Anatolii Illarionovich Shirshov (1921-1981) was an outstanding Russian mat- maticianwhoseworksessentiallyin?uenced thetheoriesofassociative,Lie,Jordan and alternative rings. Many Shirshov's students and students of his students had a successful research career in mathematics. AnatoliiShirshovwasbornonthe8thofAugustof1921inthevillageKolyvan near Novosibirsk. Before the II World War he started to study mathematics at Tomsk university but then went to the front to ?ght as a volunteer. In 1946 he continued his study at Voroshilovgrad (now Lugansk) Pedagogical Institute and at the same time taught mathematics at a secondary school. In 1950 Shirshov was accepted as a graduate student at the Moscow State University under the supervision of A. G. Kurosh. In 1953 he has successfully defended his Candidate of Science thesis (analog of a Ph. D. ) "Some problems in the theory of nonassociative rings and algebras" and joined the Department of Higher Algebra at the Moscow State University. In 1958 Shirshov was awarded the Doctor of Science degree for the thesis "On some classes of rings that are nearly associative". In 1960 Shirshov moved to Novosibirsk (at the invitations of S. L. Sobolev and A. I. Malcev) to become one of the founders of the new mathematical institute of the Academy of Sciences (now Sobolev Institute of Mathematics) and to help the formation of the new Novosibirsk State University. From 1960 to 1973 he was a deputy director of the Institute and till his last days he led the research in the theory of algebras at the Institute.

This volume contains one invited lecture which was presented by the 1994 Fields Medal ist Professor E. Zelmanov and twelve other papers which were presented at the Third International Conference on Algebra and Their Related Topics at Chang Jung Christian University, Tainan, Republic of China, during the period June 26-July 1, 200l. All papers in this volume have been refereed by an international referee board and we would like to express our deepest thanks to all the referees who were so helpful and punctual in submitting their reports. Thanks are also due to the Promotion and Research Center of National Science Council of Republic of China and the Chang Jung Christian University for their generous financial support of this conference. The spirit of this conference is a continuation of the last two International Tainan Moscow Algebra Workshop on Algebras and Their Related Topics which were held in the mid-90's of the last century. The purpose of this very conference was to give a clear picture of the recent development and research in the fields of different kinds of algebras both in Taiwan and in the rest ofthe world, especially say, Russia" Europe, North America and South America. Thus, we were hoping to enhance the possibility of future cooperation in research work among the algebraists ofthe five continents. Here we would like to point out that this algebra gathering will constantly be held in the future in the southern part of Taiwan."

This volume composed of twenty four research articles which are selected from the keynote speakers and invited lectures presented in the 3rd International Congress in Algebra and Combinatorics (ICAC2017) held on 25-28 August 2017 in Hong Kong and one additional invited article. This congress was specially dedicated to Professor Leonid Bokut on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

This volume contains one invited lecture which was presented by the 1994 Fields Medal ist Professor E. Zelmanov and twelve other papers which were presented at the Third International Conference on Algebra and Their Related Topics at Chang Jung Christian University, Tainan, Republic of China, during the period June 26-July 1, 200l. All papers in this volume have been refereed by an international referee board and we would like to express our deepest thanks to all the referees who were so helpful and punctual in submitting their reports. Thanks are also due to the Promotion and Research Center of National Science Council of Republic of China and the Chang Jung Christian University for their generous financial support of this conference. The spirit of this conference is a continuation of the last two International Tainan Moscow Algebra Workshop on Algebras and Their Related Topics which were held in the mid-90's of the last century. The purpose of this very conference was to give a clear picture of the recent development and research in the fields of different kinds of algebras both in Taiwan and in the rest ofthe world, especially say, Russia" Europe, North America and South America. Thus, we were hoping to enhance the possibility of future cooperation in research work among the algebraists ofthe five continents. Here we would like to point out that this algebra gathering will constantly be held in the future in the southern part of Taiwan."

This book provides a detailed exposition of a wide range of topics in geometric group theory, inspired by Gromov's pivotal work in the 1980s. It includes classical theorems on nilpotent groups and solvable groups, a fundamental study of the growth of groups, a detailed look at asymptotic cones, and a discussion of related subjects including filters and ultrafilters, dimension theory, hyperbolic geometry, amenability, the Burnside problem, and random walks on groups. The results are unified under the common theme of Gromov's theorem, namely that finitely generated groups of polynomial growth are virtually nilpotent. This beautiful result gave birth to a fascinating new area of research which is still active today.The purpose of the book is to collect these naturally related results together in one place, most of which are scattered throughout the literature, some of them appearing here in book form for the first time. In this way, the connections between these topics are revealed, providing a pleasant introduction to geometric group theory based on ideas surrounding Gromov's theorem. The book will be of interest to mature undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics who are familiar with basic group theory and topology, and who wish to learn more about geometric, analytic, and probabilistic aspects of infinite groups.