To: alife@cognet.ucla.edu
Subject:  Alife Digest Volume #086

                       Alife Digest, Number 086
                    Wednesday, September 30th 1992

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Today's Topics:

                   Calendar of Alife-related Events
                 Advantages of Lamarckian evolution?
                         Expert Systems Help
                    IWANN'93 last Call for Papers

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 30 Sep 92 17:29:17 -0700
From: liane@CS.UCLA.EDU (Liane Gabora)
Subject: Calendar of Alife-related Events

 **********************************************************************

 9th Brazilian Symposium on AI, Rio de Janeiro           Oct 5-8, 1992      v79
 Worshop on Neural Networks, Liverpool, England          Sep 7-8, 1992      v74
 Parallel Problem Solving from Nature, Brussels          Sep 28-30, 1992    v77
 State of the Art in Ecological Modelling, Kiel Germany  Sep 28-Oct 2, 1992 v82
 Neural Processing Information Systems (NIPS), Denver    Nov 28-Dec 3, 1992 v73
 Simulation of Adaptive Behavior, Honolulu, Hawaii       Dec 7-11, 1992     v74
 Conference on Complex Systems, Canberra Australia       Dec 14-15, 1992    v84
 International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii     Jan 5-8, 1993 v74
 Conf on Neural Networks, San Francisco CA               Mar 28-Apr 1, 1993 v79
 Conf on Fuzzy Systems, San Francisco CA                 Mar 28-Apr 1, 1993 v79
 AI and Simulation of Behaviour Conf, Birmingham UK      Mar 29-Apr 2, 1993 v75
 Intnl Conf on Neural Nets and GAs, Innsbruck, Austria   Apr 13-16, 1993    v80
 BEAM Robot Olympics, Toronto Canada                     Apr 22-25, 1993    v81
 European Conf on ALife, Brussels                        May 24-26, 1993    v82
 Intnl Workshop Neural Networks, Barcelona Spain         June 9-11, 1993    v76
 Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology, Washington   July 7-9, 1993     v84
 Fifth Intnl Conf on GAs, Urbana-Champaign IL            July 17-22, 1993   v80

 (Send announcements of other activities to alife@cognet.ucla.edu)

 **********************************************************************

------------------------------

From: szabo@techbook.com (Nick Szabo)
Subject: Advantages of Lamarckian evolution?
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 92 12:32:12 PDT

A comment about artificial Lamarckian evolution on another
forum intrigued me into writing the following response:

> While it's certainly conceivable to design a self-reproducing 
> machine that inherits acquired characteristics (consider the 
> self-reproducing program that disassembles its running core image),
> but I don't see why you'd want to build one.

It adds another feedback loop to the search algorithm that is 
evolution.  For example, if that core contains the password file,
it might be very beneficial to an evolving network worm if it 
incorporates that information into its and its descendants' code. 
Under a non-Lamarkian genetic algorithm the baby worm has to build 
its own password files from scratch.  On the other hand, if password files 
change too quickly, the genetic code could become too bulky to be useful, 
so Lamarkian evolution might need to be accompanied by some purging 
mechanism.

(I'd hope nobody would want to build such a thing, but the phenomenon
might be useful to humans in another context).

For a present-day biological example, think of the giraffe:
if it could have fed back its neck-stretching into its genetic
code, it would have evolved to fit its new tall-tree-leaf-eating 
niche much faster.

This brings up an a-life question: I've seen combined genetic 
algorithm/neural nets where the genetic algorithm does
the global search, encoding the initial weights for neural nets
which do the local search.  I wonder, under what conditions
would sexually recombining with the learned weights help, and under 
what conditions would it hurt?  Has this experiment been tried?
(If we just fed the learned weights directly to the next generation
it would, I reckon, be no different then doing further learning
on the same net and getting rid of the genetic algorithm).

Nick Szabo
szabo@techbook.com

------------------------------

Date:         Fri, 18 Sep 92 10:34:58 BSC
From: Leandro KOMOSINSKI <CEC1LJK%BRUFSC.BITNET@mvs.oac.ucla.edu>
Subject:      Expert Systems Help

Hello !

