st The21 InternationalCongressofTheoreticalandAppliedMechanics (ICTAM04) took place August 15 - 21, 2004, in Warsaw, Poland. It was organized by Polish National Committee of IUTAM, Institute of Fundamental Technological Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IPPTPAN)andWarsawUniversityofTechnology. TheCongressvenue was the main building of Warsaw University of Technology. The idea of congresses devoted to mechanics, can be traced back to a conference on problems of?uid mechanics in Innsbruck, 1922. It was organized by four individuals, whose names, are and will, remain very...

The IUTAM Symposium on "Discrete Structural Optimization" was devoted to discuss optimization problems for which design va riables may not be sought among continuous sets. Optimum sizing from lists of available profiles, segmentation; as well as allocation and number of supports, sensors or actuators, are good exam ples of such problems for which design variables may be chosen only from finite sets. The above problems are having not only important practical applications. They are also inspiring scienti fic research in the field of discrete applied mathematics. Among them are controlled...