 
                            Alife Digest, Number 060
 
                             Friday, July 12th 1991
 
Today's Topics:
 
                              Digest moved to UCLA
                       genetic algorithms + neural networks
           update on Artificial Life proceedings, workshops, and etc.
                 using genetic algorithms to design neural nets
                         Looking for "insect" robot info
                            AlifeII Video Proceedings
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 91 18:04:17 PDT
From: liane (Liane Gabora)
Subject: Digest moved to UCLA

In moving the Digest from Indiana to UCLA, we encountered a few
software problems, which are hopefully fixed now.  Sorry about the
excessively long headers of the last two messages.  We're sending out
the contents of the previous digest again, so that people don't need
to wade through the header to get to the good bit.  Are there any GA
people out there evolving the ideal mail software?

Note that submissions should now be sent to alife@cognet.ucla.edu.
The anonymous ftp Alife depository is at polaris.cognet.ucla.edu.
Looking forward to your announcements, conference or workshop
summaries, and discussion!

Liane Gabora and Rob Collins

------------------------------
 
Date:     Thu, 27 Jun 91 23:40:09 MET DST
From: Bernd Rosauer <rosauer@ira.uka.de>
Subject:  genetic algorithms + neural networks

I am interested in any kind of combination of genetic algorithms
and neural network training. I am aware of the papers presented at
	
	* Connectionist Models Summer School, 1990
	* First International Workshop on Parallel Problem Solving
	  from Nature, 1990
	* Third International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, 1989
	* Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 2, 1989.

Please, let me know if there is any further work on that topic.
Post to <rosauer@ira.uka.de>; I will summarize here.

Thanks a lot
			
               Bernd

------------------------------
 
Date: Mon, 1 Jul 91 15:04:00 MDT
From: cgl@t13.lanl.gov (Chris Langton)
Subject: update on Artificial Life proceedings, workshops, and etc.

Hello! 

  Appended below is an update on the status of various proceedings, 
mail-lists, workshops, journals, and other Artificial Life publications
and upcoming events. 

  A preliminary announcement of the Third Artificial Life Workshop
and a Call for Papers will follow shortly.

   Cheers!

   Chris Langton

   Complex Systems Group
   MS B213, Theoretical Division	Phone: (505) 667-9471
   Los Alamos National Laboratory	Email: cgl@t13.lanl.gov
   Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA		FAX:   (505) 665-3003
   87545

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

                        ARTIFICIAL LIFE 
                      
 INFORMATION ON WORKSHOPS, PROCEEDINGS, JOURNAL, MAILING LISTS, ETC.

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

Artificial Life I:
------------------

The proceedings of the first Artificial Life workshop, held at the 
Los Alamos National Laboratory in September, 1987, are available
from Addison-Wesley. 

Toll free order number:   1-800-447-2226.
            
Title:     "Artificial Life"
              
Editor:    Christopher G. Langton

The proceedings are Volume 6 in the AW series: 

           Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity

The ISBN #'s and approximate prices for the Alife I proceedings are:

           Paperback ( ~ $25)  ISBN 0-201-09356-1
           Hardcover ( ~ $45)  ISBN 0-201-09346-4

The five-digit segments of these ISBN numbers (09356 and 09346) are AW's 
internal order code.

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

Artificial Life II:
-------------------

Proceedings from the Second Artificial Life Workshop, held in Santa Fe 
in February 1990, will be available from AW by August 1991. 

Toll free order number:   1-800-447-2226.
   
Title:	   "Artificial Life II"

Editors:   Christopher G. Langton, Charles E. Taylor, J. Doyne Farmer,
           and Steen Rasmussen.

These proceedings are volume 10 in AW's SFI series mentioned above.

There is also a Video Proceedings of the second workshop available,
which can be purchased separately or "bundled" with a paperback
copy of the proceedings and a copy of the poster for the Artificial 
Life II Workshop. 

The ISBN #'s and approximate prices for the various Alife II 
proceedings are:

           Paperback ( ~ $35)  ISBN 0-201-52571-2
           Hardcover ( ~ $50)  ISBN 0-201-52570-4
           Video     ( ~ $45)  ISBN 0-201-55492-5
           Bundle    ( ~ $65)  ISBN 0-201-55493-3
           
Again, the 5-digit segments of these ISBN numbers are AW's internal
order codes.  

------------------------------------------------------------------------      
  
Artificial Life III: 
--------------------
           
The third workshop on Artificial Life will be held June 14-19, 1992, 
in Santa Fe. We will issue a Call for Papers during July, 1991.

This time, the call for papers for the workshop will coincide with
the call for papers for the proceedings. Papers for the proceedings
will be due at the workshop itself. 

Also, for this meeting, there will be a greatly expanded ``Artificial 
4H Show,'' involving a number of challenges for, and competitions 
among, robots and other artificial life forms. We will be issuing 
a description of specific artificial 4H show categories, challenges, 
and competition rules sometime in August, 1991. There will be both 
easy and difficult challenges. Some of the challenges will involve 
getting groups of robots to accomplish tasks collectively, tasks 
such as gathering, transporting, and arranging parts, and ``bulldozing'' 
specific structures out of dirt. There will also be competitions 
for robots involving traversal of noisy and/or rough terrain and 
maze running/learning. 

In Japan, they hold robot Sumo wrestling competitions....stay tuned. 

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

Artificial Life Journal:
------------------------

We are starting a peer-reviewed journal titled "Artificial Life." This
will be a quarterly publication, each issue consisting of 4-6 longish 
technical articles, a number of shorter articles (such as "letters" 
and/or "rapid communications"), book and software reviews, conference 
announcements and reports, and probably an Editor's column. We will
be soliciting invited articles for the first 2 issues soon, after which
the journal will be opened up for general contributions. The first issue
should appear by June, 1992, in time for the Alife III conference. 

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

Artificial Life Electronic Discussion List:
-------------------------------------------

There is an electronic discussion-list on Artificial Life via email. 
To *join* this online discussion, or to communicate directly
with the list maintainers, send email to:

                   alife-request@cognet.ucla.edu
                   
                  
Contributions to the discussion itself (but *not* requests to
join the list or to be removed from it, etc.) should be sent to:
  
  		      alife@cognet.ucla.edu
  		      
The list maintainers are Liane Gabora and Rob Collins of the UCLA
Computer Science Dept. 

Note that the previous addresses for "alife" and "alife-request" at 
"iuvax.cs.indiana.edu" should continue to work for now, but they will 
eventually go away, so people should convert to the "cognet.ucla.edu" 
versions. Due to an aliasing bug, submissions sent to Indiana recently 
were being bounced. So, if you've submitted anything to the list recently,
you might want to resubmit it to "alife@cognet.ucla.edu."

------------------------------------------------------------------------
   
Artificial Life Mailing List:
----------------------------- 
    
To get on the US-Mail list for announcements of future workshops, 
proceedings, the journal, and other Artificial Life events, or
to be put on the Santa Fe Institute mailing list, contact:
    
	           Andi Sutherland
	           Santa Fe Institute
 	           1660 Old Pecos Trail
 	           Santa Fe, New Mexico
	           87501 
	           USA
                     
	           Email: andi@sfi.santafe.edu
 	           Phone: (505) 984-8800
	           FAX:   (505) 982-0565

                     

Please include your US-mail address, phone numbers, and an 
electronic mail address if you have one. Please use the most 
stable (i.e., long-lived) addresses you have access to.

------------------------------
 
From: Stu Card <stu@mvieee.sunyct.edu>
Subject: using genetic algorithms to design neural nets
Date: Mon Jul  1 20:28:04 1991

Can anyone provide me with some good references for using genetic algorithms
to design neural networks, especially sparsely-connected, structured, high-order
nets? I have seen somewhere references to the name Edelmann (is that right)?
Thanks.
/------------------------------------------------------------------------------/
/ 'The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.' Lao Tzu, _Tao Te Ching_   /
/ stu@mvieee.sunyct.edu = Stu Card, Card & Associates - Research & Development /
/ Box 153 RR 1 Newport Rd / Utica, NY 13502 / 315-735-1717 / FAX -8469         /
/------------------------------------------------------------------------------/

>From gnat!ahm@nsscmail.att.com Thu Jul  4 22:49:42 1991
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	for alife@cognet.ucla.edu
To: alife@cognet.ucla.edu
Subject: Looking for "insect" robot info
Original-From: nsscmail!gnat.rent.com!ahm (Andreas Meyer)
Message-Id: <s2JL51w164w@gnat.rent.com>
Date: Fri, 05 Jul 91 01:35:28 EDT
Organization: gnat - Dunellen, NJ
Status: R

(I'm fairly new to this list, so I hope I'm not out of line.)