   I'm preparing a study on expert systems technology impacts. So, I'm looking
for recent references on that subject. If you can help me, please send me an
e-mail. I thank you in advance !

   Prof. Leandro J. KOMOSINSKI
   Computer Science Dept
   Federal University of Santa Catarina
   Brazil
   e-mail : cec1ljk@brufsc.bitnet

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 23 Sep 1992 17:28:18 UTC+0100
From: Joan Cabestany <cabestan@eel.upc.es>
Subject: IWANN'93 last Call for Papers

Please find herewith the Final and Last Call for Papers for IWANN'93 to
be held in Sitges (Barcelona) in Spain next June 1993.
Thanks for the difussion.

J.Cabestany     Phone: + 34.3.401.67.42      Fax: + 34.3.401.67.56
______________________________________________________________________________

	             INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP
                               ON
                   ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK

                            IWANN'93

	Second and Final Announcement and Call for Papers

                   Sitges (Barcelona), Spain

                       June 9 - 11, 1993

                            SPONSORED BY

       IFIP (Working Group in Neural Computer Systems, WG10.6)
                    IEEE Neural Networks Council
                 UK&RI communication chapter of IEEE
              Spanish Computer Society chapter of IEEE
                    AEIA (IEEE Affiliate society)

                            ORGANISED BY

                Universidad Politecnica de Catalunya
                  Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona
                      Universidad de Barcelona
			   UNED (Madrid)

      IWANN'91 (International Workshop on Artificial Neural Networks) was held
 in Granada (Spain) in September 1991. People from over 10 countries attended
 the Workshop, and over 50 oral presentations were given.

      IWANN'93 will be organised next June, 1993 in Sitges (Spain) with the 
following Scope and Topics.

                                SCOPE

      Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) were first developed as structural or 
functional models of biological systems in an attempt to emulate their unique
problem-solving abilities.

      The main interest in neural topics stems from their advantages in 
plasticity, speed and autonomy over conventional hardware and software, which 
have traditionally proven inadequate for handling certain tasks such as 
perception, learning, planning, knowledge acquisition and natural language 
processing.

      IWANN's main objective is to offer a forum for achieving a global, 
innovative and advanced perspective on ANN. In addition to conventional Neural
Networks aspects, such as algorithms, architectures, software development tools
, learning, implementations and applications, IWANN'93 will also be concerned 
with other complementary topics such as neural computation theory and 
methodology, physiological and anatomical basis, local computation models, 
organization and structures resembling biological systems.

      Contributions on the following aspects are welcome:

           * New models for biological networks.

           * New algorithms and architectures for autonomy and self-
	     programmability using local learning strategies.

           * Relationship with symbolic and knowledge-based systems.

           * New implementation proposals using general or specific processors.
           Implementations with embedded learning are especially invited.

           * Applications.

      Finally, it is expected that IWANN'93 will also serve as a meeting point
for engineers and scientists to establish professional contacts and 
relationships.

                                TOPICS

       1 -  BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES: anatomical and physiological basis, local
            circuits, biophysics and natural computation.

       2 -  THEORETICAL MODELS: analog, logic, inferential, statistical and 
            fuzzy models. Statistical mechanics.

       3 -  ORGANIZATIONAL PRINCIPLES: network dynamics, self-organization,
            competition, recurrency, evolutive optimization and genetic
            algorithms.

       4 -  LEARNING: supervised and unsupervised strategies, local self-
            programming, continuous learning, evolutive algorithms

       5 -  COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND AI: perception and psychophysics, symbolic
            reasoning and memory.

       6 -  NEURAL SOFTWARE: languages, tools, simulation and benchmarks.

       7 -  HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION: VLSI, parallel architectures,
            neurochips, preprocessing networks, neurodevices,
            benchmarks, optical and other technologies.

       8 -  NEURAL NETWORKS FOR SIGNAL PROCESSING: preprocessing, vision,
            speech recognition, adaptive filtering, noise reduction.

       9 -  NEURAL NETWORKS FOR COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS: modems and codecs, 
            network management, digital communications.

