`Polycyclic' - a GAP 4 package

It is our pleasure to present the prerelease of the new `Polycyclic'
package for GAP 4. This package is designed for computations with
infinite polycyclic groups. At present, the main way to define a
polycyclic group in this package is via a polycyclic presentation.
Features of the package include:

- creating a polycyclically presented group

- arithmetic in a polycyclically presented group

- computing with subgroups and factor groups

- computing with standard subgroups series

- computing the first and second cohomology groups

- computing finite subgroups and subgroups of finite index

- and various other features

The package is available as part of the GAP 4 development version or
can be obtained from the GAP www-page or the GAP ftp-server, see
`http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~gap/Info4/deposit.html'.
We also provide a www-page with information on this package under
`http://www.mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de/~nickel/polycyclic/'
`http://www.mathematik.uni-kassel.de/~eick/so.html'

To use the package you should have GAP 4.2 installed and then follow
the installation advice contained in the README file of the package.
The package is written in GAP code and the installation of it should
be straightforward.

If you have questions on the package, then please send us an e-mail.
Also, comments and feedback on the package are very welcome! If there
is any functionality missing for your desired computations or if you
find bugs, then please let us know:

Bettina Eick <eick@mathematik.uni-kassel.de>
Werner Nickel <nickel@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de>

If you would like to be informed about new releases, new features and
updates of the package, then please send us an e-mail and we will set
you on our mailing list.

Best wishes,

Bettina Eick and Werner Nickel