A matroid is an abstract mathematical structure that captures combinatorial properties of matrices. This book offers a unique introduction to matroid theory, emphasizing motivations from matrix theory and applications to systems analysis.This book serves also as a comprehensive presentation of the theory and application of mixed matrices, developed primarily by the present author in the 1990's. A mixed matrix is a convenient mathematical tool for systems analysis, compatible with the physical observation that "e;fixed constants"e; and "e;system parameters"e; are to be distinguished in the description of engineering systems.This book will be extremely useful to graduate students and researchers in engineering, mathematics and computer science.From the reviews:"e; The book has been prepared very carefully, contains a lot of interesting results and is highly recommended for graduate and postgraduate students."e;Andras Recski, Mathematical Reviews Clippings 2000m:93006