This volume contains a substantial number of the papers presented at the
mODa 7 conference. mODastands for Model Oriented Data Analysis and pre-
vious conferences have been held in Wartburg (1987) (then in the GDR),
St Kirik monastery, Bulgaria (1990), Petrodvorets, St Petersburg, Russia
(1992), The island of Spetsos, Greece (1995), the Centre International
de Rencontres Mathematiques, Marseilles, France (1998) and
Puchberg/Schneeberg, Aus- tria, (2001). The purpose of these workshops
has traditionally been to bring together scientists from the East and
West interested in the optimal design of exper- iments and related
topics and younger and senior researchers in the field. These traditions
remain vital to the health of the series. During this period Europe has
seen increasing unity and the organizers of and participants in mODa
must take some satisfaction from the fact that the youthful ideals of
the founders of the series are reflected in this transition. The present
conference and mODa 6 are supported by a European Union conference grant
(contract HPCF-CT 2000 00045) whose funding emphasis is on younger
participants. The company GlaxoSmithKline has very generously continued
its support. We are very grateful for these substantial contribu- tions.