Biologically Inspired Process Calculi, Petri Nets and Membrane Computing

Proceedings of 5th W orkshop on Membrane Computing and Biologically Inspired Process Calculi (MeCBIC 2011) Pages 1–2, 2011. c  Gabriel Ciobanu All the rights to the paper remain with the authors. Biological ly Inspired Pr ocess Calculi, P etri Nets and Membrane Computing Gabriel Ciobanu Romanian Academy , Institute of Computer Science Ias ¸ i, Romania gabriel@ii t.tuiasi.ro This v olume represents the proceedings of the 5th W orkshop on Membrane Computing and Biologi- cally Inspired Process C alculi (MeCBIC 2011) , held together with the 12th Interna tional Conference on Membrane Computing on 23rd August 2011 in Fontainebleau, F rance. MeCBIC is us ually de vo ted to membrane computin g and bio logically inspired process calc uli (am- bients , brane cal culi). T his ye ar we also att racted pap ers dealin g with b io-inspi red Petri n ets in order to promote collabo ration bet ween th e Petri nets and membrane computing communities. Biologic al membrane s play a fundamen tal role in the complex reactions which take place in cells of li ving or ganisms. Membrane systems were introdu ced as a class of distrib uted para llel computin g devic es inspir ed by the obs erv ation that any biologic al syste m is a complex hierar chical stru cture, with a flow of bioche mical substanc es and in formation th at unde rlies their functioni ng. The m odellin g and analysis of biolog ical systems has al so a ttracted co nsiderab le interest from both th e Petri nets and the process ca lculi researc h communities. A deep er in vestiga tion of the relation ships between these formalisms is interest- ing, prov iding v aluable cross fertil ization of these research areas. Membrane computing deals with the computa tional prop erties, making use of au tomata, formal languages, and complexi ty resul ts. Certain proces s cal culi, such as mobile ambients and brane calculi , w ork also with notion s of c ompartments and membranes . P etri nets are used to model and analy ze the biolo gical s ystems. The s ubmitted p apers desc ribe biolog ically inspire d models and calculi, biolog ically inspire d lan- guage s, properties of biologic ally inspired models and langua ges, theoretical links and compariso n be- tween differe nt models. A ll submitted p apers were rev iewed by th ree or four re ferees. W e than k the author s and revie wers for doing an exce llent jo b; without their en thusias tic work this v olume would not ha ve been possib le. W e are ind ebted to the members of th e Programme Committee: Bogdan Aman Jean-Lou is Gia vitto Gethin Norman Jason Steg gles Roberto Barb ut S.N. Krishna Andre w Phillips Angelo T roina Marco Bernardo Jean Kri vine G. Michele Pinna Ser gey V erl an Paola Bonizz oni P aolo Milazzo Franck Pommereau Gianluig i Za v attaro. Gabriel Ciobanu (chair ) W e exp ress ou r gratitude to the in vited spe akers J etty K leijn and C osimo Lane ve for their very interes ting talks. The fi rst talk prese nts similarities an d dif ferences between Petri nets an d membrane systems, an d ho w to enhance the Petri net s in order to faithfully model the dyna mics of the biologi cal phenomena repres ented by membrane systems and reaction systems. The second talk deals with rev ersibi lity in massi ve concu rrent systems; rev ersible structur es for massiv e concurren t systems are introd uced and studie d, and an equi v alence on comp utations that abs tracts a way from the order of causally independen t reduct ions is defined . The main aim o f the works hop is to bring togethe r researc hers working on membrane computin g, in biolog ically inspired process calculi, and in Petri nets in order to present their recent results and to discus s ne w ideas concern ing th ese formalisms, their properties and relatio nships. Many than ks to Serge y V erla n and Maciej K outny for their help in organi zing the work shop, and to Bogda n Aman for his help in preparin g this v olume. 2