PARIS
8-12 August 2011
| << Wednesday 10 | ↑ Thursday 11 ↑ | Friday 12 >> | |||
| 8:00 | registration Lobby breakfast, posters & art Halls |
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| 9:00 | The mechanics of shape change in the Drosophila embryo With the first three hours of development, the Drosophila embryo establishes a precise pattern of transcription factors that divides the blastoderm into groups of cells destined to form different organs and tissues in the adult. . . . In my talk I will discuss the relationship between the initial transcription profiles and a novel pulsating reorganization of the Actin/Myosin cytoskeleton in the apical region of cells that will make the ventral furrow. We show that the resultant contractile pulses drive cell shape changes in the entire mesodermal primordium. The individual contractions appear to be unpolarized but they result in polarized wedge-like constrictions because global tension in the sheet is polarized along the AP axis. We analyze the force distributions in the mesodermal primordia using a combination of genetics and RNAi to lower adhesive strengths between cells, and laser dissections to locally disrupt the cytoskeleton. About Eric Wieschaus… | ||||
| 10:00 | coffee break, posters & art Halls | ||||
| 10:30 | track 6A: Complexity Chair: Susan Stepney
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track 6B: Evolutionary Robotics Chair: Jordan Pollack
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| 12:10 | lunch, posters & art Halls | ||||
| 13:40 | track 7A: Systems Biology Chair: Luis Rocha
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track 7B: Robot Control Chair: Jozef Kelemen
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| 15:20 | coffee break, posters & art Halls | ||||
| 15:50 | track 8A: Morphologies & Development 2 Chair: René Doursat
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track 8B: Robotics Chair: Takashi Ikegami
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| 17:30 | coffee break, posters & art Halls | ||||
| 18:00 | Prospects for machine embryogenesis In Nature, the embryogenesis process proceeds from a single fertilized cell through division, migration, specialization and apoptosis. Although a lot is known about development, we still have a long way to go from theories of pattern formation towards understanding the intelligence within an unsupervised manufacturing process which robustly assembles complex biological forms. Our approach has been to co-evolve bodies and brains in simulation and then convert them into reality using commercial manufacturing technology. I will review several generations of robots which were automatically designed using co-evolutionary techniques. The goal has been the fully automated design and construction of artificial lifeforms. The first generation was based on genetic programming and a simulation of LEGO rod adhesion. The second generation used direct evolution on a iterative simulation of truss structures and used 3D printing for the output. A third generation was based on generative representations using L-systems. About Jordan Pollack… | ||||
| 19:00 | Upokrinomenes: a fabulated epistemology Zoosystemician Louis Bec forces us to question the validity of each claim by reformulating and staging scientific discourse. His reasoning possesses all the marks of scientific assertiveness, combining scientific jargon with scholarly neologisms. Questioning life and our inability to understand it through traditional investigative methods, he founded the field of Upokrinomenology. It is a theory of life using models based on computer science, robotics, video and other interactive devices, where irony holds a significant place. By putting scientific discourse into perspective, he challenges us to investigate, unravel and interpret the propositions that he makes. In this research, scientific discourse becomes poetic and Louis Bec becomes a storyteller. Founder of the Scientific Institute of Paranaturalistic Research, he invites us to discover a life we did not know existed, one that looms at the border between shapes, language and behavior [after C. Beaugrand & A. Charre, Reinventing the museum]. (Art exhibit at ECAL’11 designed and installed with François Mourre, Patrice Bersani, Vincent Monnier and Delphine Fabbri-Lawson.) His presentation will be followed by 7p., cuis., s. de b., … à saisir (6BR, kitch., bath., … selling now), a short film by Agnès Varda featuring Louis Bec. About Louis Bec… | ||||
| 20:00 | The Continuator Project: playing with virtual musicians François Pachet (guitar player) and Jeff Suzda (professional sax player) will perform a short Jazz concert with their band “Quintet of Two”. They comprise the two human musicians in the group, performing alongside three “software” musicians. The goal of this project is to play “standard” jazz using virtual instruments intimately controlled by the human players. The technologies employed, developped at Sony CSL, involve Markov chains, constraint programming, signal processing, and a great degree of musical tuning. The performance is still exploratory, but we hope to convey a sense of the direction we are heading to: enhance musical expressivity through controllable machines. [ References ] About François Pachet… | ||||
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| 23:30 | |||||