This book deals with the constructive Weierstrassian approach to the theory of function spaces and various applications. The first chapter is devoted to a detailed study of quarkonial (subatomic) decompositions of functions and distributions on euclidean spaces, domains, manifolds and fractals. This approach combines the advantages of atomic and wavelet representations. It paves the way to sharp inequalities and embeddings in function spaces, spectral theory of fractal elliptic operators, and a regularity theory of some semi-linear equations. The book is self-contained, although some parts may be considered as a continuation of the author's book Fractals and Spectra. It is directed to mathematicians and (theoretical) physicists interested in the topics indicated and, in particular, how they are interrelated. - - - The book under review can be regarded as a continuation of [his book on "Fractals and spectra", 1997] (...) There are many sections named: comments, preparations, motivations, discussions and so on. These parts of the book seem to be very interesting and valuable. They help the reader to deal with the main course. (Mathematical Reviews)

The aim of this work is to initiate a systematic study of those properties of Banach space complexes that are stable under certain perturbations. A Banach space complex is essentially an object of the form 1 op-l oP +1 ... --+ XP- --+ XP --+ XP --+ ... , where p runs a finite or infiniteinterval ofintegers, XP are Banach spaces, and oP : Xp ..... Xp+1 are continuous linear operators such that OPOp-1 = 0 for all indices p. In particular, every continuous linear operator S : X ..... Y, where X, Yare Banach spaces, may be regarded as a complex: O ..... X ~ Y ..... O. The already existing Fredholm theory for linear operators suggested the possibility to extend its concepts and methods to the study of Banach space complexes. The basic stability properties valid for (semi-) Fredholm operators have their counterparts in the more general context of Banach space complexes. We have in mind especially the stability of the index (i.e., the extended Euler characteristic) under small or compact perturbations, but other related stability results can also be successfully extended. Banach (or Hilbert) space complexes have penetrated the functional analysis from at least two apparently disjoint directions. A first direction is related to the multivariable spectral theory in the sense of J. L.

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in problems involving closed form evaluations of (and representations of the Riemann Zeta function at positive integer arguments as) various families of series associated with the Riemann Zeta function ((s), the Hurwitz Zeta function ((s, a), and their such extensions and generalizations as (for example) Lerch's transcendent (or the Hurwitz-Lerch Zeta function) iI>(z, s, a). Some of these developments have apparently stemmed from an over two-century-old theorem of Christian Goldbach (1690-1764), which was stated in a letter dated 1729 from Goldbach to Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782), from recent rediscoveries of a fairly rapidly convergent series representation for ((3), which is actually contained in a 1772 paper by Leonhard Euler (1707-1783), and from another known series representation for ((3), which was used by Roger Apery (1916-1994) in 1978 in his celebrated proof of the irrationality of ((3). This book is motivated essentially by the fact that the theories and applications of the various methods and techniques used in dealing with many different families of series associated with the Riemann Zeta function and its aforementioned relatives are to be found so far only"in widely scattered journal articles. Thus our systematic (and unified) presentation of these results on the evaluation and representation of the Zeta and related functions is expected to fill a conspicuous gap in the existing books dealing exclusively with these Zeta functions."

Originally published in 1999, "Wavelets Made Easy"offers a lucid and concise explanation of mathematical wavelets.Written at the level of a first course in calculus and linear algebra, its accessible presentation is designed for undergraduates in a variety of disciplines computer science, engineering, mathematics, mathematical sciences as well as for practicing professionals in these areas.

The presentsoftcover reprintretainsthecorrections fromthesecond printing (2001) andmakesthis uniquetext available to a wider audience. The first chapter startswith a description of the key features and applications of wavelets, focusing on Haar's wavelets but using only high-school mathematics. The next two chapters introduce one-, two-, and three-dimensional wavelets, with only the occasional use of matrix algebra.

The second part of this book provides the foundations of least-squares approximation, the discrete Fourier transform, and Fourier series. The third part explains the Fourier transform and then demonstrates how to apply basic Fourier analysis to designing and analyzing mathematical wavelets. Particular attention is paid to Daubechies wavelets.

Numerous exercises, a bibliography, and a comprehensive index combine to make this book an excellent text for the classroom as well as a valuable resource for self-study.

