This proceedings volume covers the main fields of mathematics: analysis, algebra and number theory, geometry and topology, combinatorics and graphs, applied mathematics, numerical analysis and computer mathematics, probability and statistics, teaching and popularization of mathematics.

This proceedings volume contains 55 research and expository articles on a wide range of currently active and interesting areas in pure and applied mathematics. The research articles report on the current research accomplishments and the significance of the results. Every expository article aims to make the subject interesting by including the state of the subject, description and motivation of the problems, the relevance of the results, and open problems for future research directions. This book serves as a good reference not only for researchers but also for graduate students.

This volume presents a short guide to the extensive literature concerning semir ings along with a complete bibliography. The literature has been created over many years, in variety of languages, by authors representing different schools of mathematics and working in various related fields. In many instances the terminology used is not universal, which further compounds the difficulty of locating pertinent sources even in this age of the Internet and electronic dis semination of research results. So far there has been no single reference that could guide the interested scholar or student to the relevant publications. This book is an attempt to fill this gap. My interest in the theory of semirings began in the early sixties, when to gether with Bogdan W ~glorz I tried to investigate some algebraic aspects of compactifications of topological spaces, semirings of semicontinuous functions, and the general ideal theory for special semirings. (Unfortunately, local alge braists in Poland told me at that time that there was nothing interesting in investigating semiring theory because ring theory was still being developed). However, some time later we became aware of some similar investigations hav ing already been done. The theory of semirings has remained "my first love" ever since, and I have been interested in the results in this field that have been appearing in literature (even though I have not been active in this area myself).

This is the first book to comprehensively cover chromatic polynomialsof graphs. It includes most of the known results and unsolved problemsin the area of chromatic polynomials. Dividing the book into threemain parts, the authors take readers from the rudiments of chromaticpolynomials to more complex topics: the chromatic equivalence classesof graphs and the zeros and inequalities of chromatic polynomials.

The book timely surveys new research results and related developments in Diophantine approximation, a division of number theory which deals with the approximation of real numbers by rational numbers. The book is appended with a list of challenging open problems and a comprehensive list of references. From the contents: Field extensions • Algebraic numbers • Algebraic geometry • Height functions • The abc-conjecture • Roth's theorem • Subspace theorems • Vojta's conjectures • L-functions.

Vols. 8-10 of the 1965-1984 master cumulation constitute a title index.

The Nevanlinna theory of value distribution of meromorphic functions, one of the milestones of complex analysis during the last century, was c- ated to extend the classical results concerning the distribution of of entire functions to the more general setting of meromorphic functions. Later on, a similar reasoning has been applied to algebroid functions, subharmonic functions and meromorphic functions on Riemann surfaces as well as to - alytic functions of several complex variables, holomorphic and meromorphic mappings and to the theory of minimal surfaces. Moreover, several appli- tions of the theory have been exploited, including complex differential and functional equations, complex dynamics and Diophantine equations. The main emphasis of this collection is to direct attention to a number of recently developed novel ideas and generalizations that relate to the - velopment of value distribution theory and its applications. In particular, we mean a recent theory that replaces the conventional consideration of counting within a disc by an analysis of their geometric locations. Another such example is presented by the generalizations of the second main theorem to higher dimensional cases by using the jet theory. Moreover, s- ilar ideas apparently may be applied to several related areas as well, such as to partial differential equations and to differential geometry. Indeed, most of these applications go back to the problem of analyzing zeros of certain complex or real functions, meaning in fact to investigate level sets or level surfaces.

ALAN J. BISHOP Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia RATIONALE Mathematics Education is becoming a well-documented field with many books, journals and international conferences focusing on a variety of aspects relating to theory, research and practice. That documentation also reflects the fact that the field has expanded enormously in the last twenty years. At the 8th International Congress on Mathematics Education (ICME) in Seville, Spain, for example, there were 26 specialist Working Groups and 26 special ist Topic Groups, as well as a host of other group activities. In 1950 the 'Commission Internationale pour I 'Etude et l' Amelioration de l'Enseignement des Mathematiques' (CIEAEM) was formed and twenty years ago another active group, the 'International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education' (PME), began at the third ICME at Karlsruhe in 1976. Since then several other specialist groups have been formed, and are also active through regular conferences and publications, as documented in Edward Jacobsen's Chapter 34 in this volume.