This year Organizing Committee received 89 papers from 19 countries: Algeria, Argentina, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, UK and USA.

All submitted papers have been reviewed by at least two independent referees: 78 reviews were given by 61 referees from abroad, and 104 by 46 Croatian referees. The proceedings contain 83 accepted papers (54 from abroad), written by 155 authors. The choice of referees and the publishing policy was conducted by the International Program Committee.

Traditionally, a wide range of topics was covered indicating the variety of the participants' interests:

• Application of Information Technology
• Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems
• Biometrics
• Computer Systems and Networks
• Data Analysis and Statistics
• Information Systems and Databases
• Mathematics and Computation
• Modelling, Simulation and Optimization
• Multimedia
• Software Engineering and Programming Languages.

• Invited speakers from several countries, covering different topics:
  
  A. Ferligoj, Slovenia;
  N.J. Mamede, Portugal;
  
  R. Sargent, USA;
  J. Soelkner, Austria;

  Presentation of the contributed papers as the essential core of the Conference. During 4 working days 52 contributed papers were presented, including 23 papers presented by foreign authors;

  A panel discussion about "Complex Systems Modelling: Approaches and Problems";

  BIOSTAT '96 organized by the Croatian Society for Biometrics;

  - 3rd Meeting of Researchers;

  - School of Biometrics; Lecturers M. Schemper and J. Soelkner (Austria): Cox Model and Related Topics ;

  Book exhibition;

  Software and hardware presentations and a book exhibition.

A selection of papers presented at the Conference (longer, revised versions) are considered for publishing in special issues of 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 to the referees. The invited speakers give a particular flavour to the Conference. So do the moderators and the participants at the panel discussion. Co-operating institutions and sponsors gave us invaluable help, too. At last, but surely not the least, the strong international component, the enjoyable social events and a scenic environment have always helped to create a memorable atmosphere. Now when the danger of war is overcome, we can hope in a further Conference growth

We are looking forward seeing you at the 19th International Conference on "Information Technology Interfaces" ITI '97. We believe that the ITI '97 will bring a growth in quality and abundance of the Conference activities and a further increase in the number of participants. We hope that you, the participants of ITI '96, will help us to achieve these objectives.

June 1996