Computational Efficiency of Cellular Division in Tissue-like Membrane Systems

Abstract

Tissue-like P systems with cell division are computing models in the framework of membrane computing. They are inspired by the intercellular communication and neuronal synaptics, their structures being formalized by underlying graphs. As usual in membrane computing, division rules allow the construction of an exponential workspace (described by the number of cells) in a linear time. In this paper this ability is used for presenting a uniform linear-time solution for the (NP{complete) Vertex Cover problem via a uniform family of such systems. This solution is compared to other ones obtained in the framework of cell-like membrane systems.