This book is composed of three survey lecture courses and some twenty invited research papers presented to WOAT 2006 - the International Summer School and Workshop on Operator Algebras, Operator Theory and Applications, which was held at Lisbon in September 2006. The volume reflects recent developments in the area of operator algebras and their interaction with research fields in complex analysis and operator theory. The lecture courses contain: an introduction to two classes of non-selfadjoint operator algebras, the generalized analytic Toeplitz algebras associated with the Fock space of a graph and subalgebras of graph C*-algebras; three topics on numerical functional analysis that are the cornerstones in asymptotic spectral theory: stability, fractality and Fredholmness; a survey concerning Hilbert spaces of holomorphic functions on Hermitian symmetric domains of arbitrary rank and dimension, in relation to operator theory, harmonic analysis and quantization.

Geometric algebra is still treated as an obscure branch of algebra and most books have been written by competent mathematicians in a very abstract style. This restricts the readership of such books especially by programmers working in computer graphics, who simply want guidance on algorithm design.

Geometric algebra provides a unified algebraic system for solving a wide variety of geometric problems. John Vince reveals the beauty of this algebraic framework and communicates to the reader new and unusual mathematical concepts using colour illustrations, tabulations, and easy-to-follow algebraic proofs.

The book includes many worked examples to show how the algebra works in practice and is essential reading for anyone involved in designing 3D geometric algorithms.

Galois connections provide the order- or structure-preserving passage between two worlds of our imagination - and thus are inherent in hu man thinking wherever logical or mathematical reasoning about cer tain hierarchical structures is involved. Order-theoretically, a Galois connection is given simply by two opposite order-inverting (or order preserving) maps whose composition yields two closure operations (or one closure and one kernel operation in the order-preserving case). Thus, the "hierarchies" in the two opposite worlds are reversed or transported when passing to the other world, and going forth and back becomes a stationary process when iterated. The advantage of such an "adjoint situation" is that information about objects and relationships in one of the two worlds may be used to gain new information about the other world, and vice versa. In classical Galois theory, for instance, properties of permutation groups are used to study field extensions. Or, in algebraic geometry, a good knowledge of polynomial rings gives insight into the structure of curves, surfaces and other algebraic vari eties, and conversely. Moreover, restriction to the "Galois-closed" or "Galois-open" objects (the fixed points of the composite maps) leads to a precise "duality between two maximal subworlds.""

This textbook introduces students of economics to the fundamental notions and instruments in linear algebra. Linearity is used as a first approximation to many problems that are studied in different branches of science, including economics and other social sciences. Linear algebra is also the most suitable to teach students what proofs are and how to prove a statement. The proofs that are given in the text are relatively easy to understand and also endow the student with different ways of thinking in making proofs. Theorems for which no proofs are given in the book are illustrated via figures and examples. All notions are illustrated appealing to geometric intuition. The book provides a variety of economic examples using linear algebraic tools. It mainly addresses students in economics who need to build up skills in understanding mathematical reasoning. Students in mathematics and informatics may also be interested in learning about the use of mathematics in economics.

The book illustrates the theoretical results of fractional derivatives via applications in signals and systems, covering continuous and discrete derivatives, and the corresponding linear systems. Both time and frequency analysis are presented. Some advanced topics are included like derivatives of stochastic processes. It is an essential reference for researchers in mathematics, physics, and engineering.

Palmprint Authentication is the first book to provide a comprehensive introduction to palmprint technologies. It reveals automatic biometric techniques for personal identification using palmprint, from the approach based on offline palmprint images, to the current state-of-the-art algorithm using online palmprint images.

Palmprint Authentication provides the reader with a basic concept of Palmprint Authentication. It also includes an in-depth discussion of Palmprint Authentication technologies, a detailed description of Palmprint Authentication systems, and an up-to-date coverage of how these issues are developed. This book is suitable for different levels of readers: those who want to learn more about palmprint technology, and those who wish to understand, participate, and/or develop a palmprint authentication system.

Palmprint Authentication is effectively a handbook for biometric research and development. Graduate students and researchers in computer science, electrical engineering, systems science, and information technology will all find it uniquely useful, not only as a reference book, but also as a text book. Researchers and practitioners in industry, and R&D laboratories working in the fields of security system design, biometrics, immigration, law enforcement, control, and pattern recognition will also benefit from this volume.

