Tutorial on Membrane Computing

»Slides of the first lecture
»Slides of the second lecture
»Slides of the third lecture
»Slides of the fourth lecture

ShockWave Flash (.swf) demonstrations:
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Membrane computing is a recent branch of natural computing. This area introduces membrane systems or P systems as abstractions of the structure and functioning of individual cells and of mulit-cellular organisations such as colonies, tissues and organs.

The seminal paper was published in 2000 in the Journal of Computer and System Sciences and in 2003 the Thompson Institute for Scientific Information, ISI, declared membrane computing as an emerging research front in computer science. Now, after 10 years membrane computing constitues a mature discipline presenting various research lines related to the study of the computational power of membrane systems and their applications as a rule based modelling framework for multi-compartmental stochastic and discrete systems.

This tutorial will be organised in different lectures covering the following topics in membrane computing:

• Computational complexity in membrane systems.
  
  
• Membrane systems as a rule based modelling framework for  multi-compartmental stochastic and discrete systems.


• Applications of membrane systems in computatioal systems and synthetic biology.


• Applications of membrane systems in population biology and ecological modelling.