Membrane systems with carriers

AbstractA membrane system is a model of computation which is inspired by some basic features of biological membranes. In this paper we consider another biologically inspired notion, viz., the notion of a carrier (or vehicle), as, e.g., used in gene cloning. We investigate the power of membrane systems where the rules for the evolving of objects are replaced by the rules that carry objects (by vehicles) through membranes. It turns out that these systems (even with a small number of membranes, a small number of carriers, and a small number of passengers taken by carriers) are computationally universal