Abstract
The concept of a membrane system (a P system) was introduced by Gheorghe Păun in 1998 [9,10], with the aim of formulating a computational device abstracted from the architecture and the functioning of the living cell. Since that time, the theory of membrane systems has proved to be a successful area in bio-inspired computing.
The main ingredient of a P system is a hierarchically embedded structure of membranes. Each membrane encloses a region that contains objects and might also contain other membranes. The outmost membrane is called the skin membrane. There are rules associated to the regions describing the evolution of the objects which represent chemical substances. The evolution rules correspond to chemical reactions, and the evolution of the system to a computation. The main features of P systems include the transformation (rewriting) of objects, their moving among the different regions (communication), and possibly other additional capabilities such as, for example, a dynamically changing membrane structure, or special constraints added to the sets of rules. At any moment in time, the membrane system can be described by its configuration (its state) which consists of the actual membrane structure and the contents of the regions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Csuhaj-Varjú, E.: P automata. In: Mauri, G., Păun, G., Pérez-Jímenez, M.J., Rozenberg, G., Salomaa, A. (eds.) WMC 2004. LNCS, vol. 3365, pp. 19–35. Springer, Heidelberg (2005)
Csuhaj-Varjú, E., Ibarra, O.H., Vaszil, G.: On the Computational Complexity of P Automata. In: Ferretti, C., et al. (eds.) Preliminary Proceedings of DNA10. Tenth International Meeting on DNA Computing, Milan, June 7-10, 2004, pp. 97–106. University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy (2004)
Csuhaj-Varjú, E., Ibarra, O.H., Vaszil, G.: On the Complexity of P Automata. Natural Computing 5(2), 109–126 (2006)
Csuhaj-Varjú, E., Vaszil, G.: P automata. In: Păun, G., Zandron, C. (eds.) Pre-Proceedings of the Workshop on Membrane Computing, Curtea de Arges, Romania, August 19-23, 2002, pp. 117–192 (2002); MolCoNet-IST-2001-32008
Csuhaj-Varjú, E., Vaszil, G.: P Automata or Purely Communicating Accepting P systems. In: Păun, G., Rozenberg, G., Salomaa, A., Zandron, C. (eds.) WMC 2002. LNCS, vol. 2597, pp. 219–233. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Freund, R., Martín-Vide, C., Obtułowicz, A., Păun, G.: On Three Classes of Automata-like P Systems. In: Ésik, Z., Fülöp, Z. (eds.) DLT 2003. LNCS, vol. 2710, pp. 292–303. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Freund, R., Oswald, M.: A Short Note on Analysing P Systems. Bulletin of the EATCS 78, 231–236 (2002)
Oswald, M.: P Automata. PhD dissertation, Technical University of Vienna (2003)
Păun, G.: Computing with membranes. TUCS Report 208, Turku Centre for Computer Science (1998)
Păun, G.: Computing with membranes. Journal of Computer and System Sciences 61(1), 108–143 (2000)
Păun, G.: Membrane Computing. An Introduction. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)
The P systems web page at http://psystems.disco.unimib.it
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Csuhaj-Varjú, E. (2008). P Automata: Membrane Systems as Acceptors. In: Beckmann, A., Dimitracopoulos, C., Löwe, B. (eds) Logic and Theory of Algorithms. CiE 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5028. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69407-6_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-69407-6_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-69405-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-69407-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)