This Festschrift is in honor of Mario de Jesús Pérez-Jiménez, Professor in the Department of Computer Science of University of Seville, Spain, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The title of this volume reflects both his main research area, viz., Natural Computing, and the guiding principle of his functioning: “once you choose to do something, enjoy doing it".The respect that Professor Mario de Jesús Pérez-Jiménez enjoys in the scientific community was well demonstrated by the enthusiastic response received to the request to contribute to this book. The contributions by more than 70 authors from 15 countries cover a wide spectrum of research areas and reflect well the broad range of research interests of Professor Mario de Jesús Pérez-Jiménez. The research areas presented in this Festschrift include membrane computing, spiking neural networks, phylogenetic networks, ant colonies optimization, workbench for biocomputing, reaction systems, entropy of computation, rewriting systems, and insertion-deletion systems.

This Festschrift is in honor of Mario de Jesús Pérez-Jiménez, Professor in the Department of Computer Science of University of Seville, Spain, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The title of this volume reflects both his main research area, viz., Natural Computing, and the guiding principle of his functioning: “once you choose to do something, enjoy doing it".

The respect that Professor Mario de Jesús Pérez-Jiménez enjoys in the scientific community was well demonstrated by the enthusiastic response received to the request to contribute to this book. The contributions by more than 70 authors from 15 countries cover a wide spectrum of research areas and reflect well the broad range of research interests of Professor Mario de Jesús Pérez-Jiménez.

The research areas presented in this Festschrift include membrane computing, spiking neural networks, phylogenetic networks, ant colonies optimization, workbench for biocomputing, reaction systems, entropy of computation, rewriting systems, and insertion-deletion systems.

This proceedings constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques, SIMUTools 2023, held in Seville, Spain, in December 2023.The 23 revised full papers were carefully selected from 58 submissions. The papers focus on various areas such as Simulation Tools and Methods; Artificial Intelligence and Simulation; Transportation and Logistics; Medical Sciences; and Network Simulations.

This proceedings constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques, SIMUTools 2023, held in Seville, Spain, in December 2023. The 23 revised full papers were carefully selected from 58 submissions. The papers focus on various areas such as Simulation Tools and Methods; Artificial Intelligence and Simulation; Transportation and Logistics; Medical Sciences; and Network Simulations.

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 10th Workshop on Membrane Computing, WMC 2009, which took place in Curtea de Arge, s, Romania, during August 24-27, 2009. The?rstthreeWorkshopsonMembraneComputingwereorganizedinCurtea de Arge, s, Romania - they took place in August 2000 (with the proceedings p- lished in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 2235), in August 2001 (with a selection of papers published as a special issue ofFundamenta Inform- icae, volume 49, numbers 1-3, 2002), and in August 2002 (with the proceedings publishedinLectureNotesinComputerScience,volume2597).Thenextsixwo- shopswereorganizedinTarragona,Spain(inJuly2003),inMilan,Italy(inJune 2004), in Vienna, Austria (in July 2005), in Leiden, The Netherlands (in July 2006), in Thessaloniki, Greece (in June 2007), and in Edinburgh, UK (in July 2008), with the proceedings published as volumes 2933, 3365, 3850, 4361, 4860, and5391,respectively,ofSpringer'sLectureNotesinComputerScience. The workshop changed its name in 2010, and the series will continue as the Conference on Membrane Computing, with the next edition, CMC11, to be held in Jena, Germany.The tenth edition of WMC took place in Hotel Posada in Curtea de Arge, s (http://www.posada.ro/)anditwasorganizedbytheNationalCollege"Vlaicu Voda" ? of Curtea de Arge, s, the University of Pite, sti, Romania, and the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest, under the auspices of the European Molecular Computing Consortium (EMCC) and IEEE Compu- tional Intelligence Society EmergentTechnologies Technical Committee Mole- lar Computing Task Force, with the ?nancial and organizational support of the Council of Arge, s County and Seville University.

The theoretical basis of membrane computing was established in the early 2000s with fundamental research into the computational power, complexity aspects and relationships with other (un)conventional computing paradigms. Although this core theoretical research has continued to grow rapidly and vigorously, another area of investigation has since been added, focusing on the applications of this model in many areas, most prominently in systems and synthetic biology, engineering optimization, power system fault diagnosis and mobile robot controller design. The further development of these applications and their broad adoption by other researchers, as well as the expansion of the membrane computing modelling paradigm to other applications, call for a set of robust, efficient, reliable and easy-to-use tools supporting the most significant membrane computing models. This work provides comprehensive descriptions of such tools, making it a valuable resource for anyone interested in membrane computing models.

The theoretical basis of membrane computing was established in the early 2000s with fundamental research into the computational power, complexity aspects and relationships with other (un)conventional computing paradigms. Although this core theoretical research has continued to grow rapidly and vigorously, another area of investigation has since been added, focusing on the applications of this model in many areas, most prominently in systems and synthetic biology, engineering optimization, power system fault diagnosis and mobile robot controller design. The further development of these applications and their broad adoption by other researchers, as well as the expansion of the membrane computing modelling paradigm to other applications, call for a set of robust, efficient, reliable and easy-to-use tools supporting the most significant membrane computing models. This work provides comprehensive descriptions of such tools, making it a valuable resource for anyone interested in membrane computing models.

