In: DNA Computing, Revised Papers of the 8th International Workshop on DNA-Based Computers (DNA8), Sapporo, Japan, June 10-13, 2002, pages 291-301. Volume 2568 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science / M. Hagiya, A. Ohuchi (Eds.) --- Springer Verlag, January 2003.
Abstract: The combination of a theoretical model of the living cell and membrane computing suggests a new variant of a computational model based on membrane-enclosed compartments defined and presented in this paper for the first time. This variant is based on simple and basic concepts: conformons, a combination of information and energy; locality of the interactions of conformons, permitted by the presence of membrane-enclosed compartments; communication via conformons between membrane-enclosed compartments. The computational power of this new system is sketched. Possible other variants of this model and links with Petri nets are outlined.