I recently read a great article about MIT's Mobile Robot Project,
(_Smithsonian_, June 1991, pp 64-73) where they are creating some very
interesting insect-like robots. Can anyone point me to more info 
(published papers, articles, etc.) regarding this sort of thing?

Thanks,
Andy

 ***************************************************************************
 * Andreas Meyer, N2FYE     ahm@gnat.rent.com     ..!att!nsscmail!gnat!ahm *
 ***************************************************************************

------------------------------
 
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 91 11:17:04 MDT
From: cgl@t13.lanl.gov (Chris Langton)
Subject: AlifeII Video Proceedings

Hello!

  Included below is the contents of the Video Proceedings of the AlifeII
workshop. 

There has been some confusion about exactly what is on this tape, for which
I apologize. Think of it as a dynamic appendix to the printed proceedings. 

It is NOT a video record of the workshop itself. This tape is 
intended primarily as a record of some of the computer simulations and 
other dynamic, graphic, or otherwise visually oriented material presented 
at the meeting in Santa Fe.

Everything following the dashed line below is a valid LaTeX document.

Cheers!

Chris Langton

-----------------------------( Cut here )--------------------------------------
%
\documentstyle{article}
\begin{document}
\small

\begin{center}   

\section{ARTIFICIAL LIFE II VIDEO PROCEEDINGS}
             
\end{center}

  This video tape is divided into three sections: I) History, II) Science, 
and III) Clips. The historical section consists entirely of a remarkable 
documentary account of L.S. Penrose --- father of Roger Penrose, the 
distinguished Oxford mathematician --- demonstrating a number of 
``self-replicating machines'' constructed out of plywood in the late 
1950's and early 1960's. The science section consists of six separate 
sequences, illustrating a number of current research efforts in Artificial
Life. The clips section contains a number of films and video-sequences that 
employ Artificial Life techniques or which constitute video-commentaries 
on Artificial Life. \\[.5in] 

\begin{center} 

                           TABLE OF CONTENTS 
                           
\end{center}
                             
% ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

\begin{description}

\item[History] ~ \\
	
	\begin{enumerate}
		
		\item {\bf Automatic Mechanical Self Replication} (Parts 1 \& 2) \\
			 H.A. Cresswell --- Cresswell Film Unit Limited \\
			 20 minutes.
				
	\end{enumerate}

\item[Science] ~ \\
	
	\begin{enumerate}
		

		\item {\bf Self-Reproducing Loops and Virtual Ants} \\
			Christopher G. Langton --- Theoretical Division, Los Alamos
			National Laboratory, and the Santa Fe Institute \\
			10 minutes.
				
		\item {\bf The Ants Go Marching: Behavioral Dynamics at Three Levels} \\
			Michael Travers and Mitchel Resnick --- MIT Media Lab \\
			8 minutes.
				 
		\item {\bf Boids Demos} \\
			Craig Reynolds --- Symbolics Graphics Division \\
			5 minutes.
				
		\item {\bf Learning from Natural Selection in an Artificial Environment} \\
			David H. Ackley and  Michael L. Littman --- Cognitive Science 
			Research Group, Bellcore \\
			17 minutes.	
				
		\item {\bf The Genetic Programming Paradigm} \\
			John Koza --- Computer Science Dept, Stanford University \\
			11 minutes.
				
		\item {\bf Population Dynamics of Digital Organisms} \\
		 	Thomas S. Ray --- School of Life and Health Sciences, 
		 	U. of Delaware \\
		 	15 minutes.
			 	
	\end{enumerate}
			
	
\item [Clips] ~ \\
	
	\begin{enumerate}
		
		\item {\bf Panspermia} \\
			Karl Sims --- Thinking Machines Corp. \\
			2 minutes.
				
		\item {\bf Breaking the Ice} \\
		        Craig Reynolds --- Symbolics Graphics Division \\
		        3 minutes.
			       
		\item {\bf Dr. Skitzenheimer} \\
		        Peter Oppenheimer --- New York Institute of Technology \\
		        5 minutes.
			      
		\item {\bf Replicate} \\
		    	Peter Oppenheimer --- New York Institute of Technology \\ 
		    	5 minutes.
			
	\end{enumerate}
		
\end{description}
		
\end{document}


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~                   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                   ~
~                                                                         ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

End of ALife Digest
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
