Membrane computing is a branch of natural computing aiming to abstract computing models from the structure and functioning of the living cell, and from the way cells cooperate in tissues, organs, or other populations of cells. This research area developed very fast, both at the theoretical level and in what concerns the applications. After a very short description of the domain, we mention here the main areas where membrane computing was used as a framework for devising models (biology and bio-medicine, linguistics, economics, computer science, etc.), then we discuss in a certain detail the possibility of using membrane computing as a high level computational modeling framework for addressing structural and dynamical aspects of cellular systems. We close with a comprehensive bibliography of membrane computing applications.

Membrane computing as a modeling framework: cellular systems case studies

Membrane computing is a branch of natural computing aiming to abstract computing models from the structure and functioning of the living cell, and from the way cells cooperate in tissues, organs, or other populations of cells. This research area developed very fast, both at the theoretical level and in what concerns the applications. During the almost ten years since membrane computing was initiated, several open problems were circulated, sometimes in comprehensive lists prepared for meetings in this area. The present notes intend to survey the research related to some of these problems, mentioning both progresses made in solving them and questions which still wait for research efiorts.

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Tracing Some Open Problems in Membrane Computing

A framework that describes the evolution of P systems with bounded parallelism is defined by introducing basic formal features that can be then integrated into a structural operational semantics. This approach investigates a generic strategy of selecting membranes and rules and applying the rules. P systems with boundary rules are used to illustrate the case and an example dealing with an evolution strategy involving bounded parallelism is discussed.

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On P systems with bounded parallelism

Inspired by RNA-editing as occurs in transcriptional processes in the living cell, we introduce an abstract notion of string adjustment, called guided rewriting. This formalism allows simultaneously inserting and deleting elements. We prove that guided rewriting preserves regularity: for every regular language its closure under guided rewriting is regular too. This contrasts an earlier abstraction of RNA-editing separating insertion and deletion for which it was proved that regularity is not preserved. The particular automaton construction here relies on an auxiliary notion of slice sequence which enables to sweep from left to right through a completed rewrite sequence.

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Fourth Workshop on Membrane Computing and Biologically Inspired Process Calculi

This volume represents the proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Membrane Computing and Biologically Inspired Process Calculi (MeCBIC 2011), held together with the 12th International Conference on Membrane Computing on 23rd August 2011 in Fontainebleau, France.

Biologically Inspired Process Calculi, Petri Nets and Membrane Computing

In this paper, we consider P systems with membrane creation working with symbol objects. As a result of a halting computation we do not take the set of numbers generated in a designated output membrane, instead we take the resulting tree representing the membrane structure of the final configuration. We prove that each recursively enumerable tree language can be obtained by this system.

H. Ramesh

Papers

On generating trees by P systems with active membranes