2

MATHEMATICAL BACKGROUND

This chapter presents some topics in mathematics; it is intended to make this book self-contained. For further details the reader is referred to textbooks on algebra ([COH1993], [GIL2003], [HER1975], [HUN1974]), mathematical analysis ([APO1974], [RUD1976]), number theory ([KOB1994], [ROS1992]), finite fields ([McC1987]), and cryptography ([MEN1996]).