Book excerpt: The research results published in this volume range from pure mathematical theory (semigroup theory, discrete mathematics, and so on) to theoretical computer science, in particular formal languages and automata. The papers are the proceedings of the Third International Colloquium on Words, Languages and Combinatorics, and they address issues in the algebraic and combinatorial theories of semigroups, words and languages, the structure theory of automata, the classification theory of formal languages and codes, and applications of these theories to various areas, like quantum and molecular computing, coding theory, and cryptography.