This year Organising Committee received 81 contributions - 75 papers and 6 poster abstracts (46 from abroad and 35 from Croatia), by 160 authors: 86 authors were from 20 foreign countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Macedonia, The Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, UK, and USA, and 74 authors were from Croatia.

All submitted papers have been reviewed by at least two independent referees: 97 reviews were given by 64 referees from abroad, and 51 by 35 Croatian referees. The proceedings contain 66 accepted papers (41 from abroad), written by 134 authors (78 from abroad). The choice of referees and the publishing policy was conducted by the International Program Committee.

Traditionally, we have tried to position a wide range of participants' interests into 10 topics. Here we encounter certain difficulties because many articles are interdisciplinary and encompass more than a single topic. Reduction of topics would not be of much help because for the same article it happens that the two referees assign different topics, or even pairs of topics, while the author(s) proposed something third. The topics of this year Conference are:

• Computer Systems and Networks
• Software Engineering and Programming Languages
• Information Systems and Databases
• Intelligent Systems
• Multimedia and Internet Computing
• Data Analysis and Statistics
• Biometrics
• Modelling, Simulation and Optimization
• Mathematics and Computation
• Design, Methodologies and Applications

• Keynote Lectures from several countries, covering different topics:
  
  I. Bratko, Slovenia;
  G. Kovács, John von Neumann Computer Society, Hungary;
  R. Paul, UK;
  M. Stachowicz, USA;
  D. Vrsalovic, USA;

  Presentation of the contributed papers as the essential core of the Conference. During 4 working days 40 contributed papers were presented, including 27 papers presented by foreign authors;

  Posters presentations; 7 poster abstracts written by 18 authors from 3 countries were reviewed and published in the booklet "ITI 2000 Poster Abstracts";

  A panel discussion about "Migrating IT Professionals or Migrating IT Jobs";

  Technical Presentation: Tripwire, Inc., USA

  BIOSTAT 2000, co-organized by the Croatian Biometric Society;

  - 7th Meeting of Researchers in Biometrics;

  - 5th School of Biometrics: Topic Design of Experiments; Lecturer L. Billard, USA;

  IWISPA 2000, co-organised by FER, Zagreb

  1st International Workshop "Image and Signal Processing and Analysis"

  - Chairman: S. Loncaric,

  - 45 submitted papers,

  - IWISPA Proceedings: 41 published papers, including 2 invited papers.

A selection of papers presented at the Conference (longer, revised versions) are considered for publishing in the following international journals:

• IMACS journal Mathematics and Computers in Simulation
• CIT Journal of Computing and Information Technology.

We are grateful to all who have contributed to this Conference. Our special thanks go to the authors of papers and poster abstracts and to the referees. The keynote speakers are always responsible for creation of a specific atmosphere that distinguishes one conference from the other. We are thankful to the co-operating institutions and sponsors who have helped us.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the 23rd International Conference on Information Technology Interfaces ITI 2001. We have considered holding it in Cavtat near Dubrovnik but finally we have decided to celebrate the 10th anniversary of continuous conferencing in Pula and after that we should most probably change the place. In the meantime we expect that the situation East of Croatia becomes completely tamed. Change of location would most probably stimulate many authors who understandingly see excitement in a new attractive location.

June 2000