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Membrane Computing: Basics and Frontiers

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Open Problems in Mathematics and Computational Science

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Abstract

Membrane computing is a branch of natural computing inspired by the structure and the functioning of the living cell, as well as by the cooperation of cells in tissues, colonies of cells, and neural nets. This chapter briefly introduces the basic notions and (types of) results of this research area, also discussing open problems and research topics. Several central classes of computing models (called P systems) are considered: cell-like P systems with symbol objects processed by means of multiset rewriting rules, symport/antiport P systems, P systems with active membranes, spiking neural P systems, and numerical P systems.

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References

  1. C.S. Calude, Gh. Păun, G. Rozenberg, A. Salomaa (eds.) Multiset Processing. Mathematical, Computer Science, and Molecular Computing Points of View. LNCS, vol. 2235 (Springer, Berlin, 2001) The first international meeting devoted to membrane computing was organized already in the summer of 2000, in Curtea de Argeş, Romania, and it was concerned both with the developments in the emerging research area of membrane computing and with the mathematical and computer science investigations of multisets. This LNCS volume is the proceedings of the workshop, edited after the meeting.

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  2. G. Ciobanu, Gh. Păun, M.J. Pérez-Jiménez (eds.) Applications of Membrane Computing (Springer, Berlin, 2006) The volume presents several classes of applications (in biology and biomedicine, computer science, linguistics), as well as the software available at the time of editing the book, and a selective bibliography of membrane computing. Here are the sections of the chapter Computer Science Applications: Static sorting P systems; Membrane-based devices used in computer graphics; An analysis of a public key protocol with membranes; Membrane algorithms: approximate algorithms for NP-complete optimization problems; and Computationally hard problems addressed through P systems.

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  21. A. Păun, Gh. Păun, The power of communication: P systems with symport/antiport. New Generat. Comput. 20, 295–305 (2002) The symport/antiport P systems were introduced here, and their universality was proved for rules of various complexities/sizes. These results were improved in a large number of papers, until reaching universality for minimal symport and antiport rules.

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  22. Gh. Păun, Computing with membranes. J. Comput. Syst. Sci. 61(1), 108–143 (2000) (and Turku Center for Computer Science-TUCS Report 208, November 1998, www.tucs.fi) This is the paper where membrane computing was initiated. The cell-like P systems are introduced, both with symbol objects and string objects, and for both cases the universality was proved (using the characterization of Turing computable sets of numbers as the length sets of languages generated by context-free matrix grammars with appearance checking; later, more direct and simple proofs were obtained, starting from register machines). In the case of strings, both rewriting and splicing rules were investigated.

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  24. Gh. Păun, P systems with active membranes: attacking NP-complete problems. J. Autom. Lang. Combinat. 6, 75–90 (2001) Membrane division was introduced here, in the general framework of P systems with active membranes (the membranes are explicit parts of the object evolution rules), and a polynomial semi-uniform solution to SAT is provided. Later, uniform solutions were obtained (also for other NP-complete problems).

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  25. Gh. Păun, Membrane Computing. An Introduction (Springer, Berlin, 2002) This is the first survey of membrane computing, systematizing the notions and the results at only a few years after the initiation of this research area. After an informal introduction (“Membrane computing—what it is and what it is not”) and a chapter providing the biological and the computability prerequisites for the rest of the book, one presents the cell-like P systems with symbol objects and multiset rewriting rules, the systems with symport/antiport rules, the P systems with string objects, and then the tissue-like P systems; their computing power is investigated; then one passes to the computing efficiency (“Trading space for time”), considering P systems with membrane division, membrane creation, string replication, and precomputed resources. Two more chapters present “further technical results” and “(attempts to get) back to reality.” The book ends with a list of open problems and of universality results.

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  26. Gh. Păun, Towards “fypercomputations” (in membrane computing), in Languages Alive. Essays Dedicated to Jurgen Dassow on the Occasion of His 65 Birthdayed. by H. Bordihn, M. Kutrib, B. Truthe. LNCS, vol. 7300 (Springer, Berlin, 2012), pp. 207–221 The term “fypercomputation” (coming from “fast computation” and reminding of “hypercomputation” = a computation going beyond the “Turing barrier”) was coined to name situations when a computing device can solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time, hence when a significant efficiency speedup is obtained.

