The contents of this volume originate from the joint Inclusion Phenomenal Cyclodextrins Symposium held at Lancaster in July 1986. Consisting of 50 extended ab stracts and 21 original contributions, the reader will find an up-to-date survey of the current state of research into, and applications of, inclusion compounds. Topics covered range from cyclodextrin complexes and their use as media for selective chemical reagents and their applications in chromatography and in the pharmaceutical and agricultural areas; the synthesis of new hosts, particularly those containing hydrophobic cavities; the characterisation of inclusion compounds using crystallographic and spectroscopic techniques; the use of inclusion com pounds as enzyme models; macrocyclic complexes and ionophores; to intercalates and zeolites. The Symposium was extremely successful, being attended by some 250 delegates drawn from 23 nations. It is hoped that the reader will recapture the flavour of the meeting from reading this volume. xi Journal of Inclusion Phenomena 5 (1987), 1-2. 1 © 1987 by D. Reidel Publishing Company. Preface The joint meeting comprlslng the 4th International Symposium on Inclusion Phenomena and the 3rd International Symposium on Cyclodextrins was held on 20 - 25 July, 1986 at the University of Lancaster, Great Britain, and followed on from the previous joint meeting held in Tokyo in July, 1984. The meeting was sponsored by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

The rapidly growing number of papers and patents on Cyclodextrins and their potential or actual industrial uses raised the idea to organize a Symposium on Cyclodextrins. This Symposium - held in September 1981 in Budapest, with more than 200 participants from 17 countries - proved to be very succesfull in every respect, therefore it has been accepted unanimously to organize the lInd CD-Symposium in 1984, in Tokyo. (The Budapest-Symposium got posteriorly the "First" adjective). The IInd Symposium was held together with the III. Int. Symposium on Chlatrate Compounds and Molecular Inclusion Phenomena. The IIIrd CD-Symposium also was held as a Joint Symposium, with the IVth. Chlatrate Symposium in Lancaster, U. K. ,1986. The limited time however showed, that such a broad field - from calixarenes to zeolites - can not be managed efficiently. Therefore the International Organizing Committee voted for separation of two Symposia in the future. The IVth Int. CD-Symposium was held in the Munich, in April 1988, and the Vth Chlatrate Symposium (called already Vth Int. Symposium on Inclusion Phenomena and Molecular Recognition) was held in Alabama, Sept. 1988. In Munich 220 participants from 21 countries attended 32 verbal lectures and 54 posters. This volume contains the submitted 71 manuscripts of the IVth Cyclodextrin Symposium.

The rapidly growing number of papers and patents on Cyclodextrins and their potential or actual industrial uses raised the idea to organize a Symposium on Cyclodextrins. This Symposium - held in September 1981 in Budapest, with more than 200 participants from 17 countries - proved to be very succesfull in every respect, therefore it has been accepted unanimously to organize the lInd CD-Symposium in 1984, in Tokyo. (The Budapest-Symposium got posteriorly the "First" adjective). The IInd Symposium was held together with the III. Int. Symposium on Chlatrate Compounds and Molecular Inclusion Phenomena. The IIIrd CD-Symposium also was held as a Joint Symposium, with the IVth. Chlatrate Symposium in Lancaster, U. K. ,1986. The limited time however showed, that such a broad field - from calixarenes to zeolites - can not be managed efficiently. Therefore the International Organizing Committee voted for separation of two Symposia in the future. The IVth Int. CD-Symposium was held in the Munich, in April 1988, and the Vth Chlatrate Symposium (called already Vth Int. Symposium on Inclusion Phenomena and Molecular Recognition) was held in Alabama, Sept. 1988. In Munich 220 participants from 21 countries attended 32 verbal lectures and 54 posters. This volume contains the submitted 71 manuscripts of the IVth Cyclodextrin Symposium.

The Joint Meeting comprisIng the 3rd International Symposium on Clathrate Compounds and Molecular Inclusion Phenomena and the 2nd International Symposium on Cyclodextrins was held on 23-27 July, 1984, in Tokyo, Japan. It was organized by the Japan Association for Inclusion Chemistry together with the International Organization Committee, with the auspices of sixteen societies and associations in Japan. This event was the first joint meeting with the hope of unifying the above two symposia. The program of the symposium consisted of 142 papers, including 14 invited papers. The invited papers and some selected topics were presented verbally, and all the other 118 papers were displayed in poster sessions. The symposium was held at Hoshi University in Tokyo. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of the subjects treated, the scope and subjects were grouped into two parts. In the first group, the chemistry of cyclodextrins, synthetic organic hosts, inorganic and metal complex hosts and layered hosts were treated. In the second group applications in various fields, biomimetic aspects, physicochemical aspects, selectivity, stereo-specificity and other aspects were discussed. The scientific sessions were carried out in a really vivid atmosphere. The number of participants viz 50 from 19 overseas countries and 253 domestic partici pants exceeded our expectation.