First Announcement 

                           MEGA 2005

             The Eight International Symposium on              
             Effective Methods in Algebraic Geometry

   Computing _in_ and _with_ algebraic geometry:
     Theory, Algorithms, Implementations, Applications.


            Porto Conte, Alghero, Sardinia (Italy)
                     May 26th -- June 2nd

MEGA is the acronym for Effective Methods in Algebraic Geometry (and
its equivalent in Italian, French, Spanish, German, Russian, etc.), a
series of roughly biennial conferences on computational and
application aspects of Algebraic Geometry and related topics with very
high standards.  Previous meetings were held in 1990 (Castiglioncello,
Italy), 1992 (Nice, France), 1994 (Santander, Spain),1996 (Eindhoven,
Nederlands), 1998 (St. Malo, France) 2000 (Bath, United Kingdom) and
2003 (Kaiserslautern, Germany).


Proceedings containing a selection of the papers and invited talks
presented at previous Mega conferences have been published by
Birkh\"auser in the series Progress in Mathematics (volumes no. 94,
109 and 143), by the Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra (volumes
no. 117 and 118, 139 and 164) and by the Journal of Symbolic
Computation (to appear). 


We plan to do the same for MEGA 2005, the details will be contained
in the first call.


                     Conference chair

Carlo Traverso, Pisa

                     Conference Committee                           

Alicia Dickenstein (Buenos Aires, Argentina),
Andr\'e Galligo (Nice, France),
Patrizia Gianni (Pisa, Italy),
Marc Giusti (Palaiseau, France),
Teo Mora (Genova, Italy),
Tomas Recio (Santander, Spain),
Joseph Schicho (Linz, Austria).


                     Advisory Board                          

The MEGA conference series is led since 1990 by an advisory board,
that guarantees the continuity and the quality of the conferences. The
board is stable, but small changes are performed at every issue; the
board for 2005, for which we expect to have small changes with respect
to the board for MEGA 2003, will be announced later.


                 Local arrangements

Carlo Traverso (Pisa, Italy)
Pasqualina Conti (Pisa, Italy)
Patrizia Gianni (Pisa, Italy)
Franco Piras (Cagliari, Italy)


                    Important Dates

7.01.2005  Deadline for submissions of contributed talks

01.03.2005  Deadline for submissions of software presentations and
            short announcements

10.03.2005  Notification of acceptance of contributions

29.03.2003  Early registration deadline. WARNING: the accomodation is 
            not guaranteed after that date, and an extra charge of 50 Euro 
            will be requested

26.5 - 2.6.2005 Conference


                           Venue.

The conference will be held at Hotel Corte Rosada, a sea resort at
Porto Conte (Alghero).

http://www.otaviaggi.com/villaggi/Sardegna/corterosada/princ.htm

http://www.sardegnafoto.it/Alghero%20-%20capo%20Caccia/veduta_della_baia_di_porto_conte.htm

Participants will be hosted at the hotel. Full board at the hotel will
cost approximately 370  Euro for the 7 nights from 26/5 to 2/6 for
double occupancy, 470 Euro for single occupancy.


Porto Conte is in a natural park 10KM from Alghero, a small walled
town in the northwestern coast of Sardinia. The town has catalan
origin, and catalan is spoken locally. 

Alghero has an international airport, served bylow-cost airlines, and
connected to Milano, Roma, London, Hahn-Frankfurt and
Girona-Barcelona. Another possible airport is Olbia.

People coming with a car can come through Porto Torres, 35km far, with daily
ferry connections from Marseille and Genova.

                 Registration and Accomodation                      

A registration form will be available online on the Mega WWW-site from
March 2005 on. The registration fee will be approximately 150 Euro per
person (110 Euro for accompanying persons, 60 Euro for students; 50
Euro supplement for late registration). It will partly cover the
conference expenses. Precise details and electronic forms will be
posted later.

                             Submissions
                                           
Papers should be submitted electronically by January 7, 2003.
The details will be contained in the second announcement, expected at
the beginning of September 2004.


Carlo Traverso
Universit\`a di Pisa
Via Buonarroti 2
56127 PISA
ITALY
E--mail: mega2005@posso.dm.unipi.it