This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Membrane Computing, CMC11, held in Jena, Germany, in August 2010 - continuing the fruitful tradition of 10 previous editions of the International Workshop on Membrane Computing (WMC).

The 23 revised full papers presented together with 4 invited papers and the abstracts of 2 keynote lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers address in this volume cover all the main directions of research in membrane computing, ranging from theoretical topics in the mathematics and computer science to application issues. A special attention was paid to the interaction of membrane computing with biology and computer science, focusing both on the biological roots of membrane computing, on applications of membrane computing in biology and medicine, and on possible electronically based and bioinspired implementations.

This book offers an overview of the key ideas of Petri nets, how they were developed, and how they were applied in diverse applications. The chapters in the first part offer individual perspectives on the impact of Petri's work. The second part of the book contains personal memories from researchers who collaborated with him closely, in particular they recount his unique personality. The chapters in the third part offer more conventional treatments on various aspects of current Petri net research, and the fourth part examines the wide applications of Petri nets, and the relationships with other domains. The editors and authors are the leading researchers in this domain, and this book will be a valuable insight for researchers in computer science, particularly those engaged with concurrency and distributed systems.

This book contains revised selected papers from the 18th International Conference on Membrane Computing, CMC 2017, held in Bradford, UK, in July 2017. The 18 full papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 29 submissions. They deal with membrane computing (P systems theory), an area of computer science aiming to abstract computing ideas and models from the structure and the functioning of living cells, as well as from the way the cells are organized in tissues or higher order structures. The volume also contains 2 invited talks.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Membrane Computing, CMC 2013, held in Chi in u, Republic of Moldova, in August 2013.

The 16 revised selected papers presented together with 6 invited lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from 26 papers presented at the conference. Membrane computing is an area of computer science aiming to abstract computing ideas and models from the structure and the functioning of living cells, as well as from the way the cells are organized in tissues or higher order structures. It deals with membrane systems, also called P systems, which are distributed and parallel algebraic models processing multi sets of objects in a localized manner (evolution rules and evolving objects are encapsulated into compartments delimited by membranes), with an essential role played by the communication among compartments and with the environment."

L systems are language-theoretic models for developmental biology. They wereintroduced in 1968 by Aristid Lindenmayer (1925-1989) and have proved to be among the most beautiful examples of interdisciplinary science, where work in one area induces fruitful ideas and results in other areas. L systemsare based on relational and set-theoretic concepts, which are more suitable for the discrete and combinatorial structures of biology than mathematical models based on calculus or statistics. L systems have stimulated new work not only in the realistic simulation of developing organisms but also in the theory of automata and formal languages, formal power series, computer graphics, and combinatorics of words. This book contains research papers by almost all leading authorities and by many of the most promising young researchers in the field. The 28 contributions are organized in sections on basic L systems, computer graphics, graph grammars and map L systems, biological aspects and models, and variations and generalizations of L systems. The introductory paper by Lindenmayer and J}rgensen was written for a wide audience and is accessible to the non-specialist reader. The volume documents the state of the art in the theory of L systems and their applications. It will interest researchers and advanced students in theoretical computer science and developmental biology as well as professionals in computer graphics.

Presents new mathematical and computational models as well as statistical methods for the solution of fundamental problems in the biosciences.

Describes how to find regularities among empirical data, as well as conceptual models and theories.

This uniquely authoritative and comprehensive handbook is the first to cover the vast field of formal languages, as well as its traditional and most recent applications to such diverse areas as linguistics, developmental biology, computer graphics, cryptology, molecular genetics, and programming languages. No other work comes even close to the scope of this one. The editors are extremely well-known theoretical computer scientists, and each individual topic is presented by the leading authorities in the particular field. The maturity of the field makes it possible to include a historical perspective in many presentations. The work is divided into three volumes, which may be purchased as a set.

The need for a comprehensive survey-type exposition on formal languages and related mainstream areas of computer science has been evident for some years. In the early 1970s, when . the book Formal Languages by the second mentioned editor appeared, it was still quite feasible to write a comprehensive book with that title and include also topics of current research interest. This would not be possible anymore. A standard-sized book on formal languages would either have to stay on a fairly low level or else be specialized and restricted to some narrow sector of the field. The setup becomes drastically different in a collection of contributions, where the best authorities in the world join forces, each of them concentrat ing on their own areas of specialization. The present three-volume Handbook constitutes such a unique collection. In these three volumes we present the current state of the art in formal language theory. We were most satisfied with the enthusiastic response given to our request for contributions by specialists representing various subfields. The need for a Handbook of Formal Languages was in many answers expressed in different ways: as an easily accessible his torical reference, a general source of information, an overall course-aid, and a compact collection of material for self-study. We are convinced that the final result will satisfy such various needs. The theory of formal languages constitutes the stem or backbone of the field of science now generally known as theoretical computer science.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Graph Transformations, ICGT 2012, held in Bremen, Germany, in September 2012. The 30 papers and 3 invited papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on behavioural analysis, high-level graph transformation, revisited approaches, general transformation models, structuring and verification, graph transformations in use, (meta-)model evolution and incremental approaches.

