Formal and natural computing

This book presents state of the art research in theoretical computer science and related ? elds. In particular, the following areas are discussed: automata theory, formal languages and combinatorics of words, graph transformations, Petri nets, concurrency, as well as natural and molecular computing. The articles are written by leading researchers in these areas. The writers were originally invited to contribute to this book but then the normal refereeing procedure was applied as well. All of the articles deal with some issue that has been under vigorous study during recent years. Still, the topics range from very classical ones to issues raised only two or three years ago. Both survey articles and papers attacking speci? c research problems are included. The book highlights some key issues of theoretical computer science, as they seem to us now at the beginning of the new millennium. Being a comprehensive overview of some of the most active current research in theoretical computer science, it should be of de? nite interest for all researchers in the areas covered. The topics range from basic decidability and the notion of information to graph grammars and graph transformations, and from trees and traces to aqueous algorithms, DNA encoding and self-assembly. Special e? ort has been given to lucid presentation. Therefore, the book should be of interest also for advanced students.