Mario J. Pérez-Jiménez – författare

Membrane Computing was introduced as a computational paradigm in Natural Computing. The models introduced, called Membrane (or P) Systems, provide a coherent platform to describe and study living cells as computational systems. Membrane Systems have been investigated for their computational aspects and employed to model problems in other fields, like: Computer Science, Linguistics, Biology, Economy, Computer Graphics, Robotics, etc. Their inherent parallelism, heterogeneity and intrinsic versatility allow them to model a broad range of processes and phenomena, being also an efficient means to solve and analyze problems in a novel way.

Membrane Computing has been used to model biological systems, becoming with time a thorough modeling paradigm comparable, in its modeling and predicting capabilities, to more established models in this area. This book is the result of the need to collect, in an organic way, different facets of this paradigm.

The chapters of this book, together with the web pages accompanying them, present different applications of Membrane Systems to Biology. Deterministic, non-deterministic and stochastic systems paired with different algorithms and methodologies show the full potential of this framework.

The book is addressed to researchers interested in applications of discrete biological models and the interplay between Membrane Systems and other approaches to analyze complex systems.

 As such, the book offers a comprehensive and up-to-date guide for all researchers, PhDs and undergraduate students in the fields of computer science, engineering and the bio-sciences who are interested in the applications of natural computing models.

Membrane computing is a branch of natural computing which investigates computing models abstracted from the structure and functioning of living cells and from their interactions in tissues or higher-order biological structures. The models considered, called membrane systems (P systems), are parallel, distributed computing models, processing multisets of symbols in cell-like compartmental architectures. In many applications membrane systems have considerable advantages – among these are their inherently discrete nature, parallelism, transparency, scalability and nondeterminism.

In dedicated chapters, leading experts explain most of the applications of membrane computing reported so far, in biology, computer science, computer graphics and linguistics. The book also contains detailed reviews of the software tools used to simulate P systems.

Spiking neural P systems represent a significant advancement in the field of membrane computing, drawing inspiration from the communication patterns observed in neurons. Since their inception in 2006, these distributed and parallel neural-like computing models have gained popularity and emerged as important tools within the membrane computing area. As a key branch of the third generation of artificial neural networks, a fascinating research area of artificial intelligence, spiking neural P systems offer a captivating blend of theoretical elegance and practical utility. Their efficiency, Turing completeness, and real-life application characteristics, including interpretability and suitability for large-scale problems, have positioned them at the forefront of contemporary research in membrane computing and artificial intelligence.

This state-of-the-art reference work is organized into three parts comprising twelve chapters. It thoroughly investigates the theoretical foundations, real-life applications, and implementations of spiking neural P systems. From fundamental principles to computational power and complexity, the theoretical aspects are explored, laying the groundwork for understanding their practical applications. Real-life applications span a diverse range of domains, including complex optimization, classification, fault diagnosis, medical image processing, information fusion, cryptography, and robot control. Additionally, the book discusses several software and hardware implementations that provide valuable insights into the practical deployment of spiking neural P systems.

As the rapid development of spiking neural P systems continues to unfold, there is an increasing demand for a systematic and comprehensive summary of their capabilities and applications. This work serves as an invaluable resource for researchers, scholars, and practitioners interested in the theoretical underpinnings, algorithms, and practical implementation of artificial intelligence and membrane computing.