This book began life as a set of notes that I developed for a course at the University of Washington entitled Introduction to Modern Algebra for Tea- ers. Originally conceived as a text for future secondary-school mathematics teachers, it has developed into a book that could serve well as a text in an - dergraduatecourseinabstractalgebraoracoursedesignedasanintroduction to higher mathematics. This book di?ers from many undergraduate algebra texts in fundamental ways; the reasons lie in the book's origin and the goals I set for the course. The course is a two-quarter sequence required of students intending to f- ?ll the requirements of the teacher preparation option for our B.A. degree in mathematics, or of the teacher preparation minor. It is required as well of those intending to matriculate in our university's Master's in Teaching p- gram for secondary mathematics teachers. This is the principal course they take involving abstraction and proof, and they come to it with perhaps as little background as a year of calculus and a quarter of linear algebra. The mathematical ability of the students varies widely, as does their level of ma- ematical interest.

Details the basic theory of polynomial and fractional representation methods for algebraic analysis and synthesis of linear multivariable control systems. It also serves as a self-contained treatise of the mathematical theory so that results and techniques of the state space approaches'' for regular and singular systems appear as special cases of a general theory covering the wider class of PMDs of linear systems. Among the topics covered are: real rational vector spaces and rational matrices, pole and zero structure of rational matrices at infinity, proper and omega stable rational fuctions and matrices.

This book is an introduction to singularities for graduate students and researchers. Algebraic geometry is said to have originated in the seventeenth century with the famous work Discours de la methode pour bien conduire sa raison, et chercher la verite dans les sciences by Descartes. In that book he introduced coordinates to the study of geometry. After its publication, research on algebraic varieties developed steadily. Many beautiful results emerged in mathematicians' works. First, mostly non-singular varieties were studied. In the past three decades, however, it has become clear that singularities are necessary for us to have a good description of the framework of varieties. For example, it is impossible to formulate minimal model theory for higher-dimensional cases without singularities. A remarkable fact is that the study of singularities is developing and people are beginning to see that singularities are interesting and can be handled by human beings. This book is a handy introduction to singularities for anyone interested in singularities. The focus is on an isolated singularity in an algebraic variety. After preparation of varieties, sheaves, and homological algebra, some known results about 2-dimensional isolated singularities are introduced. Then a classification of higher-dimensional isolated singularities is shown according to plurigenera and the behavior of singularities under a deformation is studied. In the second edition, brief descriptions about recent remarkable developments of the researches are added as the last chapter.

This volume presents an exhaustive treatment of computation and algorithms for finite fields. Topics covered include polynomial factorization, finding irreducible and primitive polynomials, distribution of these primitive polynomials and of primitive points on elliptic curves, constructing bases of various types, and new applications of finite fields to other areas of mathematics. For completeness, also included are two special chapters on some recent advances and applications of the theory of congruences (optimal coefficients, congruential pseudo-random number generators, modular arithmetic etc.), and computational number theory (primality testing, factoring integers, computing in algebraic number theory, etc). The problems considered here have many applications in computer science, coding theory, cryptography, number theory and discrete mathematics. The level of discussion presupposes only a knowledge of the basic facts on finite fields, and the book can be recommended as supplementary graduate text. For researchers and students interested in computational and algorithmic problems in finite fields.

A group of Gerry Schwarz's colleagues and collaborators gathered at the Fields Institute in Toronto for a mathematical festschrift in honor of his 60th birthday. This volume is an outgrowth of that event, covering the wide range of mathematics to which Gerry Schwarz has either made fundamental contributions or stimulated others to pursue. The articles are a sampling of modern day algebraic geometry with associated group actions from its leading experts, with a particular focus on characteristic 0 and modular invariant theory.

Contributors:

M. Brion

A. Broer

D. Daigle

J. Elmer

P. Fleischmann

G. Freudenberg

D. Greb

P. Heinzner

A. Helminck

B. Kostant

H. Kraft

R. J. Shank

W. Traves

N. R. Wallach

D. Wehlau

This volume is the result of two international workshops; "Infinite Analysis 11 Frontier of Integrability" held at University of Tokyo, Japan in July 25th to 29th, 2011, and "Symmetries, Integrable Systems and Representations" held at Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1, France in December 13th to 16th, 2011.

