MeCBIC2006
Workshop on Membrane Computing and Biologically Inspired Process Calculi

S. Servolo, Venice, Italy, July 9, 2006



UPDATED June 27, 2006: Preliminary program available - Click here


AIMS AND SCOPE
Biological membranes play a fundamental role in the complex reactions which take place in cells of living organisms. The importance of this role has been considered in two different types of formalisms recently introduced.
Membrane systems were introduced by Gh. Paun as a class of distributed parallel computing devices of a biochemical type. The definition of such models starts from 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 mainly on the computational properties of the model, and it makes use of automata, languages, and complexity theoretic tools.
The modeling and the analysis of biological systems has recently attracted the interest of the process algebra research community. In this setting, the notions of membranes and compartments have been explicitely represented in a family of calculi, such as, e.g., Brane Calculi and BioAmbients. The emphasis is mainly on the fidelity to the biological reality, and the main interest is in the systems biology area.

A cross fertilization of the two research areas has recently started, as witnessed by some works relating membrane systems and Brane Calculi. A deeper investigation of the relations between the two formalisms is the topic of current studies, as it is important to understand the similarities and the differences. The workshop aim is to bring together researchers working in membrane computing and in biologically inspired process calculi, to present recent research works and to discuss new ideas concerning such formalisms and their relations.

Hence, original research papers (including significant work-in-progress) as well as surveys of current research on the relations between membrane systems and biologically inspired process calculi are particularly welcome.
Also original contributions on either membrane systems or biologically inspired process calculi are sought.
Topics of interest include (but are not limited to):


UPDATED: PRELIMINARY PROGRAM AVAILABLE

Click here to view the program

IMPORTANT DATES


FORM OF SUBMISSION

Authors are required to submit an extended abstract (of about 12 pages), electronically (to mecbic@disco.unimib.it), Latex.
The workshop proceedings will be published in the ENTCS (Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science) series. Instructions to prepare the papers
can be found at the web address http://www.entcs.org/prelim.html
Macro commands to be used can be found at the web address: http://www.entcs.org/table.html


VENUE

The workshop will be held as part of ICALP 2006, the 33rd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages and Programming, July 9-16, 2006, Venice, Italy.


REGISTRATION & ACCOMODATION

Information concerning the workshop registration and accomodation can be found at the web address http://icalp06.dsi.unive.it/registration.html

Reduced fees for people who plan to attend only the workshop are available.

INVITED SPEAKERS
Luca Cardelli, Microsoft Research, Cambridge, UK
Gheorghe Paun, Romanian Academy of Science, Bucharest, Romania, and University of Sevilla, Spain

WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS
Nadia Busi - University of Bologna: busi -at- cs.unibo.it
Claudio Zandron - University of Milano-Bicocca: zandron -at- disco.unimib.it

PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Nadia Busi - University of Bologna, Italy
Matteo Cavaliere - Microsoft Research - University of Trento, Italy
Gabriel Ciobanu - Romanian Academy, Institute of Computer Science
Vincent Danos - University Paris VII, France
Rudolf Freund - Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Grzegorz Rozenberg - Leiden University, The Netherlands, and University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
Vladimiro Sassone - University of Southampton, UK
Claudio Zandron - University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy