Molecular computing is a rapidly growing subarea of natural computing. On the one hand, molecular computing is concerned with the use of bio-molecules for the purpose of actual computations while, on the other hand, it attempts to understand the computational nature of molecular processes going on in living cells.

The book presents a unique and authorative state-of-the-art survey on current research in molecular computing: 30 papers by leading researchers in the area are drawn together on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Tom Head, a pioneer in molecular computing. Among the...

This volume is based on the "School/Workshop on Linear Time, Branching Time and Partial Order in Logics and Models for Concurrency" organized by the editors and held in the period May 30-June 3, 1988 at Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. The School/Workshop was an activity of the project REX - Research and Education in Concurrent Systems. The volume contains tutorials and research contributions to the three approaches - linear time, - branching time, and - partial order in semantics and proof theory of concurrent programs by the main specialists in this field. It promotes an in-depth...

The stepwise refinement method postulates a system construction route that starts with a high-level specification, goes through a number of provably correct development steps, and ends with an executable program. The contributions to this volume survey the state of the art in this active research area. State-based, algebraic, temporal logic-oriented and category theory-oriented approaches are presented. Special attention is paid to the relationship between compositionality and refinement for distributed programs.

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...

The main aims of the series of volumes Advances in Petri Nets are: to present to the outside scientific community a fair picture of recent advances in the area of Petzi nets, and to encourage those interested in the applications and the theory of concurrent systems to take a closer look at Petri nets and then join the group of researchers working in this fascinating and challenging area.

Part of the broader research field of natural computing, Membrane Computing is an area within computing science that aims to abstract computing ideas and models from the structure and functioning of living cells, as well as from the way the cells are organized in tissues or higher order structures. It studies models of computation (known as P systems) inspired by the biochemistry of cells, in particular by the role of membranes in the compartmentalization of living cells into "protected reactors."
This handbook provides both a comprehensive survey of available knowledge and established...

L systems are language-theoretic models for developmental biology. This book contains research papers in the field. It is organized into sections on basic L systems, computer graphics, graph grammars and map L systems, biological aspects and models, and variations and generalizations of L systems.

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...

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...

Petri Nets represent a long and sustained effort- to develop concepts, theories and tools to aid in design and analysis of concurrent systems. They are used in many areas of computer science including software engineering, data base and in- formation systems, computer architecture and operating systems, communication protocols and computer networks, process control, and socio-technical systems such as office communication and man-machine interaction. Quite substantial theory has been developed for Petri Nets. It reflects all major problem areas of concurrent distributed systems and covers...