Successful Transformations? contrasts the recent experience of economic development in Eastern Germany and the Czech Republic. It provides a comparative up-to-date account critically assessing the transition from central planning to a free market economy. The book highlights the very different paths that these two economies have taken. Eastern Germany has been absorbed almost entirely into the political and economic framework of West Germany. In contrast the Czech Republic - which is widely acclaimed to have made the speediest transition - has from the outset adopted an independent line. The book illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of these two different paths and addresses the key question as to whether the relative success of these two economies can point to a special policy regime which might aid economic transition in other former communist countries.

In recent years the analysis of random network structures has become an important issue in various applications. This book illustrates results from two inter-disciplinary projects which focused on the analysis of networks. The first project deals with the modelling and the fitting of network structures that occur in the field of telecommunication. In particular, street systems but also telecommunication networks on nationwide scales are analysed with respect to their geometrical structures and cost characteristics connected to them. In the second project intracellular structures in human cells are examined. In particular, network structures formed by the cytoskeleton (actin and keratin) are investigated with respect to their both geometric and random nature. Innovative techniques from spatial statistics and image analysis are developed and applied in order to perform a structural analysis of these networks. Thereby the usefulness of these techniques is impressively demonstrated by applying them in different settings on either a macroscopic or a nanoscopic scale.