Unconventional Models of Computation, UMC’2K: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Unconventional Models of Computation, (UMC’2K)

This book contains papers presented at the 2nd International Conference on Unconventional Models of Computation (UMCK'2K), which was held at Solvay Institutes, Brussels, Belgium, in December 2000. Computers as we know them may be getting better and cheaper, and doing more for us, but they are still unable to cope with many tasks of practical interest. Nature, though, has been 'computing' with molecules and cells for billions of years, and these natural processes form the main motivation for the construction of radically new models of computation, the core theme of the papers in this volume. Unconventional Models of Computation, UMCK'2K covers all major areas of unconventional computation, including quantum computing, DNA-based computation, membrane computing and evolutionary algorithms.