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Alife Digest Number 065
Alife Digest, Number 065
Tuesday, October 15th 1991
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Artificial Life Distribution List ~
~ ~
~ All submissions for distribution to: alife@cognet.ucla.edu ~
~ All list subscriber additions, deletions, or administrative details to: ~
~ alife-request@cognet.ucla.edu ~
~ All software, tech reports to Alife depository through ~
~ anonymous ftp at polaris.cognet.ucla.edu in ~ftp/pub/alife ~
~ ~
~ List maintainers: Liane Gabora and Rob Collins ~
~ Artificial Life Research Group, UCLA ~
~ ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Today's Topics:
Calender of Alife-Related Events
Technical Report Available
Alife University Course
Request for Information: Alife and Economics
ECAL91 programme
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Date: Tue, 15 Oct 91 17:11:24 -0700
From: liane@cs.ucla.edu (Liane Gabora)
Subject: Calender of Alife-related Events
**********************************************************************
CALENDAR OF ALIFE-RELATED ACTIVITIES:
First European Conference on Artificial Life Dec 11-13, 1991
ECAI 92, 10th European Conference on AI Aug 3-7, 1992
Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, Brussels Sep 28-30, 1992
10th National Conference on AI, San Jose Jul 12-17, 1992
Canadian AI Conference, Vancouver May 11-15, 1992
(Send announcements of other activities to alife@cognet.ucla.edu)
**********************************************************************
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Date: Thu, 03 Oct 91 11:43:30 EDT
From: stefano nolfi <STIVA%IRMKANT.BITNET@mvs.oac.ucla.edu>
Subject: Technical Report Available
The following technical report is available.
Send request to STIVA at IRMKANT.BITNET
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Learning, Behavior, and Evolution
Domenico Parisi Stefano Nolfi Federico Cecconi
Institute of Psychology
CNR - Rome
e-mail: stiva@irmkant.Bitnet
Abstract
We present simulations of evolutionary processes operating on populations
of neural networks to show how learning and behavior can influence
evolution within a strictly Darwinian framework. Learning can accelerate
the evolutionary process both when learning tasks correlated with the
fitness criterion and when random learning tasks are used. Furthermore,
an ability to learn a task can emerge and be transmitted evolutionarily
for both correlated and uncorrelated tasks. Finally, behavior that allows
the individual to self-select the incoming stimuli can influence evolution
by becoming one of the factors that determine the observed phenotypic
fitness on which selective reproduction is based. For all the effects
demonstrated, we advance a consistent explanation in terms of a
multidimensional weight space for neural networks, a fitness surface for
the evolutionary task, and a performance surface for the learning task.
This paper will be presented at ECAL-91 - European Conference on Artificial
Life, December 1991, Paris.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 8:23:59 PDT
From: John Koza <koza@sunburn.stanford.edu>
Subject: Alife University Course
SUBJECT: Request for Info on ALIFE courses at universities
FR; Koza@sunburn.stanford.edu
I am writing a proposal for an artificial life course to be offered at
Stanford in Fall 1992 and would appreciate information (e.g. course outlines,
etc.) on any existing Alife courses. The only one I aware of at the moment
is being taught now at Portland State by Prof. Martin Zwick. He is using
volumes 1 and 2 of Langton's Alife books as texts. He has been helpful to me
and is reachable at (503) 725-4987 and zwick@simon.sysc.pdx.edu. I'll be
happy to pass along anything I receive in response to this request.
John Koza
Computer Science Dept.
Stanford University
Margaret Jacks Hall
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
Thanks.
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Date: Fri, 11 Oct 91 11:36 BST
From: ECONEC@vax.oxford.ac.uk
Subject: REQUEST FOR INFORMATION: ALIFE AND ECONOMICS
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
I am studying for an MLitt/DPhil at the Oxford University and would be very
grateful for some help. This message is being transmitted to several relevant
lists and please feel free to forward it to anyone who might be interested.
Apologies in advance to anyone who gets fed up with seeing it!
