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Published: 30th November 2009 DOI: 10.4204/EPTCS.11 ISSN: 2075-2180 |
This volume contains the accepted papers at the third Workshop on Membrane Computing and Biologically Inspired Process Calculi held in Bologna on 5th September 2009. The papers are devoted to both membrane computing and biologically inspired process calculi, as well as to other related formalisms. The papers are selected by the programme committee due to their quality and relevance. These papers lead to an exciting meeting by highlighting some interesting problems and stimulating the search for novel ways of describing biological phenomena. In addition, we had an invited talk Pi in the Sky: Spatial Process Algebra for Developmental Biology given by Luca Cardelli.
Membrane systems were introduced as a class of distributed parallel computing
devices inspired by the observation that any biological system is a complex
hierarchical structure, with a flow of materials and information that underlies
their functioning. The emphasis is on the computational properties of the model,
and it makes use of automata, languages, and complexity theoretic tools. On the
other hand, certain calculi such as mobile ambients and brane calculi work with
similar notions (compartments, membranes). These calculi are used to model and
analyze the various biological systems.
The workshop on Membrane Computing and Biologically Inspired Process Calculi
brings together researchers working in these fields to present their recent work
and discuss new ideas concerning the formalisms, their properties and
relationships. We thank the authors of the papers and the invited speaker who
together contribute to the success of the workshop in reaching its aim, namely to
bring together researchers working in these fields in order to present their recent
work and discuss new ideas concerning the formalisms, their properties and
relationships.
We express our gratitude to the Programme Committee members and external referees that spent a considerable amount of their time refereeing the submitted papers by using high scientific standards. Since good editorial work is made by good referees, it is my duty and pleasure to mention the Programme Committee members:
| Luca Cardelli (Microsoft Research, UK) | Vincenzo Manca (Verona, Italy) |
| Matteo Cavaliere (Trento, Italy) | Emanuela Merelli (Camerino, Italy) |
| Gabriel Ciobanu (Iasi, Romania), Chair | Marino Miculan (Udine, Italy) |
| Erzsebet Csuhaj-Varju (Budapest, Hungary) | Gheorghe Paun (Bucharest, Romania) |
| Jean-Louis Giavitto (Evry, France) | Cristian Versari (Bologna, Italy) |
| Maciej Koutny (Newcastle, UK) | Claudio Zandron (Milano, Italy) |
Many thanks to the local organizers coordinated by Ivan Lanese. We thank the
team of EasyChair system used to manage our submissions and reviews, and Rob van
Glabbeek for his help in preparing this volume.
The first edition of MeCBIC was co-organized by Nadia Busi. The third MeCBIC takes place exactly two years after her tragic death (on 5th September 2007). Nadia was also a professor at the University of Bologna (the venue of MeCBIC 2009) for many years. This is why we can consider the third edition of MeCBIC as a scientific commemoration and reverence to Nadia.