PREFACE This collection contains eight articles, three of which are devoted to approximate methods of solution of problems of algebra and analysis, whereas five articles are devoted to automatic programming. Kublanovskaya's article deals with the solution of the inverse eigenvalue problem of matrices in the additive formulation; this is done with the aid of an iteration process whose convergence is analyzed. Mikhlin Considers problems related to the use of variational-difference methods in various problems of analysis. He defines and studies so-called basis functions; then a system of coordinate functions is constructed whose completeness is examined, as well as the degree of approximation of functions of Sobolev classes and some related functions; this article also deals with methods of construction of variational-difference equations~ it analyzes the stability of the variational-difference process, and examines some other problems. Yakoviev studies the order of uniform convergence of the method of lines in connection w i t ~ t h e solution of the first boundary-value problem for quasilinear second-order parabolic andrnyperbolic equations. Kantorovich considers the trends of development of computer technology and of the mathematical methods of solution of large-scale problems related to mass operations; special attention is devoted to the prospects of the large-block approach in solving such problems. The articles by Smirnova and by Malyshev in collaboration with Smirnova deal with computational algorithms from the viewpoint of large-block programming. The first of these articles presents a general scheme of a large-block model machine and the results of an analysis of linear algebra algorithms with sparse quantities realized on this machines The second article describes a program for M-20 computers that makes it possible tO analyze programs of determination of the amount of "administrative" operations in organizing computations with combined quantities. The article by Shakhbazyan, Tushkina, and Lebedinskaya deals with an algorithm of compilation of an optimal schedule for a computational process simulated by a parallel-sequential network and for a homogeneous computational system. In his article, Lebedinskii describes the organization of pseudoarrays in the REFAL language that makes it possible to speed up sorting and the introduction of elements into an array. V. P. li~in