Scientific Foundation for Global Computing.- Interdisciplinary Innovation in International Initiatives.- A Grand Challenge for Converging Sciences.- Applying Computer Science Research to Biodiversity Informatics: Some Experiences and Lessons.- e-Science and the VL-e Approach.- From Syntax to Semantics in Systems Biology Towards Automated Reasoning Tools.- SYMBIONIC: A European Initiative on the Systems Biology of the Neuronal Cell.- A Biological Approach to Autonomic Communication Systems.- The Twilight of the Despotic Digital Civilization.- A Compositional Approach to the Stochastic Dynamics of Gene Networks.- A Weighted Profile Based Method for Protein-RNA Interacting Residue Prediction.

This, the 4th Transactions on Computational Systems Biology volume, contains carefully selected and enhanced contributions presented at the first Converging Science conference held at the University of Trento, Italy, in December 2004.

Dedicated especially to models and metaphors from biology to bioinformatics tools, the 11 papers selected for the special issue cover a wide range of bioinformatics research, such as foundations of global computing, interdisciplinarity in innovation initiatives, biodiversity, and more.