"

problem (0. 2) was the same u that of problem (0. 1). Incidentally, later on Mandzhavidze and Khvedclidze (I) and Simonenko (I) achieved a direct reduction of problem (0. 2) to problem (0. 1) with the help of conformal mappings. Apparenlly, the first paper in which SIES were considered was the paper by Vekua (2) published in 1948. Vekua verified that the equation (0. 3) where (1; C(f), 5 is the operator of 'ingular integration with a Cauchy kernel (Srp)(!) " (". i)-I fr(T - t)-lrp(T)dT, W is the shift operator (WrpHt) = rp{a(t", in the case 01 = - (13,0, = 0. , could be reduced to problem (0. 2). We note thai, in problem (0. 2), the shift ott) need not be a Carlemao shift, . ei. , it is oot necessary that a . . (t) :::: t for some integer 11 ~ 2, where ai(l) " o(ok_dt)), 0(1(1) ::::!. For the first time, the condition 0,(1) == 1 appeared in BPAFS theory in connection with the study of the problem (0. 4) by Carle man (2) who, in particular, showed that problem (0. 4) Wall a natural generalization of the problem on the existence of an a. utomorphic function belonging to a certain group of Fucs. Thus, the paper by Vckua (2) is also the fint paper in which a singular integral equation with a non*Carieman 5hifl is on c sidered.

Regularity of Minimal Surfaces begins with a survey of minimal surfaces with free boundaries. Following this, the basic results concerning the boundary behaviour of minimal surfaces and H-surfaces with fixed or free boundaries are studied. In particular, the asymptotic expansions at interior and boundary branch points are derived, leading to general Gauss-Bonnet formulas. Furthermore, gradient estimates and asymptotic expansions for minimal surfaces with only piecewise smooth boundaries are obtained. One of the main features of free boundary value problems for minimal surfaces is that, for principal reasons, it is impossible to derive a priori estimates. Therefore regularity proofs for non-minimizers have to be based on indirect reasoning using monotonicity formulas. This is followed by a long chapter discussing geometric properties of minimal and H-surfaces such as enclosure theorems and isoperimetric inequalities, leading to the discussion of obstacle problems and of Plateaus problem for H-surfaces in a Riemannian manifold. A natural generalization of the isoperimetric problem is the so-called thread problem, dealing with minimal surfaces whose boundary consists of a fixed arc of given length. Existence and regularity of solutions are discussed. The final chapter on branch points presents a new approach to the theorem that area minimizing solutions of Plateaus problem have no interior branch points.

This volume contains the proceedings of the International Workshop on Operator Theory and Applications held at the University of Algarve in Faro, Portugal, September 12-15, in the year 2000. The main topics of the conference were !> Factorization Theory; !> Factorization and Integrable Systems; !> Operator Theoretical Methods in Diffraction Theory; !> Algebraic Techniques in Operator Theory; !> Applications to Mathematical Physics and Related Topics. A total of 94 colleagues from 21 countries participated in the conference. The major part of participants came from Portugal (32), Germany (17), Israel (6), Mexico (6), the Netherlands (5), USA (4) and Austria (4). The others were from Ukraine, Venezuela (3 each), Spain, Sweden (2 each), Algeria, Australia, Belorussia, France, Georgia, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Russia and Turkey (one of each country). It was the 12th meeting in the framework of the IWOTA conferences which started in 1981 on an initiative of Professors 1. Gohberg (Tel Aviv) and J. W. Helton (San Diego). Up to now, it was the largest conference in the field of Operator Theory in Portugal.

For more than two thousand years some familiarity with mathematics has been regarded as an indispensable part of the intellectual equipment of every cultured person. Today the traditional place of mathematics in education is in grave danger. Unfortunately, professional representatives of mathematics share in the reponsibiIity. The teaching of mathematics has sometimes degen erated into empty drill in problem solving, which may develop formal ability but does not lead to real understanding or to greater intellectual indepen dence. Mathematical research has shown a tendency toward overspecialization and over-emphasis on abstraction. Applications and connections with other fields have been neglected . . . But . . . understanding of mathematics cannot be transmitted by painless entertainment any more than education in music can be brought by the most brilliant journalism to those who never have lis tened intensively. Actual contact with the content of living mathematics is necessary. Nevertheless technicalities and detours should be avoided, and the presentation of mathematics should be just as free from emphasis on routine as from forbidding dogmatism which refuses to disclose motive or goal and which is an unfair obstacle to honest effort. (From the preface to the first edition of What is Mathematics? by Richard Courant and Herbert Robbins, 1941."

