1st CfP: Session on Complex Networks @ ALife XII

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Call for Papers

Session on Complex Networks

at

ALife XII: 12th International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems

Odense, Denmark, 19-23 August 2010

Coordinators: Mikhail Prokopenko and Carlos Gershenson

Motivation

Many complex systems are amenable to be described as networks. These include genetic regulatory, structural or functional cortical networks, ecological systems, metabolism of biological species, author collaborations, interaction of autonomous systems in the Internet, etc. A recent trend suggests to study common global topological features of such networks, e.g. network diameter, clustering coefficients, assortativity, modularity, community structure, etc.

Various network growth models have also been proposed and studied to emulate the features of the real-world networks, e.g. the preferential attachment model, which explains scale-free power law degree distributions observed in many real-world networks.

Another direction is to investigate network motifs and subgraphs in order to understand and analyse the local structure and function of networks. The presence of a certain motif in a network may mean that that motif plays an important role in the overall functionality of the network. Thus, functionality of specific motifs, including their information processing and control functions, is a challenging topic relevant in Artificial Life studies, such as genetic regulatory networks, cell signaling networks, and protein interaction networks.
In addition, propagation and processing of information within networks may be analysed as (Shannon) information dynamics. Such analysis requires to consider not only networks' topology, but also the time-series dynamics at individual nodes. Specific topics of interest include phase transitions of network properties between ordered and chaotic regimes, where information transfer is often maximised, and other nonlinear phenomena related to criticality in networks.

Goal

The intention of the session is to bring together researchers from both Artificial Life and Complex Networks communities, in order to facilitate cross-fertilization, increase exposure of both communities to relevant research and foster new collaborations.

Guest Lectures

***TBA

Submission

Contributions to the Session should be prepared and submitted according to the ALife guidelines, available at http://alifexii.org/submissions/. There are two types of submission: papers (8 pages max) and abstracts (500 words max). Every submission will be subject to full peer review. All accepted submissions will be allocated an oral presentation slot with no distinction being made between the two submission formats.

Publications

Every accepted full-paper and abstract submission will be published by MIT Press in the ALife online open-access proceedings. A special issue of the MIT Press journal Artificial Life would follow, inviting researchers to expand the work presented at the session.

Important Dates

Paper submission: February 28, 2010
Paper notification: April 16, 2010
Camera-ready: May 7, 2010
Conference: August 19-23, 2010
Organizers
Dr. Mikhail Prokopenko
CSIRO, Australia
http://www.prokopenko.net/

Dr. Carlos Gershenson
UNAM, Mexico
http://turing.iimas.unam.mx/~cgg/

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