Book excerpt: This book is the fourth volume in the series devoted to gear engineering and computer-aided design, production, testing and education. It comprises fundamental and applied research contributions by scientists and gear experts from all the world and covers recent developments and historical achievements in various spheres of mechanical engineering related to different kinds of gears, transmissions, and drive systems. It gathers contributions describing the advanced approaches to research, design, testing and production of practically all common and new kinds of gears for a vast number of advanced applications. Special attention is paid to issues of higher education in the field of gears. The book is intended as a tribute to professor Veniamin Goldfarb (1941-2019), one of the world-known leaders in the field of gear research, education and production, who contributed much to the active international cooperation of gear experts and to promotion of MMS science. The introductory chapter of this book relates his research to major developments in the field of mechanisms and machine science and outlines important contributions that he made within the period of 1964-2019.