The International Conference on Finsler and Lagrange Geometry and its
Applications: A Meeting of Minds, took place August 13-20, 1998 at the
University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. The main objective of this
meeting was to help acquaint North American geometers with the extensive
modern literature on Finsler geometry and Lagrange geometry of the
Japanese and European schools, each with its own venerable history, on
the one hand, and to communicate recent advances in stochastic theory
and Hodge theory for Finsler manifolds by the younger North American
school, on the other. The intent was to bring together practitioners of
these schools of thought in a Canadian venue where there would be ample
opportunity to exchange information and have cordial personal
interactions. The present set of refereed papers begins -with the
Pedagogical Sec- tion I, where introductory and brief survey articles
are presented, one from the Japanese School and two from the European
School (Romania and Hungary). These have been prepared for non-experts
with the intent of explaining basic points of view. The Section III is
the main body of work. It is arranged in alphabetical order, by author.
Section II gives a brief account of each of these contribu- tions with a
short reference list at the end. More extensive references are given in
the individual articles.