[alife] "MORPHOGENETIC ENGINEERING" SPECIAL SESSION AT ECAL'15

[Hiroki Sayama]

Call for Papers

"MORPHOGENETIC ENGINEERING" SPECIAL SESSION AT ECAL'15

Following the success of three workshops (2009, 2011, 2014) and a previous 
special session (2010), the **5th Morphogenetic Engineering Event** will be 
programmed as a special session of ECAL'15, the 13th European Conference on 
Artificial Life, University of York, UK – 20-24 July 2015, 
http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/nature/ecal2015

This special session aims to promote and expand a new field of research 
called "Morphogenetic Engineering", which explores the artificial design and 
implementation of autonomous systems capable of developing complex, 
heterogeneous morphologies. Particular emphasis is set on the 
programmability and controllability of self-organization, properties that 
are often underappreciated in complex systems science--while, conversely, 
the benefits of self-organization are often underappreciated in engineering 
methodologies.

ORGANIZERS

* Rene Doursat, http://doursat.iscpif.fr
* Hiroki Sayama, http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~sayama

OVERVIEW

Traditional engineered products are generally made of a number of unique, 
heterogeneous components assembled in complicated but precise ways, and are 
intended to work deterministically following specifications given by their 
designers. By contrast, self-organization in natural complex systems 
(physical, biological, ecological, social) often emerges from the repetition 
of agents obeying identical rules under stochastic dynamics. These systems 
produce relatively regular patterns (spots, stripes, waves, trails, 
clusters, hubs, etc.) that can be characterized by a small number of 
statistical variables. They are random and/or shaped by boundary conditions, 
but do not exhibit an intrinsic architecture like engineered products do.

Salient exceptions, however, strikingly demonstrate the possibility of 
combining pure self-organization and elaborate architectures: biological 
development (the self-assembly of myriads of cells into the body plans and 
appendages of organisms) and insect constructions (the stigmergic 
collaboration of colonies of social insects toward large and complicated 
nests). These structures are composed of segments and parts arranged in very 
specific ways that resemble the products of human inventiveness. Yet, they 
entirely self-assemble in a decentralized fashion, under the control of 
genetic or behavioral rules stored in every agent.

How do these collectives (cells or insects) achieve such impressive 
morphogenetic tasks so reliably? Can we export their precise self-formation 
capabilities to engineered systems? What are principles and best practices 
for the design and engineering of such morphogenetic systems?

TOPICS OF INTEREST

* New principles of morphogenesis in artificial systems
* Bio-inspiration from plant vs. animal development
* Programmability of self-organizing morphogenetic systems
* Indirect, decentralized control of morphogenetic systems
* Sensitivity to environmental/boundary conditions vs. endogenous drive
* Evolvability, by variations and selection, of morphogenetic systems
* Links with evolutionary computation, artificial embryogeny, "evo-devo" 
approaches
* Swarm-based approaches to morphogenetic systems
* Design techniques for morphogenetic engineering
* Causalities between micro and macro properties of morphogenetic systems
* Physical implementations
* Applications to real-world problems (swarm robots, synthetic biologie, 
complex networks, etc.)
* Philosophical questions about morphogenetic engineering

REFERENCES

* Doursat, Sayama & Michel (2013) A review of morphogenetic engineering. 
Natural Computing 12(2): 517-535, http://doursat.free.fr/nacopub.html

* Doursat, Sayama & Michel (2012) Morphogenetic Engineering. 
Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-642-33901-1, http://doursat.free.fr/mebook.html

PAST EVENTS

Morphogenetic Engineering Workshops or Sessions (MEWs):

* 4th MEW, 2014 at Alife XIV, New York: http://iscpif.fr/MEW2014
* 3rd MEW, 2011 at ECAL'11, Paris: http://iscpif.fr/MEW2011
* 2nd MEW, 2010 at ANTS'10, Brussels: http://doursat.free.fr/MEW2010.html
* 1st MEW, 2009 at ISC-PIF, Paris: http://iscpif.fr/MEW2009

CALL FOR PAPERS

Special sessions help shape the programme of ECAL’15. Each special session 
showcases important, novel and/or emergent research directions in an area of 
interest to ECAL participants. Special session themes are typically focused, 
rather than broadly defined, and generally comprise 5 papers. All papers in 
the session will be reviewed through the same review process as the regular 
papers of the conference to ensure that the contributions are of high 
scientific quality.

There are two options for submission: either full paper or abstract, using 
the same text format. The only difference resides in the number of pages and 
type of contents: (a) Full papers have an 8-page maximum length and should 
report on new, unpublished work. (b) Abstracts are limited to a 1-page 
length and can report on previously published work, but offer a new 
perspective on that work. Papers and abstracts will be selected for oral or 
poster presentation, with no distinction being made between full papers and 
abstracts.

http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/nature/ecal2015/submissions.html

* Paper submission deadline : 2nd March
* Notification of acceptance: 17th April
* Paper CRC required: 18th May
* Session date: TBA between 20-24th July