To make full use of the ever increasing hardware capabilities of modern com puters, it is necessary to speedily enhance the performance and reliability of the software as well, and often without having a suitable mathematical theory readily available. In the handling of more and more complex real-life numerical problems in all sorts of applications, a modern object-oriented de sign and implementation of software tools has become a crucial component. The considerable challenges posed by the demand for efficient object-oriented software in all areas of scientific computing make it necessary to...