This book contains papers presented at the International Symposium on Elect- magnetic Fields in Mechatronics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering ISEF'07 which was held in Prague, the Czech Republic, from September 13 to 15, 2007. ISEF conferences have been organized since 1985 and from the very beginning it was a common initiative of Polish and other European researchers who have dealt with electromagnetic ?eld in electrical engineering. The conference travels through Europe and is organized in various academic centres. Relatively often, it was held in some Polish city as the initiative was on the part of Polish scientists. Now ISEF is much more international and successive events take place in different European academic centres renowned for electromagnetic research. This time it was Prague, famous for its beauty and historical background, as it is the place where many c- tures mingle. The venue of the conference was the historical building of Charles University, placed just in the centre of Prague. The Technical University of Prague, in turn, constituted the logistic centre of the conference. It is the tradition of the ISEF meetings that they try to tackle quite a vast area of computational and applied electromagnetics. Moreover, the ISEF symposia aim at combining theory and practice; therefore the majority of papers are deeply rooted in engineering problems, being simultaneously of a high theoretical level.

The finite element method has always been a mainstay for solving engineering problems numerically. The most recent developments in the field clearly indicate that its future lies in higher-order methods, particularly in higher-order hp-adaptive schemes. These techniques respond well to the increasing complexity of engineering simulations and satisfy the overall trend of simultaneous resolution of phenomena with multiple scales.

Higher-Order Finite Element Methods provides an thorough survey of intrinsic techniques and the practical know-how needed to implement higher-order finite element schemes. It presents the basic priniciples of higher-order finite element methods and the technology of conforming discretizations based on hierarchic elements in spaces H^1, H(curl) and H(div). The final chapter provides an example of an efficient and robust strategy for automatic goal-oriented hp-adaptivity.

Although it will still take some time for fully automatic hp-adaptive finite element methods to become standard engineering tools, their advantages are clear. In straightforward prose that avoids mathematical jargon whenever possible, this book paves the way for fully realizing the potential of these techniques and putting them at the disposal of practicing engineers.

This book contains papers presented at the International Symposium on Elect- magnetic Fields in Mechatronics, Electrical and Electronic Engineering ISEF'07 which was held in Prague, the Czech Republic, from September 13 to 15, 2007. ISEF conferences have been organized since 1985 and from the very beginning it was a common initiative of Polish and other European researchers who have dealt with electromagnetic ?eld in electrical engineering. The conference travels through Europe and is organized in various academic centres. Relatively often, it was held in some Polish city as the initiative was on the part of Polish scientists. Now ISEF is much more international and successive events take place in different European academic centres renowned for electromagnetic research. This time it was Prague, famous for its beauty and historical background, as it is the place where many c- tures mingle. The venue of the conference was the historical building of Charles University, placed just in the centre of Prague. The Technical University of Prague, in turn, constituted the logistic centre of the conference. It is the tradition of the ISEF meetings that they try to tackle quite a vast area of computational and applied electromagnetics. Moreover, the ISEF symposia aim at combining theory and practice; therefore the majority of papers are deeply rooted in engineering problems, being simultaneously of a high theoretical level.