A major question facing the development of sophisticated robotics systems is how to capture the functionality seen in versatile living systems. An approach that has proven useful in designing complex systems is to capture the explicit constraints in a knowledge based system. In this paper, we discuss a knowledge-based planning system under development that attempts to capture the versatility of...

There is sound evidence that the tempo of change in the business world is increasing at an exponential level. Information Systems (IS) as a consequence, are targets of this change and it can be argued that business IS for the ’90s and beyond will be judged against not static but highly dynamic goals. They should therefore, be in a sense ‘living systems’ and offer a level of adaptability. With t...

Life as an N-P problem is a philosophical, scientific and engineering concern. N-P problems can be understood and worked out via artificial life. However, these problems demand a new understanding of engineering, since engineering is basically a way of acting upon the world. Such a new engineering is known as non-conventional engineering or also as complex systems engineering. Bio-inspired syst...

Systems biology is a burgeoning field in which researchers are investigating a flood of new data that is gathered in highthroughput genomics, proteomics, and related analyses. Systems biologists focus on what this data reveals about the functioning of living systems. The large volume of data, and the complexity of living systems, ensures that computing plays a central role in analyzing, modelin...

Living systems are typically characterized by irreversible processes. A condition equivalent to the reversibility is the detailed balance, whose absence is an obstacle for analytically solving ecological models. We revisit a promising model with an elegant field-theoretic analytic solution and show that the theoretical analysis is invalid because of an implicit assumption of detailed balance. A...

Shiladitya Banerjee,1, 2, 3 Klevin Lo,1, 4 Matthew K. Daddysman,4 Alan Selewa,4, 5 Thomas Kuntz,6 Aaron R. Dinner,1, 4, 6, ∗ and Norbert F. Scherer1, 4, 6, ∗ 1James Franck Institute, The University of Chicago, Chicago IL 60637, USA 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK 3Institute for the Physics of Living Systems, University College London, London ...

The increasing threat inherent to counterfeited drugs requires coordinated effort among multiple actors with diverging interests. Although multiple initiatives exist, no comprehensive and promising development and diffusion of a commonly applicable and interoperable solution has taken place so far. Agreeing on standards is an essential step on the road to a successful initiative on drug counter...

Living organisms are constantly exposed to changing environmental stimuli and insults; dynamic adaptation is crucial for survival. The ability of cells to sense their surrounding environment and respond in an appropriate manner is essential for the normal functioning of every living organism, and although cells are constantly exposed to numerous stimuli, they are usually able to accurately iden...

Differences in Quality of Life Estimates Using Rents and Home Values Quality of life differences across areas can be measured by differences in “real wages”, where real wages are computed as nominal wages adjusted for the cost of living. Computing cost of living differences involves several important issues, including how housing prices should be measured. Previous researchers typically have us...