IWINAC2007: Introduction and Scope

The second "International Work-conference on the Interplay between Natural and Artificial Computation" (IWINAC2007) will take place in "La Manga del Mar Menor" beach, Murcia (Spain) June, 18-21, 2007.

All accepted papers (oral and poster) will be published in the proceedings by Springer-Verlag in Lecture Notes on Computer Science series.

Scope

This interdisciplinary meeting, with focus on the interplay between Nature and Computation, expands the scope of neural computation at the physical level to cope with symbols and knowledge level models of cognitive and social processes. The global purpose is to offer a forum for discussion and exchange of ideas between scientists and engineers from fields such as Electronic Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge Engineering, Physics, Mathematics, Computation, Artificial Vision, Situated Robotics, Neurophysiology, Cognitive Science, Linguistics and Phylosophy, trying to contribute to the answer of two basic questions:

I: From Computation to Sciences of Natural.: What can Physics, Mathematics, Engineering, Computation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Knowledge Engineering (KE) contribute to the understanding of Nervous System, Cognitive Processes and Social Behavior? This is the scope of Computational Neuroscience and Cognition, which uses computation to model and improve our understanding of natural phenomena.

II: From Sciences of Natural to Computation.: How can Engineering, Mathematics, Computation, AI and KE find inspiration in the behavior and internal functioning of physical, biological and social systems to conceive, develop and build-up new concepts, materials, mechanisms and algorithms of potential value in real world applications? This is the scope of the new Bionics, known as Bioinspired Engineering and Computation, as well as of Natural Computing.

The subjects included in both questions are detailed in the IWINAC2007 Topics.