An Interdisciplinary Workshop held at University Campus Bio-Medico in Rome, October 14-15, 2014.
With increasing interest in systems biology, properties at the system level such as robustness have attracted relevant scientific research.Robustness is a central concept in physics, chemistry and engineering, as it deals with different aspects of systems adapting to boundary changes without loosing their functional initial configuration. The concept of robustness is really important to define the organism as it reveals its individuality and persistence, its ability to maintain the initial functional structure through contingent changes, i.e. internal and external perturbations.
The aim of this workshop is to work on the philosophical foundations of the promising concept of robustness, focusing particularly on its relevance in order to characterize the peculiarity of living systems dynamics and relationships.
In this regard, we give particular attention to three organismic dimensions:
- the relationship between autonomy and robustness;
- the identification of the main organizational principles underlying robustness;
- the increasingly evident crucial role of robustness in endorsing both evolutionary and developmental changes.
These different dimensions will shed light both on the ontological closure of living systems as on their peculiar capacity of adaptive transformation.
An integrative approach characterizes the whole workshop and discussion: on one hand going deeper into the theoretical and philosophical groundings of the concept, phenomenologically finding the evidence of the concept, while, on the other, pointing out the actual applications of the concept of robustness in scientific practice. Practitioners from different sciences join the workshop, such as: biology, physics, chemistry, environmental engineering, life and sustainability sciences.
Goal of the workshop is to rise relevant questions as well as to encourage interdisciplinary discussions surrounding the topic of Robustness.
TALKS
Plenary Session – Gerald H. Pollack
SESSION: THE METHODOLOGICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS OF ROBUSTNESS
Silvia Caianiello – Prolegomena to a history of the notion of robustness
Guido Caniglia – Robustness, Integration and What We Can Do When We Cannot Observe Something
Sandra D. Mitchell – Challenges of Robustness for Causal Explanation
Philippe Huneman – Robustness as an explanandum and explanans in evolutionary biology and ecology
SESSION: TALKING ABOUT ROBUSTNESS
Giuseppe Vitiello – Dynamical rearrangement of Symmetry, minimum stimulus and robustness
Luisa Di Paola, Alessandro Giuliani – Ecological Process Design and Robustness: the Case of Biofuels
Simonetta Filippi – Robustness and Emergent Dynamics in Noisy Biological Systems
Flavio Keller – Robustness and Embodiment of Higher Cognitive Functions
Marcella Trombetta – Tissue Engineering and Cell Driving
Alfredo Marcos – Difference
Alvaro Moreno – Robustness and Autonomy
Full program on Academia.edu.
More pictures on Flickr.
CHAIR
Marta Bertolaso – Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, FAST e Facoltà di Ingegneria
PHILOSOPHICAL AND SCIENTIFIC STEERING COMMITTEE
Marta Bertolaso – Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, FAST e Facoltà di Ingegneria
Sandra D. Mitchell – University of Pittsburgh
Jane Maienschein – Arizona State University
Simonetta Filippi – Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Facoltà di Ingegneria
Flavio Keller – Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Facoltà di Medicina
ORGANIZATION CONTACT PERSON
Silvia Caianiello, ISPF, C.N.R.
LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Luca Valera – Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, FAST
Anna Maria Dieli – Università Tor Vergata, Roma; IHPST, Paris
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