Dear Readers:

This issue contains three excellent theoretical papers - in contrast, the next (October issue) is going to be a special issue dedicated to microprocessors: this shows one more time that the idea of J.UCS as a high-quality refereed journal covering a wide spectrum of computer science is certainly very much alive. For 2001 a number of special issues is already being planned, one on "Glimpses into the Future of Computer Science" to appear in the June issue, and another substantial contribution (actually covering more than one issue) on "Knowledge Management ", just to mention two of them. This year (with 7 special issues!) has proved once again what an excellent forum J.UCS is for the presentation of special topics - we would like to encourage guest editors to make use of this possibility also next year!

It appears certain that 2000 will be one of the largest volumes in the six-year history of J.UCS, but 2001 will still be more substantial, and the printed versions will appear for the first time in more than one part! This brings me to the printed versions: we have a bit of a back-log here, but have negotiated a new agreement with Springer and will now be catching up rapidly with the printing of the missing volumes.

One further issue has come up: we have had a number of requests for a subscription of the type: US $ 100.- allows access to 100 papers, independently of the year of publication. The idea behind this is that readers usually focus on special area(s) and find the scope of J.UCS too wide: many readers would prefer just to scan the abstracts/tables of contents (free anyway), and to actually access only those papers that are of direct interest to them.

I would be very grateful to have your opinion on this. If you feel such a kind of subscription would also be of interest to you, do let me know by email to hmaurer@iicm.edu and we will implement this within the next few months.

Yours cordially,