       10 - NEURAL NETWORKS FOR CONTROL AND ROBOTICS: system identification,
            motion, adaptive control, navigation, real time applications.

			INVITED TALKS

	Dr. Shun-ichi Amari	University of Tokyo (JP)
				(Learning)

	Dr. Dante del Corso	Politecnico di Torino (I)
				(Hardware implementation)

	Dr. Miguel A. Lagunas	Univ.Politecnica de Catalunya (E)
				(Signal Processing)

	Dr. K.Nicholas Leibovic	University of Buffalo (USA)
				(Biophysics of Neural Computation)

	Dr. J.J.E.Slotine	M.I.T. (USA)
				(Control & Robotics)

	Dr. Philip Treleaven	Univ.College London (UK)
				(Programming environments)

                              LOCATION

               SITGES (BARCELONA), JUNE 9 - 11, 1993.

      Sitges is located 35 km. south of Barcelona. The city is well known for
its beaches and its promenade facing the Mediterranean sea. Sitges is also 
known for its cultural events and history (Maricel museum, painters like 
Santiago Rusinol lived there and left part of their heritage).

      Sitges can be easily reached by car or by train (about 30 minutes from 
Barcelona).

                              LANGUAGE

English will be the official language of IWANN'93. Simultaneous translation 
will not be provided.

                           CALL FOR PAPERS

      The Programme Committee seeks original papers on the above mentioned 
Topics. Authors should pay special attention to the explanation of theoretical
and technical choices involved, point out possible limitations and describe the
current state of their work. Authors must take into account the following:

                       INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

      Authors must submit four copies of full papers, not exceeding 6 pages in
DIN-A4 format. 

      The heading should be centered and include:
                 . Title in capitals.
                 . Name(s) of author(s).
                 . Address(es) of author(s).
                 . A 10 line abstract.

      Three blank lines should be left between each of the above items, and 
four between the heading and the body of the paper, 1.6 cm left, right, top and 
bottom margins, single-spaced and not exceeding the 6 page limit. 

      In addition, one sheet should be attached including the following 
information:

                 . Title and author(s) name(s).
                 . A list of five keywords.
                 . A reference to the Topics the paper relates to.
                 . Postal address, phone and fax numbers and E-mail (if 
                   available).

	All received papers will be reviewed by the Programme Committee. 
Accepted papers may be presented orally or as poster panels, however all 
accepted contributions will be published in full length. 
(Springer-Verlag Proceedings).

                                DATES

          Final date for submission  November 30, 1992
          Committee's decision       March 15, 1993
          Workshop                   June 9-11, 1993
       

                   CONTRIBUTIONS MUST BE SENT TO:

      Prof. Jose Mira
      Dpto. Informatica y Automatica
      UNED
      Senda del Rey , s/n			Phone: + 34.1.398.71.55
      28040 MADRID (Spain)                    	Fax:   + 34.1.544.67.37
		                     	
					E-mail: jose.mira@human.uned.es

                       ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE

Jose Mira          UNED. Madrid (E)                   **Chairman**
Senen Barro        Unv. de Santiago (E)
Joan Cabestany     Unv. Pltca. de Catalunya (E)
Trevor Clarkson    King's College London (UK)
Ana Delgado        UNED. Madrid (E)
Federico Moran     Unv. Complutense. Madrid (E)
Conrad Perez       Unv. de Barcelona (E)
Francisco Sandoval Unv. de Malaga (E)
Elena Valderrama   CNM- Unv. Autonoma de Barcelona (E)

                           LOCAL COMMITEE

Joan Cabestany      Unv. Pltca. de Catalunya (E)         **Chairman**
Jordi Carrabina     CNM- Unv. Autonoma de Barcelona (E)
Francisco Castillo  Unv. Pltca. de Catalunya (E)
Andreu Catala       Unv. Pltca. de Catalunya (E)
Gabriela Cembrano   Instituto de Cibernetica. CSIC. Barcelona (E)
Conrad Perez        Unv. de Barcelona (E)
Elena Valderrama    CNM- Unv. Autonoma de Barcelona (E)
                    

