Natural Computing

This book is the refereed proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Natural Computing, IWNC 2009, held in Himeji International Exchange Center, HIMEJI, JAPAN on September 2009. IWNC aims to bring together computer scientists, biologists, mathematicians, electronic engineers, physicists, and humanitarians, to critically assess present findings in the field, and to outline future developments in nature-inspired computing.The complex behavior of systems in nature is rooted in intricate mechanisms of interaction that often supersede human-made systems in terms of reliability, power efficiency, and computational capacity. Researchers have begun to realize that natural systems are a great source of inspiration for novel algorithms in computation and communication systems. The International Workshop on Natural Computing (IWNC) is a platform that brings together computer scientists, biologists, mathematicians, electronic engineers, physicists, and social scientists to critically assess present findings in the field and to outline future developments in novel and emerging paradigms of computation and computing architectures. This compilation contains the papers from the most recent workshop, held in Himeji, Japan. Presented by scientists of worldwide reputation, the topics include DNA computation, cellular automata, physics and computation, evolutionary computing, neural networks, amoeba-based computing, artificial chemistry, noise-driven computing, chaotic systems, and unconventional models of communication.