%0 Generic %D 2008 %T Editing configurations of P systems %A Erzsebet Csuhaj-Varjú %A Antonio di-Nola %A Gheorghe Paun %A Mario J. Pérez-Jiménez %A György Vaszil %C Warsaw, Poland %I IOS Press %N 1-2 %P 29-46 %U http://fi.mimuw.edu.pl/abs82.html %V 82 %X This paper proposes and investigates the possibility of transforming a configuration of a P system (the membrane structure and the multisets of symbol-objects present in the compartments) into another configuration by means of a given set of rules to be applied to the membranes and to the multisets of objects. Although this transformation is obtained during the computation in a P system, we consider it as a goal per se, as a pre-computation phase, when the system itself is built. In this framework, several important problems appear: the edit-distance between configurations (with respect to a given set of editing rules), normal forms, the reachability of configurations, or the existence of single configurations from which a given family of configurations can be constructed, only to mention a few. We investigate here some of these questions; the paper is mainly devoted to formulating problems in the new framework, to calling attention to the possible extensions and the usefulness of the present approach %8 08/2008