1) REQUEST: I am interested in references and names for work broadly in the
area of AI techniques applied to economics. To narrow this down, I am
interested in AI as a tool for developing alternative models of economic
behaviour than the traditional view of man as a perfectly informed calculating
machine! Because of the behavioural aspect and my preference for economic
theory I am hoping to avoid work that simply uses AI techniques to solve
traditional models faster. (GAs as function optimisers for instance.) Similarly
I am not seeking information on decision support or Expert Systems unless they
make some attempt (or claim) to emulate human decision making behaviour.
(Default Logics? Frames?) Please err on the side of completeness!
2) OFFER: Obviously I can provide summaries of my findings to various lists
in the usual way. (Perhaps you could say where you saw my post so I can keep
the summaries relevant to each list.) What I would also like to do is find out
whether there is any interest in an adhoc email list of people working in this
area. Or if there is one already I would very much like to hear about it. I'm
sure such things have been going for years in the US but information here in the
UK seems very sparse. I would be quite happy to "maintain" an unofficial
bulletin board or mailing list if one does not exist.
Many thanks in advance for any help and please feel free to contact me on any
aspect of this posting.
Edmund Chattoe
SNAIL: LADY MARGARET HALL
OXFORD
OXON
OX2 6QA
EMAIL: econec@vax.oxford.ac.uk
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 91 12:06:13 GMT
From: ecal@cgref.cemagref.fr (European Conference on Artificial Life)
Subject: ECAL91 programme
Please find enclosed an E-mail version of ECAL91 programme (more up-to-date
than the paper programme). You can use the registration form enclosed,
granted that you send your payment by regular mail at the given address.
=====================CUT HERE====================CUT HERE======================
1st European Conference on Artificial Life
_______________________________________________________________________________
PROGRAMME - PROGRAMME - PROGRAMME- PROGRAMME
_______________________________________________________________________________
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_______________________________________________________________________________
To be held on December 11-13 1991
in Centre des Congres de la Villette
Salle Laser
cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie
Paris, France
Publisher : MIT Press / Bradford Books
Sponsors :
la Cite
CEMAGREF
Banque de France
CNR
Fondation de France
AFCET
Electricite de France
CREA
Offilib
===============================================================================
^L
1st European Conference on Artificial Life
_______________________________________________________________________________
Artificial life: a new scientific field
Artificial life embodies a recent and important conceptual step in modern
science: asserting that the core of intelligence and cognitive abilities is the
same as the capacity for living. Metaphorically, artificial life would see in
the modest insect rather than in the symbolic abilities of an expert the best
prototype for intelligence . What needs to be understood and characterized is
the class of processes that endow living creatures with their characteric
autonomy, key properties such as viability, abduction and adaptability. The
autonomy of the living beings is understood here both with regards to their
actions and to the way in which they shape their world into significance. This
exploration goes hand in hand with the theory, design and construction of
simple autonomous agents.
The recent surge of interest in 'artificial life' has to be understood in the
context of the long tradition inaugurated with cybernetics, seeking common
basis for the living and the artificial. Artificial life can take advantage of
the years of research in the tradition of symbolic computation that still
characterizes most of the research in artificial intelligence, as well as the
more recent explosive development of neural networks and connectionist
approaches. Artificial life also induces a renewal of a whole range of
engineering traditions, such as control theory and robotics, beyond classical
notions of goal and planning, into biologically inspired notions of viability
and adaptation, situatedness and operational closure, thus putting evolutionary
processes at the very center of the stage.
The first European meeting intends to highlight the practice of such autonomous
systems in all their forms, by hosting the presentation and discussion of the
most recent research in the area. Beyond research results, another main
intention of the meeting is to engage researchers and philosophers to examine
the epistemological basis of this new trend. Only a sustained analysis of the
main concepts and ideas can provide a fertile ground for important advances and
a change of research paradigm.
