Derandomization via small sample spaces -- The randomized complexity of maintaining the minimum -- Faster algorithms for the nonemptiness of streett automata and for communication protocol pruning -- Service-constrained network design problems -- Approximate hypergraph coloring -- Facility dispersion and remote subgraphs -- The constrained minimum spanning tree problem -- Randomized approximation of the constraint satisfaction problem -- On the hardness of global and local approximation -- Approximation algorithms for the maximum satisfiability problem -- On the hardness of approximating the minimum consistent OBDD problem -- Computing the unrooted maximum agreement subtree in sub-quadratic time -- Greedily finding a dense subgraph -- Using sparsification for parametric minimum spanning tree problems -- Vertex partitioning problems on partial k-trees -- Making an arbitrary filled graph minimal by removing fill edges -- Sorting and searching revisted -- Lower bounds for dynamic transitive closure, planar point location, and parentheses matching -- Optimal pointer algorithms for finding nearest common ancestors in dynamic trees -- Neighborhood graphs and distributed ?+1-coloring -- Communication complexity of gossiping by packets -- Optimal cost-sensitive distributed minimum spanning tree algorithm -- A linear time algorithm for the feasibility of pebble motion on trees -- Linear-time heuristics for minimum weight rectangulation -- Visibility with multiple reflections -- A fast heuristic for approximating the minimum weight triangulation -- Neighbours on a grid -- On two dimensional packing -- Optimal orthogonal drawings of triconnected plane graphs -- Walking streets faster -- Safe and efficient traffic laws for mobile robots -- Progress in selection -- Probabilistic ancestral sequences and multiple alignments -- Efficient algorithms for Lempel-Ziv encoding -- The deterministic complexity of parallel multisearch -- Priority queues on parallel machines -- Binary search trees: How low can you go? -- Boolean analysis of incomplete examples.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Fifth Scandinavian Workshop on Algorithm Theory, SWAT '96, held in Reykjavik, Iceland, in July 1996. The 35 full papers included in the book in revised version were carefully selected from a total of 95 submissions; also included are abstracts or full versions of three invited talks by prominent researchers. All in all, the collection of articles reports state-of-the-art results on various topics of current design and analysis of algorithms.