1st CfP: Special Issue on the Evolution of Complexity, Artificial Life journal

[Stephen Guerin]

Carlos asked me to forward this as he's on vacation and temporarily unsubscribed
to FRIAM.

-S



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CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Issue of the Artificial Life journal on the Evolution of Complexity
http://ecco.vub.ac.be/ECO/


Guest Editors

Carlos Gershenson
Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160,
Brussels, Belgium http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/
cgershen at vub.ac.be

Tom Lenaerts
SWITCH, Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology Vrije Universiteit
Brussel, Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium http://switch.vub.ac.be/~tlenaert/
tlenaert at vub.ac.be


Motivation

As a result of the quality of the Evolution of Complexity workshop at ALife X
last June in Bloomington and the interest of the attendants; we announce a call
for papers for a special issue on this theme for the Artificial Life Journal.

The evolution of complexity is a central theme in Biology. Yet it is not without
ambiguity. Complexity has been used to refer to different things. For instance,
complexification has been interpreted as a process of diversification between
evolving units or as a scaling process that is related to the idea of
transitions between different levels of complexity. Other meanings of complexity
have been introduced, both inside and outside of Biology. In most cases, though,
the central concern is to understand what produces complexity.

The focus of this special issue will be on biological interpretations of
complexity and on evolutionary and related dynamics as driving mechanisms for
producing complexity. Questions to be addressed in the special issue include:

-- How could complexity growth be measured or operationalised in natural and
artificial living systems?

-- How can existing data from nature be brought to bear on the study of this
issue?

-- What are the main hypotheses about complexity growth that can actually be
tested today?

-- Are the principles of natural selection as they are currently understood
sufficient to explain the evolution of complexity in living systems?

-- What are the environmental and other constraints of the evolution of
complexity in living systems?

-- What is the role of developmental mechanisms in the evolution of complexity
in living systems?

-- What are conditions could reduce evolved complexity in living systems?

-- How factors allow the evolution of complexity in living systems to be
manipulated and controlled?

-- What models are most appropriate for understanding the evolution of
complexity in living systems?


Paper Submission:

Submitted articles and letters should follow the submission guidelines of the
Artificial Life Journal, available at http:// mitpress.mit.edu/ALIFE. Authors
should also include a cover letter describing briefly the relevance of their
article to the specific topic of this call.

These articles and letters should NOT be submitted to the journal editor, but
should be uploaded through the special issue website:  
http://ecco.vub.ac.be/ECO/

Papers will be judged by members of the Program Committee on their relevance to
the call for papers, originality, clarity of the presentation, and overall
quality.


Important Dates:

Submission deadline: December 15th, 2006 Notification of acceptance: February
1st, 2007 Camera-ready papers due: March 1st, 2007

Program Committee:

Chris Adami
Lee Altenberg
Mark Bedau
Hugues Bersini
John Bonner
Dominique Chu
Jim Crutchfield
Bruce Edmonds
Carlos Gershenson
Mario Giacobini
Franics Heylighen
Tom Lenaerts
Juan Juli?n Merelo
Barry McMullin
Chrystopher Nehaniv
Charles Ofria
Jorge Pacheco
Tom Ray
Jon Rowe
Stanley Salthe
Cosma Shalizi
Richard Watson
Larry Yaeger

________________________________________
Stephen.Guerin at Redfish.com
www.Redfish.com
624 Agua Fria Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501
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