Included are research articles based on the talks presented at the workshops, latest results obtained thereafter, and some review articles. The subjects discussed range across diverse areas such as algebraic geometry, combinatorics, differential equations, integrable systems, representation theory, solvable lattice models and special functions.

Through these topics, the readerwill find some recent developments in the field of mathematical physics and their interactions with several other domains.
"

The Local Langlands Conjecture for GL(2) contributes an unprecedented text to the so-called Langlands theory. It is an ambitious research program of already 40 years and gives a complete and self-contained proof of the Langlands conjecture in the case n=2. It is aimed at graduate students and at researchers in related fields. It presupposes no special knowledge beyond the beginnings of the representation theory of finite groups and the structure theory of local fields.

This present volume is the Proceedings of the 18th International C- ference on Nearrings and Near?elds held in Hamburg at the Universit] at derBundeswehrHamburgfromJuly27toAugust03,2003. ThisConf- ence was organized by Momme Johs Thomsen and Gerhard Saad from the Universit] at der Bundeswehr Hamburg and by Alexander Kreuzer, Hubert Kiechle and Wen-Ling Huang from the Universit] a ]t Hamburg. It was already the second Conference on Nearrings and Near?elds in Hamburg after the Conference on Nearrings and Near?elds at the same venue from July 30 to August 06, 1995. TheConferencewasattendedby57mathematiciansandmanyacc- panying persons who represented 16 countries from all ?ve continents. The ?rst of these conferences took place 35 years earlier in 1968 at the Mathematische Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach in the Black Forest inGermany. Thiswasalsothesiteofthesecond, third, ?fthandeleventh conference in 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1989. The other twelve conferences held before the second Hamburg Conference took place in nine di?erent countries. For details about this and, moreover, for a general histo- cal overview of the development of the subject we refer to the article "On the beginnings and developments of near-ring theory" by Gerhard Betsch 3] in the proceedings of the 13th Conference in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. Duringthelast?ftyyearsthetheoryofnearringsandrelatedalgebraic structures like near?elds, nearmodules, nearalgebras and seminearrings has developed into an extensive branch of algebra with its own features."

This volume is a collection of lectures and selected papers by Giorgio Parisi on the subjects of Field Theory (perturbative expansions, nonperturbative phenomena and phase transitions), Disordered Systems (mainly spin glasses) and Computer Simulations (lattice gauge theories).The basic problems discussed in the Field Theory section concern the interplay between perturbation theory and nonperturbative phenomena which are present when one deals with infrared or ultraviolet divergences or with nonconvergent perturbative expansions. The section on Disordered Systems contains a complete discussion about the replica method and its probabilistic interpretation, and also includes a short paper on multifractals. In the Simulations section, there is a series of lectures devoted to the study of quantum chromodynamics and a review paper on simulations in complex systems.The works of Giorgio Parisi have repeatedly displayed a remarkable depth of originality and innovation, and have paved the way for new research in many areas. This personal selection of his lectures and papers, complete with an original introduction by him, undoubtedly serves as a vital reference book for physicists and mathematicians working in these fields.