Conference Chairs : Paul Bourgine and Francisco Varela
Programme Committee :
H. Bersini, B Ch. G. Langton, USA
R. Brooks, USA J. A. Meyer, F
J. Demongeot, F H.Schwefel, FRG
B. Goodwin, UK D. Parisi, I
S. Kauffman, USA
Organizing Committee :
I. Alvarez V. Douzal
L. Bochereau T. Fuhs
G. Deffuant
===============================================================================
^L
1st European Conference on Artificial Life
_______________________________________________________________________________
Wednesday December 11
8:00 REGISTRATION
9:30 WELCOME ADDRESS
Paul BOURGINE, CEMAGREF - (F), Francisco VARELA, CREA - (F)
9:45 AUTONOMOUS ROBOTS (I)
Invited lecture:
Rodney BROOKS, MIT - (USA)
"Robots and artificial life"
Uwe SCHNEPF, GMD - (FRG), Mukesh J. PATEL, University of Sussex - (UK)
"Concept formation as Emergent Phenomena"
Rolf PFEIFER, Free University of Brussels - (B), Paul VERSCHURE, Univ. of
California, Santa Cruz (USA)
"Distributed adaptive control : a paradigm for autonomous agents"
Break / refreshments
Tim SMITHERS, University of Edimburgh - (UK)
"Taking eliminative materialism seriously : a methodology for autonomous
systems research"
Leslie P. KAELBLING, Brown University - (USA)
"An adaptable mobile robot"
Pattie MAES, MIT - (USA)
"Learning behavior networks from experience"
13:15 LUNCH
14:30 SWARM INTELLIGENCE
Invited lecture:
Jean-Louis DENEUBOURG, Free University of Brussels - (B)
"Swarm-made architecture"
Alberto COLORNI, Marco DORIGO, Vittorio MANIEZZO, Politecnico di Milano - (I)
"Distributed optimization by ant colonies"
Andrew M. ASSAD, Univ. of Illinois - (USA), Norman H. PACKARD, Inst. for
Scientific Interchange - (I)
"Emergent colonization in an artificial ecology"
Gerardo BENI, Susan HACKWOOD, Univ. of California, Riverside - (USA)
"The maximum entropy principle and sensing in swarm intelligence"
Break / refreshments
17:00 EPISTEMOLOGICAL ISSUES
Stefan HELMREICH, Stanford University - (USA)
"The historical and epistemological ground of von Neumann's theory of
self-reproducing automata and theory of games"
Jean-Luc DORMOY, EDF - (F), Sylvie KORNMAN, LAFORIA - (F)
"Meta-knowledge, autonomy and (artificial) evolution : some lessons learnt so
far"
18:00 POSTERS AND DEMOS
===============================================================================
^L
1st European Conference on Artificial Life
_______________________________________________________________________________
Thursday December 12
9:00 EPISTEMOLOGICAL ISSUES (Continued)
R. Allen GARDNER, Beatrix T. GARDNER, University of Nevada - (USA)
"A feedforward model of animal learning"
Bernard MANDERICK, Free University of Brussels - (B)
"Selectionist systems as cognitive systems"
Break / refreshments
10:15 AUTONOMOUS ROBOTS (II)
Ian HORSWILL, MIT - (USA)
"Characterizing adaptation by constraint"
Didier KEYMEULEN, Jo DECUYPER, Free University of Brussels - (B)
"On the self-organizing properties of topological maps"
Piet SPIESSENS, Jan TORREELE, Free University of Brussels - (B)
"Massively parallel evolution of recurrent networks : an approach to temporal
processing"
Dave CLIFF, University of Sussex - (UK)
"Neural networks for visual tracking in an artificial fly"
12:45 LUNCH
14:15 LEARNING AND EVOLUTION
Invited lecture:
Domenico PARISI, Stefano NOLFI, Federico CECCONI, CNR - (I)
"Learning, behaviour, and evolution"
Hugues BERSINI, Free University of Brussels - (B)
"Immune network and adaptive control"
Franck HOFFMEISTER, Thomas BACK , University of Dortmund - (FRG)
"Genetic self-learning"
Heinz MUHLENBEIN, GMD - (FRG)
"Darwin's continent cycle theory and its simulation by the Prisoner's dilemna"
Break / refreshments
Melanie MITCHELL, John H. HOLLAND, University of Michigan - (USA), Stephanie
FORREST, University of New Mexico - (USA)
"The royal road for genetic algorithms : fitness landscapes and GA performance"
Brad FULLMER, Risto MIIKKULAINEN, University of Texas - (USA)
"Evolving finite state behaviour using marker-based genetic encoding of neural
networks"
18:00 Invited lecture:
Stuart KAUFMANN , University of Pennsylvania - (USA)
"Waiting for Carnot"
20:30 DINNER
===============================================================================
^L
1st European Conference on Artificial Life
_______________________________________________________________________________
Friday December 13
9:30 ADAPTIVE AND EVOLUTIONARY MECHANISMS
Barry McMULLIN, Dublin City University - (UK)
"The Holland alpha-Universes revisited"
Robert J. COLLINS, David R. JEFFERSON, University of California - (USA)
"The evolution of sexual selection and female choice"
Filippo MENCZER, Domenico PARISI, CNR - (I)
"A model for the emergence of sex in evolving networks : adaptive advantage or
random drift ?"
