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Alife Digest Number 018
ALIFE LIST: Artificial Life Research List Number 18 Thursday, April 26th 1990
ARTIFICIAL LIFE RESEARCH ELECTRONIC MAILING LIST
Maintained by the Indiana University Artificial Life Research Group
Contents:
1980 NASA study of self-replicating systems
NIST Handprint (characters) Database, announcement
character recognition testing
Dynamic Programming/Optimization
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 90 10:59:02 PDT
From: Ralph Merkle <merkle@parc.xerox.com>
Subject: 1980 NASA study of self-replicating systems
In 1980 NASA conducted a workshop on "Advanced Automation
for Space Missions." A substantial portion of the resulting
report discussed a self-replicating lunar manufacturing
facility. Chapter 5, "Replicating systems concepts:
self-replicating lunar factory and demonstration" is about
150 pages long (the entire report is about 400 pages).
The chapter reviews self-replicating systems in general,
Von Neumann's work on self-replicating systems in particular,
discusses various strategies for self-replication, and goes
into considerable detail in the design of a lunar self-replicating
system based on conventional technology. The "seed" system
would be 100 tons -- about 4 Apollo missions to the moon.
In the "Conclusions and Recommendations" they say:
-----------------------------------
The Replicating Systems Concept Team reached the following
technical conclusions:
o The theoretical concept of machine duplication is
well developed. There are several alternative
strategies by which machine self-replication can be
carried out in a practical engineering setting.
o There is also available a body of theoretical automation
concepts in the realm of machine construction by machine,
in machine inspection of machines, and machine repair
of machines, which can be drawn upon to engineer practical
systems capable of replication.
o An engineering demonstration project can be initiated
immediately, to begin with simple replication of robot
assembler by robot assembler [the macroscopic variety]
from supplied parts, and proceeding in phased steps
to full reproduction of a complete machine processing
or factory system by another machine processing system,
supplied, ultimately, only with raw materials.
-----------------------------------
Interestingly, almost all of the complexity in the self-replicating
lunar manufacturing system involved making the parts. Assembly
of the parts, once manufactured, was simple by comparison. Of
course, nanotechnology should make the manufacture of parts
relatively easy....
The report also discusses the implications of self-replicating
systems. One consequence: "From the human standpoint, perhaps
the most exciting consequence of self-replicating systems is that
they provide a means for organizing potentially infinite quantities
of matter. This mass could be so organized as to produce an ever-
widening habitat for man throughout the Solar System. Self-replicating
homes, O'Neill-style space colonies, or great domed cities on
the surfaces of other worlds would allow a niche diversification
of such grand proportions as never before experienced by the
human species."
In the introduction, they say: "The 10-week study was conducted
during the summer of 1980 by 18 educators from universities
throughout the United States who worked with 15 NASA program
engineers."
Copies are available from NTIS. Mail order:
NTIS
U.S. Department of Commerce
National Technical Information Service
Springfield, VA. 22161
Telephone orders with payment via major credit cards are accepted.
Call: 703-487-4650 and request "N83-15348. Advanced Automation
for Space Missions." (To repeat in case of garbles: 703-487-4650,
NTIS order number: N83-15348).
Cost is about $40.00, various shipping options are available.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 90 13:22:28 -0500
From: Marek Lugowski <marek@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: NIST Handprint (characters) Database, announcement
[forwarded from connectionists-request@cs.cmu.edu -- Marek]
From: Handprint Sample Form Account <hsf@magi.ncsl.nist.gov>
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology
formerly National Bureau of Standards
Subject: character recognition testing
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
formerly National Bureau of Standards (NBS) has developed
a data base for testing handprint character recognition.
The database is on a ISO-9660 formated CD and is
described briefly below. Please forward this to
interested parties.
__________________________________________________________________
NIST Handprint Database
The NIST handprinted character database consists of 2100
pages of bilevel, black and white, image data of hand
printed numerals and text with a total character count of
over 1,000,000 characters. Data is compressed using CCIT
G4 compression and decompression software is provided in
C.
The total image database, in uncompressed form, contains
about 3 Gigabytes of image data, with 273,000 numerals
and 707,700 alphabetic characters. The handprinting
sample was obtained from a selection of field data
collection staff of the Bureau of the Census, with a
geographic sampling corresponding to the population
density of the United States. The geographical sampling
was done because previous national samples of
handprinted material have suggested that there are
significant regional differences in handprinting style.
Most of the individuals who participated in the sampling
are accustomed to filling out forms relatively neatly,
and so this sample may represent a "best possible" sample
of handprinting. Even so, the range of characters and
spatial placement of those characters is broad enough to
present very difficult challenges to the image
recognition systems currently available or likely to be
available in the near future.
Typical Use
This test data set was designed for multiple uses in the
area of image (character) recognition. The problem of
computer recognition of document content from images is
usually broken down into three operations. First the
relevant areas containing text are located. This is
usually referred to as field isolation. Next the entire
field image containing one or more characters is broken
into the images of individual characters. This process is
usually referred to as segmentation. Finally, these
isolated characters must be correctly interpreted. The
images in the data base are designed to test all three
of the processes.
The test data can be used for any one of the three
operations, although it is important to recognize that
the success of all subsequent steps in this process is
dependent on the success of the previous steps.
for further information contact:
Joan Sauerwine
301-975-2208
FAX 301-975-2183
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 24 Apr 90 21:13:37 EDT
From: Stevan Harnad <harnad@clarity.princeton.edu>
Subject: Dynamic Programming/Optimization
Below is the abstract of a forthcoming target article to appear in
Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international,
interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important
and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive
sciences. To be considered as a commentator or to suggest other appropriate
commentators, please send email to:
harnad@clarity.princeton.edu or write to:
BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542 [tel: 609-921-7771]
Please specify the aspect of the article that you are qualified and
interested to comment upon. If you are not a current BBS Associate,
please send your CV and/or the name of a current Associate who would be
prepared to nominate you.
____________________________________________________________________
Modeling Behavioral Adaptations
Colin W. Clark
Institute of Applied Mathematics
University of British Columbia
Vancouver BC V6T 1Y4
Canada
Keywords: Dynamic programming; optimization; control theory; game
theory; behavioral ecology; evolution; adaptation; fitness.
ABSTRACT: The behavioral landscape for any individual organism is a
complex dynamical system consisting of the individual's own
physiological and mental states and the state of the physical and
biological environment in which it lives. To understand the adaptive
significance of behavioral traits one must formulate, analyse and test
simplified models of this complex landscape. The target article
describes a technique of dynamic behavioral modeling with many
desirable characteristics. There is an explicit treatment of state
variables and their dynamics. Darwinian fitness is represented
directly in terms of survival and reproduction. Behavioral decisions
are modeled simultaneously and sequentially with biologically
meaningful parameters and variables, generating empirically testable
predictions. The technique has been applied to field and laboratory
data in a wide variety of species and behaviors. Some limitations
result from the unwieldiness of large-scale dynamic models in
parameter estimation and numerical computation. (This article is a
follow-up to a previous BBS paper by Houston & Macnamara, but it can
be read independently.)
------------------------------
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