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FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS
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The prospect of direct biological computing accelerated with Gibson et al.'s (2010) synthetic incubation of a bacterial genome. Cognitive computation practices may supply synthetic biology with a biological symbolic system, that is, facilitate the advent of biological machines:
direct computing.  The editors of the Cognitive Computation Journal have acknowledged the timeliness to promote interdisciplinary research within the purview of living organisms and cognitive computation.  Due to the underlying spatial and self-modulating aspects of biological substrates it makes sense to consider the computational/cognitive capacity of living organisms. From the manipulation of biological substrates emerges the prospect to identify recipes for combinatorial, multidimensional, and topological organizations with a dynamics that escape conventional spatial or time-spatial representation.  The integration of computation and cognition on biological grounds has the prospect of pointing at a boundary system that is excitable, configurable, and manipulated within the framework of living organisms and their biological substrates. The next step in the development of direct computing hinges upon the development of biological substrates as a computational diaphragm. 


To meet this next step in computing specialized biological research will revisit the pioneering olfactory receptor research pioneered by Linda Buck and Richard Axel (Nobel Prize) and the bio-luminescent in quorum sensing by Bonnie Blassler (Princeton and Howard Hughes Institute). The use of chemical signals or bioluminescent substrates bring further expertise to foster synthetic biology developed at JC Venter Institute. 


Authors are invited to submit original and unpublished research.
Relevant areas of investigation and expertise include, but are not limited to: 
• synthetic biology
• membrane, natural, or evolutionary computing • unconventional and quantum computing • computational intelligence • bio-optics: quorum sensing, bio-markers • gene regulation in sensory pathways • protein folding/misfolding (in vivo, Alzheimer's) • multi-sensory processing (visuo-tactile, motor-sensory, feedback
systems)
• pharmaceutical and biomedical cellular delivery systems • chemical ecology, chemosensory experimentation • membrane channels, action potentials, voltage clamps, or neurotransmitters • aliphatic odors, combinatorial encoding, or predictive chemosensory models • dynamic olfactory architectures (metabolism and olfaction in
neurobiology)
• neuroanatomy or neurophysiology (glia, glomeruli, photoreceptors, olfactory receptors, neural firing) • theory of mind, simulation theory experimentation, or synaptic signaling • theory of intelligence, consciousness • hierarchical temporal memory, heterogenous logic • combinatorial or multidimensional applications in granular/dynamic systems • competitive games or visual experimentation on cognition, learning, or memory • “games with purpose” or collaborative task experimentation • mirror neurons, body maps, or brain plasticity • frmi experiments (dyslexia, autism, aphasia, Alzheimer's Disease) • vertebrate/invertebrate sensory behavior and communication • evolutionary primatology color vision and olfaction (comparative genomics or pseudogenes) • amphibian embryology transgenics and microsurgery • cladistics, phylogenetics, ontogeny, or sociobehavior across species • facet analysis or pixelization paradigm methods 


This call for papers will identify researchers from systematic biology, neuroscience, symbolic systems, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, topology, and related fields as they contribute to computer science and the development of biological machines. Accepted research falls into one of two categories: biological-computing or cognitive computation.
Pointing at boundaries in vivo extends in vitro research. Thus biological substrates points us toward far-reaching social, medical, and communication frameworks. 


This special issue is expected to appear in MAR/JUN 2012. 

Post submissions at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/cogn/ 
Nathaniel Bobbitt Guest Editor 
bobbittn@cwu.edu 


Important Dates 
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Submission of full paper (to be received by): MAR 31, 2011 
First notification of acceptance: JUL 15, 2011 
Submission of revised papers: SEP 15, 2011 
Final notification to the authors: DEC 15, 2011 
Submission of final/camera-ready papers: JAN 15, 2012
http://www.springer.com/journal/12559