This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications PARALLEL SOLUTION OF PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS is based on the proceedings of a workshop with the same title. The work shop was an integral part of the 1996-97IMA program on "MATHEMAT ICS IN HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING." I would like to thank Petter Bj0rstad of the Institutt for Informatikk, University of Bergen and Mitchell Luskin of the School of Mathematics, University of Minnesota for their excellent work as organizers of the meeting and for editing the proceedings. I also take this opportunity to thank the National Science Founda tion (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), and the Army Research Office (ARO), whose financial support made the workshop possible. Willard Miller, Jr., Professor and Director v PREFACE The numerical solution of partial differential equations has been of major importance to the development of many technologies and has been the target of much of the development of parallel computer hardware and software. Parallel computers offer the promise of greatly increased perfor mance and the routine calculation of previously intractable problems. The papers in this volume were presented at the IMA workshop on the Paral lel Solution of PDE held during June 9-13, 1997. The workshop brought together leading numerical analysts, computer scientists, and engineers to assess the state-of-the-art and to consider future directions.

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications GRID GENERATION AND ADAPTIVE ALGORITHMS is based on the proceedings of a workshop with the same title. The work shop was an integral part of the 1996-97 IMA program on "MATHEMAT ICS IN HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTING. " I would like to thank Marshall Bern (Xerox, Palo Alto Research Cen ter), Joseph E. Flaherty (Department of Computer Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), and Mitchell Luskin (School of Mathematics, Uni versity of Minnesota), for their excellent work as organizers of the meeting and for editing the proceedings. I also take this opportunity to thank the National Science Founda tion (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), and the Army Research Office (ARO), whose financial support made the workshop possible. Willard Miller, Jr. , Professor and Director v PREFACE Scientific and engineering computation has become so complex that traditional numerical computation on uniform meshes is generally not pos sible or too expensive. Mesh generation must reflect both the domain geometry and the expected solution characteristics. Meshes should, fur thermore, be related to the solution through computable estimates of dis cretization errors. This, suggests an automatic and adaptive process where an initial mesh is enriched with the goal of computing a solution with prescribed accuracy specifications in an optimal manner. While automatic mesh generation procedures and adaptive strategies are becoming available, major computational challenges remain. Three-dimensional mesh genera tion is still far from automatic.

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications RECENT ADVANCES IN ITERATIVE METHODS is based on the proceedings of a workshop that was an integral part of the 1991-92 IMA program on "Applied Linear Algebra. " Large systems of matrix equations arise frequently in applications and they have the prop erty that they are sparse and/or structured. The purpose of this workshop was to bring together researchers in numerical analysis and various ap plication areas to discuss where such problems arise and possible meth ods of solution. The last two days of the meeting were a celebration dedicated to Gene Golub on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, with the program arranged by Jack Dongarra and Paul van Dooren. We are grateful to Richard Brualdi, George Cybenko, Alan George, Gene Golub, Mitchell Luskin, and Paul Van Dooren for planning and implementing the year-long program. We especially thank Gene Golub, Anne Greenbaum, and Mitchell Luskin for organizing this workshop and editing the proceed ings. The financial support of the National Science Foundation and the Min nesota Supercomputer Institute made the workshop possible. A vner Friedman Willard Miller, Jr. xi PREFACE The solution of very large linear algebra problems is an integral part of many scientific computations."

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications MICROSTRUCTURE AND PHASE TRANSITION is based on the proceedings of a workshop which was an integral part of the 1990-91 IMA program on "Phase Transitions and Free Boundaries." We thank R. Fosdick, M.E. Gurtin, W.-M. Ni and L.A. Peletier for organizing the year-long program and, especially, D. Kinderlehrer, R. James, M. Luskin and J. Ericksen for organizing the meeting and editing these proceedings. We also take this opportunity to thank those agencies whose financial support made the workshop possible: the Army Research Office, and the National Science Foun dation. A vner Friedman Willard Miller. Jr. PREFACE Much of our traditional knowledge of materials and processes is achievf'd by observa tion and analysis of small departures from equilibrium. Many materials, especially modern alloys, ceramics, and their composites, experience not only larger but more dramatic changes, such as the occurrence of phase transitions and t.he creation of defect structures, when viewed at the microscopic scale. How is this observed, how can it be interpreted, and how does it influence macroscopic behavior? These are the principle concerns of this volume, which constitutes the proceedings of an IMA workshop dedicated to these issues.

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS AND REACTING GAS FLOWS is in part the proceedings of a workshop which was an integral part of the 1986-87 IMA program on SCIENTIFIC COMPUTATION. We are grateful to the Scientific Committee: Bjorn Engquist (Chairman), Roland Glowinski, Mitchell Luskin and Andrew Majda for planning and implementing an exciting and stimulating year-long program. We especially thank the Workshop Organizers, Bjorn Engquist, Mitchell Luskin and Andrew Majda, for organizing a workshop which brought together many of the leading researchers in the area of computational fluid dynamics. George R. Sell Hans Weinberger PREFACE Computational fluid dynamics has always been of central importance in scientific computing. It is also a field which clearly displays the essential theme of interaction between mathematics, physics, and computer science. Therefore, it was natural for the first workshop of the 1986- 87 program on scientific computing at the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications to concentrate on computational fluid dynamics. In the workshop, more traditional fields were mixed with fields of emerging importance such as reacting gas flows and non-Newtonian flows. The workshop was marked by a high level of interaction and discussion among researchers representing varied "schools of thought" and countries.