On metrology of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy in time-frequency domain

The paper briefly considers the metrology of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) in time-frequency domain for analysis of nonstationary processes in liquids and organic tissues. In particular, the application of normalization operator to satisfy the stationarity condition in impedance calculation is discussed. It introduces new measurement scales as inverse functions of time func(t)E-1 and frequency-time func(f, t)E-1 or operates in dimensionless units. Such normalization shifts the focus of EIS from electrochemical test systems to external excitations affecting samples. This provides universality required for characterization of chemical, biological and biophysical interactions of different nature. Reproducible calibration of EIS devices for standardization of such measurements is described. The discussed approach is exemplified by differential EIS measurements in thermostabilized system with excitation of fluidic samples in thermal and optical way

Flora Robotica – Mixed Societies of Symbiotic Robot-Plant Bio-Hybrids

Besides the life-as-it-could-be driver of artificial life research there is also the concept of extending natural life by creating hybrids or mixed societies that are built from both natural and artificial components. In this paper, we motivate and present the research program of the project flora robotica. We present our concepts of control, hardware de-sign, modeling, and human interaction along with preliminary experiments. Our objective is to develop and to investigate closely linked symbiotic relationships between robots and natural plants and to explore the potentials of a plant-robot society able to produce archi-tectural artifacts and living spaces. These robot-plant bio-hybrids create synergies that allow for new functions of plants and robots. They also create novel design opportunities for an architecture that fuses the design and construction phase. The bio-hybrid is an example of mixed societies between ‘hard artificial and ‘wet natural life, which enables an interaction between natural and artificial ecologies. They form an embodied, self-organizing, and distributed cognitive system which is supposed to grow and develop over long periods of time resulting in the creation of meaningful architectural structures. A key idea is to assign equal roles to robots and plants in order to create a highly integrated, symbiotic system. Besides the gain of knowledge, this project has the objective to cre-ate a bio-hybrid system with a defined function and application – growing architectural artifacts

On temporal anomalies in ultraweak interactions and neurocognitive processes

The paper describes a thought experiment with nonlinear temporal dynamics of multi-thread computational processes. Its task is to provide a possible explanation of temporal anomalies described in literature, without violating the causality and orderliness of linear time. The main argument is based on the separation of energy and information in computational processes. The existence of such systems outside of multiprocessor architectures is hypothesized in the context of known experimental evidences in areas of ultraweak interactions and neurocognitive processes. A phenomenological model is considered to explain the effect of so-called 'event time'. Several experiments are demonstrated, such as Schmidt's experiments with pre-recorded targets, which, on the one hand, create an anomaly of linear time, on the other hand, are well described by the proposed model

The Biosensor based on electrochemical dynamics of fermentation in yeast Saccharomyces Cerevisiae

The zymase activity of the yeast Saccharomyces Cerevisiae is sensitive to environmental parameters and is therefore used as a microbiological sensor for water quality assessment, ecotoxicological characterization or environmental monitoring. Comparing to bacterial bioluminescence approach, this method has no toxicity, excludes usage of genetically modified microorganisms, and enables low-cost express analysis. This work focuses on measuring the yeast fermentation dynamics based on multichannel pressure sensing and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). Measurement results are compared with each other in terms of accuracy, reproducibility and ease of use in the field conditions. It has been shown that EIS provides more information about ionic dynamics of metabolic processes and requires less complex measurements. The conducted experiments demonstrated the sensitivity of this approach for assessing biophotonic phenomena, non-chemical water treatments and impact of environmental stressors

Social Adaptation of Robots for Modulating Self-Organization in Animal Societies

The goal of the work presented here is to influence the overall behaviour of specific animal societies by integrating computational mechatronic devices (robots) into those societies. To do so, these devices should be accepted by the animals as part of the society and/or as part of the collectively formed environment. For that, we have developed two sets of robotic hardware for integrating into societies of two different animals: zebrafish and young honeybees. We also developed mechanisms to provide feedback from the behaviours of societies for the controllers of the robotic system. Two different computational methods are then used as the controllers of the robots in simulation and successfully adapted by evolutionary algorithms to influence the simulated animals for desired behaviours. Together, these advances in mechatronic hardware, feedback mechanisms, and controller methodology are laying essential foundations to facilitate experiments on modulating self-organised behaviour in mixed animal–robot societies