This volume is dedicated to the memory of Rudolf Ahlswede, who passed away in December 2010. The Festschrift contains 36 thoroughly refereed research papers from a memorial symposium, which took place in July 2011.

The four macro-topics of this workshop: theory of games and strategic planning; combinatorial group testing and database mining; computational biology and string matching; information coding and spreading and patrolling on networks; provide a comprehensive picture of the vision Rudolf Ahlswede put forward of a broad and systematic theory of search.