The book provides a comprehensive theory of ODE which come as Euler-Lagrange equations from generally higher-order Lagrangians. Emphasis is laid on applying methods from differential geometry (fibered manifolds and their jet-prolongations) and global analysis (distributions and exterior differential systems). Lagrangian and Hamiltonian dynamics, Hamilton-Jacobi theory, etc., for any Lagrangian system of any order are presented. The key idea - to build up these theories as related with the class of equivalent Lagrangians - distinguishes this book from other texts on higher-order mechanics. The reader should be familiar with elements of differential geometry, global analysis and the calculus of variations.

The Blaubeuren Conference "Theory and Practice of Geometric Modeling" has become a meeting place for leading experts from industrial and academic research institutions, CAD system developers and experienced users to exchange new ideas and to discuss new concepts and future directions in geometric modeling. The relaxed and calm atmosphere of the Heinrich-Fabri-Institute in Blaubeuren provides the appropriate environment for profound and engaged discussions that are not equally possible on other occasions. Real problems from current industrial projects as well as theoretical issues are addressed on a high scientific level. This book is the result of the lectures and discussions during the conference which took place from October 14th to 18th, 1996. The contents is structured in 4 parts: Mathematical Tools Representations Systems Automated Assembly. The editors express their sincere appreciation to the contributing authors, and to the members of the program committee for their cooperation, the careful reviewing and their active participation that made the conference and this book a success.

Any topological theory of knots and links should be based on simple ideas of intersection and linking. In this book, a general theory of link bordism in manifolds and universal constructions of linking numbers in oriented 3-manifolds are developed. In this way, classical concepts of link theory in the 3-spheres are generalized to a certain class of oriented 3-manifolds (submanifolds of rational homology 3-spheres). The techniques needed are described in the book but basic knowledge in topology and algebra is assumed. The book should be of interst to those working in topology, in particular knot theory and low-dimensional topology.

This survey covers groups of homotopy self-equivalence classes of topological spaces, and the homotopy type of spaces of homotopy self-equivalences. For manifolds, the full group of equivalences and the mapping class group are compared, as are the corresponding spaces. Included are methods of calculation, numerous calculations, finite generation results, Whitehead torsion and other areas. Some 330 references are given. The book assumes familiarity with cell complexes, homology and homotopy. Graduate students and established researchers can use it for learning, for reference, and to determine the current state of knowledge.

To attack certain problems in 4-dimensional knot theory the author draws on a variety of techniques, focusing on knots in S^T4, whose fundamental groups contain abelian normal subgroups. Their class contains the most geometrically appealing and best understood examples. Moreover, it is possible to apply work in algebraic methods to these problems. Work in four-dimensional topology is applied in later chapters to the problem of classifying 2-knots.

Originally published in 1989, this is an advanced text and research monograph on groups acting on low-dimensional topological spaces, and for the most part the viewpoint is algebraic. Much of the book occurs at the one-dimensional level, where the topology becomes graph theory. Two-dimensional topics include the characterization of Poincare duality groups and accessibility of almost finitely presented groups. The main three-dimensional topics are the equivariant loop and sphere theorems. The prerequisites grow as the book progresses up the dimensions. A familiarity with group theory is sufficient background for at least the first third of the book, while the later chapters occasionally state without proof and then apply various facts which require knowledge of homological algebra and algebraic topology. This book is essential reading for anyone contemplating working in the subject.

This book gives a general outlook on homotopy theory; fundamental concepts, such as homotopy groups and spectral sequences, are developed from a few axioms and are thus available in a broad variety of contexts. Many examples and applications in topology and algebra are discussed, including an introduction to rational homotopy theory in terms of both differential Lie algebras and De Rham algebras. The author describes powerful tools for homotopy classification problems, particularly for the classification of homotopy types and for the computation of the group homotopy equivalences. Applications and examples of such computations are given, including when the fundamental group is non-trivial. Moreover, the deep connection between the homotopy classification problems and the cohomology theory of small categories is demonstrated. The prerequisites of the book are few: elementary topology and algebra. Consequently, this account will be valuable for non-specialists and experts alike. It is an important supplement to the standard presentations of algebraic topology, homotopy theory, category theory and homological algebra.

