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This volume contains 16 carefully refereed articles by participants in the Special Session on Real Algebraic Geometry and Ordered Algebraic Structures at the Sectional Meeting of the AMS in Baton Rouge, April 1996, and the associated Special Semester in the spring of 1996 at Louisiana State University and Southern University, Baton Rouge.The 23 contributors to this volume were among the 75 mathematicians from 15 countries who participated. The topics include the topology of real algebraic curves (Hilbert's 16th problem), moduli of real algebraic curves, effective sums of squares of real forms (Hilbert's 17th problem), efficient real quantifier elimination, subanalytic sets and stratifications, semialgebraic singularity theory, radial vector fields, exponential functions and valuations on nonarchimedean ordered fields, valued field extensions, partially ordered and lattice-ordered rings, rings of continuous functions, spectra of rings, and abstract spaces of (higher-level) orderings and real places.This volume provides a good overview of the state of the art in this area in the 1990s. It includes both expository and original research papers by top workers in this thriving field. The authors and editors strived to make the volume useful to a wide audience (including students and researchers) interested in real algebraic geometry and ordered structures - two subjects that are obviously related, but seldom brought together.