Dynamic Compartments in the Imperative pi-Calculus

Dynamic compartments with mutable configurations and variable volumes are of basic interest for the stochastic modeling of biochemistry in cells. We propose a new language to express dynamic compartments that we call the imperative π-calculus. It is obtained from the attributed π-calculus by adding imperative assignment operations to a global store. Previous approaches to dynamic compartments are improved in flexibility or efficiency. This is illustrated by an appropriate model of osmosis and a correct encoding of BioAmbients.