CASC 2005 continued a tradition - started in 1998 - of international c- ferences on the latest advances in the application of computer algebra systems (CASs) and methods to the solution of various problems in scienti?c computing. The methods of scienti?c computing play an important role in research and engineering applications in the natural and the engineering sciences. The sign- icance and impact of computer algebra methods and computer algebra systems for scienti?c computing has increased considerably in recent times. Nowadays, suchgeneral-purposecomputeralgebrasystemsasMaple,Magma,Mathematica, MuPAD, Singular, CoCoA and others enable their users to solve the following three important tasks within a uniform framework: (a) symbolic manipulation; (b) numerical computation; (c) visualization. The ongoing development of such systems, including their integrationand ad- tation to modern software environments, puts them at the forefront in scienti?c computing and enables the practicalsolution of many complex applied problems in the domains of natural sciences and engineering. Greece o?ers excellent infrastructures for hosting international conferences, and this was a reason for us to choose the city of Kalamata, Greece, as the lo- tion for CASC 2005,the eighth conference in the sequenceof CASC conferences.
The seven earlier CASC conferences, CASC 1998, CASC 1999, CASC 2000, CASC 2001, CASC 2002, CASC 2003, and CASC 2004 were held, respectively, in St. Petersburg, Russia, in Munich, Germany, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in Konstanz, Germany, in the Crimea (Ukraine), in Passau (Germany), and in St. Petersburg, Russia, and they proved to be successful.