C A L L F O R P A P E R S Special Session on Parallel Stochastic Optimization 1997 Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications Conference Las Vegas, Nevada PDPTA '97 will be hosting a special session on Parallel Stochastic Optimization. This session welcomes submissions on the theoretical and practical aspects of parallel simulated annealing, genetic algorithms, other approaches, and hybrid methods. Researchers are encouraged to submit extended abstracts on their latest results. Abstracts will be reviewed for originality, significance, clarity and timeliness. All accepted papers will appear in the published proceedings, which will be available to the delegates at the conference. The extended abstracts (4-5 pages, double-spaced) should be sent to G. S. Stiles, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, 84322-4120, by February 12, 1997. E-mail submissions may be sent to dyke@stiles.ece.usu.edu. The length of accepted papers will be limited to 10 pages. Papers must not have been previously published or currently submitted for publication elsewhere. Please specify a preference for oral presentation or poster. The first page of the abstract should include: title of the paper, name, affiliation, postal address, E-mail address, telephone number, and Fax number for each author. The first page should also include the name of the author who will be presenting the paper (if accepted) and a maximum of 5 keywords. Additional information and status reports will be available at: http://multi.ece.usu.edu/natug. The 1997 Parallel and Distributed Processing Techniques and Applications Conference (PDPTA '97) is the third in the PDPTA series. PDPTA '97 will be held in conjunction with the International Conference on Imaging Science, Systems, and Technology (CISST'97) and the ninth meeting of the North American Transputer Users Group. Information on this conference and the 1996 conference may be found at http://www.cps.udayton.edu/~pan/pdpta.)