The last decade has brought explosive growth in the technology for manufac turing integrated circuits. Integrated circuits with several hundred thousand transistors are now commonplace. This manufacturing capability, combined with the economic benefits of large electronic systems, is forcing a revolution in the design of these systems and providing a challenge to those people in terested in integrated system design. Modern circuits are too complex for an individual to comprehend completely. Managing tremendous complexity and automating the design process have become crucial issues. Two groups are interested in dealing with complexity and in developing algorithms to automate the design process. One group is composed of practi tioners in computer-aided design (CAD) who develop computer programs to aid the circuit-design process. The second group is made up of computer scientists and mathemati'::~l\ns who are interested in the design and analysis of efficient combinatorial aJ::,orithms. These two groups have developed separate bodies of literature and, until recently, have had relatively little interaction. An obstacle to bringing these two groups together is the lack of books that discuss issues of importance to both groups in the same context. There are many instances when a familiarity with the literature of the other group would be beneficial. Some practitioners could use known theoretical results to improve their "cut and try" heuristics. In other cases, theoreticians have published impractical or highly abstracted toy formulations, thinking that the latter are important for circuit layout.

This book constitutes the strictly refereed post-workshop proceedings of the German Conference on Bioinformatics, GCB'96, held in Leipzig, Germany, in September/October 1996. The volume presents 18 revised full papers together with three invited papers; these contributions were selected after a second round of reviewing from the 91 conference presentations. The book addresses current issues in computational biology and biologically inspired computing. The papers are organized in sections on biological and metabolic pathways, sequence analysis, molecular modeling, visualization, and formal languages, and DNA.

Symposium on Algorithms (ESA '93), held in Bad Honnef, near Boon, in Germany, September 30 - October 2, 1993. The symposium is intended to launchan annual series of international conferences, held in early fall, covering the field of algorithms. Within the scope of the symposium lies all research on algorithms, theoretical as well as applied, that is carried out in the fields of computer science and discrete applied mathematics. The symposium aims to cater to both of these research communities and to intensify the exchange between them. The volume contains 35 contributed papers selected from 101 proposals submitted in response to the call for papers, as well as three invited lectures: "Evolution of an algorithm" by Michael Paterson, "Complexity of disjoint paths problems in planar graphs" by Alexander Schrijver, and "Sequence comparison and statistical significance in molecular biology" by Michael S. Waterman.

The Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science is organized jointly by the Special Interest Group for Applied Mathematics of AFCET (Association Fran aise de Cybern tique Economique et Technique) and the Special Interest Group for Theoretical Computer Sciences of GI (Gesellschaft f r Informatik). It is held alternately in France and in Germany. This volume contains two invited papers, on combinatorial methods in computer science, and on the complexity of local optimization, and 24 contributions on theoretical aspects of computer science. Some software systems are presented showing the possibilities of applying theoretical research to the realization of software tools.

Die Fachtagung Bioinformatik Bonn (Bffi'93) war die erste Fachtagung der Fachgruppe 4. 0. 2 'Informatik in den Biowissenschaften' in der Gesellschaft fUr Informatik e. V. Die Fachgruppe wurde zu Beginn des Jahres 1992 gegriindet mit dem Ziel, die von der Bundesregierung im Programm "Biotechnologie 2000. angesprochene Liicke im Bereich Informatik und Biowissenschaften zu schlieBen. Die Aufgaben der Fachgruppe liegen in der Verkniipfung von Informatik und Biologie mit folgenden Schwerpunkten: - Verflechtung moderner biotechnologischer Forschung mit anwendungsorientierter Entwicklung von Methoden und rechnergestiitzten Verfahren der Informatik, - Entwicklung neuer Grundlagen, Methoden und Werkzeuge durch die Informatik, urn den wachsenden, heute bei weitem noch nicht erfiillbaren Anspriichen der Biologie besser gerecht zu werden (z. B. in der Molekulargenetik) und - Intensivierung der innovativen Wechselwirkung beider Gebiete. Unter dieser Zielsetzung fand die erste Fachtagung in Bonn statt. Die Fachtagung diente der Vorstellung eines Gebietes, das wir mit dem Begriff "Bioinformatik" belegen m6chten. Zu dem Gebiet der "Bioinformatik" ziihlen zum einen Beitriige, die den Einsatz der Methoden der Informatik zur Rechnerunterstiitzung im Bereich der Biowissenschaften umfassen. Hier sind vor aHem die rechnergestiitzte Analyse sowie der Entwurf von Biomolekiilen oder auch biotechnologischen Prozessen zu nennen. AuBerdem zahlt die Modellierung und Simulation von biologischen Systemen zu diesem Gebiet. Auf der anderen Seite gehOren der "Bioinformatik" Untersuchungen an, die auf der Basis von Erkenntnissen iiber die Informationsverarbeitung in biologischen Systemen neuartige algorithmische, rec nerarchitektonische oder allgemein informationstechnische Konzepte fUr eine technische Realisierung entwickeln."