This text 1s designed to introduce the fundamentals of esti mation to engineers, scientists, and applied mathematicians. The level of the presentation should be accessible to senior under graduates and should prove especially well-suited as a self study guide for practicing professionals. My primary motivation for writing this book 1s to make a significant contribution toward minimizing the painful process most newcomers must go through in digesting and applying the theory. Thus the treatment 1s intro ductory and essence-oriented rather than comprehensive. While some original material 1s included, the justification for this text lies not in the contribution of dramatic new theoretical re sults, but rather in the degree of success I believe that I have achieved in providing a source from which this material may be learned more efficiently than through study of an existing text or the rather diffuse literature. This work is the outgrowth of the author's mid-1960's en counter with the subject while motivated by practical problems aSSociated with space vehicle orbit determination and estimation of powered rocket trajectories. The text has evolved as lecture notes for short courses and seminars given to professionals at Pr>efaae various private laboratories and government agencies, and during the past six years, in conjunction with engineering courses taught at the University of Virginia. To motivate the reader's thinking, the structure of a typical estimation problem often assumes the following form: * Given a dynamical system, a mathematical model is hypothesized based upon the experience of the investigator.

This second edition of Generalized Functions has been strengthened in many ways. The already extensive set of examples has been expanded. Since the publication of the first edition, there has been tremendous growth in the subject and I have attempted to incorporate some of these new concepts. Accordingly, almost all the chapters have been revised. The bibliography has been enlarged considerably. Some of the material has been reorganized. For example, Chapters 12 and 13 of the first edition have been consolidated into Chapter 12 of this edition by a judicious process of elimination and addition of the subject matter. The new Chapter 13 explains the interplay between the theories of moments, asymptotics, and singular perturbations. Similarly, some sections of Chapter 15 have been revised and included in earlier chapters to improve the logical flow of ideas. However, two sections are retained. The section dealing with the application of the probability theory has been revised, and I am thankful to Professor Z.L. Crvenkovic for her help. The new material included in this chapter pertains to the modern topics of periodic distributions and microlocal theory. I have demonstrated through various examples that familiarity with the generalized functions is very helpful for students in physical sciences and technology. For instance, the reader will realize from Chapter 6 how the generalized functions have revolutionized the Fourier analysis which is being used extensively in many fields of scientific activity.

There are a great deal of books on introductory analysis in print today, many written by mathematicians of the first rank. The publication of another such book therefore warrants a defense. I have taught analysis for many years and have used a variety of texts during this time. These books were of excellent quality mathematically but did not satisfy the needs of the students I was teaching. They were written for mathematicians but not for those who were first aspiring to attain that status. The desire to fill this gap gave rise to the writing of this book. This book is intended to serve as a text for an introductory course in analysis. Its readers will most likely be mathematics, science, or engineering majors undertaking the last quarter of their undergraduate education. The aim of a first course in analysis is to provide the student with a sound foundation for analysis, to familiarize him with the kind of careful thinking used in advanced mathematics, and to provide him with tools for further work in it. The typical student we are dealing with has completed a three-semester calculus course and possibly an introductory course in differential equations. He may even have been exposed to a semester or two of modern algebra. All this time his training has most likely been intuitive with heuristics taking the place of proof. This may have been appropriate for that stage of his development.

Although much of classical ergodic theory is concerned with single transformations and one-parameter flows, the subject inherits from statistical mechanics not only its name, but also an obligation to analyze spatially extended systems with multidimensional symmetry groups. However, the wealth of concrete and natural examples which has contributed so much to the appeal and development of classical dynamics, is noticeably absent in this more general theory. The purpose of this book is to help remedy this scarcity of explicit examples by introducing a class of continuous Zd-actions diverse enough to exhibit many of the new phenomena encountered in the transition from Z to Zd, but which nevertheless lends itself to systematic study: the Zd-actions by automorphisms of compact, abelian groups. One aspect of these actions, not surprising in itself but quite striking in its extent and depth nonetheless, is the connection with commutative algebra and arithmetical algebraic geometry. The algebraic framework resulting from this connection allows the construction of examples with a variety of specified dynamical properties, and by combining algebraic and dynamical tools one obtains a quite detailed understanding of this class of Zd-actions."

