John Bryden

Research Interests

Biological systems are the main kind of complex system I am interested in. Specifically, my current main topics of interest include evolutionary transistion from unicellular organisms to multicellular organisms and the modelling of social organisms and their robustness to natural selection pressure. Modelling questions include "Why will one organism give up its reproductive rights for the benefit of its society?", or more simply, "Why would an organism select individually for genes that benefit its society at a detriment to itself".

Other topics within Biology include ecology, neuroscience and bioinformatics. Outside Biology I am also interested in the application of complex systems theory to evolutionary robotics, social science, economics and political science.

Short Biography

I received a BA in Philosophy and Mathematics from Bristol University in 1994. Following this I worked for 3 years in the computer games industry at Rebellion Developments, working as the lead tools developer for the number one selling game Aliens vs Predator. Moving to Oxford Computer Consultants, I worked on information systems contracts for Canon Systems Management Europe and for the European Multimedia Archive of the Holocaust.

I completed a MSc in Multidisciplinary Informatics at Leeds University in 2003 (with distinction) - this included a 6 month project on the neural control of C. elegans forward locomotion. At the moment I am working on a PhD at Leeds in the Evolution of Social Organisms. This primarily involves the modelling of collective reproduction in the Major Transitions of Evolution.

Publications

J Bryden, N Cohen (2007). Accepted for publication in Biological Cybernetics. Neural control of C. elegans forward locomotion: The role of sensory feedback.

M Wallis, S Popat, A Bayliss, J McKinney, J Bryden, D Hogg, M Godden, R Walker (2007a). Proceedings of dux07. SpiderCrab and the Emergent Object: Designing for the Twenty-first Century doc

JH Boyle, J Bryden, N Cohen (2007) Proceedings of ICONIP 07. An Integrated Neuro-mechanical Model of C. elegans Forward Locomotion.

J Bryden (2007). F Almeida e Costa, LM Rocha, E Costa, I Harvey, & A Coutinho (editors) Advances in Artificial Life, 9th European Conference, ECAL 2007, Proceedings, 645-654. The role of collective reproduction in evolution pdf

E Silverman, J Bryden (2007) F Almeida e Costa, LM Rocha, E Costa, I Harvey, & A Coutinho (editors) Advances in Artificial Life, 9th European Conference, ECAL 2007, Proceedings, 645-654. From artificial societies to new social science theory. pdf

J Bryden, J Noble (2006) LM Rocha, LS Yaeger, MA Bedau, D Floreano, RL Goldstone and A Vespignani (editors) Proceedings of Alife X, 520-526. Computational modelling, explicit mathematical treatments, and scientific explanation. pdf

J Bryden (2005) JT Kim (editor) Systems Biology Workshop at ECAL 2005. Space: What Is It Good For? pdf

J Bryden (2005) MS Capcarrere, AA Freitas, PJ Bentley, CG Johnson and J Timmis (editors) Advances in Artificial Life: 8th European Conference, ECAL 2005, Canterbury, UK, September 5-9, 2005. Proceedings; 551-561. Slime Mould and the Transition to Multicellularity: The Role of the Macrocyst Stage. pdf

J Bryden, N Cohen (2004) S Schaal, AJ Ijspeert, A Billard, S Vijayakumar, J Hallam and J-A Meyer (editors) From Animals to Animats 8: Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior; 183-192. A simulation model of the locomotion controllers for the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. pdf

JM Boyle, J Gunge, J Bryden, K Librowski, HY Hanna. (2002) Journal of Information Science; 28 (2): 143-156. Sentence-based metadata: an approach and tool for viewing database designs.

Links

• C. elegans at Leeds
• My personal page where there is an out of date CV and some other junk.