This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Application and Theory of Petri Nets, held in Osaka, Japan, in June 1996.
The 26 revised full papers included in the book together with three invited presentations were selected from a total of 78 submissions. The book addresses the current theoretical and applicational aspects of the various types of Petri Nets and competently reflects the state of the art in the area.

This volume documents the progress of application and theory of Petri Nets since the Advanced Course on General Net Theory of Processes and Systems, held in Hamburg, October 8-19, 1979, This course presen ted in detail wha t had been achieved in this area since the first studies of concurrent systems 20 years ago, After this course it seemed worthwhile to establish a co-operation between different groups working in the field of Petri N ets, The starting points were the AFCET Special Interest Group Systemes Paralleles et Distribues and the Gl Special Interest Group Petrinetze und verwandte...