In the last 30 years, Approximation Theory has undergone wonderful develop ment, with many new theories appearing in this short interval. This book has its origin in the wish to adequately describe this development, in particular, to rewrite the short 1966 book of G. G. Lorentz, "Approximation of Functions." Soon after 1980, R. A. DeVore and Lorentz joined forces for this purpose. The outcome has been their "Constructive Approximation" (1993), volume 303 of this series. References to this book are given as, for example rCA, p.201]. Later, M. v. Golitschek and Y. Makovoz joined Lorentz to produce the present book, as a continuation of the first. Completeness has not been our goal. In some of the theories, our exposition offers a selection of important, representative theorems, some other cases are treated more systematically. As in the first book, we treat only approximation of functions of one real variable. Thus, functions of several variables, complex approximation or interpolation are not treated, although complex variable methods appear often."

This volume of the Proceedings of the congress ISAAC '97 collects the con tributions of the four sections 1. Function theoretic and functional analytic methods for pde, 2. Applications of function theory of several complex variables to pde, 3. Integral equations and boundary value problems, 4. Partial differential equations. Most but not all of the authors have participated in the congress. Unfortunately some from Eastern Europe and Asia have not managed to come because of lack of financial support. Nevertheless their manuscripts of the proposed talks are included in this volume. The majority of the papers deal with complex methods. Among them boundary value problems in particular the Riemann-Hilbert, the Riemann (Hilbert) and related problems are treated. Boundary behaviour of vector-valued functions are studied too. The Riemann-Hilbert problem is solved for elliptic complex equations, for mixed complex equations, and for several complex variables. It is considered in a general topological setting for mappings into q;n and related to Toeplitz operators. Convolution operators are investigated for nilpotent Lie groups leading to some consequences for the null space of the tangential Cauchy Riemann operator. Some boundary value problems for overdetermined systems in balls of q;n are solved explicitly. A survey is given for the Gauss-Manin connection associated with deformations of curve singularities. Several papers deal with generalizations of analytic functions with various applications to mathematical physics. Singular integrals in quaternionic anal ysis are studied which are applied to the time-harmonic Maxwell equations."

These proceedings contain lectures and contributed papers presented at the NATO-NSF Advanced Study Institute on Optimization of Distributed Parameter Structures (Iowa City, Iowa 21 May - 4 June, 1980). The institute was organized by E. Haug and J. Cea, with the enthusiastic help of leading contributors to the field of distributed parameter structural optimization. The principle con tributor to this field during the past two decades, Professor William Prager, participated in planning for the Institute and helped to establish its technical direction. His death just prior to the Institute is a deep loss to the community of engineers and mathematicians in the field, to which he made pioneering contri butions. The proceedings are organized into seven parts, each address ing important problems and special considerations involving classes of structural optimization problems. The review paper presented first in the proceedings surveys contributions to the field, primarily during the decade 1970-1980. Part I of the pro ceedings addresses optimality criteria methods for analyzing and solving problems of distributed parameter structural optimization. Optimality criteria obtained using variational methods of mech anics, calculus of variation, optimal control theory, and abstract optimization theory are presented for numerous classes of struct ures; including beams, columns, plates, grids, shells, and arches."

One-dimensional dynamics has developed in the last decades into a subject in its own right. Yet, many recent results are inaccessible and have never been brought together. For this reason, we have tried to give a unified ac count of the subject and complete proofs of many results. To show what results one might expect, the first chapter deals with the theory of circle diffeomorphisms. The remainder of the book is an attempt to develop the analogous theory in the non-invertible case, despite the intrinsic additional difficulties. In this way, we have tried to show that there is a unified theory in one-dimensional dynamics. By reading one or more of the chapters, the reader can quickly reach the frontier of research. Let us quickly summarize the book. The first chapter deals with circle diffeomorphisms and contains a complete proof of the theorem on the smooth linearizability of circle diffeomorphisms due to M. Herman, J.-C. Yoccoz and others. Chapter II treats the kneading theory of Milnor and Thurstonj also included are an exposition on Hofbauer's tower construction and a result on fuB multimodal families (this last result solves a question posed by J. Milnor).

