Local Synchronization on Asynchronous Tissue P Systems With Symport/Antiport Rules

Asynchronous tissue P systems with symport/antiport rules are a class of parallel computing models inspired by cell tissue working in a non-synchronized way, where the use of rules is not obligatory, that is, at a computation step, an enabled rule may or may not be applied. In this work, the notion of local synchronization is introduced at three levels: rules, channels, and cells. If a rule in a locally synchronous set of rules (resp., cells or channels) is used, then all enabled rules in the same locally synchronous set of rules (resp., whose involved channels or cells) should be applied in a maximally parallel manner and the implementation of these rules is finished in one computation step. The computational power of local synchronization on asynchronous tissue P systems with symport/antiport rules at the three levels is investigated. It is shown that asynchronous tissue P systems with symport/antiport rules and with locally synchronous sets of rules, channels, or cells are all Turing universal. By comparing the computational power of asynchronous tissue P systems with or without local synchronization, it can be found that the local synchronization is a useful tool to achieve a desired computational power.