The contributions in this volume are dedicated to Vladimir G. Maz'ya and are par tially based on talks given at the conference "Functional Analysis, Partial Differ ential Equations, and Applications," which took place at the University of Rostock from August 31 to September 4, 1998, to honour Prof. Maz'ya. This conference (a satellite meeting of the ICM) gave an opportunity to many friends and colleagues from all over the world to honour him. This academic community is very large. The scientific field of Prof. Maz'ya is impressively broad, which is reflected in the variety of contributions included in the volumes. Vladimir Maz'ya is the author and co-author of many publications (see the list of publications at the end of this volume), the topics of which extend from functional analysis, function theory and numerical analysis to partial differential equations and their broad applications. Vladimir G. Maz'ya provided significant contributions, among others to the the ory of Sobolev spaces, the capacity theory, boundary integral methods, qualitative and asymptotic methods of analysis of linear and nonlinear elliptic differential equations, the Cauchy problem for elliptic and hyperbolic equations, the theory of multipliers in spaces of differentiable functions, maximum principles for elliptic and parabolic systems, and boundary value problems in domains with piecewise smooth boundaries. Surveys on Maz'ya's work in different fields of mathematics and areas, where he made essential contributions, form a major part of the present first volume of The Maz'ya Anniversary Collection."

During the week of August 31 - September 4, 1998, a conference in honour of Vladimir Maz'ya was held in Rostock as a satellite meeting of the World Congress of Mathematicians. It was sponsored by the German Research Founda tion (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) and the Ministry of Education and Cul tural Affairs of the land Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. During his forty year career Maz'ya contributed to so many areas of mathematical analysis that such a broad topic of the conference as "Functional Analysis, Partial Differential Equations and Applications" sounds quite nat al. The conference was organized by the Depart ment of Mathematics of the University of Rostock and the Weierstrass Institute of Applied Analysis and Stochastics in Berlin on the occasion of his 60th birth day. For many years Maz'ya was connected with mathematicians from Berlin and Rostock through his work in potential theory, in differential and pseudodifferen tial equations and in approximation theory. In 1990 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Rostock. Shortly before the meeting, one of its organizers, an outstanding mathematician and Maz'ya's dear friend, Siegfried Pr6Bdorf died. This was a heavy loss for the and for the conference in particular. During the German mathematical community meeting the rector of the University of Rostock, Prof. Wildenhain, the director of the Weierstrass Institute, Prof. Sprekels, and Prof. Maz'ya remembered S. Pr6Bdorf very warmly. The conference was attended by 109 mathematicians from 21 countries, and the program included 24 invited lectures and 63 short communications."

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