Approach your problems from the right end It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is and begin with the answers. Then one day, that they can't see the problem. perhaps you will find the final question. G. K. Chesterton. The Scandal of Father 'The Hermit Clad in Crane Feathers' in R. Brown 'The point of a Pin'. van Gulik's The Chinese Maze Murders. Growing specialization and diversification have brought a host of monographs and textbooks on increasingly specialized topics. However, the "tree" of knowledge of mathematics and related fields does not grow only by putting forth new branches. It also happens, quite often in fact, that branches which were. thought to be completely disparate are suddenly seen to be related. Further, the kind and level of sophistication of mathematics applied in various Isciences has changed drastically in recent years: measure theory is used (non trivially) in regional and theoretical economics; algebraic geom. eJry interacts with I physics; the Minkowsky lemma, coding theory and the structure of water meet one another in packing and covering theory; quantum fields, crystal defects and rpathematical programminglprofit from homotopy theory; Lie algebras are relevant to filtering; and prediction and electrical engineering can use Stein spaces. And in addition to this there are such new emerging subdisciplines as "experimental mathematics", "CFD", "completely integrable systems", "chaos, synergetics and large-scale order", which are almost impossible to fit into the existing classification schemes. They draw upon widely different sections of mathematics.

These proceedings contain lectures and contributed papers presented at the NATO-NSF Advanced Stucy Institute on Optimization of Distributed Parameter Structures (Iowa City, Iowa 21 May - 4 June, 1980). The institute was organized by E. Haug and J. Cea, with the enthusiastic help of leading contributors to the field of distributed parameter structural optimization. The principle con tributor to this field during the past two decades, Professor William Prager, participated in planning for the Institute and helped to establish its technical direction. His death just prior to the Institute is a deep loss to the community of engineers and mathematicians in the field, to which he made pioneering contri butions. The proceedings are organized into seven parts, each address ing important problems and special considerations involving classes of structural optimization problems. The review paper presented first in the proceedings surveys contributions to the field, primarily during the decade 1970-1980. Part I of the pro ceedings addresses optimality criteria methods for analyzing and solving problems of distributed parameter structural optimization. Optimality criteria obtained using variational methods of mech anics, calculus of variation, optimal control theory, and abstract optimization theory are presented for numerous classes of struct ures; including beams, columns, plates, grids, shells, and arches."

This volume is a collection of manscripts mainly originating from talks and lectures given at the Workshop on Recent Trends in Complex Methods for Par tial Differential Equations held from July 6 to 10, 1998 at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, sponsored by The Scientific and Tech nical Research Council of Turkey and the Middle East Technical University. This workshop is a continuation oftwo workshops from 1988 and 1993 at the In ternational Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy entitled Functional analytic Methods in Complex Analysis and Applications to Partial Differential Equations. Since classical complex analysis of one and several variables has a long tra dition it is of high level. But most of its basic problems are solved nowadays so that within the last few decades it has lost more and more attention. The area of complex and functional analytic methods in partial differential equations, however, is still a growing and flourishing field, in particular as these methods are not only applied. Whithin the framework of holomorphic functions but are also combined with properties of generalized analytic functions. This can be seen by the many books which recently were published in this field and also by the proceedings in this ISAAC series and the ISAAC congresses and workshops."

This is a text that develops calculus 'from scratch', with complete rigorous arguments. Its aim is to introduce the reader not only to the basic facts about calculus but, as importantly, to mathematical reasoning. It covers in great detail calculus of one variable and multivariable calculus. Additionally it offers a basic introduction to the topology of Euclidean space. It is intended to more advanced or highly motivated undergraduates.

