Membrane computing is an unconventional model of computation associated
with a new computing paradigm. The field of membrane computing was
initiated in 1998 by the author of this book; it is a branch of natural
computing inspired by the structure and functioning of the living cell
and devises distributed parallel computing models in the form of
membrane systems. This book is the first monograph surveying the new
field in a systematic and coherent way. It presents the central notions
and results: the main classes of P systems, the main results about their
computational power and efficiency, a complete bibliography, and a
series of open problems and research topics.