshop on Computation in Genetic and Biochemical Networks

[Michael Lones]

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                      >> Call for Papers - CoGBiN 2006 <<

Workshop on Computation in Genetic and Biochemical Networks

http://www.elec.york.ac.uk/intsys/events/cogbin2006/

Part of UC 2006:
The 5th International Conference on Unconventional Computation
York, United Kingdom, 4th-8th September 2006
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WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

Biological organisms appear orders of magnitude more complex than
present-day computational systems, but current understanding of their
genetic definition suggests they consist of only a relatively small
number of functional components. For example, a human is specified
by at most 25000 genes, yet this is sufficient for the development of
an organism comprising on the order of 10^13 cells. Furthermore, the
human genome contains only about 5000 more genes than that of
C. elegans, an organism of considerably lower complexity. This
highlights the fact that the source of biological complexity lies not
within the individual gene products but rather within their interactions
and consequent organisation into genetic and biochemical networks.

Recently there has been much interest in the nature of computation
carried out by biological networks: both from the perspective of
biologists trying to understand biological function, and from members
of the computational community interested in how complex networks
can be used to carry out useful computation both in silico and in vivo.

This workshop aims to address a number of questions:

What forms of information processing take place within biological
networks?
How can these be usefully modelled for computational purposes?
How expressive are these models of computation?
How can such models be programmed?
What are their advantages/disadvantages over conventional forms of
computation?
How can these models be used to understand biological systems?


TOPICS

We encourage the submission of unpublished theoretical and
experimental research results and review papers from members of
the biological and computational communities.

Relevant topics include, but are not limited to:
o Computational models of genetic and biochemical networks
o Information processing in biological networks
o Models of genetic regulation
o Computational complexity
o Chaos and dynamic systems theory
o Developmental models in evolutionary and neural computation
o Evolvability, adaptability, and programmability
o Cellular automata models
o Regulatory network control in artificial systems


IMPORTANT DATES

Paper submission deadline: 1st May 2006
Acceptance notification: 1st July 2006


PUBLICATION AND SUBMISSION

Selected papers from the workshop will be considered for
publication in the journal BioSystems.

Please see the workshop website for submission guidelines:
http://www.elec.york.ac.uk/intsys/events/cogbin2006/


ORGANISING COMMITTEE

Michael Lones, Department of Electronics, University of York
Andy Tyrrell, Department of Electronics, University of York
Martyn Amos, Department of Computer Science, University of Exeter
David Hodgson, School of Biological Sciences, University of Warwick


PROGRAMME COMMITTEE

Martyn Amos, University of Exeter, UK
Wolfgang Banzhaf, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Peter Bentley, University College London, UK
Gary Fogel, Natural Selection Inc., USA
Pauline Haddow, Norwegian University of Science and Technology  
(NTNU), Norway
David Hodgson, University of Warwick, UK
Lila Kari, University of Western Ontario, Canada
Ottoline Leyser, University of York, UK
Julian Miller, University of York, UK
Chrystopher Nehaniv, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Ron Weiss, Princeton University, USA