As the 21st century nears, there is a need to seriously reconsider many aspects of modeling and controlling large, complex, man-made systems. Integration of technologies and functions requires deep interdisciplinary expertise and technical breadth for successful implementation. Large scale systems theory can play a central role in this effort and it is a strongly held belief that this approach will continue to be of major importance in the future.

Selected headings and selected papers: Research Issues in the Transition to Free Flight (S. Kahne). The Ubiquity of System Science Philosophy and Teaching (T. Vamos et al.). Synthesis of Control Structures for Chemical Plants (C. Ng, G. Stephanopoulos). Decentralized Control and Estimation I. Decentralised switching control (A.G. Aghdam, E.J. Davison). Modelling and Model Reduction I. Nonlinear decoupling control of a spacecraft (P.N. Paraskevopoulos et al.). Decentralized Robust and Adaptive Control. Overlapping decomposition for multirate decentralized control (H. Ito). Transportation Systems. Off-tracking elimination in road trains of heavy duty trucks with multiple semi-trailers (S.A. Manesis). Large Scale Systems Applications. Modelling and control of water supply systems (N. Peric et al.). Water, Gas and Power Systems Applications. Integrated data management in power plant control (M. Hadjiski). Communications and Information Systems II. Routing control under uncertainty in data networks (N.S. Vasiliev). Control and Management in Large Scale Manufacturing Processes I. Multivariable LQ controller optimisation as an event driven process (J. Bohm). Control and Management in Large Scale Manufacturing Processes II. Decrease for chattering effect in sliding mode control (R. Gessing). Robotic Systems II. Population of cooperative autonomous agents: preliminary consideration (A. Engwirda et al.). Fuzzy Control Expert Systems. A fuzzy adaptive - predictive scheme for the decentralized control of a class of interconnected systems (S. Tzafestas et al.). Optimization Using Evolutionary Methods - including Multicriteria. Advanced methods for evolutionary optimisation (P. Adamidis et al.).