[alife] CompOrigins: CFP for Alife XII, Aug 19-23, Odense, Denmark

[Tom Barbalet]

For Bruce Damer:

Artificial Life XII Conference, Odense, Denmark, Aug 19-23, 2010
Conference web site:
http://www.alife12.org/
Call for Papers or Abstracts (deadline March 31st):
http://www.alife12.org/cfp/

Call for Papers and Abstracts for new session (conference track):
CompOrigins: A New Generation of Computing Supporting Origin of Life Research 
Co-chairs: Bruce Damer (DigitalSpace), David Deamer (UC Santa Cruz)

Members of the scientific computing, bio-simulation, virtual environments, and artificial life communities are invited to submit papers or abstracts to the upcoming Artificial Life 12 conference. This year a new session on the emerging field of Computational Origins of Life (or "CompOrigins") is being organized for the conference program. CompOrigins is conceived of as a new branch of simulation science aimed at studying emergent complexity in structures and interaction sequences that could provide insights in the quest for the Origin of Life (OOL) and to study the early steps towards the evolution of life on Earth. Of particular interest to the Alife XII conference CompOrigins session are simulation systems for computational chemistry that could serve as an experimental framework to aid in "wet" chemical Alife and protocell research. 

The use of massive grids of multi-core processors or GPUs and computational chemistry simulation to support virtual experimentation of specific living systems including: whole life cycle models, membrane formation, RNA Worlds, Lipid Worlds, autocatalytic sets, minimal cells/viruses/prions, protocell/n-mer paired experiments in wet-dry cycles, and others, are all of relevance. "Hard" (robotic) Alife systems, abstract universes with evolvable entities, coarse graining and supramolecular approaches, multi-scale multi-physics, "strong" vs "weak" Alife discussions, and philosophical questions are also of interest to this session, though with the emphasis on the transition from nonlife to life.

Contact for questions on the CompOrigins session: Bruce Damer,bdamer at digitalspace.com, phone: +1 (831) 338-9400, Skype: bdamer

For details about submissions to Alife XII see:
http://www.alife12.org/cfp/