This volume contains the proceedings of the International Conference on "Par tial Differential Equations" held in HolzhaujErzgebirge, Germany, July 3~9, 1994. The conference was sponsored by the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, the Deutsche For schungsgemeinschaft, the Land Brandenburg and the Freistaat Sachsen. It was initiated by the Max-Planck-Research Group "Partielle Differential gleichungen und Komplexe Analysis" at the University of Potsdam as one of the annual meetings of the research group. This conference is part of a series begun by the former Karl-Weierstraf3-Institute of Mathematics in Berlin, with the confer ences in Ludwigsfelde 1976, Reinhardsbrunn 1985, Holzhau 1988 (proceedings in the Teubner Texte zur Mathematik 112, Teubner-Verlag 1989), Breitenbrunn 1990 (proceedings in the Teubner Texte zur Mathematik 131, Teubner-Verlag 1992), and Lambrecht 1991 (proceedings in Operator Theory: Advances and Applications, Vol. 57, Birkhiiuser Verlag 1992); subsequent conferences took place in Potsdam in 1992 and 1993 under the auspices of the Max-Planck-Research Group "Partielle Differentialgleichungen und Komplexe Analysis" at the University of Potsdam. It was the intention of the organizers to bring together specialists from differ ent areas of modern analysis, geometry and mathematical physics to discuss not only recent progress in the respective disciplines but also to encourage interaction between these fields. The scientific advisory board of the Holzhau conference consisted of S. Al beverio (Bochum), L. Boutet de Monvel (Paris), M. Demuth (Clausthal), P. Gilkey (Eugene), B. Gramsch (Mainz), B. Helffer (Paris), S.T. Kuroda (Tokyo), B.-W. Schulze (Potsdam).