Since the elassie work on inequalities by HARDY, LITTLEWOOD, and P6LYA in 1934, an enonnous amount of effort has been devoted to the sharpening and extension of the elassieal inequalities, to the discovery of new types of inequalities, and to the application of inqualities in many parts of analysis. As examples, let us eite the fields of ordinary and partial differential equations, whieh are dominated by inequalities and variational prineiples involving functions and their derivatives; the many applications of linear inequalities to game theory and mathe- matieal economics, which have triggered a renewed interest in con- vexity and moment-space theory; and the growing uses of digital com- puters, which have given impetus to a systematie study of error esti- mates involving much sophisticated matrix theory and operator theory. The results presented in the following pages reflect to some extent these ramifications of inequalities into contiguous regions of analysis, but to a greater extent our concem is with inequalities in their native habitat. Since it is elearly impossible to give a connected account of the burst of analytic activity of the last twenty-five years centering about inequalities, we have d. eeided to limit our attention to those topies that have particularly delighted and intrigued us, and to the study of whieh we have contributed.

On February 15-17, 1993, a conference on Large Scale Optimization, hosted by the Center for Applied Optimization, was held at the University of Florida. The con ference was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U. S. Army Research Office, and the University of Florida, with endorsements from SIAM, MPS, ORSA and IMACS. Forty one invited speakers presented papers on mathematical program ming and optimal control topics with an emphasis on algorithm development, real world applications and numerical results. Participants from Canada, Japan, Sweden, The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Greece, and Denmark gave the meeting an important international component. At tendees also included representatives from IBM, American Airlines, US Air, United Parcel Serice, AT & T Bell Labs, Thinking Machines, Army High Performance Com puting Research Center, and Argonne National Laboratory. In addition, the NSF sponsored attendance of thirteen graduate students from universities in the United States and abroad. Accurate modeling of scientific problems often leads to the formulation of large scale optimization problems involving thousands of continuous and/or discrete vari ables. Large scale optimization has seen a dramatic increase in activities in the past decade. This has been a natural consequence of new algorithmic developments and of the increased power of computers. For example, decomposition ideas proposed by G. Dantzig and P. Wolfe in the 1960's, are now implement able in distributed process ing systems, and today many optimization codes have been implemented on parallel machines.

This monograph represents a summary of our work in the last two years in applying the method of simulated annealing to the solution of problems that arise in the physical design of VLSI circuits. Our study is experimental in nature, in that we are con cerned with issues such as solution representations, neighborhood structures, cost functions, approximation schemes, and so on, in order to obtain good design results in a reasonable amount of com putation time. We hope that our experiences with the techniques we employed, some of which indeed bear certain similarities for different problems, could be useful as hints and guides for other researchers in applying the method to the solution of other prob lems. Work reported in this monograph was partially supported by the National Science Foundation under grant MIP 87-03273, by the Semiconductor Research Corporation under contract 87-DP- 109, by a grant from the General Electric Company, and by a grant from the Sandia Laboratories."

This book contains an introduction to the theory of functions, with emphasis on functions of several variables. The central topics are the differentiation and integration of such functions. Although many of the topics are familiar, the treatment is new; the book developed from a new approach to the theory of differentiation. Iff is a function of two real variables x and y, its deriva tives at a point Po can be approximated and found as follows. Let PI' P2 be two points near Po such that Po, PI, P2 are not on a straight line. The linear function of x and y whose values at Po, PI' P2 are equal to those off at these points approximates f near Po; determinants can be used to find an explicit representation of this linear function (think of the equation of the plane through three points in three-dimensional space). The (partial) derivatives of this linear function are approximations to the derivatives of f at Po; each of these (partial) derivatives of the linear function is the ratio of two determinants. The derivatives off at Po are defined to be the limits of these ratios as PI and P2 approach Po (subject to an important regularity condition). This simple example is only the beginning, but it hints at a m theory of differentiation for functions which map sets in IRn into IR which is both general and powerful, and which reduces to the standard theory of differentiation in the one-dimensional case."