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed post-conference proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Membrane Computing, CMC 2011, held in Fontainebleau, France, in August 2011. The 19 revised selected papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 27 papers and 5 posters presented at the conference. The book also contains full papers or extended abstracts of the 5 invited presentations. The papers address all the main directions of research in membrane computing, ranging from theoretical topics in the mathematics and computer science to application issues.

"Concurrency and Nets" is a special volume in the series "Advances in Petri Nets." Prepared as a tribute to Carl Adam Petri on the occasion of his 60th birthday, it is devoted to an outstanding personality and his pioneering and fruitful scientific work. Part I (70 pages of over 600) presents the congratulatory addresses and invited talks that were given at an Anniversary Colloquium. The contributions of this part honor Carl Adam Petri and his work from many different perspectives. Part II is a collection of invited papers discussing various aspects of the theme Concurrency and Nets. These papers are contributed partly by researchers that were or are still associated with the Petri Institute at GMD and partly by researchers whose scientific work deals with Net Theory or related system models. The topics range from basic theoretical aspects to application oriented methods.

Dedicated to Arto Salomaa, a towering figure of theoretical computer science, on the occasion of his 65th birthday, this book is a tribute to him on behalf of the theoretical computer science community. The contributions are written by internationally recognized scientists and cover most of Salomaa's many research areas. Due to its representative selection of classic and cutting edge trends in theoretical computer science, the book constitutes a comprehensive state-of-the-art survey. The contributions are in such central areas as automata theory, algorithms and complexity, and combinatorics of words. But not only that, they take up new areas such as regular sets and biocomputing. While some are survey articles of fundamental topics, most are original research papers.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Unconventional Computation, UC 2011, held in Turku, Finland, in June 2011. The 17 revised full papers presented together with 6 extended abstracts of invited talks, and 3 extended abstracts of tutorials were carefully reviewed and selected from 33 initial submissions. The papers are devoted to all aspects of unconventional computation theory as well as experiments and applications. Typical topics are: natural computing including quantum, cellular, molecular, membrane, neural, and evolutionary computing, as well as chaos and dynamical system-based computing, and various proposals for computational mechanisms that go beyond the Turing model.

This is the first book on DNA computing, a molecular approach that may revolutionize computing-replacing silicon with carbon and microchips with DNA molecules. The book starts with an introduction to DNA computing, exploring the power of complementarity, the basics of biochemistry, and language and computation theory. It then brings the reader to the most advanced theories develop thus far in this emerging research area.

The need for a comprehensive survey-type exposition on formal languages and related mainstream areas of computer science has been evident for some years. In the early 1970s, when the book Formal Languages by the second mentioned editor appeared, it was still quite feasible to write a comprehensive book with that title and include also topics of current research interest. This would not be possible anymore. A standard-sized book on formal languages would either have to stay on a fairly low level or else be specialized and restricted to some narrow sector of the field. The setup becomes drastically different in a collection of contributions, where the best authorities in the world join forces, each of them concentrat ing on their own areas of specialization. The present three-volume Handbook constitutes such a unique collection. In these three volumes we present the current state of the art in formallanguage theory. We were most satisfied with the enthusiastic response given to our request for contributions by specialists representing various subfields. The need for a Handbook of Formal Languages was in many answers expressed in different ways: as an easily accessible his torical reference, a general source of information, an overall course-aid, and a compact collection of material for self-study. We are convinced that the final result will satisfy such various needs."

This is the first monograph on computation in living cells - one of the central and fastest growing areas of research in this field. Gene assembly in ciliates (unicellular organisms) is a splendid example of such computations. This work has helped to clarify important biological aspects of gene assembly, yielded novel insights into the nature of computation, and broadened our understanding of what computation is about. The monograph gives an accessible account of both the biology and the formal analysis of the gene assembly process. It can be used as a textbook for either graduate courses or seminars.

Graphs are among the simplest and most universal models for a variety of s- tems, not just in computer science, but throughout engineering and the life sciences. When systems evolve we are interested in the way they change, to p- dict, support, or react to their evolution. Graph transformation combines the idea of graphs as a universal modelling paradigm with a rule-based approach to specify their evolution. The area is concerned with both the theory of graph transformation and their application to a variety of domains. The biannual International Conferences on Graph Transformation aim at bringingtogetherresearchersandpractitionersinterestedin the foundations and applicationsof graphtransformation.The ?fth conference, ICGT 2010, was held at the University of Twente (The Netherlands) in September/October 2010, alongwith severalsatellite events.It continuedthe line ofconferences previously held in Barcelona (Spain) in 2002, Rome (Italy) 2004, Natal (Brazil) in 2006 and Leicester (UK) in 2008, as well as a series of six International Workshops on Graph Transformation with Applications in Computer Science from 1978 to 1998. Also, ICGT alternates with the workshop series on Application of Graph Transformation with Industrial Relevance (AGTIVE). The conference was held under the auspices of EATCS and EASS

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."