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  27. Gh. Păun, Some open problems about catalytic, numerical and spiking neural P systems, in Proc. 14th Intern. Conf. on Membrane Computing (Chişinău, Moldova, 2013), pp. 25–34

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  29. Gh. Păun, M.J. Pérez-Jiménez, Solving problems in a distributed way in membrane computing: dP systems. Int. J. Comput. Commun. Cont. 5(2), 238–252 (2010)

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  30. Gh. Păun, G. Rozenberg, A. Salomaa (eds.) Handbook of Membrane Computing (Oxford University Press, 2010) The basics of membrane computing are given in the book [25] (translated in Chinese in 2013), but the domain has fast evolved beyond the contents of the volume; new classes of P systems were introduced; new results and applications were reported. This made both necessary and possible the editing of the present handbook, a comprehensive survey of membrane computing at the level of 2009. Its contents are a suggestive hint to the landscape of membrane computing: 1. An introduction to and an overview of membrane computing (Gh. Păun, G. Rozenberg); 2. Cell biology for membrane computing (D. Besozzi, I.I. Ardelean); 3. Computability elements for membrane computing (Gh. Păun, G. Rozenberg, A. Salomaa); 4. Catalytic P systems (R. Freund, O.H. Ibarra, A. Păun, P. Sosík, H.-C. Yen); 5. Communication P systems (R. Freund, A. Alhazov, Y. Rogozhin, S. Verlan); 6. P automata (E. Csuhaj-Varjú, M. Oswald, G. Vaszil); 7. P systems with string objects (C. Ferretti, G. Mauri, C. Zandron); 8. Splicing P systems (S. Verlan, P. Frisco); 9. Tissue and population P systems (F. Bernardini, M. Gheorghe); 10. Conformon P systems (P. Frisco); 11. Active membranes (Gh. Păun); 12. Complexity – Membrane division, membrane creation (M.J. Pérez-Jiménez, A. Riscos-Núñez, Á. Romero-Jiménez, D. Woods); 13. Spiking neural P systems (O.H. Ibarra, A. Leporati, A. Păun, S. Woodworth); 14. P systems with objects on membranes (M. Cavaliere, S.N. Krishna, A. Păun, Gh. Păun); 15. Petri nets and membrane computing (J. Kleijn, M. Koutny); 16. Semantics of P systems (G. Ciobanu); 17. Software for P systems (D. Díaz-Pernil, C. Graciani, M.A. Gutiérrez-Naranjo, I. Pérez-Hurtado, M.J. Pérez-Jiménez); 18. Probabilistic/stochastic models (P. Cazzaniga, M. Gheorghe, N. Krasnogor, G. Mauri, D. Pescini, F.J. Romero-Campero); 19. Fundamentals of metabolic P systems (V. Manca); 20. Metabolic P dynamics (V. Manca); 21. Membrane algorithms (T.Y. Nishida, T. Shiotani, Y. Takahashi); 22. Membrane computing and computer science (R. Ceterchi, D. Sburlan); 23. Other developments; 23.1. P Colonies (A. Kelemenová); 23.2. Time in membrane computing (M. Cavaliere, D. Sburlan); 23.3. Membrane computing and self-assembly (M. Gheorghe, N. Krasnogor); 23.4. Membrane computing and X-machines (P. Kefalas, I. Stamatopoulou, M. Gheorghe, G. Eleftherakis); 23.5. Q-UREM P systems (A. Leporati); 23.6. Membrane computing and economics (Gh. Păun, R.A. Păun); 23.7 Mobile membranes and mobile ambients (B. Aman, G. Ciobanu); 23.8. Other topics (Gh. Păun, G. Rozenberg)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, 1-764, 014700, Bucureşti, Romania

    Gheorghe Păun

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Correspondence to Gheorghe Păun .

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  1. Dept. of Computer Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, USA

    Çetin Kaya Koç

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Păun, G. (2014). Membrane Computing: Basics and Frontiers. In: Koç, Ç. (eds) Open Problems in Mathematics and Computational Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10683-0_15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10683-0_15

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