Meeting Time and Place: Friday, 1:30-3, Catt Hall 302, unless
otherwise indicated
tesfatsi@iastate.edu
September 5: Special Starting Time--2:10 P.M.
Organizational Meeting Moderated by Dan Ashlock (Math)
September 12: Building Alife Worlds, Part 1, Moderated by
Leigh Tesfatsion (Econ). Concrete illustrations of software and
hardware alife applications at the molecular, cellular, organism,
and population levels. Reading: "Introduction to Artificial Life,"
by Christopher Langton, pp 1-47 in Artificial Life, Santa Fe
Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, Addison-Wesley,
1988.
September 19 Building Alife Worlds, Part 2: Continuation
of Part 1, moderated by Leigh Tesfatsion (Econ).
September 26: Special Meeting Place--Catt 353 Building Alife
Worlds, Part 3. Introductory discussion of virtual world building,
moderated by John Walker (ME). Discussion of "Blobworld," a
xenobiological simulation of unicellular and multicellular life in a
drop of water, moderated by Dan Ashlock (Math). Reading: Hand-out
on Blobworld research in progress by Dan Aschlock and Matt Kelly.
October
3: Agent Representation in Alife Models, Part 1. Moderated by
Karthik Balakrishnan (CS). Reading: D. Ackley and M. Littman,
"Interactions Between Learning and Evolution," pp. 487-509 in C.
Langton et al. (eds.), _Artificial Life II_, SFI Studies in the
Sciences of Complexity, Vol. X, Addison-Wesley, 1991.
October 10: Agent Representation in Alife Models, Part 2.
Moderated by Veronica Dark (Psych). Reading: S. Nolfi, J. Elman,
and D. Parisi, "Learning and Evolution in Neural Networks,"
_Adaptive Behavior_ 3 (1994), pp. 5-28.
October 17 (Oct 15=visit by S. J. Gould): Agent
Representation in Alife Models, Part 3. Discussion of Gould
visit. Continuation of October 10 discussion moderated by
Veronica Dark (Psych).
October 24: Agent Representation in Alife Models, Part 4.
Moderated by Bill Robinson (Phil). Reading: Rick Grush, "The
Architecture of Representation," _Philosophical Psychology_ 10
(1997), 5-23.
October 31: Alife Application/Policy Use, Part 1. Moderated
by Rick Hawkins (Econ). Reading: "Genetic Algorithms and Genetic
Breeding Patterns: Optimizing Recursive Equations," by Richard E.
Hawkins.
November 7: Alife Application/Policy Use, Part 2. First part
of workshop moderated by Jay Wacker (Physics) focusing on his work
on molecular structure identification. Second part of workshop
moderated by Jamie Morris (Physics) focusing on some work on polymer
design using genetic algorithms, and also (if time) some of his work
on structural optimization.
November 14: Alife Application/Policy Use, Part 3. Topic:
Some genetic programming applications in engineering, moderated by
Ron Nelson (ME). Reading: "Evolutionary Identification of
Macro-Mechanical Models," by Schoenaur et al., in Advances in
Genetic Programming, Volume 2, edited by P. Angeline and K.
Kinnear, Jr., 1996.
November
21: Alife Application/Policy Use, Part 4. Topic: Double
auctions and the modelling of deregulated electric power markets,
moderated by Chuck Richter (EE). Reading: "Genetic Programming for
the Acquisition of Double Auction Market Strategies," by M. Andrews
and R. Prager, in Advances in Genetic Programming, edited by
K. E. Kinnear, Jr., MIT Press, 1994.
November 28: Thanksgiving Break -- No Workshop
December 5: Special Meeting Place--Catt 353 Alife Models in Education.
Moderated by Dan Ashlock (Math). Discussion of possible complex adaptive
systems minor at ISU.
December 12: Final Exam Week -- No Workshop