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Unconventional Computation, UC 2009, held in Ponta Delgada, Portugal, in September 2009.

The 18 revised full papers presented together with 8 invited talks, 3 tutorials and 5 posters were carefully reviewed and selected from 40 submissions. The papers are devoted to all aspects of unconventional computation ranging from theoretical and experimental aspects to various applications. Typical topics are: natural computing including quantum; cellular, molecular, neural and evolutionary computing; chaos and dynamical system-based computing; and various proposals for computational mechanisms that go beyond the Turing model.

This volume contains a selection of papers presented at the 9th Workshop on Membrane Computing, WMC9, which took place in Edinburgh, UK, during July 28-31,2008. The ?rst three workshopson membrane computing were or- nized in Curtea de Arge, s, Romania - they took place in August 2000 (with the proceedings published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 2235), in August 2001 (with a selection of papers published as a special issue of Fun- menta Informaticae, volume 49, numbers 1-3, 2002), and in August 2002 (with the proceedings published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 2597). The next ?ve workshops were organized in Tarragona, Spain, in July 2003, in Milan, Italy, in June 2004, in Vienna, Austria, in July 2005, in Leiden, The Netherlands, in July 2006, and in Thessaloniki, Greece, in June 2007, with the proceedings published as volumes 2933, 3365, 3850, 4361, and 4860 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science."

Graphs are among the simplest and most universal models for a variety of s- tems, not just in computer science, but throughout engineering and the life sciences. When systems evolve we are interested in the way they change, to p- dict, support, or react to their evolution. Graph transformation combines the idea of graphs as a universal modelling paradigm with a rule-based approach to specify their evolution. The area is concerned with both the theory of graph transformation and their application to a variety of domains. The International Conferences on Graph Transformation aim at bringing - getherresearchersandpractitionersinterestedinthefoundationsandapplications of graph transformation. The 4th International Conference on Graph Transf- mation(ICGT2008)washeldinLeicester(UK)inthesecondweekofSeptember 2008, along with severalsatellite events. It continued the line of conferences p- viouslyheld in Barcelona(Spain) in 2002, Rome(Italy) 2004, and Natal(Brazil) in 2006 as well as a series of six International Workshops on Graph Transfor- tion with Applications in Computer Science between 1978 to 1998. Also, ICGT alternateswiththeworkshopseriesonApplicationofGraphTransformationwith Industrial Relevance (AGTIVE). The conference was held under the auspices of EATCS, EASST, andIFIP WG 1.3. Respondingtothecallforpapers,57papersweresubmitted.Thepaperswere reviewedthoroughlybyprogramcommitteemembersandtheirco-reviewers.The committee selected 27 papers for presentation at the conference and publication in the proceedings. These papers mirror well the wide-ranged ongoing research activities in the theory and application of graph transformation. They are c- cerned with di?erent kinds of graph transformation approaches, compositional systems, validation and veri?cation as well as various applications, mainly to model transformation and distributed systems. Paper submission and reviewing were supported by the free conference management system EasyCh

This book constitutes the thoroughly refereed extended postproceedings of the 8th International Workshop on Membrane Computing, WMC 2007, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in June 2007 under the auspices of the European Molecular Computing Consortium (EMCC).

The 22 revised full papers presented together with 5 invited papers went through two rounds of reviewing and improvement. The papers in this volume cover all the main directions of research in membrane computing, ranging from theoretical topics in mathematics and computer science to application issues. A special attention was paid to the interaction of membrane computing with biology and computer science, focusing both on the biological roots of membrane computing, on applications of membrane computing in biology and medicine, and on possible electronically based implementations.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Unconventional Computation, UC 2007, held in Kingston, Canada, in August 2007.

The 17 revised full papers presented together with 4 invited papers were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. All current aspects of unconventional computation are addressed - theory as well as experiments and applications. Typical topics are: natural computing including quantum, cellular, molecular, neural and evolutionary computing; chaos and dynamical systems based computing; and various proposals for computations that go beyond the Turing model.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Third International Conference on Graph Transformations, ICGT 2006. The book presents 28 revised full papers together with 3 invited lectures. All current aspects in graph drawing are addressed including graph theory and graph algorithms, theoretic and semantic aspects, modeling, tool issues and more. Also includes accounts of a tutorial on foundations and applications of graph transformations, and of ICGT Conference satellite events.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Unconventional Computation, UC 2006, held in York, UK, in September 2006. The 17 revised full papers presented together with four invited full papers were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in the book. All current aspects of unconventional computation are addressed - theory as well as experiments and applications.