A very general set of orthogonal polynomials in one variable that extends the classical polynomials is a set we called the q-Racah polynomials. In an earlier paper we gave the orthogonality relation for these polynomials when the orthogonality is purely discrete. We now give the weight function in the general case and a number of other properties of these very interesting orthogonal polynomials.

The present book is about the Askey scheme and the q-Askey scheme, which are graphically displayed right before chapter 9 and chapter 14, respectively. The fa- lies of orthogonal polynomials in these two schemes generalize the classical orth- onal polynomials (Jacobi, Laguerre and Hermite polynomials) and they have pr- erties similar to them. In fact, they have properties so similar that I am inclined (f- lowing Andrews & Askey [34]) to call all families in the (q-)Askey scheme classical orthogonal polynomials, and to call the Jacobi, Laguerre and Hermite polynomials very classical orthogonal polynomials. These very classical orthogonal polynomials are good friends of mine since - most the beginning of my mathematical career. When I was a fresh PhD student at the Mathematical Centre (now CWI) in Amsterdam, Dick Askey spent a sabbatical there during the academic year 1969–1970. He lectured to us in a very stimulating wayabouthypergeometricfunctionsandclassicalorthogonalpolynomials. Evenb- ter, he gave us problems to solve which might be worth a PhD. He also pointed out to us that there was more than just Jacobi, Laguerre and Hermite polynomials, for instance Hahn polynomials, and that it was one of the merits of the Higher Transc- dental Functions (Bateman project) that it included some newer stuff like the Hahn polynomials (see [198, §10. 23]).

The Advanced Study Institute brought together researchers in the main areas of special functions and applications to present recent developments in the theory, review the accomplishments of past decades, and chart directions for future research. Some of the topics covered are orthogonal polynomials and special functions in one and several variables, asymptotic, continued fractions, applications to number theory, combinatorics and mathematical physics, integrable systems, harmonic analysis and quantum groups, Painlevé classification.

On April 29, 1814 Napoleon landed on the island of Elba, surrounded with a personal army of 1200 men. The allies, Russia, Prussia, England and Austria, hadforcedhimintoexileafteranumberofverycostlydefeats;hewasdeprived ofallhistitles, butcouldkeepthetitleof"EmperorofElba". Historytellsusthat each morning he took long walks in the sun, reviewed his army each midday anddiscussedworldmatterswithnewlyappointedadvisors, followingthesame pattern everyday, to the great surprise of Campbell, the British of?cer who was to keep an eye on him. All this made everyone believe he was settled there for good. Napoleononcesaid:Elbaisbeautiful, butabitsmall. Elbawasde?nitely a source of inspiration; indeed, the early morning, March 6, 1815, Metternich, the chancellor of Austria was woken up by one of his aides with the stunning news that Napoleon had left Elba with his 1200 men and was marching to Paris with little resistance; A few days later he took up his throne again in the Tuileries. In spite of his insatiable hunger for battles and expansion, he is remembered as an important statesman. He was a pioneer in setting up much of the legal, administrative and political machinery in large parts of continental Europe. We gathered here in a lovely and quaint?shing port, Marciana Marina on theislandofElba, tocelebrateoneofthepioneersofintegrablesystems, Hirota Sensei, andthisattheoccasionofhisseventiethbirthday. Trainedasaphysicist in his home university Kyushu University, Professor Hirota earned his PhD in '61 at Northwestern University with Professor Siegert in the?eld of "Quantum Statistical mechanics". He wrote a widely appreciated Doctoral dissertation on "FunctionalIntegralrepresentationofthegrandpartitionfunction."

This book contains the proceedings of an international conference held in Cairo, Egypt (January 1994). Mathematics and engineering discoveries, such as wavelets, multiresolution analysis, and subband coding schemes, caused rapid advancements in signal processing, necessitating an interdisciplinary approach. Contributors to this conference demonstrated that some traditional areas of mathematical analysis - sampling theory, approximation theory, and orthogonal polynomials - have proven extremely useful in solving various signal processing problems.

The 1990 Hayashibara Forum, "the International Conference on Special Functions", was held at Fujisaki Institute, Hayashibara Biochemical Laboratories, Inc., Okayama, Japan for five days (August 16-20, 1990). This volume is the proceedings for that meeting. On January 14,1985, Heisuke Hironaka and Ken Hayashibara, the president of Chair man, Board of Trustees, Hayashibara Foundation, met and decided to have an international conference on mathematics in the summer of 1990. This was pushed forward by Kiyosi Ito, who proposed "Special functions" as the theme of the conference. He also asked the present editors to join in the organizing committee of the Hayashibara Forum, 1990. On May 13, 1989 the organizing committee sent letters to major Japanese mathemat ical institutions asking their members to give suggestions about whom it should invite. Receiving the replies, the organizing committee decided the invited speakers, and sent invitation letters to them, in which it was written that "Special functions have been created and explored to describe scientific and mathematical phenomena. Trigonometric functions give the relation of angle to length. Riemann's zeta function was invented in order to describe the prime number distribution. Legendre's spherical functions and Bessel's functions were born in connection with the eigenvalue problems for partial differential equations.

The book focuses on advanced computer algebra methods and special functions that have striking applications in the context of quantum field theory. It presents the state of the art and new methods for (infinite) multiple sums, multiple integrals, in particular Feynman integrals, difference and differential equations in the format of survey articles. The presented techniques emerge from interdisciplinary fields: mathematics, computer science and theoretical physics; the articles are written by mathematicians and physicists with the goal that both groups can learn from the other field, including most recent developments. Besides that, the collection of articles also serves as an up-to-date handbook of available algorithms/software that are commonly used or might be useful in the fields of mathematics, physics or other sciences.