Break / refreshments
Inman HARVEY, University of Sussex - (UK)
"Species adaptation genetic algorithms : a basis for a continuing SAGA"
Jakob SKIPPER, Niels Bohr Institute - (Dk)
"The complete zoo evolution in a box"
Jeffrey HORN, University of Illinois - (USA)
"Measuring the evolving complexity of stimulus-response organisms"
13:15 LUNCH
14:30 CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS
Hugues BERSINI, Free University of Brussels - (B)
"Animat's I"
Claus EMMECHE, Institute of Computer and Systems Sciences - (Dk)
"Life as an abstract phenomenon : is Artificial Life possible ?"
John STEWART - Paris (F)
"Life=cognition : the epistemological and ontological signifance of Artificial
Life"
Break / refreshments
Peter CARIANI, Boston - (USA)
"Some epistemological implications of devices which construct their own sensors
and effectors"
Mark A. BEDAU, Reed College - (USA)
"Philosophical aspects of Articial Life"
17:30 CONCLUDING REMARKS
===============================================================================
^L
1st European Conference on Artificial Life
_______________________________________________________________________________
POSTER SESSION
Petr KURKA, Charles University - (Cz)
"Natural Selection in a population of automata"
Thomas BACK, University of Dortmund - (FRG)
"Self-adaptation in genetic algorithms"
Robert DAVIDGE, University of Sussex - (UK)
"Looking at life"
Hugo de GARIS, Free University of Brussels - (B)
"Streerable GenNets : the genetic programming of controllable behaviors in
GenNets"
Bruno MARCHAL, Free University of Brussels - (B)
"Amoeba, planaria and dreaming machines"
Alexis DROGOUL, Jacques FERBER, LAFORIA - (F)
"A behavioural simulation model for the study of emergent social structures"
Antonio RIZZO, CNR - (I), Neil BURGESS, University of Manchester - (UK)
"Action based neural network for adaptive control : the tank case"
John R. KOZA, Stanford University - (USA)
"Evolving emergent wall following robotic behavior using the genetic
programming paradigm"
Bruno GAS, Rene NATOWICZ, ESIEE - (F)
"A non-supervised continuous learning model of neural network for temporal
sequence recognition"
Eric DEDIEU, Emmanuel MAZER, IMAG - (F)
"The SWALLOW modeler : an approach to sensory relevance"
Gilles VENTURINI, ESIEE - (F)
"Characterizing the adaptation abilities of a class of genetic base machine
learning algorithms"
Barbara WEBB, Tim SMITHERS, University of Edimburgh - (UK)
"The connection between AI and biology in the study of behaviour"
Ulrich NEHMZOW, Tim SMITHERS, University of Edimburgh - (UK)
"Using motor actions for location recognition"
Stephen TODD, Wiliam LATHAM, IBM - (UK)
"Artificial life or surreal art?"
R.C. PATON , H. S. NWANA, M. J. SHAVE, T. J. BENCH-CAPON, University of
Liverpool - (UK)
"Computing at the tissue/organ level (with particular reference to the liver)"
Pierre BESSIERE, IMAG - (F)
"Genetic Algorithms applied to formal neural networks : parallel genetic
implementation of a Boltzmann machine and associated robotic experimentations"
Karl SIMS, Thinking Machines Corp. - (USA)
"Interactive evolution of dynamical systems"
Nicolas MEULEAU, CEMAGREF - (F)
"Co-evolution and mimetism : a program simulating road traffic"
Christian NOTTOLA, Frederic LEROY, Banque de France - (F)
"Dynamics of artificial markets
M. SNAITH, 0.HOLLAND, TAG - (UK)
"Application of the temporal difference learning to the neural control of
quadrupede locomotion"
Simon GOOS, Jean-Louis DENEUBOURG, Free University of Brussels - (B)
"Harvesting by a group of robots"
===============================================================================
1st European Conference on Artificial Life
_______________________________________________________________________________
Registration Form
Name : ...................... First name : .......................
