French Roadmap for complex Systems 2008-2009

This second issue of the French Complex Systems Roadmap is the outcome of the Entretiens de Cargese 2008, an interdisciplinary brainstorming session organized over one week in 2008, jointly by RNSC, ISC-PIF and IXXI. It capitalizes on the first roadmap and gathers contributions of more than 70 scientists from major French institutions. The aim of this roadmap is to foster the coordination of the complex systems community on focused topics and questions, as well as to present contributions and challenges in the complex systems sciences and complexity science to the public, political and industrial spheres

Contribution a l'etude des representtions dans le systeme nerveux et dans les reseaux de neurones formels

SIGLEAvailable from INIST (FR), Document Supply Service, under shelf-number : T 79255 / INIST-CNRS - Institut de l'Information Scientifique et TechniqueFRFranc

TRUCE: A Coordination Action for Unconventional Computation

Unconventional computation (UCOMP) is an important and emerging area of scientific research, which explores new ways of computing that go beyond the traditional model, as well as quantum- and brain inspired computing. Such alternatives may encompass novel substrates (e.g., DNA, living cells, or mixtures of the two) as well as new paradigms which, for example, support combined information processing and material production (as living systems do). UCOMP researchers draw inspiration from a wide and diverse range of sources, from physics, to chemistry, biology and ecology. The field is growing quickly, and has the potential to revolutionize not only our fundamental understanding of the nature of computing, but the way in which we solve problems, design networks, do industrial fabrication, make drugs or construct buildings. The problems we already face in the 21st century will require new and creative approaches, conceptual frameworks, mechanisms and perspectives. UCOMP offers one route towards this. TRUCE is a coordination action to help organize the international UCOMP community. The inherent diversity of the field has led to fragmentation, with many sub-fields developing in parallel. With large-scale project support now being offered by the European Commission, the time is precisely right to organize and coordinate the field at the European level. This coordination action will engage the European community (and beyond), construct the first UCOMP roadmap, reach out to a wider public beyond the scientific community, and build the foundations for a new, sustainable and coherent scientific discipline

Coupling self-assembling materials with digital designs to grow adaptive structures

There is a discrepancy between digital design simulations and the physical structures they produce. While current fabrication technologies and materials used to create artefacts lack the flexible and adaptive qualities present within the digital models, this is not the case in biological structures. The latter continually adapt their shape and material compositions to suit imposed environmental demands, maximise available resources and have the ability to self-heal, a process particularly evident in bone remodeling [ 1 ]. In order to instill these qualities into manufactured structures we propose a fabrication system that incorporates self-assembling / self-organising materials and design simulations. The resulting objects would have the ability to tune and adapt their material properties (location, type, composition, volume, rate, shape) and offer radically new opportunities for design and manufacturing. Firstly the paper highlights major benefits of fabricating adaptive structures from self-assembling/self-organising materials. Then it describes ongoing research that uses self-assembling materials (crystal growth) to fabricate adaptable structures by inducing turbulence electrically

French Roadmap for complex Systems 2008-2009

This second issue of the French Complex Systems Roadmap is the outcome of the Entretiens de Cargese 2008, an interdisciplinary brainstorming session organized over one week in 2008, jointly by RNSC, ISC-PIF and IXXI. It capitalizes on the first roadmap and gathers contributions of more than 70 scientists from major French institutions. The aim of this roadmap is to foster the coordination of the complex systems community on focused topics and questions, as well as to present contributions and challenges in the complex systems sciences and complexity science to the public, political and industrial spheres