Word level model checking -- Code problems on traces -- Models of DNA computation -- Theory and practice of action semantics -- Linear time temporal logics over Mazurkiewicz traces -- Partial order reduction: Model-checking using representatives -- Nonmonotonic rule systems: Forward chaining, constraints, and complexity -- Mind the gap! Abstract versus concrete models of specifications -- A sequent calculus for subtyping polymorphic types -- Kolmogorov complexity: Recent research in Moscow -- A modal logic for data analysis -- From specifications to programs: A fork-algebraic approach to bridge the gap -- Logic of predicates with explicit substitutions -- On the query complexity of sets -- A Lambda Calculus of incomplete objects -- Bisimilarity problems requiring exponential time (Extended abstract) -- Linear dynamic Kahn networks are deterministic -- Shortest path problems with time constraints -- Parallel Alternating-Direction Access Machine -- Specification and verification of timed lazy systems -- A class of information logics with a decidable validity problem -- On the power of nonconservative PRAM -- Self-similarity viewed as a local property via tile sets -- Simulation of specification statements in Hoare logic -- Equational properties of iteration in algebraically complete categories -- On unconditional transfer -- (poly(log log n), poly(log log n))—Restricted verifiers are unlikely to exist for languages in $$\mathcal{N}\mathcal{P}$$ * -- Minimizing congestion of layouts for ATM networks with faulty links -- Polynomial automaticity, context-free languages, and fixed points of morphisms (Extended abstract) -- Causal testing -- Construction of list homomorphisms by tupling and fusion -- Probabilistic metric semantics for a simple language with recursion -- Dynamic graphs -- Equations on trees -- On the equivalence problem for E-pattern languages -- Specifying and verifying parametric processes -- On saturation with flexible function symbols -- Approximating good simultaneous Diophantine approximations is almost NP-hard -- On the conjugation of Standard morphisms -- A semantic matching algorithm: Analysis and implementation -- Routing on triangles, tori and honeycombs -- A uniform analysis of trie structures that store prefixing-keys with application to doubly-chained prefixing-tries -- On fairness in terminating and reactive programs -- Polynomial time samplable distributions -- From static to dynamic abstract data-types.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 21st International Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science, MFCS '96, held in Crakow, Poland in September 1996. The volume presents 35 revised full papers selected from a total of 95 submissions together with 8 invited papers and 2 abstracts of invited talks. The papers included cover issues from the whole area of theoretical computer science, with a certain emphasis on mathematical and logical foundations. The 10 invited presentations are of particular value.