<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><font size="4" class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">********** Call for Papers - Submission Deadline 1st March **********</font><font color="#000000" class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 16px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span></font><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12.8px;"><br class=""></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><font size="4" class="">Special session - H</font></span><font size="4" class="">ybrid Life V: Approaches to integrate biological, artificial and cognitive systems</font></b></div><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br class=""></span><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12.8px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/hybrid-life-ii/" class="">https://sites.google.com/view/hybridlife</a></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12.8px;"><br class=""></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12.8px;"><br class=""></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12.8px;"><font size="4" class="">2022 Artificial Life conference (ALIFE 2022)</font><br class=""></div><div class=""><h4 class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(42, 42, 42); font-size: 1.1em; margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both;"><span class="" style="font-weight: normal;">Online, 18th-22nd July - </span><a href="http://2022.alife.org/" class="">http://2022.alife.org/</a></h4><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12.8px;">------------------------------<wbr class="">------------------------------<wbr class="">------------------------------<wbr class="">---</div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12.8px;"><br class=""></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12.8px;"><b class="">DESCRIPTION:</b></div><div class=""><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><font color="#212121" size="2" class=""><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); white-space: pre-wrap;">The main focus of ALife research is the study of natural systems with the goal of understanding what life is. More concretely, ALife defines ways to investigate processes that contribute to the formation and proliferation of living organisms. In this session we focus on three common approaches used to tackle this investigation, proposing new and hybrid ways to integrate, extend and improve them. Traditionally, ALife has focused on areas including: 1) the formalisation of properties necessary for the definition of life, 2) the implementation and analysis of artificial agents, and 3) the study of the relation between life and cognition.</span></font></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><font color="#212121" size="2" class=""><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class=""></span></font></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><font color="#212121" size="2" class=""><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); white-space: pre-wrap;">For this special session we propose to start from these well-established Alife methodologies, and to create hybrid approaches that extend them through:</span></font></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><div class="" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><ol class=""><li class=""><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">the search for a unifying framework that spans across (models of) living, artificial and cognitive systems, overcoming the limitations of approaches focusing only on one</span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;"> </span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">type of systems; this area may include life-mind-continuity thesis, systems biology, theories of agency based on Bayesian inference, dynamical systems, information</span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;"> theory, etc.</span></li><li class=""><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">the exploration of biological creatures enhanced by artificial systems (or artificial systems augmented with organic parts) in order to investigate the boundaries between</span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;"> living and nonliving organisms; this includes work from bio-inspired robotics, human augmentation, synthetic biology, etc.</span></li><li class=""><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">the evaluation of coupled biological-artificial systems that could shed light on the importance of interactions among systems for the study of living and cognitive</span><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;"> organisms; this approach welcomes contributions from the fields of human-agent interaction, animal-computer interaction, virtual / augmented reality systems, etc.</span></li></ol></div></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><div class="" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><font color="#212121" size="2" class=""><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class=""></span></font></div></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><font color="#212121" size="2" class=""><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); white-space: pre-wrap;">The session focuses on hybrid methods, theoretical contributions that can shed new light on concepts common across artificial/ living/ cognitive systems (e.g., agency, goal-directed behaviour, self-organisation, adaptation and self-maintenance), and hybrid systems, where robotics and biology are combined to study areas in the cognitive domain.</span></font></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><font color="#212121" size="2" class=""><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class=""></span></font></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><font color="#212121" size="2" class=""><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); white-space: pre-wrap;">This special session aims to invite contributions from the fields of psychology, computational neuroscience, human-computer interaction (HCI), theoretical biology, artificial intelligence, robotics and cognitive science. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:</span></font></div><div class=""><div class="" style="orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><ul class=""><li class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">Mathematical frameworks for life and cognition (e.g. dynamical systems theory, stochastic optimal control, Bayesian inference, etc.)</span></li><li class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">Cognitive robotics</span></li><li class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">Autopoiesis</span></li><li class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">Life-mind continuity thesis</span></li><li class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">Systems biology</span></li><li class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">Origins-of-life theories with relationships to artificial and cognitive systems</span></li><li class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">Animal-robot interaction</span></li><li class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">Bio-inspired robotics</span></li><li class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">Bio-integrated robotics</span></li><li class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">Human-machine interaction</span></li><li class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">Augmented cognition</span></li><li class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">Sensory substitution</span></li><li class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: rgb(33, 33, 33); font-size: small;">Interactive evolutionary computation</span></li><li class=""><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);"><font color="#212121" size="2" class="">Artificial phenomenology</font></span></li></ul></div></div></div><span class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><div class="" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br class=""></div></span><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 12.8px;"><b class="">Important Dates</b></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><ul class=""><li class=""><span class=""><font size="2" class="">1st March 2022 – Paper submission deadline</font></span></li><li class=""><font size="2" class=""><span class="">15th</span><span class=""> April 2019 – Paper acceptance notification</span></font></li><li class=""><span class=""><font size="2" class="">15th May 2019 – Camera-ready version</font></span></li><li class=""><font size="2" class=""><span class="">18th-22nd July – </span><font class="">Artificial Life conference (ALIFE)</font><span class="">, Online</span></font></li></ul></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><br class=""></span></div><div class="" style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 12.8px;"><b class="">Paper Submission</b></div><div class="" style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; line-height: 12.8px;"><p class="">Papers and abstracts submitted to this special sessions will be reviewed by a selected group of experts from the ALife community as well as from other areas key to our proposal, specifically chosen for this review process. <span class="" style="font-size: 12.8px;">If you are submitting to a special session you will be given the opportunity to select it during the submission process. Submissions to special sessions follow the same format, instructions and deadlines of regular ALife papers.</span></p><div class=""><br class=""></div></div><div class="" style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-top: 0.19in; margin-bottom: 0.19in; line-height: 12.8px;"><b class="">Organizers<br class=""></b></div><p class="" style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 12.8px;"></p><ul class=""><li class="" style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-left: 15px;"><font class="">Manuel Baltieri, Araya Inc., Tokyo, Japan - University of Sussex, Brighton, UK</font><br class=""></li><li class="" style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-left: 15px;"><font class="">Keisuke Suzuki, Center for Human Nature, Artificial Intelligence, and Neuroscience, Hokkaido, Japan</font></li><li class="" style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-left: 15px;"><span class="" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Olaf Witkowski, Cross Labs, Kyoto, </span><span class="">Japan</span></li></ul><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><b class="">Contacts</b></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;">For questions, enquiries and more information please check our website </span><span class="" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/view/hybrid-life-ii/" class="">https://sites.google.com/view/hybridlife</a> or get in touch with using </span>hybrid.alife [at] <a href="http://gmail.com" class="">gmail.com</a> (please notice the ‘a’ in alife). </div></div></div></div><div class="" style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" class="" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class=""><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">All the best,<br class=""><div class=""></div><br class="">--<br class="">Manuel Baltieri, PhD<br class="">Researcher, Araya Inc., Tokyo, Japan</div><div class="">Visiting researcher, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK</div><div class=""><br class=""><a href="http://www.manuelbaltieri.com" class="">www.manuelbaltieri.com</a></div><div class="">Twitter: @manuelbaltieri</div></div></div></div></div></body></html>