Natural Computing is a research area concerned with computing taking place in nature as well as with human-designed computing inspired by nature. It is a very active and exciting research area which has already contributed to a broader and deeper understanding of the notion of computation. Research in Natural Computing has led to a big variety of models of computation inspired by nature as well as to computational models of specific phenomena taking place in nature. Molecular Computational Models, edited by M. Gheorghe, presents a number of such models which are based on (deal with) biological processes.The choice of the presented models and research areas is very broad and interesting. Some chapters deal with formal computational properties of the models, some deal with their modeling potential, and some with the biological insights provided by the models. Then the book offers also different points of view (the underlying research cultures): some models are based on the classical mathematical concepts, some are rooted in the culture of computer science, and some follow the way of modeling that is traditional in biology. The covered topics (keywords) include: membrane computing, dynamical systems, transition systems, DNA-based computation, error propagation and management, networks of evolutionary processes, complexity aspects of membrane systems, programming languages inspired by developmental processes, models of bacterial evolution, T cell signaling network, and multi-agent systems. The chapters are presented in a tutorial/survey fashion which makes them well accessible also to newcomers to this broad research area. Altogether this is a valuable contribution to the literature on natural computing which will be really appreciated by students and researchers interested in the interaction between formal models and biology.
– G. Rozenberg, Leiden University, The Netherlands