Abstract

Natural computation, as an exciting and emerging interdisciplinary field, has been witnessing a surge of newly developed theories, methodologies and applications in recent years. These innovations have generated a huge impact in tackling complex and challenging real world problems. Not only are the well established intelligent techniques, such as neural networks, fuzzy systems, genetic and evolutionary algorithms, and cellular automata expanding to new application areas; the new forms of natural computation that have emerged recently, for example, swarm intelligence, artificial immune systems, bio-molecular computing and membrane computing, quantum computing, and granular computing, are also providing additional tools for various applications. One attractive area that natural computation has been playing a major role in is knowledge discovery. There are many success stories on natural computation and knowledge discovery, as you will find out in this special issue