This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Evolvable Systems: From Biology to Hardware, ICES '98, held in Lausanne, Switzerland in September 1998.
The 38 revised papers presented were carefully selected for inclusion in the book from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on evaluation of digital systems, evolution of analog systems, embryonic electronics, bio-inspired systems, artifical neural networks, adaptive robotics, adaptive hardware platforms, and molecular computing.

Collective systems, abounding in nature, have evolved by natural selection to exhibit striking problem-solving capacities. Employing simple yet versatile parallel cellular models, coupled with evolutionary computation techniques, this volume explores the issue of constructing man-made systems that exhibit characteristics like those occuring in nature. Parallel cellular machines hold potential both scientifically, as vehicles for studying phenomena of interest in areas such as complex adaptive systems and artificial life, and practically, enabling the construction of novel systems, endowed with evolutionary, reproductive, regenerative, and learning capabilities. This volume examines the behavior of such machines, the complex computation they exhibit, and the application of artificial evolution to attain such systems.

On his twelfth birthday Lewis Nash comes home from school to find that his house has blown up to smithereens, killing his father. Having lost his mother in an accident four years earlier, Lewis realizes he is now an orphan - but he has no time to dwell on it. The moment he gets off the school bus a fearsome wolf-man tries to grab him. The boy is saved in the nick of time by Master Long, who reveals to him that he's a Shaper from a place called Xor, which is being devoured by the Realm Pirates. Lewis learns that he must do his utmost to become the powerful Shaper he was destined to be. Because, it would seem, he's the one and only chance Xor has.