The book is meant to serve two purposes. The first and more obvious one is to present state of the art results in algebraic research into residuated structures related to substructural logics. The second, less obvious but equally important, is to provide a reasonably gentle introduction to algebraic logic. At the beginning, the second objective is predominant. Thus, in the first few chapters the reader will find a primer of universal algebra for logicians, a crash course in nonclassical logics for algebraists, an introduction to residuated structures, an outline of Gentzen-style calculi as well as some titbits of proof theory - the celebrated Hauptsatz, or cut elimination theorem, among them. These lead naturally to a discussion of interconnections between logic and algebra, where we try to demonstrate how they form two sides of the same coin. We envisage that the initial chapters could be used as a textbook for a graduate course, perhaps entitled Algebra and Substructural Logics.
As the book progresses the first objective gains predominance over the second. Although the precise point of equilibrium would be difficult to specify, it is safe to say that we enter the technical part with the discussion of various completions of residuated structures. These include Dedekind-McNeille completions and canonical extensions. Completions are used later in investigating several finiteness properties such as the finite model property, generation of varieties by their finite members, and finite embeddability. The algebraic analysis of cut elimination that follows, also takes recourse to completions. Decidability of logics, equational and quasi-equational theories comes next, where we show how proof theoretical methods like cut elimination are preferable for small logics/theories, but semantic tools like Rabin's theorem work better for big ones. Then we turn to Glivenko's theorem, which says that a formula is an intuitionistic tautology if and only if its double negation is a classical one. We generalise it to the substructural setting, identifying for each substructural logic its Glivenko equivalence class with smallest and largest element. This is also where we begin investigating lattices of logics and varieties, rather than particular examples. We continue in this vein by presenting a number of results concerning minimal varieties/maximal logics. A typical theorem there says that for some given well-known variety its subvariety lattice has precisely such-and-such number of minimal members (where values for such-and-such include, but are not limited to, continuum, countably many and two). In the last two chapters we focus on the lattice of varieties corresponding to logics without contraction. In one we prove a negative result: that there are no nontrivial splittings in that variety. In the other, we prove a positive one: that semisimple varieties coincide with discriminator ones.
Within the second, more technical part of the book another transition process may be traced. Namely, we begin with logically inclined technicalities and end with algebraically inclined ones. Here, perhaps, algebraic rendering of Glivenko theorems marks the equilibrium point, at least in the sense that finiteness properties, decidability and Glivenko theorems are of clear interest to logicians, whereas semisimplicity and discriminator varieties are universal algebra par exellence. It is for the reader to judge whether we succeeded in weaving these threads into a seamless fabric.
- Considers both the algebraic and logical perspective within a common framework.
- Written by experts in the area.
- Easily accessible to graduate students and researchers from other fields.
- Results summarized in tables and diagrams to provide an overview of the area.
- Useful as a textbook for a course in algebraic logic, with exercises and suggested research directions.
- Provides a concise introduction to the subject and leads directly to research topics.
- The ideas from algebra and logic are developed hand-in-hand and the connections are shown in every level.

The eighteenth International Workshop on Operator Theory and Applications (IWOTA) was hosted by the Unit for Business Mathematics and Informatics of the North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa from July 3 to 6, 2007. The conference was dedicated to Professor Joseph A. Ball on the occasion of his 60th birthday and to Professor Marinus M. Kaashoek on the occasion of his 70th birthday, and we wish to similarly honour them by dedicating this volume of the proceedings to them. TheaimoftheIWOTAmeetingsistobringtogethermathematiciansworking in operator theory and its applications to related ?elds. Each conference therefore has a unique character, depending on the related ?elds chosen by the local or- nizers. In the present case Functional Analysis and Von Neumann algebras were decided on, due to the number of people actively working in those ?elds in South Africa. The meetings are intended to be truly international (the seventeen pre- ous ones were held in 11 di?erent countries) and this conference was no exception, with participants drawn from 17 countries. IWOTA is directed by an international steering committee of 25 members under the guidance of the president I. Gohberg (Tel Aviv), assisted by the Vice PresidentsJ.W.Helton(LaJolla)andM.A.Kaashoek(Amsterdam).TheProce- ings of the IWOTA workshops regularly appear in the Birkhauser .. series: Operator Theory: Advances and Applications, and we thank them for their willingness to continue this cooperation by publishing this volume.

This book introduces mathematicians, physicists, and philosophers to a new, coherent approach to theory and interpretation of quantum physics, in which classical and quantum thinking live peacefully side by side and jointly fertilize the intuition. The formal, mathematical core of quantum physics is cleanly separated from the interpretation issues. The book demonstrates that the universe can be rationally and objectively understood from the smallest to the largest levels of modeling. The thermal interpretation featured in this book succeeds without any change in the theory. It involves one radical step, the reinterpretation of an assumption that was virtually never questioned before - the traditional eigenvalue link between theory and observation is replaced by a q-expectation link: Objective properties are given by q-expectations of products of quantum fields and what is computable from these. Averaging over macroscopic spacetime regions produces macroscopic quantities with negligible uncertainty, and leads to classical physics. - Reflects the actual practice of quantum physics. - Models the quantum-classical interface through coherent spaces. - Interprets both quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. - Eliminates probability and measurement from the foundations. - Proposes a novel solution of the measurement problem.