lEt moi, .... si j'avait Sll comment en revenir, One service mathematics has rendered the human race. It has put common sense back je n'y serais point aile: ' where it belongs, on the topmost shelf next Jules Verne to the dusty canister labelled 'discarded 0- sense'. The series is divergent; therefore we may be Eric T. Bell able to do something with it. o. Heaviside Mathematics is a tool for thought. A highly necessary tool in a world where both feedback and non linearities abound. Similarly, all kinds of parts of mathematics serve as tools for other parts and for other sciences. Applying a simple rewriting rule to the quote on the right above one finds such statements as: 'One service topology has rendered mathematical physics .. .'; 'One service logic has rendered com puter science .. .'; 'One service category theory has rendered mathematics .. .'. All arguably true. And all statements obtainable this way form part of the raison d 'e1re of this series."

This book gives a systematic account of the facts concerning complexes of differential operators on differentiable manifolds. The central place is occupied by the study of general complexes of differential operators between sections of vector bundles. Although the global situation often contains nothing new as compared with the local one (that is, complexes of partial differential operators on an open subset of ]Rn), the invariant language allows one to simplify the notation and to distinguish better the algebraic nature of some questions. In the last 2 decades within the general theory of complexes of differential operators, the following directions were delineated: 1) the formal theory; 2) the existence theory; 3) the problem of global solvability; 4) overdetermined boundary problems; 5) the generalized Lefschetz theory of fixed points, and 6) the qualitative theory of solutions of overdetermined systems. All of these problems are reflected in this book to some degree. It is superfluous to say that different directions sometimes whimsically intersect. Considerable attention is given to connections and parallels with the theory of functions of several complex variables. One of the reproaches avowed beforehand by the author consists of the shortage of examples. The framework of the book has not permitted their number to be increased significantly. Certain parts of the book consist of results obtained by the author in 1977-1986. They have been presented in seminars in Krasnoyarsk, Moscow, Ekaterinburg, and N ovosi birsk.

Survey on Classical Inequalities provides a study of some of the well known inequalities in classical mathematical analysis. Subjects dealt with include: Hardy-Littlewood-type inequalities, Hardy's and Carleman's inequalities, Lyapunov inequalities, Shannon's and related inequalities, generalized Shannon functional inequality, operator inequalities associated with Jensen's inequality, weighted Lp -norm inequalities in convolutions, inequalities for polynomial zeros as well as applications in a number of problems of pure and applied mathematics. It is my pleasure to express my appreciation to the distinguished mathematicians who contributed to this volume. Finally, we wish to acknowledge the superb assistance provided by the staff of Kluwer Academic Publishers. June 2000 Themistocles M. Rassias Vll LYAPUNOV INEQUALITIES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS RICHARD C. BROWN Department of Mathematics, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0350, USA. email address: [email protected] DON B. HINTON Department of Mathematics, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA. email address: [email protected] Abstract. For nearly 50 years Lyapunov inequalities have been an important tool in the study of differential equations. In this survey, building on an excellent 1991 historical survey by Cheng, we sketch some new developments in the theory of Lyapunov inequalities and present some recent disconjugacy results relating to second and higher order differential equations as well as Hamiltonian systems. 1. Introduction Lyapunov's inequality has proved useful in the study of spectral properties of ordinary differential equations. Typical applications include bounds for eigenvalues, stability criteria for periodic differential equations, and estimates for intervals of disconjugacy.

The aim of this monograph is to introduce the reader to modern methods of projective geometry involving certain techniques of formal geometry. Some of these methods are illustrated in the first part through the proofs of a number of results of a rather classical flavor, involving in a crucial way the first infinitesimal neighbourhood of a given subvariety in an ambient variety. Motivated by the first part, in the second formal functions on the formal completion X/Y of X along a closed subvariety Y are studied, particularly the extension problem of formal functions to rational functions.
The formal scheme X/Y, introduced to algebraic geometry by Zariski and Grothendieck in the 1950s, is an analogue of the concept of a tubular neighbourhood of a submanifold of a complex manifold. It is very well suited to study the given embedding Y\subset X. The deep relationship of formal geometry with the most important connectivity theorems in algebraic geometry, or with complex geometry, is also studied. Some of the formal methods are illustrated and applied to homogeneous spaces.
The book contains a lot of results obtained over the last thirty years, many of which never appeared in a monograph or textbook. It addresses to algebraic geometers as well as to those interested in using methods of algebraic geometry.

