The objective of the book is to give a selection from the papers, which summarize several important results obtained within the framework of the Jozsef Hatvany Doctoral School operating at the University of Miskolc, Hungary. In accordance with the three main research areas of the Doctoral School established for Information Science, Engineering and Technology, the papers can be classified into three groups. They are as follows: (1) Applied Computational Science; (2) Production Information Engineering (IT for Manufacturing included); (3) Material Stream Systems and IT for Logistics. As regards the first area, some papers deal with special issues of algorithms theory and its applications, with computing algorithms for engineering tasks, as well as certain issues of data base systems and knowledge intensive systems. Related to the second research area, the focus is on Production Information Engineering with special regard to discrete production processes. In the second research area the papers show some new integrated systems suitable for optimizing discrete production processes in a top-down way. The papers connecting with the third research field deal with different issues of materials stream systems and logistics, taking into consideration of applied mathematical models and IT-tools. The book makes an effort to ensure certain equilibrium between theory and practice and to show some new approach both from theoretical modelling aspect, as well as experimental and practical point of view.

The objective of the book is to give a selection from the papers, which summarize several important results obtained within the framework of the Jozsef Hatvany Doctoral School operating at the University of Miskolc, Hungary. In accordance with the three main research areas of the Doctoral School established for Information Science, Engineering and Technology, the papers can be classified into three groups. They are as follows: (1) Applied Computational Science; (2) Production Information Engineering (IT for Manufacturing included); (3) Material Stream Systems and IT for Logistics. As regards the first area, some papers deal with special issues of algorithms theory and its applications, with computing algorithms for engineering tasks, as well as certain issues of data base systems and knowledge intensive systems. Related to the second research area, the focus is on Production Information Engineering with special regard to discrete production processes. In the second research area the papers show some new integrated systems suitable for optimizing discrete production processes in a top-down way. The papers connecting with the third research field deal with different issues of materials stream systems and logistics, taking into consideration of applied mathematical models and IT-tools. The book makes an effort to ensure certain equilibrium between theory and practice and to show some new approach both from theoretical modelling aspect, as well as experimental and practical point of view.

In the summer of 1997 some twelve lecturers and sixty students met for ten days in Budapest Hungary in a NATO Advanced Studies Institute (ASI) to consider "New Scientific and Technical Aspects of Verification of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention." In many ways the meeting was ahead of its time. The Ad Hoc Group was only then about to move to the discussion of a rolling text of the Protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). It had been mandated to negotiate the Protocol by the Special Conference which had considered the work of the VEREX process that had taken place following the 1991 Third Review Conference of the Convention. Now, in late 1999, after much further negotiation of the text of the Protocol we are moving towards the endgame of the negotiations. Nevertheless, the scientific and technical issues discussed in the ASI in Hungary continue to be of direct relevance to the verification of the Convention and will continue to be relevant as the eventual Protocol moves from agreement through a Preparatory Commission stage and into full implementation over the next several years. The papers in this volume are much as they were presented in Budapest both in order of presentation and in content. They were designed by the ASI co-directors, Professor Graham Pearson and Ambassador Tibor Toth (Chairman of the Ad Hoc Group) to provide an integrated overview and in-depth analysis of the issues at stake.

In the summer of 1997 some twelve lecturers and sixty students met for ten days in Budapest Hungary in a NATO Advanced Studies Institute (ASI) to consider "New Scientific and Technical Aspects of Verification of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention." In many ways the meeting was ahead of its time. The Ad Hoc Group was only then about to move to the discussion of a rolling text of the Protocol to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC). It had been mandated to negotiate the Protocol by the Special Conference which had considered the work of the VEREX process that had taken place following the 1991 Third Review Conference of the Convention. Now, in late 1999, after much further negotiation of the text of the Protocol we are moving towards the endgame of the negotiations. Nevertheless, the scientific and technical issues discussed in the ASI in Hungary continue to be of direct relevance to the verification of the Convention and will continue to be relevant as the eventual Protocol moves from agreement through a Preparatory Commission stage and into full implementation over the next several years. The papers in this volume are much as they were presented in Budapest both in order of presentation and in content. They were designed by the ASI co-directors, Professor Graham Pearson and Ambassador Tibor Toth (Chairman of the Ad Hoc Group) to provide an integrated overview and in-depth analysis of the issues at stake.