			      GENERAL CHAIRMAN

Alberto Prieto   Unv. Granada. Spain

                         PROGRAMME COMMITTEE

Jose Mira             UNED. Madrid (E)         **Chairman**
Sanjeev B. Ahuja      Nielsen A.I. Research & Development. Bannokburn (USA)
Igor Aleksander       Imperial College. London (UK)
Luis B. Almeida       INESC. Lisboa (P)
Shun-ichi Amari       Faculty of Engineering. Unv. Tokyo (Jp)
Xavier Arreguit       CSEM SA  (CH)
Francois Blayo        LERI - EERIE. Nimes (F)
Colin Campbell        Bristol University of Bristol (UK)
Leon Chua             University of California. Berkeley(USA)
Trevor Clarkson       King's College London (UK)
Michael Cosnard       Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon (F)
Marie Cottrell        Unv. Paris I (F)
Dante Del Corso       Politecnico di Torino (I)
Gerard Dreyfus        ESPCI Paris (F)
J. Simoes da Fonseca  Unv. de Lisboa (P)
FK Fogelman-Soulie    Mimetics. Chatenay Malabry (F)
Kunihiko Fukushima    Faculty of Engineering Science. Osaka University (Jp)
Karl Goser            Unv. Dortmund (D)
Hans Peter Graf       AT&T Bell Laboratories. New Jersey (USA)
Francesco Gregoretti  Politecnico di Torino (I)
Karl E. Grosspietsch  Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung (GMD). St. Austin (D)
Mohamad H.Hassoun     Wayne State University (USA)
Jeanny Herault        INPG Grenoble (F)
Jaap Hoekstra         Delft University of Technology (N)
P.T.W. Hudson         Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen. Leiden University (N)
Jose Luis Huertas     CNM- Universidad de Sevilla (E)
Paul G.A.Jespers      Univ.Catholique de Louvain (B)
Simon Jones           IERI Loughborough Univ.of Technology (UK)
Chistian Jutten       INPG Grenoble (F)
H. Klar               Institut fur Mikroelektronik. Technische Universitat 
                      Berlin (D)
Michael D. Lemmon     University of Notre Dame. Notre Dame (USA)
Panos Ligomenides     Unv. of Maryland (USA)
Javier Lopez Aligue   Unv. de Extremadura. (E)
Robert J. Marks II    University of Washington (USA)
Anthony N. Michel     University of Notre Dame. Notre Dame (USA)
Roberto Moreno        Unv. Las Palmas Gran Canaria (E)
Josef A. Nossek       Inst. of Network Theory and Circuit Design. Tech. Univ. 
                      of Munich (D)
Francisco J. Pelayo   Unv. de Granada (E)
Franz Pichler         Johannes Kepler Univ. (A)
Ulrich Ramacher       Siemens AG. Munich (D)
Tamas Raska           Comp. & Aut. Res. Inst. Hungarian Academy of Science. 
                      Budapest (H)
Leonardo Reyneri      University di Pisa (I)
Peter A. Rounce       Dept. Computer Science. University College London (UK)
V.B. David Sanchez    German Aerospace Research Establishment. Wessling  (G)
E. Sanchez-Sinencio   Texas A&M University (USA)
David Sherrington     Dep.of Physics. Univ. of Oxford (UK)
Renato Stefanelli     Politecnico di Milano (I)
T.J. Stonham          Brunel-University of West London (UK)
John G. Taylor        Centre for Neural Networks. King's College London (UK)
Carme Torras          Instituto de Cibernetica. CSIC. Barcelona (E)
Philip Treleaven      Dept. Computer Science. University College London (UK)
Marley Vellasco       Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro (Br)
Michel Verleysen      Unv. Catholique de Louvain (B)
Michel Weinfeld       Ecole Polytechnique Paris (F)

(cut along this line)
___________________________________________________________________________

			   REGISTRATION FORM

****************************************************************************

				IWANN'93

	INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS
		SITGES (BARCELONA)  Spain  June 9-11, 1993

Name:______________________________________________________________________

Accompanying person:_______________________________________________________

Address:_______________________________ Tel:______________Fax:_____________

Z.C. __________ City ____________________ Country__________________________

Institution or Centre _____________________________________________________

REGISTRATION FEES

			   Before March 15	After March 16

Full Inscription		60.000 ptas	70.000 ptas  _______________
Basic Inscription (*)		40.000 ptas	50.000 ptas  _______________
Economy Inscription (**)	30.000 ptas	35.000 ptas  _______________
Accompanying Person Fees	40.000 ptas	50.000 ptas. _______________

(*) Only for students with accreditation and delegates from America
    (except USA and Canada), and East European Countries.