Dedicated to Jacques Carmona, an expert in noncommutative harmonic analysis, the volume presents excellent invited/refereed articles by top notch mathematicians. Topics cover general Lie theory, reductive Lie groups, harmonic analysis and the Langlands program, automorphic forms, and Kontsevich quantization. Good text for researchers and grad students in representation theory.

Multivariable analysis is of interest to pure and applied mathematicians, physicists, electrical, mechanical and systems engineers, mathematical economists, biologists, and statisticians. This book takes the student and researcher on a journey through the core topics of the subject. Systematic exposition, with numerous examples and exercises from the computational to the theoretical, makes difficult ideas as concrete as possible. Good bibliography and index.

These are the proceedings of the international conference on "Nonlinear numerical methods and Rational approximation II" organised by Annie Cuyt at the University of Antwerp (Belgium), 05-11 September 1993. It was held for the third time in Antwerp at the conference center of UIA, after successful meetings in 1979 and 1987 and an almost yearly tradition since the early 70's. The following figures illustrate the growing number of participants and their geographical dissemination. In 1993 the Belgian scientific committee consisted of A. Bultheel (Leuven), A. Cuyt (Antwerp), J. Meinguet (Louvain-Ia-Neuve) and J.-P. Thiran (Namur). The conference focused on the use of rational functions in different fields of Numer ical Analysis. The invited speakers discussed "Orthogonal polynomials" (D. S. Lu binsky), "Rational interpolation" (M. Gutknecht), "Rational approximation" (E. B. Saff), "Pade approximation" (A. Gonchar) and "Continued fractions" (W. B. Jones). In contributed talks multivariate and multidimensional problems, applications and implementations of each main topic were considered. To each of the five main topics a separate conference day was devoted and a separate proceedings chapter compiled accordingly. In this way the proceedings reflect the organisation of the talks at the conference. Nonlinear numerical methods and rational approximation may be a nar row field for the outside world, but it provides a vast playground for the chosen ones. It can fascinate specialists from Moscow to South-Africa, from Boulder in Colorado and from sunny Florida to Zurich in Switzerland."

* First of three independent, self-contained volumes under the general title, "Lie Theory," featuring original results and survey work from renowned mathematicians. * Contains J. C. Jantzen's "Nilpotent Orbits in Representation Theory," and K.-H. Neeb's "Infinite Dimensional Groups and their Representations." * Comprehensive treatments of the relevant geometry of orbits in Lie algebras, or their duals, and the correspondence to representations. * Should benefit graduate students and researchers in mathematics and mathematical physics.

A set in complex Euclidean space is called C-convex if all its intersections with complex lines are contractible, and it is said to be linearly convex if its complement is a union of complex hyperplanes. These notions are intermediates between ordinary geometric convexity and pseudoconvexity. Their importance was first manifested in the pioneering work of Andre Martineau from about forty years ago. Since then a large number of new related results have been obtained by many different mathematicians. The present book puts the modern theory of complex linear convexity on a solid footing, and gives a thorough and up-to-date survey of its current status. Applications include the Fantappie transformation of analytic functionals, integral representation formulas, polynomial interpolation, and solutions to linear partial differential equations."

This volume is dedicated to our teacher and friend Hans Triebel. The core of the book is based on lectures given at the International Conference "Function Spaces, Differential Operators and Nonlinear Analysis" (FSDONA--01) held in Teistungen, Thuringia / Germany, from June 28 to July 4,2001, in honour of his 65th birthday. This was the fifth in a series of meetings organised under the same name by scientists from Finland (Helsinki, Oulu) , the Czech Republic (Prague, Plzen) and Germany (Jena) promoting the collaboration of specialists in East and West, working in these fields. This conference was a very special event because it celebrated Hans Triebel's extraordinary impact on mathematical analysis. The development of the mod ern theory of function spaces in the last 30 years and its application to various branches in both pure and applied mathematics is deeply influenced by his lasting contributions. In a series of books Hans Triebel has given systematic treatments of the theory of function spaces from different points of view, thus revealing its interdependence with interpolation theory, harmonic analysis, partial differential equations, nonlinear operators, entropy, spectral theory and, most recently, anal ysis on fractals. The presented collection of papers is a tribute to Hans Triebel's distinguished work. The book is subdivided into three parts: * Part I contains the two invited lectures by O.V. Besov (Moscow) and D.E. Edmunds (Sussex) having a survey character and honouring Hans Triebel's contributions.

