This is the sixth in a series of conference proceedings of international conferences on computer algebra held in Europe. All the preceding ones have also been published as Lecture Notes in Computer Science. They contain original research material not published elsewhere, and a few invited lectures summarising the state of the art. Computer algebra is the science of using computers to do algebraic calculations, rather than the purely arithmetic calculations which we all know computers can do. These calculations may be polynomial-like calculations - one thread of the conference was devoted to polynomial algorithms - or may relate to other areas of mathematics such as integration, the solution of differential equations, or geometry - a second thread was devoted to those topics. The calculations can be applied in a wide range of scientific and engineering subjects, and in branches of mathematics. Physics has benefitted especially from these calculations, and the proceedings contain many papers on this, and also papers on applications in computer aided design and robotics, to name but a few other applications. The third thread of the proceedings was devoted to these applications and to the computer algebra systems which perform these calculations.

The origins of the mathematics in this book date back more than two thou sand years, as can be seen from the fact that one of the most important algorithms presented here bears the name of the Greek mathematician Eu clid. The word "algorithm" as well as the key word "algebra" in the title of this book come from the name and the work of the ninth-century scientist Mohammed ibn Musa al-Khowarizmi, who was born in what is now Uzbek istan and worked in Baghdad at the court of Harun al-Rashid's son. The word "algorithm" is actually a westernization of al-Khowarizmi's name, while "algebra" derives from "al-jabr," a term that appears in the title of his book Kitab al-jabr wa'l muqabala, where he discusses symbolic methods for the solution of equations. This close connection between algebra and al gorithms lasted roughly up to the beginning of this century; until then, the primary goal of algebra was the design of constructive methods for solving equations by means of symbolic transformations. During the second half of the nineteenth century, a new line of thought began to enter algebra from the realm of geometry, where it had been successful since Euclid's time, namely, the axiomatic method.

The aim of this book is to present important software tools, basic concepts, methods, and highly sophisticated applications of computerized symbolic manipulation to mechanics problems. An overview about general-purpose symbolic software is followed by general guidelines how to develop and implement high-quality computer algebra code. The theoretical background including modeling techniques for mechanical systems is provided which allows for the computer aided generation of the symbolic equation of motion for multibody systems. It is shown how the governing equations for different types of problems in structural mechanics can be automatically derived and how to implement finite element techniques via computer algebra software. Perturbation methods as a very powerful approach for nonlinear problems are discussed in detail and are demonstrated for a number of applications. The applications covered in this book represent some of the most advanced topics in the rapidly growing field of research on symbolic computation.

Since scientific software is the fuel that drives today's computers to solve a vast range of problems, huge efforts are being put into the development of new software, systems and algorithms for scientific problem solving. This book explores how scientific software impacts the structure of mathematics, how it creates new subfields, and how new classes of mathematical problems arise. The focus is on five topics where the impact is currently being felt and where important new challenges exist, namely: the new subfield of parallel and geometric computations, the emergence of symbolic computation systems into "general" use, the potential emergence of new, high-level mathematical systems, and the crucial question of how to measure the performance of mathematical problem solving tools.

The present volume contains the proceedings of the AAECC-5 Conference held at Menorca (Balearic Islands), June 15-19, 1987. The annual International AAECC Conference covers a range of topics related to Applied Algebra, Error-Correcting Codes, Finite Algebraic Structures, Computational Methods and Complexity in Algebra and Geometry. For the AAECC-5 Conference 73 papers were presented. Out of these thirty papers were selected for publication in the proceedings. They deal with topics such as error correcting codes (concerning problems of covering radius, decoding methods, expert systems and general results in coding theory), computational algebra, Gröbner basis, complexity, finite algebra and graphs. The proceedings of the 6th conference are published as Vol. 357 of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

Professor Nicholas N Govorun, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, was the principal organizer of the precedent meetings held at Dubna (1979, 1983, 1985). Unfortunately, he passed away in 1989. This volume is to honor his support in Computer Algebra.This is perhaps the only meeting of the entire soviet union computer algebra community and foreign scientists. The meeting presented scientific results, plans for research facilities, and status reports of the basic areas of investigations. The fields covered include computer algebra systems and general algorithms as well as applied algorithms, programs and results in computer algebra applications (mainly in physics).

This book presents the basic concepts and algorithms of computer algebra using practical examples that illustrate their actual use in symbolic computation. A wide range of topics are presented, including: Groebner bases, real algebraic geometry, lie algebras, factorization of polynomials, integer programming, permutation groups, differential equations, coding theory, automatic theorem proving, and polyhedral geometry. This book is a must read for anyone working in the area of computer algebra, symbolic computation, and computer science.