Firm :..............................................................
Address : ............................................................
......................................................................
Zip code : ............. City : .....................................
Country : ................................
Phone : ............ Fax : ...............
Email : ..................................
Invoice to be sent to : ................................
Registration fees Before 20/11/91 After 20/11/91
_______________________________________________________________________________
Students* o FF 750 o FF 750
University Members o FF 1500 o FF 1750
Others o FF 2200 o FF 2500
_______________________________________________________________________________
* Student status proof required
These fees include all refreshments and lunches.
Payment (in french francs only, foreign cheques accepted):
o Cheques (to be sent to ECAL 91)
please note that all charges, if any, must be at the participants'
expense.
o Banker's draft to the order of ECAL:
Credit Lyonnais, bank account 30002 08948 0000079087X 55 Versailles StLouis,
F-78000. PLease ask your bank to arrange the transfer at no cost for the
beneficiary. Bank charges, if any, will be at the participants' expense.
Travel
Please, send me
o Domestic railway discount ticket SNCF (20%)
o Domestic flight discount ticket Air Inter (35%)
Cancellations
Refunds of 50 % will be made if a written request is received before November
30. No refunds will be made for cancellations received after this date. In case
of conference cancellation beyond its control, ECAL organizing committee limits
its liability to the registration fees already paid.
Date Signature
Send this form to :
ECAL 91
17 allee Gabrielle d'Estrees
F-75019 Paris
FRANCE
Further information concerning registration :
Fax : (+33) 1 40 96 60 80
Voice : (+33) 1 40 96 61 79
E-mail : ecal@cemagref.fr
===============================================================================
1st European Conference on Artificial Life
_______________________________________________________________________________
General Information
___________________
Language
The conference will be conducted in English.
Accommodation
Hotel Forest Hill La Villette *** (5-minutes walk )
26 av. Corentin Cariou, Paris.
Tel : +33 1 44 72 15 30, fax: 33 1 44 72 15 80.
Single or double rooms: 480FF, special price for ECAL participants.
Hotel Arcade La Villette ** (5-minutes walk)
Tel : +33 1 40 38 04 04
Single: 390FF, double room: 420FF. Please reserve at least 30 days in advance.
Hotel Campanile Pantin ** (10-minutes walk)
Tel : +33 1 48 91 32 76
Single or double rooms: 335FF. Please reserve at least 45 days in advance.
Tel : +33 (1) 48 91 32 76
Reservation centers (other hotels):
Tel: 33 1 47 27 15 15 (500 to 700FF rooms).
Tel: 33 1 43 59 12 12. (Elysee 12 12).
Tel: 33 1 42 56 30 00, fax 33 1 42 89 42 97 (Paris Sejour Reservations)
Tourist information : 33 1 47 23 61 72
Cheaper accomodations are available at:
Centre de sejour Eugene Henaff
Tel 33 (1) 48 39 19 05
Entry visas
___________
For non European Community members, please check with the french consulate
whether you need a Visa.
Access to Paris cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie
___________________________________________________
La cite des Sciences et de l'Industrie is located in northeast Paris, at La
Villette Park, 30, avenue Corentin Cariou, 75019 Paris. It is 40 minutes from
Roissy and Orly airports. You can reach the Cite:
by car: Circular highway, Porte de la Villette exit. Parking available at quai
de la Charente and Boulevard Macdonald;
by metro: Line 7, Porte de la Villette station;
by bus: lines 150-152-250A-PC.
For information about the cite des Sciences, call 33 1 46 42 13 13
(round-the-clock), or by Minitel: 3615 code Villette.
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End of ALife Digest
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