Spectral Techniques in VLSI CAD have become a subject of renewed interest in the design automation community due to the emergence of new and efficient methods for the computation of discrete function spectra. In the past, spectral computations for digital logic were too complex for practical implementation. The use of decision diagrams for spectral computations has greatly reduced this obstacle allowing for the development of new and useful spectral techniques for VLSI synthesis and verification. Several new algorithms for the computation of the Walsh, Reed-Muller, arithmetic and Haar spectra are described. The relation of these computational methods to traditional ones is also provided. Spectral Techniques in VLSI CAD provides a unified formalism of the representation of bit-level and word-level discrete functions in the spectral domain and as decision diagrams. An alternative and unifying interpretation of decision diagram representations is presented since it is shown that many of the different commonly used varieties of decision diagrams are merely graphical representations of various discrete function spectra. Viewing various decision diagrams as being described by specific sets of transformation functions not only illustrates the relationship between graphical and spectral representations of discrete functions, but also gives insight into how various decision diagram types are related. Spectral Techniques in VLSI CAD describes several new applications of spectral techniques in discrete function manipulation including decision diagram minimization, logic function synthesis, technology mapping and equivalence checking. The use of linear transformations in decision diagram size reduction is described and the relationship to the operation known as spectral translation is described. Several methods for synthesizing digital logic circuits based on a subset of spectral coefficients are described. An equivalence checking approach for functional verification is described based upon the use of matching pairs of Haar spectral coefficients.

Minimal Surfaces is the first volume of a three volume treatise on minimal surfaces (Grundlehren Nr. 339-341). Each volume can be read and studied independently of the others. The central theme is boundary value problems for minimal surfaces. The treatise is a substantially revised and extended version of the monograph Minimal Surfaces I, II (Grundlehren Nr. 295 & 296). The first volume begins with an exposition of basic ideas of the theory of surfaces in three-dimensional Euclidean space, followed by an introduction of minimal surfaces as stationary points of area, or equivalently, as surfaces of zero mean curvature. The final definition of a minimal surface is that of a non-constant harmonic mapping X: \Omega\to\R DEGREES3 which is conformally parametrized on \Omega\subset\R DEGREES2 and may have branch points. Thereafter the classical theory of minimal surfaces is surveyed, comprising many examples, a treatment of Bjorlings initial value problem, reflection principles, a formula of the second variation of area, the theorems of Bernstein, Heinz, Osserman, and Fujimoto. The second part of this volume begins with a survey of Plateaus problem and of some of its modifications. One of the main features is a new, completely elementary proof of the fact that area A and Dirichlet integral D have the same infimum in the class C(G) of admissible surfaces spanning a prescribed contour G. This leads to a new, simplified solution of the simultaneous problem of minimizing A and D in C(G), as well as to new proofs of the mapping theorems of Riemann and Korn-Lichtenstein, and to a new solution of the simultaneous Douglas problem for A and D where G consists of several closed components. Then basic facts of stable minimal surfaces are derived; this is done in the context of stable H-surfaces (i.e. of stable surfaces of prescribed mean curvature H), especially of cmc-surfaces (H = const), and leads to curvature estimates for stable, immersed cmc-surfaces and to Nitsches uniqueness theorem and Tomis finiteness result. In addition, a theory of unstable solutions of Plateaus problems is developed which is based on Courants mountain pass lemma. Furthermore, Dirichlets problem for nonparametric H-surfaces is solved, using the solution of Plateaus problem for H-surfaces and the pertinent estimates."

In Complex Potential Theory, specialists in several complex variables meet with specialists in potential theory to demonstrate the interface and interconnections between their two fields. The following topics are discussed: * Real and complex potential theory. Capacity and approximation, basic properties of plurisubharmonic functions and methods to manipulate their singularities and study theory growth, Green functions, Chebyshev-like quadratures, electrostatic fields and potentials, propagation of smallness. * Complex dynamics. Review of complex dynamics in one variable, Julia sets, Fatou sets, background in several variables, Henon maps, ergodicity use of potential theory and multifunctions. * Banach algebras and infinite dimensional holomorphy. Analytic multifunctions, spectral theory, analytic functions on a Banach space, semigroups of holomorphic isometries, Pick interpolation on uniform algebras and von Neumann inequalities for operators on a Hilbert space.

