Finite Fields and Applications

Thisvolumerepresentstherefereedproceedingsofthe7thInternationalC- ference on Finite Fields and Applications (F 7) held during May 5-9, q 2003, in Toulouse, France. The conference was hosted by the Pierre Baudis C- gress Center, downtown, and held at the excellent conference facility. This event continued a series of biennial international conferences on Finite Fields and - plications, following earlier meetings at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas (USA) in August 1991 and August 1993, the University of Glasgow (UK) in July 1995, the University of Waterloo (Canada) in August 1997, the Univ- sity of Augsburg (Germany) in August 1999, and the Universidad Aut¿ onoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, in Oaxaca (Mexico) in 2001. The Organizing Committee of F 7 consisted of Claude Carlet (INRIA, Paris, q France), Dieter Jungnickel (University of Augsburg, Germany), Gary Mullen (Pennsylvania State University, USA), Harald Niederreiter (National University of Singapore, Singapore), Alain Poli, Chair (Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France), Henning Stichtenoth (Essen University, Germany), and Horacio Tapia- Recillas (Universidad Aut¿ onoma Metropolitan-Iztapalapa, Mexico). The program of the conference consisted of four full days and one half day of sessions, with eight invited plenary talks, and close to 60 contributed talks.