[alife] 1st CFP: ECAL 2009, Budapest, Sept 13-16.

[Kampis]

CALL FOR PAPERS: ECAL2009 
Darwin Meets von Neumann
International Conference on the Simulation and Synthesis of Living Systems 
13th - 16th September 2009, Budapest, Hungary
www.ecal2009.org  
You are invited to submit papers to the upcoming European Conference on Artificial Life. Please forward this call responsibly.


IMPORTANT DATES

      Call For Workshops
     Feb 15
     
      Call for Papers (CFP)

      2nd CFP
     Feb 15

      March 30
     
      Workshop and Tutorial submission
     March 30
     
      Paper and abstract submission
     April 30
     
      Paper and abstract notification
     May 30
     
      Camera ready papers
     June 15
     
      Early /regular/late registration
     May  15/ June 30 /Aug 15
     



OVERVIEW
Artificial Life is an interdisciplinary enterprise investigating the fundamental properties of living systems through simulating and synthesizing biological entities and processes in artificial media. ECAL, the European Conference on Artificial Life, is a biannual meeting complementing the mostly US-based "ALife" conference series. 


Over the past two decades, some of the highly speculative ideas that were discussed at the field's inception have matured to the extent that new conferences and journals devoted to them are being established: synthesising artificial cells, simulating massive biological networks, exploiting biological substrates for computation and control, and deploying bio-inspired engineering are now cutting-edge practice. In the same period, biological knowledge grew at an unprecedented rate, giving rise to entire new disciplines, such as systems biology, and witnessed the rapid advancement of modelling and quantitative methods throughout the field.  ECAL209 endeavours to bring together experts of computational and other ALife methods with more "conventional" mathematical modellers, reflecting on the fact that boundaries become rapidly blurred. 

 

ECAL2009 will be held in Budapest, Hungary, in the magnificent historical building of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.



The ECAL2009 conference provides an opportunity for those working across these topics to get together and exchange ideas and results.  To this end, the conference will present a selection of the best current work in the field, highlight new directions for investigation, and present high-profile keynote speakers. 

Papers are welcome in all areas of the field, including:

  a.. Synthesis and origin of life, self-organization, self-replication, artificial chemistries 
  b.. Evolution and adaptation, evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary games, co-evolution, major evolutionary transitions, levels of selection, ecosystems 
  c.. Development, differentiation, and regulation; generative representations
  d.. Synthetic biology, wet artificial life 
  e.. Self-organizing technology, self-* computing and computational ecosystems
  f.. Unconventional and biologically inspired computing
  g.. Bio-inspired robots and embodied cognition, autonomous agents, evolutionary robotics 
  h.. Collective behavior, communication, cooperation 
  i.. Artificial consciousness; the relationship between life and mind
  j.. Philosophical, ethical, and cultural implications
  k.. Mathematical and philosophical foundations of Alife, new and creative syntheses
All authors are encouraged to explain how their work sheds light on the fundamental properties of living systems and makes progress on the important open questions identified at previous meetings.

PAPER/ABSTRACT FORMAT
There are two options for submission: either full paper format or abstract format.  Full papers have an 8 page maximum length, while abstracts are limited to 500 words.  Every submission will be subject to full peer review.  All accepted submissions will be allocated an oral presentation slot with no distinction being made between the two submission formats.  All formatting guidelines (including word and latex style files) and submission instructions will be available on the conference submission page by March 30.

PUBLICATION
Every accepted full-paper and abstract submission will be published online. The best 15-20 papers are planned to be published in special issues of the MIT Press journal Artificial Life. Check back for full details after March 30!

ORGANIZATION
George Kampis, Eörs Szathmáry (chairs), Chrisantha Fernando, Márk Jelasity, Ferenc Jordán, András Lőrincz, István Scheuring


CONTACT
For further information about the conference program, travel, accommodation, and local arrangements, please see the rest of this website, www.ecal2009.org, after March 30. For questions about the submission and reviewing process, please email submissions at ecal2009.org.  For all other questions, contact questions at ecal2009.org.