Osvaldo Gervasi & Antonio Lagana 
Computational Science and Its Applications – ICCSA 2008 
International Conference, Perugia, Italy, June 30 – July 3, 2008, Proceedings, Part I

This two-volume set is assembled following the 2008 International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications, ICCSA 2008, a premium int- national event held in Perugia, Italy, from June 30 to July 3, 2008. The collection of fully refereed high-quality original works accepted as theme papers for presentation at ICCSA 2008 are published in this LNCS proceedings set. This outstanding collection complements the volume of workshop papers, traditionally published by IEEE Computer Society. The continuous support of computational science researchers has helped ICCSA to become a ?rmly established forum in the area of scienti?c computing and the conference itself become a recurring scienti?c and professional meeting that cannot be given up. The computational science ?eld, based on fundamental disciplines such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry, is ?nding new computational approaches to foster the human progress in heterogeneous and fundamental areas such as aerospace and automotive industries, bioinformatics and nanotechnology studies, networks and grid computing, computational geometry and biometrics, computer education, virtual reality, and art. Due to the growing complexity of many ch- lenges in computational science, the use of sophisticated algorithms and eme- ing technologies is inevitable. Together, these far-reaching scienti?c areas help to shape this conference in the areas of state-of-the-art computational science research and applications, encompassing the facilitating theoretical foundations and the innovative applications of such results in other areas.