edited by Roberto Serra (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy) , Marco Villani (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy) , & Irene Poli (Ca' Foscari University, Italy)

The Italian community in Artificial Life and Evolutionary computation has grown remarkably in recent years, and this book is the first broad collection of its major interests and achievements (including contributions from foreign countries). The contributions in Artificial Life as well as in Evolutionary Computation allow one to see the deep connections between the two fields. The topics addressed are extremely relevant for present day research in Artificial Life and in Evolutionary Computation, which include important contributions from very well-known researchers. The volume provides a very broad picture of the Italian activities in this field.

• Diffusion of Shapes (R S Shaw & N H Packard)
• FDC-Based Particle Swarm Optimization (A Azzini et al.)
• An Evolutionary Predictive Approach to Design High Dimensional Experiments (D De March et al.)
• Prefrontal Cortex and Action Sequences: A Review on Neural Computational Models (I Gaudiello et al.)
• Bio-Inspired ICT for Evolutionary Emotional Intelligence (M Villamira & P Cipresso)
• Cooperation in Corvids: A Simulative Study with Evolved Robots (O Miglino et al.)
• Distributed Processes in a Agent-Based Model of Innovation (L Ansaloni et al.)
• Imaginary or Actual Artificial Worlds Using a New Tool in the ABM Perspective (P Terna)
• Dynamics of Interconnected Boolean Networks with Scale-Free Topology (C Damiani et al.)
• Semi-Synthetical Minimal Cells (P Stano & P L Luisi)
• and other papers