This Festschrift is in honor of Mario de Jesús Pérez-Jiménez, Professor in the Department of Computer Science of University of Seville, Spain, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The title of this volume reflects both his main research area, viz., Natural Computing, and the guiding principle of his functioning: “once you choose to do something, enjoy doing it".The respect that Professor Mario de Jesús Pérez-Jiménez enjoys in the scientific community was well demonstrated by the enthusiastic response received to the request to contribute to this book. The contributions by more than 70 authors from 15 countries cover a wide spectrum of research areas and reflect well the broad range of research interests of Professor Mario de Jesús Pérez-Jiménez. The research areas presented in this Festschrift include membrane computing, spiking neural networks, phylogenetic networks, ant colonies optimization, workbench for biocomputing, reaction systems, entropy of computation, rewriting systems, and insertion-deletion systems.

This Festschrift is in honor of Mario de Jesús Pérez-Jiménez, Professor in the Department of Computer Science of University of Seville, Spain, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The title of this volume reflects both his main research area, viz., Natural Computing, and the guiding principle of his functioning: “once you choose to do something, enjoy doing it".

The respect that Professor Mario de Jesús Pérez-Jiménez enjoys in the scientific community was well demonstrated by the enthusiastic response received to the request to contribute to this book. The contributions by more than 70 authors from 15 countries cover a wide spectrum of research areas and reflect well the broad range of research interests of Professor Mario de Jesús Pérez-Jiménez.

The research areas presented in this Festschrift include membrane computing, spiking neural networks, phylogenetic networks, ant colonies optimization, workbench for biocomputing, reaction systems, entropy of computation, rewriting systems, and insertion-deletion systems.

This proceedings constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques, SIMUTools 2023, held in Seville, Spain, in December 2023.The 23 revised full papers were carefully selected from 58 submissions. The papers focus on various areas such as Simulation Tools and Methods; Artificial Intelligence and Simulation; Transportation and Logistics; Medical Sciences; and Network Simulations.

This proceedings constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques, SIMUTools 2023, held in Seville, Spain, in December 2023. The 23 revised full papers were carefully selected from 58 submissions. The papers focus on various areas such as Simulation Tools and Methods; Artificial Intelligence and Simulation; Transportation and Logistics; Medical Sciences; and Network Simulations.

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 10th Workshop on Membrane Computing, WMC 2009, which took place in Curtea de Arge, s, Romania, during August 24-27, 2009. The?rstthreeWorkshopsonMembraneComputingwereorganizedinCurtea de Arge, s, Romania - they took place in August 2000 (with the proceedings p- lished in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 2235), in August 2001 (with a selection of papers published as a special issue ofFundamenta Inform- icae, volume 49, numbers 1-3, 2002), and in August 2002 (with the proceedings publishedinLectureNotesinComputerScience,volume2597).Thenextsixwo- shopswereorganizedinTarragona,Spain(inJuly2003),inMilan,Italy(inJune 2004), in Vienna, Austria (in July 2005), in Leiden, The Netherlands (in July 2006), in Thessaloniki, Greece (in June 2007), and in Edinburgh, UK (in July 2008), with the proceedings published as volumes 2933, 3365, 3850, 4361, 4860, and5391,respectively,ofSpringer'sLectureNotesinComputerScience. The workshop changed its name in 2010, and the series will continue as the Conference on Membrane Computing, with the next edition, CMC11, to be held in Jena, Germany.The tenth edition of WMC took place in Hotel Posada in Curtea de Arge, s (http://www.posada.ro/)anditwasorganizedbytheNationalCollege"Vlaicu Voda" ? of Curtea de Arge, s, the University of Pite, sti, Romania, and the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, Bucharest, under the auspices of the European Molecular Computing Consortium (EMCC) and IEEE Compu- tional Intelligence Society EmergentTechnologies Technical Committee Mole- lar Computing Task Force, with the ?nancial and organizational support of the Council of Arge, s County and Seville University.

The theoretical basis of membrane computing was established in the early 2000s with fundamental research into the computational power, complexity aspects and relationships with other (un)conventional computing paradigms. Although this core theoretical research has continued to grow rapidly and vigorously, another area of investigation has since been added, focusing on the applications of this model in many areas, most prominently in systems and synthetic biology, engineering optimization, power system fault diagnosis and mobile robot controller design. The further development of these applications and their broad adoption by other researchers, as well as the expansion of the membrane computing modelling paradigm to other applications, call for a set of robust, efficient, reliable and easy-to-use tools supporting the most significant membrane computing models. This work provides comprehensive descriptions of such tools, making it a valuable resource for anyone interested in membrane computing models.

The theoretical basis of membrane computing was established in the early 2000s with fundamental research into the computational power, complexity aspects and relationships with other (un)conventional computing paradigms. Although this core theoretical research has continued to grow rapidly and vigorously, another area of investigation has since been added, focusing on the applications of this model in many areas, most prominently in systems and synthetic biology, engineering optimization, power system fault diagnosis and mobile robot controller design. The further development of these applications and their broad adoption by other researchers, as well as the expansion of the membrane computing modelling paradigm to other applications, call for a set of robust, efficient, reliable and easy-to-use tools supporting the most significant membrane computing models. This work provides comprehensive descriptions of such tools, making it a valuable resource for anyone interested in membrane computing models.