The present book contains the lecture notes from a "Nachdiplomvorlesung," a topics course adressed to Ph. D. students, at the ETH ZUrich during the winter term 95/96. Consequently, these notes are arranged according to the requirements of organizing the material for oral exposition, and the level of difficulty and the exposition were adjusted to the audience in Zurich. The aim of the course was to introduce some geometric and analytic concepts that have been found useful in advancing our understanding of spaces of nonpos itive curvature. In particular in recent years, it has been realized that often it is useful for a systematic understanding not to restrict the attention to Riemannian manifolds only, but to consider more general classes of metric spaces of generalized nonpositive curvature. The basic idea is to isolate a property that on one hand can be formulated solely in terms of the distance function and on the other hand is characteristic of nonpositive sectional curvature on a Riemannian manifold, and then to take this property as an axiom for defining a metric space of nonposi tive curvature. Such constructions have been put forward by Wald, Alexandrov, Busemann, and others, and they will be systematically explored in Chapter 2. Our focus and treatment will often be different from the existing literature. In the first Chapter, we consider several classes of examples of Riemannian manifolds of nonpositive curvature, and we explain how conditions about nonpos itivity or negativity of curvature can be exploited in various geometric contexts."

In this study extending classical Markov chain theory to handle fluctuating transition matrices, the author develops a theory of Markov set-chains and provides numerous examples showing how that theory can be applied. Chapters are concluded with a discussion of related research. Readers who can benefit from this monograph are those interested in, or involved with, systems whose data is imprecise or that fluctuate with time. A background equivalent to a course in linear algebra and one in probability theory should be sufficient.

The closed orbits of three-dimensional flows form knots and links. This book develops the tools - template theory and symbolic dynamics - needed for studying knotted orbits. This theory is applied to the problems of understanding local and global bifurcations, as well as the embedding data of orbits in Morse-smale, Smale, and integrable Hamiltonian flows. The necesssary background theory is sketched; however, some familiarity with low-dimensional topology and differential equations is assumed.

This book provides a unified combinatorial realization of the categroies of (closed, oriented) 3-manifolds, combed 3-manifolds, framed 3-manifolds and spin 3-manifolds. In all four cases the objects of the realization are finite enhanced graphs, and only finitely many local moves have to be taken into account. These realizations are based on the notion of branched standard spine, introduced in the book as a combination of the notion of branched surface with that of standard spine. The book is intended for readers interested in low-dimensional topology, and some familiarity with the basics is assumed. A list of questions, some of which concerning relations with the theory of quantum invariants, is enclosed.

The book describes some interactions of topology with other areas of mathematics and it requires only basic background. The first chapter deals with the topology of pointwise convergence and proves results of Bourgain, Fremlin, Talagrand and Rosenthal on compact sets of Baire class-1 functions. In the second chapter some topological dynamics of beta-N and its applications to combinatorial number theory are presented. The third chapter gives a proof of the Ivanovskii-Kuzminov-Vilenkin theorem that compact groups are dyadic. The last chapter presents Marjanovic's classification of hyperspaces of compact metric zerodimensional spaces.

The articles in this volume were written to commemorate Reinhold Remmert's 60th birthday in June, 1990. They are surveys, meant to facilitate access to some of the many aspects of the theory of complex manifolds, and demonstrate the interplay between complex analysis and many other branches of mathematics, algebraic geometry, differential topology, representations of Lie groups, and mathematical physics being only the most obvious of these branches. Each of these articles should serve not only to describe the particular circle of ideas in complex analysis with which it deals but also as a guide to the many mathematical ideas related to its theme.