Clifford Algebras continues to be a fast-growing discipline, with ever-increasing applications in many scientific fields. This volume contains the lectures given at the Fourth Conference on Clifford Algebras and their Applications in Mathematical Physics, held at RWTH Aachen in May 1996. The papers represent an excellent survey of the newest developments around Clifford Analysis and its applications to theoretical physics. Audience: This book should appeal to physicists and mathematicians working in areas involving functions of complex variables, associative rings and algebras, integral transforms, operational calculus, partial differential equations, and the mathematics of physics.

Analytic and Geometric Inequalities and Applications is devoted to recent advances in a variety of inequalities of Mathematical Analysis and Geo metry. Subjects dealt with in this volume include: Fractional order inequalities of Hardy type, differential and integral inequalities with initial time differ ence, multi-dimensional integral inequalities, Opial type inequalities, Gruss' inequality, Furuta inequality, Laguerre-Samuelson inequality with extensions and applications in statistics and matrix theory, distortion inequalities for ana lytic and univalent functions associated with certain fractional calculus and other linear operators, problem of infimum in the positive cone, alpha-quasi convex functions defined by convolution with incomplete beta functions, Chebyshev polynomials with integer coefficients, extremal problems for poly nomials, Bernstein's inequality and Gauss-Lucas theorem, numerical radii of some companion matrices and bounds for the zeros of polynomials, degree of convergence for a class of linear operators, open problems on eigenvalues of the Laplacian, fourth order obstacle boundary value problems, bounds on entropy measures for mixed populations as well as controlling the velocity of Brownian motion by its terminal value. A wealth of applications of the above is also included. We wish to express our appreciation to the distinguished mathematicians who contributed to this volume. Finally, it is our pleasure to acknowledge the fine cooperation and assistance provided by the staff of Kluwer Academic Publishers. June 1999 Themistocles M. Rassias Hari M."

About one half of the papers in this volume are based on lectures which were pre sented at a conference at Leipzig University in August 1994, which was dedicated to Vladimir Petrovich Potapov. He would have been eighty years old. These have been supplemented by: (1) Historical material, based on reminiscences of former colleagues, students and associates of V.P. Potapov. (2) Translations of a number of important papers (which serve to clarify the Potapov approach to problems of interpolation and extension, as well as a number of related problems and methods) and are relatively unknown in the West. (3) Two expository papers, which have been especially written for this volume. For purposes of discussion, it is convenient to group the technical papers in this volume into six categories. We will now run through them lightly, first listing the major theme, then in parentheses the authors of the relevant papers, followed by discussion. Some supplementary references are listed at the end; OT72 which appears frequently in this volume, refers to Volume 72 in the series Operator Theory: Advances and Applications. It was dedicated to V.P. Potapov. 1. Multiplicative decompositions (Yu.P. Ginzburg; M.S. Livsic, I.V. Mikhailova; V.I. Smirnov)."

The present monograph consists of two parts. Before Part I, a chapter of introduction is supplemented, where an overview of the whole volume is given for reader's convenience. The former part is devoted mainly to expose linear inte gral operators introduced by the author. Several properties of the operators are established, and specializations as well as generalizations are attempted variously in order to make use them in the latter part. As compared with the former part, the latter part is de voted mainly to develop several kinds of distortions under actions of integral operators for various familiar function also absolute modulus. real part. range. length and area. an gular derivative, etc. Besides them, distortions on the class of univalent functions and its subclasses, Caratheodory class as well as distortions by a differential operator are dealt with. Related differential operators play also active roles. Many illustrative examples will be inserted in order to help understanding of the general statements. The basic materials in this monograph are taken from a series of researches performed by the author himself chiefly in the past two decades. While the themes of the papers pub lished hitherto are necessarily not arranged chronologically Preface viii and systematically, the author makes here an effort to ar range them as, orderly as possible. In attaching the import ance of the self-containedness to the book, some of unfamil iar subjects will also be inserted and, moreover, be wholly accompanied by their respective proofs, though unrelated they may be."