Applied Algebra, Algebraic Algorithms and Error-Correcting Codes

The AAECC symposia serieswas started in 1983by Alain Poli (Toulouse), who, together with R. Desq, D. Lazardand P. Camion, organizedthe ?rst conference. OriginallytheacronymAAECCstoodfor"AppliedAlgebraandError-Correcting Codes."Overtheyearsitsmeaninghasshiftedto"AppliedAlgebra,Algebraic- gorithmsandError-CorrectingCodes,"re?ectingthegrowingimportanceofc- plexity, particularlyfor decoding algorithms.During the AAECC-12 symposium the ConferenceCommitteedecidedtoenforcethe theoryandpracticeofthe c- ing side as well as the cryptographic aspects. Algebra was conserved, as in the past, but slightly more oriented to algebraic geometry codes, ?nite ?elds, c- plexity, polynomials,andgraphs. The main topics for AAECC-18 were algebra, algebraiccomputation, codes and algebra,codes and combinatorics, modulation and codes, sequences, and cryptography. TheinvitedspeakersofthiseditionwereIwanDuursma,HenningStichtenoth, and Fernando Torres. We would like to express our deep regret for the loss of Professor Ralf Kotter, ¨ who recently passed away and could not be our fourth invited speaker. Except for AAECC-1 (Discrete Mathematics 56, 1985) and AAECC-7 (D- crete Applied Mathematics 33, 1991), the proceedings of all the symposia have been published in Springer'sLecture Notes in Computer Science (Vols. 228,229, 307, 356, 357, 508, 539, 673, 948, 1255, 1719, 2227, 2643, 3857, 4851). Itis apolicy ofAAECCto maintaina highscienti?c standard,comparableto that of a journal. This was made possible thanks to the many referees involved. Each submitted paper was evaluated by at least two international researchers. AAECC-18 received and refereed 50 submissions. Of these, 22 were selected for publication in these proceedings as regular papers and 7 were selected as extended abstracts.