This book offers a comprehensive introduction to the general theory of C*-algebras and von Neumann algebras. Beginning with the basics, the theory is developed through such topics as tensor products, nuclearity and exactness, crossed products, K-theory, and quasidiagonality. The presentation carefully and precisely explains the main features of each part of the theory of operator algebras; most important arguments are at least outlined and many are presented in full detail.

Banach algebras are Banach spaces equipped with a continuous multipli- tion. In roughterms, there arethree types ofthem: algebrasofboundedlinear operators on Banach spaces with composition and the operator norm, al- bras consisting of bounded continuous functions on topological spaces with pointwise product and the uniform norm, and algebrasof integrable functions on locally compact groups with convolution as multiplication. These all play a key role in modern analysis. Much of operator theory is best approached from a Banach algebra point of view and many questions in complex analysis (such as approximation by polynomials or rational functions in speci?c - mains) are best understood within the framework of Banach algebras. Also, the study of a locally compact Abelian group is closely related to the study 1 of the group algebra L (G). There exist a rich literature and excellent texts on each single class of Banach algebras, notably on uniform algebras and on operator algebras. This work is intended as a textbook which provides a thorough introduction to the theory of commutative Banach algebras and stresses the applications to commutative harmonic analysis while also touching on uniform algebras. In this sense and purpose the book resembles Larsen's classical text 75] which shares many themes and has been a valuable resource. However, for advanced graduate students and researchers I have covered several topics which have not been published in books before, including some journal articles.

The volume covers wide-ranging topics from Theory: structure of finite fields, normal bases, polynomials, function fields, APN functions. Computation: algorithms and complexity, polynomial factorization, decomposition and irreducibility testing, sequences and functions. Applications: algebraic coding theory, cryptography, algebraic geometry over finite fields, finite incidence geometry, designs, combinatorics, quantum information science.

The field of generalized inverses has grown much since the appearance of the first edition in 1974, and is still growing. This book accounts for these developments while maintaining the informal and leisurely style of the first edition. New material has been added, including a chapter on applications, an appendix on the work of E.H. Moore, new exercises and applications.

Significant progress has been made during the last 15 years in the solution of nonlinear systems, particularly in computing fixed points, solving systems of nonlinear equations and applications to equilibrium models. This volume presents a self-contained account of recent work on simplicial and continuation methods applied to the solution of algebraic equations. The contents are divided into eight chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 deal with Kuhn's algorithm. Chapter 3 considers Newton's method, and a comparison between Kuhn's algorithm and Newton's method is presented in Chapter 4. The following four chapters discuss respectively, incremental algorithms and their cost theory, homotopy algorithms, zeros of polynomial mapping, and piecewise linear algorithms. This text is designed for use by researchers and graduates interested in algebraic equations and computational complexity theory.

Following an initiative of the late Hans Zassenhaus in 1965, the Departments of Mathematics at The Ohio State University and Denison University organize conferences in combinatorics, group theory, and ring theory. Between May 18-21, 2000, the 25th conference of this series was held. Usually, there are twenty to thirty invited 20-minute talks in each of the three main areas. However, at the 2000 meeting, the combinatorics part of the conference was extended, to honor the 65th birthday of Professor Dijen Ray-Chaudhuri. This volulme is the proceedings of this extension. Most of the papers are in coding theory and design theory, reflecting the major interest of Professor Ray-Chaudhuri, but there are articles on association schemes, algebraic graph theory, combinatorial geometry, and network flows as well. There are four surveys and seventeen research articles, and all of these went through a thorough refereeing process. The volume is primarily recommended for researchers and graduate students interested in new developments in coding theory and design theory.

This book contains nine well-organized survey articles by leading researchers in positivity, with a strong emphasis on functional analysis. It provides insight into the structure of classical spaces of continuous functions, f-algebras, and integral operators, but also contains contributions to modern topics like vector measures, operator spaces, ordered tensor products, non-commutative Banach function spaces, and frames.

Contributors: B. Banerjee, D.P. Blecher, K. Boulabiar, Q. Bu, G. Buskes, G.P. Curbera, M. Henriksen, A.G. Kusraev, J. Marti-nez, B. de Pagter, W.J. Ricker, A.R. Schep, A. Triki, A.W. Wickstead