Generalized normal form for rewriting P systems

Abstract.

P systems, introduced by Gh. Păun [9] as a new theoretical model for molecular computations, are based on the notion of membrane structure. Several variants of P systems have been proposed and shown to be computationally universal. One of such variant is the rewriting P systems, where we consider string-objects and process them using rewriting rules. Particular cases of normal forms for rewriting P systems were proposed in [11–13]. In this work we introduce the generalized normal form for rewriting P systems which take into consideration the depth of the membrane structure and the number of rewriting rules present in each membrane. Such generalized normal forms are given for rewriting P systems with priorities, and for partially parallel rewriting P systems. In this way, several results from the literature are generalized and improved.