The contributions in this volume are dedicated to Vladimir G. Maz'ya and are par- tially based on talks given at the conference "Functional Analysis, Partial Differ- ential Equations, and Applications," which took place at the University of Rostock from August 31 to September 4, 1998, to honour Prof. Maz'ya. This conference (a satellite meeting of the ICM) gave an opportunity to many friends and colleagues from all over the world to honour him. This academic community is very large. The scientific field of Prof. Maz'ya is impressively broad, which is reflected in the variety of contributions...

During the week of August 31 - September 4, 1998, a conference in honour of Vladimir Maz'ya was held in Rostock as a satellite meeting of the World Congress of Mathematicians. It was sponsored by the German Research Founda- tion (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) and the Ministry of Education and Cul- tural Affairs of the land Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. During his forty year career Maz'ya contributed to so many areas of mathematical analysis that such a broad topic of the conference as "Functional Analysis, Partial Differential Equations and Applications" sounds quite nat al. The conference was...