(**)Without proceedings.Only for students.

On site registration is discouraged.

HOTEL RESERVATION
Special Hotel rates per night (Breakfast included)

				Twin Room	Single use room

[] Gran Sitges Hotel ****	18.450 ptas	13.950 ptas	6%
[] San Sebastian Htl ****	14.000 ptas	11.000 ptas	6%
[] Sitges Park Hotel ***	10.000 ptas	 8.500 ptas	6%
[] Subur Hotel ***		 9.500 ptas	 8.000 ptas	6%
[] Unexpensive Accomm.		To be confirmed on request

Please reserve ________ room(s)    [] Twin(s)   [] Single(s)

at Hotel ______________________________________

Date of arrival ________________  Date of departure ___________________

HOTEL RESERVATION DEPOSIT
Following deposit per room will be necessary to confirm any Hotel reservation:
Hotel****:20.000 ptas   Hotel***: 15.000 ptas   Unexpensive Acc.:10.000 ptas.

Attached Hotel Deposit :____________________ ptas x _______ rooms= ___________

					TOTAL ATTACHED PAYMENT _______________ 

	Payment of Registration Fees will be necessary to attend the Workshop   sessions and social events. Registration Fees include:

	For Attendants			For Accompanying persons

	- Welcome Reception		- Welcome Reception.
	- Proceedings			- Barcelona City Tour
	- Attendence to all		- Museums of Sitges Tour
	  Scientific Meetings		- Official Dinner
	- Coffee Breaks
	- Official Dinner

	Basic Inscription		Economy Inscription

	- Proceedings			- Attendance to all Scientific
	- Attendance to all		  Meetings
	  Scientific Meetings		- Coffee Breaks
	- Coffee Breaks

METHODS OF PAYMENT

[] By bank draft in Pesetas, payable to ULTRAMAR CONGRESS on a Spanish Bank.

[] By bank transfer to:

		BANCO CENTRAL (c/o ULTRAMAR CONGRESS) Branch No.20
		Paseo de Gracia, 3  08007 Barcelona
		Acct. No. 13575-70

   Please attach copy of Bank transfer to this form. Transfer fees to be paid
   by the sender.

[] By VISA Credit Card No._____________________  Expiration date ______________  
   Name of Card Holder ________________________________________________________

Please send this REGISTRATION FORM, together with payment, to

ULTRAMAR CONGRESS  Diputacio, 238, tercer  08007 BARCELONA Spain
Tel. (34-3) 317.37.00	Fax. (34-3) 412.03.19

Date: ____________________       Signature: _______________________________

THE WORKSHOP VENUE

	Sitges is located 35 Km. south of Barcelona. The city is well known for
its beaches and its promenade facing the Mediterranean sea. Sitges is also knownfor its cultural events, and interesting Museums (Maricel, Santiago Rusinol...)

	IWANN'93 will be held at one of the most modern Convention Centres of 
Mediterranean Coast, The Gran Sitges Hotel, an unique complex in which business and leisure go hand in hand. Opened in 1991, its Congress and Conventions       facilities include 13 Meeting Rooms equipped with all the necessary means.
The Mediterranean Sea can be seen from every balcony of its 307 guest rooms.
All of them are designed to offer maximum comfort (TV, mini-bar, air-conditio-
ning and a wall safe).

	Sitges can be easily accesed by train (every 30 minutes), and it is wellcommunicated by highway.

OPTIONAL TOURS

	Optional tours and excursions will be organized on Saturday and Sunday  for the attendants wishing to extend their stay after the Workshop.

------------------------------

End of ALife Digest
*******************
