Computing And Combinatorics Conference -- Cocoon'02

This special issue contains a selected subset of high-quality papers that were presented at the Eighth Annual International Computing and Combinatorics Conference held in Singapore on August 15-17, 2002. Preliminary versions of these papers appeared in the proceedings of the conference, under the title Computing and Combinatorics — COCOON'02, published by Springer-Verlag as number 2387 in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. The COCOON conference series aims at providing a forum for researchers working in theoretical computer science. Research areas covered include algorithms, theory of computation, computational complexity, combinatorics related to computing, and work on experimental and applied research of general algorithmic interest that show convincingly the usefulness and efficiency of the techniques discussed in a practical setting. The eight papers in this special issue are expanded versions of the selected papers. They have been subjected to the normal refereeing process and have undergone revision. We thank the authors and the referees for their efforts and cooperation in the creation of this special issue.