'Ht moi, ..., si j'avait su comment en revenir, One lemce mathematics has rendered the je n'y serai. point aile.' human race. It has put common sense back Jule. Verne ..... "'" it belong., on the topmost shelf next to the dusty caniller labelled 'discarded non- The series is divergent; therefore we may be sense'. able to do something with it. Eric T. Bell O. Heaviside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non linearities abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sciences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One service topology has rendered mathematical physics .. .'; 'One service logic has rendered com puter science .. .'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics .. .'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d' re of this series."

'Et moi ..... si j'avait su comment en revenir, One service mathematics has rendered the je n'y serais point aIle.' human race. It has put common sense back Jules Verne where it belongs. on the topmost shelf next to the dusty canister labelled 'discarded non. The series is divergent; therefore we may be sense'. able to do something with it. Eric T. Bell O. Heaviside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non linearities abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sciences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One service topology has rendered mathematical physics .. .'; 'One service logic has rendered com puter science .. .'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics .. .'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d'etre of this series."

Intended for a wide range of readers, this book covers the main ideas of convex analysis and approximation theory. The author discusses the sources of these two trends in mathematical analysis, develops the main concepts and results, and mentions some beautiful theorems. The relationship of convex analysis to optimization problems, to the calculus of variations, to optimal control and to geometry is considered, and the evolution of the ideas underlying approximation theory, from its origins to the present day, is discussed. The book is addressed both to students who want to acquaint themselves with these trends and to lecturers in mathematical analysis, optimization and numerical methods, as well as to researchers in these fields who would like to tackle the topic as a whole and seek inspiration for its further development.

What shall we say of this metamorphosis in passing from finite to infinite? Galileo, Two New Sciences As its title suggests, this book was conceived as a prologue to the study of "Why the calculus works"--otherwise known as analysis. It is in fact a critical reexamination of the infinite processes arising in elementary math ematics: Part II reexamines rational and irrational numbers, and their representation as infinite decimals; Part III examines our ideas of length, area, and volume; and Part IV examines the evolution of the modern function-concept. The book may be used in a number of ways: firstly, as a genuine pro logue to analysis; secondly, as a supplementary text within an analysis course, providing a source of elementary motivation, background and ex amples; thirdly, as a kind of postscript to elementary analysis-as in a senior undergraduate course designed to reinforce students' understanding of elementary analysis and of elementary mathematics by considering the mathematical and historical connections between them. But the contents of the book should be of interest to a much wider audience than this including teachers, teachers in training, students in their last year at school, and others interested in mathematics."

Research in the theory of trigonometric series has been carried out for over two centuries. The results obtained have greatly influenced various fields of mathematics, mechanics, and physics. Nowadays, the theory of simple trigonometric series has been developed fully enough (we will only mention the monographs by Zygmund [15, 16] and Bari [2]). The achievements in the theory of multiple trigonometric series look rather modest as compared to those in the one-dimensional case though multiple trigonometric series seem to be a natural, interesting and promising object of investigation. We should say, however, that the past few decades have seen a more intensive development of the theory in this field. To form an idea about the theory of multiple trigonometric series, the reader can refer to the surveys by Shapiro [1], Zhizhiashvili [16], [46], Golubov [1], D'yachenko [3]. As to monographs on this topic, only that ofYanushauskas [1] is known to me. This book covers several aspects of the theory of multiple trigonometric Fourier series: the existence and properties of the conjugates and Hilbert transforms of integrable functions; convergence (pointwise and in the LP-norm, p > 0) of Fourier series and their conjugates, as well as their summability by the Cesaro (C,a), a> -1, and Abel-Poisson methods; approximating properties of Cesaro means of Fourier series and their conjugates.