This book is for those interested in dynamical systems. It assumes a solid undergraduate training in mathematics. Geometrical methods are developed to study the process of iteration, which involves taking the output of a function and feeding it back as input. Iteration processes are used to produce fractals and wavelets, and to numerically approximate solutions to ordinary and partical differential equations. Each iteration procedure generates a discrete dynamical system. These systems are at the heart of many numerical algorithms. Essentially all mathematical models of evolving physical systems can be viewed as discrete dynamical systems. This book attempts to present the fundamental ideas of discrete dynamical systems as clearly and geometrically as possible. Illustrative examples of dynamical systems are presented in the first chapter. The second chapter gives a review of the typology of metric spaces. The third presents basic results and establishes a philosophy of dynamics which is strongly influenced by the work of Charles Conley. The stable manifold and local structural stability theorems are presented in the fourth chapter. Invariant sets and isolating blocks are defined in the fifth. The sixth develops what is called the Conley Index in the context of discrete dynamics, and the final chpater covers measure-preserving and symplectic maps. The book would be suitable for use as a main text for a graduate course in dynamical systems, and as a reference for engineers and scientists.

This is a research monograph covering the majority of known results on the problem of constructing compact symplectic manifolds with no Kaehler structure with an emphasis on the use of rational homotopy theory. In recent years, some new and stimulating conjectures and problems have been formulated due to an influx of homotopical ideas. Examples include the Lupton-Oprea conjecture, the Benson-Gordon conjecture, both of which are in the spirit of some older and still unsolved problems (e.g. Thurston's conjecture and Sullivan's problem). Our explicit aim is to clarify the interrelations between certain aspects of symplectic geometry and homotopy theory in the framework of the problems mentioned above. We expect that the reader is aware of the basics of differential geometry and algebraic topology at graduate level.

We have tried to design this book for both instructional and reference use, during and after a first course in algebraic topology aimed at users rather than developers; indeed, the book arose from such courses taught by the authors. We start gently, with numerous pictures to illustrate the fundamental ideas and constructions in homotopy theory that are needed in later chapters. A certain amount of redundancy is built in for the reader's convenience: we hope to minimize: fiipping back and forth, and we have provided some appendices for reference. The first three are concerned with background material in algebra, general topology, manifolds, geometry and bundles. Another gives tables of homo topy groups that should prove useful in computations, and the last outlines the use of a computer algebra package for exterior calculus. Our approach has been that whenever a construction from a proof is needed, we have explicitly noted and referenced this. In general, wehavenot given a proof unless it yields something useful for computations. As always, the only way to un derstand mathematics is to do it and use it. To encourage this, Ex denotes either an example or an exercise. The choice is usually up to you the reader, depending on the amount of work you wish to do; however, some are explicitly stated as ( unanswered) questions. In such cases, our implicit claim is that you will greatly benefit from at least thinking about how to answer them."

From the reviews:
.."., the book must be of great help for a researcher who already has some idea of Lie theory, wants to employ it in his everyday research and/or teaching, and needs a source for customary reference on the subject. From my viewpoint, the volume is perfectly fit to serve as such a source, ... On the whole, it is quite a pleasure, after making yourself comfortable in that favourite office armchair of yours, just to keep the volume gently in your hands and browse it slowly and thoughtfully; and after all, what more on Earth can one expect of any book?"
"The New Zealand Mathematical Society Newsletter"
..". Both parts are very nicely written and can be strongly recommended."
"European Mathematical Society"

