This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications QUASICLASSICAL METHODS is based on the proceedings of a very successful one-week workshop with the same title, which was an integral part of the 1994-1995 IMA program on "Waves and Scattering." We would like to thank Jeffrey Rauch and Barry Simon for their excellent work as organizers of the meeting. We also take this opportunity to thank the National Science Foun dation (NSF), the Army Research Office (ARO) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR), whose financial support made the workshop possible. A vner Friedman Robert Gulliver v PREFACE...

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications RANDOM SETS: THEORY AND APPLICATIONS is based on the proceedings of a very successful 1996 three-day Summer Program on "Application and Theory of Random Sets." We would like to thank the scientific organizers: John Goutsias (Johns Hopkins University), Ronald P.S. Mahler (Lockheed Martin), and Hung T. Nguyen (New Mexico State University) for their excellent work as organizers of the meeting and for editing the proceedings. We also take this opportunity to thank the Army Research Office (ARO), the Office ofNaval Research (0NR), and the Eagan,...

Inverse problems and optimal design have come of age as a consequence of the availability of better, more accurate, and more efficient simulation packages. Many of these simulators, which can run on small workstations, can capture the complicated behavior of the physical systems they are modeling, and have become commonplace tools in engineering and science. There is a great desire to use them as part of a process by which measured field data are analyzed or by which design of a product is automated. A major obstacle in doing precisely this is that one is ultimately confronted with a...

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications SINGULARITIES AND OSCILLATIONS is based on the proceedings of a very successful one-week workshop with the same title, which was an integral part of the 1994-1995 IMA program on "Waves and Scattering. " We would like to thank Joseph Keller, Jeffrey Rauch, and Michael Taylor for their excellent work as organizers of the meeting. We would like to express our further gratitude to Rauch and Taylor, who served as editors of the proceedings. We also take this opportunity to thank the National Science Foun dation (NSF), the Army Research Office...

IMA Volumes 135: Transport in Transition Regimes and 136: Dispersive Transport Equations and Multiscale Models focus on the modeling of processes for which transport is one of the most complicated components. This includes processes that involve a wdie range of length scales over different spatio-temporal regions of the problem, ranging from the order of mean-free paths to many times this scale. Consequently, effective modeling techniques require different transport models in each region. The first issue is that of finding efficient simulations techniques, since a fully...

Speech and language technologies continue to grow in importance as they are used to create natural and efficient interfaces between people and machines, and to automatically transcribe, extract, analyze, and route information from high-volume streams of spoken and written information.

The workshops on Mathematical Foundations of Speech Processing and Natural Language Modeling were held in the Fall of 2000 at the University of Minnesota's NSF-sponsored Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications, as part of a "Mathematics in Multimedia" year-long program. Each workshop...

This volume focuses on modeling processes for which transport is one of the most complicated components, requiring different transport models in each region. The authors apply questions to a wide variety of application areas, such as semiconductors, plasmas, fluids, chemically reactive gases, etc.

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications COMPUTATIONAL MODELING IN BIOLOGICAL FLUID DYNAMICS is based on the proceedings of a very successful workshop with the same title. The workshop was an integral part of the September 1998 to June 1999 IMA program on "MATHEMATICS IN BIOLOGY." I would like to thank the organizing committee: Lisa J. Fauci of Tulane University and Shay Gueron of Technion - Israel Institute of Technology 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...

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications MATHEMATICAL APPROACHES FOR EMERGING AND REEMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES: MODELS, AND THEORY METHODS is based on the proceedings of a successful one week workshop. The pro- ceedings of the two-day tutorial which preceded the workshop "Introduction to Epidemiology and Immunology" appears as IMA Volume 125: Math- ematical Approaches for Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases: An Introduction. The tutorial and the workshop are integral parts of the September 1998 to June 1999 IMA program on "MATHEMATICS IN BI- OLOGY. " I would like to thank...

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications RESOURCE RECOVERY, CONFINEMENT, AND REMEDIATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS contains papers presented at two successful one-week workshops: Confine- ment and Remediation of Environmental Hazards held on January 15-19, 2000 and Resource Recovery, February 9-13, 2000. Both workshops were integral parts of the IMA annual program on Mathematics in Reactive Flow and Transport Phenomena, 1999-2000. We would like to thank John Chadam (University of Pittsburgh), Al Cunningham (Montana State Uni- versity), Richard E. Ewing (Texas A&M University), Peter...