AAAI CAS 2011 Fall Symposium – CFP

Call for Papers:

Complex Adaptive Systems: Energy, Information, and Intelligence

November 4-6, 2011; Arlington, VA. CFP due date: May 13th.

Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and related technologies have proven to be a powerful framework for understanding system-level phenomena across the physical, natural, and social sciences. We characterize a general CAS model as having a significant number of autonomous agents that:

* Utilize one or more levels of feedback;
* Exhibit emergent properties and self-organization;
* Produce non-linear dynamic behavior.

This symposium’s theme addresses fundamental issues for understanding complex phenomena: Energy, Information, and Intelligence. This theme builds upon the previous years’ focus of Threshold Effects (2009) and Resilience, Robustness, and Evolvability (2010). We are inviting papers, extended abstracts, and panel proposals that address one or more of these fundamental properties of Complex Adaptive Systems within any of the physical, natural, artificial, or social sciences.

Energy in a CAS is often more than merely physical energy; it is anything that drives and constrains the system. Agents must cooperate and/or compete for limited resources, whether these resources are “energy,” “power,” “food,” “money,” or some other system resource. The success or failure of various agent strategies depends on their effectiveness in acquiring and utilizing these resources.

Information represents any form of verbal, non-verbal or even non-human communication. Information represents what the agents know or learn about their local environment. Papers relating to the theme of information may, for example, cover signal patterns and effects, signal processing, or information storage (memory). Flows of information itself may also be the focus of CAS research, such as in models of political dissent, social contagion, or the dynamical flows across networks.

Intelligence encompasses how agents react to any information that they acquire from the environment, as well as the system-level properties that emerge from these actions and reactions through patterns of correlated feedbacks. Thus, intelligence may refer to the agents themselves or to the system as a whole. Such intelligence can exist at almost any level of complexity, from simple examples of swarm intelligence to complex human cognition.

Format

Our symposium will have invited talks from leaders in the field, as well as paper presentations on both completed and speculative work. Due to the nature and the novelty of the theme, it is essential to allow ample time for both open-ended and targeted discussions; as such, we will hold panel discussions, round-table talks, and smaller break-out groups to allow for a spirited interaction among participants.

Organizing and Program Committee

Mirsad Hadzikadic, Chair (UNC Charlotte), Ted Carmichael, Co-Chair (UNC Charlotte), Mark Altaweel (University of Chicago), Tony Beavers (University of Evansville), Aaron Bramson (University of Toronto), Patrick Grim (SUNY Stony Brook), Ardeshir Kianercy (University of Southern California), Kiran Lakkaraju (Sandia National Laboratory), Megan Olsen (UMass Amherst), Jonathan Ozik (Argonne National Laboratory), Mark Pizzato (UNC Charlotte), Bill Rand (University of Maryland), Bob Reynolds (Wayne State University), Molly Rorick (Yale University), John Stamper (Carnegie Mellon University), Forrest Stonedahl (Northwestern University), Tina Yu (Memorial University of Newfoundland).

For More Information

For more information about this symposium, and for submission guidelines and links, please visit the supplemental symposium website, the CFP page, or email Co-chair Ted Carmichael at tedsaid at gmail.com.