The subject of this book is the introduction and application of a new measure for smoothness offunctions. Though we have both previously published some articles in this direction, the results given here are new. Much of the work was done in the summer of 1984 in Edmonton when we consolidated earlier ideas and worked out most of the details of the text. It took another year and a half to improve and polish many of the theorems. We express our gratitude to Paul Nevai and Richard Varga for their encouragement. We thank NSERC of Canada for its valuable support. We also thank Christine Fischer and Laura Heiland for their careful typing of our manuscript. z. Ditzian V. Totik CONTENTS Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 PART I. THE MODULUS OF SMOOTHNESS Chapter 1. Preliminaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.1. Notations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.2. Discussion of Some Conditions on cp(x). . . . * . . . . . . . * . . * . . * * . 8 . . . * . 1.3. Examples of Various Step-Weight Functions cp(x) . . * . . * . . * . . * . . . 9 . . * Chapter 2. The K-Functional and the Modulus of Continuity ... . ... 10 2.1. The Equivalence Theorem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 . . . . . . . . . 2.2. The Upper Estimate, Kr.tp(f, tr)p ~ Mw;(f, t)p, Case I . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 . . . 2.3. The Upper Estimate of the K-Functional, The Other Cases. . . . . . . . . . 16 . 2.4. The Lower Estimate for the K-Functional. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 . . . . . Chapter 3. K-Functionals and Moduli of Smoothness, Other Forms. 24 3.1. A Modified K-Functional . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 . . . . . . . . . . 3.2. Forward and Backward Differences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 . . . . . . . 3.3. Main-Part Modulus of Smoothness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 . . . . . . .

One service mathematics has rendered the 'Eot moi, ..., si j'avait JU comment en revenir. human race. h has put common sense back je n'y serais point aUe:' Jules Verne where it belongs, 011 the topmost shelf nen to the dusty canister labeUed 'discarded non- The series is divergent; therefore we may be sense'. able to do something with it. Eric T. Bell O. H es viside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non- linearities abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other pans and for other sciences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One service topology has rendered mathematical physics ...'; 'One service logic has rendered com- puter science ...'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics ...'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d'etre of this series.

This book considers methods of approximate analysis of mechanical, elec tromechanical, and other systems described by ordinary differential equa tions. Modern mathematical modeling of sophisticated mechanical systems consists of several stages: first, construction of a mechanical model, and then writing appropriate equations and their analytical or numerical ex amination. Usually, this procedure is repeated several times. Even if an initial model correctly reflects the main properties of a phenomenon, it de scribes, as a rule, many unnecessary details that make equations of motion too complicated. As experience and experimental data are accumulated, the researcher considers simpler models and simplifies the equations. Thus some terms are discarded, the order of the equations is lowered, and so on. This process requires time, experimentation, and the researcher's intu ition. A good example of such a semi-experimental way of simplifying is a gyroscopic precession equation. Formal mathematical proofs of its admis sibility appeared some several decades after its successful introduction in engineering calculations. Applied mathematics now has at its disposal many methods of approxi mate analysis of differential equations. Application of these methods could shorten and formalize the procedure of simplifying the equations and, thus, of constructing approximate motion models. Wide application of the methods into practice is hindered by the fol lowing. 1. Descriptions of various approximate methods are scattered over the mathematical literature. The researcher, as a rule, does not know what method is most suitable for a specific case. 2."

There has been much recent progress in global optimization algo rithms for nonconvex continuous and discrete problems from both a theoretical and a practical perspective. Convex analysis plays a fun damental role in the analysis and development of global optimization algorithms. This is due essentially to the fact that virtually all noncon vex optimization problems can be described using differences of convex functions and differences of convex sets. A conference on Convex Analysis and Global Optimization was held during June 5 -9, 2000 at Pythagorion, Samos, Greece. The conference was honoring the memory of C. Caratheodory (1873-1950) and was en dorsed by the Mathematical Programming Society (MPS) and by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Activity Group in Optimization. The conference was sponsored by the European Union (through the EPEAEK program), the Department of Mathematics of the Aegean University and the Center for Applied Optimization of the University of Florida, by the General Secretariat of Research and Tech nology of Greece, by the Ministry of Education of Greece, and several local Greek government agencies and companies. This volume contains a selective collection of refereed papers based on invited and contribut ing talks presented at this conference. The two themes of convexity and global optimization pervade this book. The conference provided a forum for researchers working on different aspects of convexity and global opti mization to present their recent discoveries, and to interact with people working on complementary aspects of mathematical programming."