There is a lot of activity going on at the level of component technology, for example the OpenMath initiative which is supported by several vendors and publishers, but less attention has been focussed on practical questions of how to integrate different computational paradigms (for example algorithms using exact rational arithmetic with those using hardware floating point arithmetic) and then present the resulting hybrid to users in a seamless, natural way. During this meeting, representatives of both NAG and Waterloo Maple will describe what their companies are doing in this area, and invited speakers from academia and industry will outline their own requirements and expectations. It is hoped that this event will help to focus interest on the practical issues surrounding the development of symbolic/numeric systems, and on the potential for such systems in tackling real applications.

Mike Dewar, mike@nag.co.uk