This book contains a collection of articles corresponding to some of the talks delivered at the Foundations of Computational Mathematics conference held at IMPA in Rio de Janeiro in January 1997. Some ofthe others are published in the December 1996 issue of the Journal of Complexity. Both of these publications were available and distributed at the meeting. Even in this aspect we hope to have achieved a synthesis of the mathematics and computer science cultures as well as of the disciplines. The reaction to the Park City meeting on Mathematics of Numerical Analy sis: Real Number Algorithms which was chaired by Steve Smale and had around 275 participants, was very enthusiastic. At the suggestion of Narendra Karmar mar a lunch time meeting of Felipe Cucker, Arieh Iserles, Narendra Karmarkar, Jim Renegar, Mike Shub and Steve Smale decided to try to hold a periodic meeting entitled "Foundations of Computational Mathematics" and to form an organization with the same name whose primary purpose will be to hold the meeting. This is then the first edition of FoCM as such. It has been organized around a small collection of workshops, namely - Systems of algebraic equations and computational algebraic geometry - Homotopy methods and real machines - Information-based complexity - Numerical linear algebra - Approximation and PDEs - Optimization - Differential equations and dynamical systems - Relations to computer science - Vision and related computational tools There were also twelve plenary speakers."

The aim of cyclic cohomology theories is the approximation of K-theory by cohomology theories defined by natural chain complexes. The basic example is the approximation of topological K-theory by de Rham cohomology via the classical Chern character. A cyclic cohomology theory for operator algebras is developed in the book, based on Connes' work on noncommutative geometry. Asymptotic cyclic cohomology faithfully reflects the basic properties and features of operator K-theory. It thus becomes a natural target for a Chern character. The central result of the book is a general Grothendieck-Riemann-Roch theorem in noncommutative geometry with values in asymptotic cyclic homology. Besides this, the book contains numerous examples and calculations of asymptotic cyclic cohomology groups.

This is the softcover reprint of the English translation of 1971 (available from Springer since 1989) of the first 4 chapters of Bourbaki's Topologie générale. It gives all the basics of the subject, starting from definitions. Important classes of topological spaces are studied, uniform structures are introduced and applied to topological groups. Real numbers are constructed and their properties established. Part II, comprising the later chapters, Ch. 5-10, is also available in English in softcover.

Topology optimization is a relatively new and rapidly expanding field of structural mechanics. It deals with some of the most difficult problems of mechanical sciences but it is also of considerable practical interest, because it can achieve much greater savings than mere cross-section or shape optimization.

The book introduces conceptually simple geometric ideas based on the existence of fundamental domains for metric G- spaces. A list of the problems discussed includes Borsuk-Ulam type theorems for degrees of equivariant maps in finite and infinite dimensional cases, extensions of equivariant maps and equivariant homotopy classification, genus and G-category, elliptic boundary value problem, equivalence of p-group representations.
The new results and geometric clarification of several known theorems presented here will make it interesting and useful for specialists in equivariant topology and its applications to non-linear analysis and representation theory.

This anthology is based on the First ACM Workshop on Applied Computational Geometry, WACG '96, held in Philadelphia, PA, USA, in May 1996, as part of the FCRC Conference.
Today, CG is in transition and applied computational geometry has established itself as a fertile meeting ground for theorists from core computational geometry and practitioners from the potential application areas to exchange their ideas and identify issues of common interest. The book presents 11 invited contributions and state-of-the-art reports by leading experts together with 12 refereed full papers selected from 32 submissions. It points the way towards geometrical engineering and addresses researchers and professionals sharing an interest in geometric algorithms and techniques and their use in computational sciences and engineering.

Convex and discrete geometry is one of the most intuitive subjects in mathematics. One can explain many of its problems, even the most difficult - such as the sphere-packing problem (what is the densest possible arrangement of spheres in an n-dimensional space?) and the Borsuk problem (is it possible to partition any bounded set in an n-dimensional space into n+1 subsets, each of which is strictly smaller in "extent" than the full set?) - in terms that a layman can understand; and one can reasonably make conjectures about their solutions with little training in mathematics.

This is a new in paperback version of a very successful monograph first published in 1980. The book presents a survey of the geometric quantization theory of Konstant and Souriau. For this new paperback edition the text has been extensively rewritten and brought up-to-date, with the addition of many new examples, and an expansion of the material on field theory.