On string languages generated by spiking neural P systems with exhaustive use of rules

We continue the study of (extended) spiking neural P systems with exhaustive use of rules by considering these computing devices as language generators. Specifically, a step is associated with a symbol according to the number of spikes emitted by the output neuron and the sequence of these symbols associated with a halting computation constitutes a string. Two cases are considered: one of them interprets a step when no spike is emitted as a specified symbol, the other interprets such a step as the empty string. In both cases, it is proved that finite and recursively enumerable languages are characterized by extended spiking neural P systems working in the exhaustive mode. The relationships with regular languages are also investigated.

Spiking neural P systems with extended rules: universality and languages

We consider spiking neural P systems with rules allowed to introduce zero, one, or more spikes at the same time. The motivation comes both from constructing small universal systems and from generating strings; previous results from these areas are briefly recalled. Then, the computing power of the obtained systems is investigated, when considering them as number generating and as language generating devices. In the first case, a simpler proof of universality is obtained, while in the latter case we find characterizations of finite and recursively enumerable languages (without using any squeezing mechanism, as it was necessary in the case of standard rules). The relationships with regular languages are also investigated.     

Uniform solutions to SAT and 3-SAT by spiking neural P systems with pre-computed resources

We consider the possibility of using spiking neural P systems for solving computationally hard problems, under the assumption that some (possibly exponentially large) pre-computed resources are given in advance. In particular, we propose two uniform families of spiking neural P systems which can be used to address the NP-complete problems sat and 3-sat, respectively. Each system in the first family is able to solve all the instances of sat which can be built using n Boolean variables and m clauses, in a time which is quadratic in n and linear in m. Similarly, each system of the second family is able to solve all the instances of 3-sat that contain n Boolean variables, in a time which is cubic in n. All the systems here considered are deterministic.     

Experiments on the reliability of stochastic spiking neural P systems

In the area of membrane computing, time-freeness has been defined as the ability for a timed membrane system to produce always the same result, independently of the execution times associated to the rules. In this paper, we use a similar idea in the framework of spiking neural P systems, a model inspired by the structure and the functioning of neural cells. In particular, we introduce stochastic spiking neural P systems where the time of firing for an enabled spiking rule is probabilistically chosen and we investigate when, and how, these probabilities can influence the ability of the systems to simulate, in a reliable way, universal machines, such as register machines.     

On the power of elementary features in spiking neural P systems

Since their first publication in 2006, spiking neural (SN) P systems have already attracted the attention of a lot of researchers. This might be owing to the fact that this abstract computing device follows basic principles known from spiking neural nets, but its implementation is discrete, using membrane computing background. Among the elementary properties which confer SN P systems their computational power one can count the unbounded fan-in (indegree) and fan-out (outdegree) of each “neuron”, synchronicity of the whole system, the possibility of delaying and/or removing spikes in neurons, the capability of evaluating arbitrary regular expressions in neurons in constant time and some others. In this paper we focus on the power of these elementary features. Particularly, we study the power of the model when some of these features are disabled. Rather surprisingly, even very restricted SN P systems keep their universal computational power. Certain important questions regarding this topic still remain open.     

On spiking neural P systems and partially blind counter machines

A k-output spiking neural P system (SNP) with output neurons, , generates a tuple of positive integers if, starting from the initial configuration, there is a sequence of steps such that during the computation, each O _i generates exactly two spikes aa (the times the pair aa are generated may be different for different output neurons) and the time interval between the first a and the second a is n _i . After the output neurons generate their pairs of spikes, the system eventually halts. We give characterizations of sets definable by partially blind multicounter machines in terms of k-output SNPs operating in a sequential mode. Slight variations of the models make them universal.     

Spiking neural P systems: An improved normal form

Spiking neural P systems (in short, SN P systems) are computing devices based on the way the neurons communicate through electrical impulses (spikes). These systems involve various ingredients; among them, we mention forgetting rules and the delay in firing rules. However, it is known that the universality can be obtained without using these two features. In this paper we improve this result in two respects: (i) each neuron contains at most two rules (which is optimal for systems used in the generative mode), and (ii) the rules in the neurons using two rules have the same regular expression which controls their firing. This result answers a problem left open in the literature, and, in this context, an incompleteness in some previous proofs related to the elimination of forgetting rules is removed. Moreover, this result shows a somewhat surprising uniformity of the neurons in the SN P systems able to simulate Turing machines, which is both of a theoretical interest and it seems to correspond to a biological reality. When a bound is imposed on the number of spikes present in a neuron at any step of a computation (such SN P systems are called finite), two surprising results are obtained. First, a characterization of finite sets of numbers is obtained in the generative case (this contrasts the case of other classes of SN P systems, where characterizations of semilinear sets of numbers are obtained for finite SN P systems). Second, the accepting case is strictly more powerful than the generative one: all finite sets and also certain arithmetical progressions can be accepted. A precise characterization of the power of accepting finite SN P systems without forgetting rules and delay remains to be found.     

通用的不带延迟的同质脉冲神经膜系统

脉冲神经膜系统是一种膜系统中吸收了脉冲神经网络特点的新型生物计算装置,具有强大的计算能力。同质脉冲神经膜系统是指一种所有神经元具有相同规则集合的脉冲神经膜系统的变体。研究了突触上带权值和突触上不带权值的两种同质脉冲神经膜系统在不使用具有延迟的激发规则情况下的计算通用性问题,并证明了这两种不带延迟的同质脉冲神经膜系统无论是工作在产生模式下,还是工作在接收模式下都是计算通用的。解决了曾湘祥、张兴义和潘林强提出的关于不带延迟的同质脉冲神经膜系统是否具有计算通用性的公开问题。     

Reversible spiking neural P systems

Spiking neural (SN) P systems are a class of distributed parallel computing devices inspired by the way neurons communicate by means of spikes. In this work, we investigate reversibility in SN P systems, as well as the computing power of reversible SN P systems. Reversible SN P systems are proved to have Turing creativity, that is, they can compute any recursively enumerable set of non-negative integers by simulating universal reversible register machine.     

Small universal simple spiking neural P systems with weights

Spiking neural P systems with weights（WSN P systems,for short） are a new variant of spiking neural P systems,where the rules of a neuron are enabled when the potential of that neuron equals a given value.It is known that WSN P systems are universal by simulating register machines. However,in these universal systems,no bound is considered on the number of neurons and rules. In this work,a restricted variant of WSN P systems is considered,called simple WSN P systems,where each neuron has only one rule. The complexity parameter,the number of neurons,to construct a universal simple WSN P system is investigated. It is proved that there is a universal simple WSN P system with 48 neurons for computing functions; as generator of sets of numbers,there is an almost simple（that is,each neuron has only one rule except that one neuron has two rules） and universal WSN P system with 45 neurons.     

Adaptive fuzzy spiking neural P systems for fuzzy inference and learning

Fuzzy spiking neural P systems (in short, FSN P systems) are a novel class of distributed parallel computing models, which can model fuzzy production rules and apply their dynamic firing mechanism to achieve fuzzy reasoning. However, these systems lack adaptive/learning ability. Addressing this problem, a class of FSN P systems are proposed by introducing some new features, called adaptive fuzzy spiking neural P systems (in short, AFSN P systems). AFSN P systems not only can model weighted fuzzy production rules in fuzzy knowledge base but also can perform dynamically fuzzy reasoning. It is important to note that AFSN P systems have learning ability like neural networks. Based on neuron's firing mechanisms, a fuzzy reasoning algorithm and a learning algorithm are developed. Moreover, an example is included to illustrate the learning ability of AFSN P systems.     

Characterizations of some classes of spiking neural P systems

We look at the recently introduced neural-like systems, called SN P systems. These systems incorporate the ideas of spiking neurons into membrane computing. We study various classes and characterize their computing power and complexity. In particular, we analyze asynchronous and sequential SN P systems and present some conditions under which they become (non-)universal. The non-universal variants are characterized by monotonic counter machines and partially blind counter machines and, hence, have many decidable properties. We also investigate the language-generating capability of SN P systems.     

A software tool for verification of Spiking Neural P Systems

The formal verification of a Spiking Neural P System (SN P Systems, for short) designed for solving a given problem is usually a hard task. Basically, the verification process consists of the search of invariant formulae such that, once proved their validity, show the right answer to the problem. Even though there does not exist a general methodology for verifying SN P Systems, in (Păun et al., Int J Found Comput Sci 17(4):975–1002, 2006) a new tool based on the transition diagram of the P system has been developed for helping the researcher in the search of invariant formulae. In this paper we show a software tool which allows to generate the transition diagram of an SN P System in an automatic way, so it can be considered as an assistant for the formal verification of such computational devices.

P Automata with membrane channels

We investigated a variant of purely communicating P systems that are able to accept multisets or even strings given as sequences of terminal symbols taken from the environment. We showed that such P automata with membrane channels equipped with only one membrane and specific activating and prohibiting rules can already recognize any recursively enumerable language of multisets and strings, respectively. Moreover, using only activating rules of a very special kind, we obtained a characterization of regular languages. This work was presented, in part, at the 8th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 24#x2013;26, 2003.     

On string languages generated by sequential spiking neural P systems based on the number of spikes

Spiking neural P systems (SN P systems, for short) are a class of distributed parallel computing devices inspired from the way neurons communicate by means of spikes. In this work, we consider SN P systems with the following restriction: at each step the active neuron with the maximum (or minimum) number of spikes among the neurons that can spike will fire [if there is a tie for the maximum (or minimum) number of spikes stored in the active neurons, only one of the neurons containing the maximum (or minimum) is chosen non-deterministically]. We investigate the computational power of such sequential SN P systems that are used as language generators. We prove that recursively enumerable languages can be characterized as projections of inverse-morphic images of languages generated by such sequential SN P systems. The relationships of the languages generated by these sequential SN P systems with finite and regular languages are also investigated.     

Homogeneous spiking neural P systems working in sequential mode induced by maximum spike number

Spiking neural P systems (SN P systems, for short) are a class of distributed parallel computing devices inspired by the way neurons communicate by means of spikes, where neurons work in parallel in the sense that each neuron that can fire should fire at each computation step, and neurons can be different in the sense that they can have different sets of spiking rules. In this work, we consider SN P systems with the restrictions: (1) all neurons are homogeneous in the sense that each neuron has the same set of rules; (2) at each step the neuron with the maximum number of spikes among the neurons that are active (can spike) will fire. These restrictions correspond to the fact that the system consists of only one kind of neurons and a global view of the whole network makes the system sequential. The computation power of homogeneous SN P systems working in the sequential mode induced by the maximum spike number is investigated. Specifically, it is proved that such systems are universal as both generating and accepting devices.     

A quick overview of membrane computing with some details about spiking neural P systems

We briefly present the basic elements of membrane computing, a branch of natural computing inspired by the structure and functioning of living cells, then we give some details about spiking neural P systems, a class of membrane systems recently introduced, with motivations related to the way neurons communicate by means of spikes. In both cases, of general P systems and of spiking neural P systems, we introduce the fundamental concepts, give a few examples, then recall the types of results and of applications. A series of bibliographical references are provided.     

Finding iterative roots with a spiking neural network

In recent years, both multilayer perceptrons and networks of spiking neurons have been used in applications ranging from detailed models of specific cortical areas to image processing. A more challenging application is to find solutions to functional equations in order to gain insights to underlying phenomena. Finding the roots of real valued monotonically increasing function mappings is the solution to a particular class of functional equation. Furthermore, spiking neural network approaches in solving problems described by functional equations, may be an useful tool to provide important insights to how different regions of the brain may co-ordinate signaling within and between modalities, thus providing a possible basis to construct a theory of brain function. In this letter, we present for the first time a spiking neural network architecture based on integrate-and-fire units and delays, that is capable of calculating the functional or iterative root of nonlinear functions, by solving a particular class of functional equation.     

Membrane computing and brain modelling

We briefly discuss variants of (extended) spiking neural P systems that combine features from the areas of membrane computing and spiking neurons. This work was presented in part at the 13th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 31–February 2, 2008     

P systems with minimal parallelism

A current research topic in membrane computing is to find more realistic P systems from a biological point of view, and one target in this respect is to relax the condition of using the rules in a maximally parallel way. We contribute in this paper to this issue by considering the minimal parallelism of using the rules: if at least a rule from a set of rules associated with a membrane or a region can be used, then at least one rule from that membrane or region must be used, without any other restriction (e.g., more rules can be used, but we do not care how many). Weak as it might look, this minimal parallelism still leads to universality. We first prove this for the case of symport/antiport rules. The result is obtained both for generating and accepting P systems, in the latter case also for systems working deterministically. Then, we consider P systems with active membranes, and again the usual results are obtained: universality and the possibility to solve NP-complete problems in polynomial time (by trading space for time).