This is the second volume in a series of innovative proceedings entirely devoted to the connections between mathematics and computer science. Here mathematics and computer science are directly confronted and joined to tackle intricate problems in computer science with deep and innovative mathematical approaches.

The book serves as an outstanding tool and a main information source for a large public in applied mathematics, discrete mathematics and computer science, including researchers, teachers, graduate students and engineers. It provides an overview of the current questions in computer science and the related modern and powerful mathematical methods. The range of applications is very wide and reaches beyond computer science.

This book is based on the proceedings of the Colloquium on Mathematics and Computer Science held in the University of Versailles-St-Quentin on September 18- It contains articles on topics that are relevant both to Mathematics and 20, 2000. to Computer Science. These articles have been selected throughout a rigourous process; each of them has been submitted to two referees at least. This selection process, which took place under the supervision of the scientific committee, en- sures the high level and the originality of the contributions. We thank the invited speakers, the authors, the participants to the collo- quium and, of course, the Scientific Committee whose members were D. Aldous, F. Baccelli, P. Cartier, B. Chauvin, P. Flajolet, J.M. Fourneau, D. Gardy, D. Gouyou- Beauchamps, R. Kenyon, J.F. Le Gall, C. Lemarechal, R. Lyons, A. Mokkadem, A. Rouault and C. Roucairol. We also take this opportunity to thank the University of Versailles-St-Quentin, the University of Paris-Sud (Orsay) and the Centre National de la Recherche Sci- entifique (CNRS), whose financial and material support contributed to the success of the Colloquium.

This is the second volume in a series of innovative proceedings entirely devoted to the connections between mathematics and computer science. Here mathematics and computer science are directly confronted and joined to tackle intricate problems in computer science with deep and innovative mathematical approaches.

The book serves as an outstanding tool and a main information source for a large public in applied mathematics, discrete mathematics and computer science, including researchers, teachers, graduate students and engineers. It provides an overview of the current questions in computer science and the related modern and powerful mathematical methods. The range of applications is very wide and reaches beyond computer science.