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Searching for very low mass stellar and substellar objects is a growing astronomical industry, and I wish to set the stage for some of the key players who will talk about their specialties. Improved theoretical tools -- interior models with improved equations of state, and atmosphere models with more comprehensive opacities -- may allow us to assign more accurate parameters and identify the substellar objects. New results on the luminosity and mass functions in the solar neighborhood, Galactic disk and halo populations will be discussed in this session. Young clusters and regions of recent star formation provide opportunities to detect more luminous, substellar objects.
