When established four years ago, the scope of this international series in electron microscopy essentially was to provide an opportunity for the pUblication of selected review contributions by specialists in ultrastructural research. Previous volumes presented over the last three years have focused on special topics of present interest in ~'ontemporary biomedicine such as endocrine cells, reproduction, and connective tissues. In these fielCls, in fact, integrated methods of electron microscopy have contributed much to generate new ideas and concepts of general value in both basic and clinical applications. The Ultrastructure of the Digestive Tract basically follows the same guidelines and style of the other books in the series and is an invited collection of selected contributions of authors from various laboratories active in the field of electron microscopy. Therefore, although the various chapters consist of individual topics, they nevertheless should be considered as interrelated contributions of specific subjects in the field. The idea was to have critical reviews of aspects previously published elsewhere by experts in the field who, as a rule, include other relevant information in their articles in order to update and enrich the subject. This book contains fifteen chapters by renowned electron microscopists. Each chapter, according to the policy of the editors, reviews a particular topic in great detail, providing updated information, study methods and results, authors' ideas on future investigative approaches, and possible guidelines for forthcoming work. We hope that this book will be useful to cell biologists, morphologists, physiologists, and pathologists.

In accordance with the developments in computation, theoretical studies on numerical schemes are now fruitful and highly needed. In 1991 an article on the finite element method applied to evolutionary problems was published. Following the method, basically this book studies various schemes from operator theoretical points of view. Many parts are devoted to the finite element method, but other schemes and problems (charge simulation method, domain decomposition method, nonlinear problems, and so forth) are also discussed, motivated by the observation that practically useful schemes have fine mathematical structures and the converses are also true. This book has the following chapters: 1. Boundary Value Problems and FEM. 2. Semigroup Theory and FEM. 3. Evolution Equations and FEM. 4. Other Methods in Time Discretization. 5. Other Methods in Space Discretization. 6. Nonlinear Problems. 7. Domain Decomposition Method.

Recently, attention has been called to the role that microvascular organization plays in the functional morphology of all organs and tissues, both in normal and pathological conditions. Since its development by Murakami, the corrosion cast method for scanning electron microscopy has come to be considered one of the most efficient means in clarifying the three-dimensional features of the microcirculation of organs and tissues. Scanning Electron Microscopy of Vascular Casts: Methods and Applications was planned to supply fundamental and new information regarding microcirculation studies to general biologists, anatomists, pathologists and clinicians. The contributions to this volume, contain original findings and excellent electron micrographs obtained by using recently improved corrosion cast methods. The rich variety of papers in this book will be useful to many, and will provide both the basic and clinically oriented readers with good ideas, suggestions, and original and worthwhile information.

Physics of New Materials After the discoveries and applications of superconductors, new ceramics, amorphous and nano-materials, shape memory and other intelligent materials, physics became more and more important, comparable with chemistry, in the research and development of advanced materials. In this book, several important fields of physics-oriented new-materials research and physical means of analyses are selected and their fundamental principles and methods are described in a simple and understandable way. It is suitable as a textbook for university materials science courses.

When established four years ago, the scope of this international series in electron microscopy essentially was to provide an opportunity for the pUblication of selected review contributions by specialists in ultrastructural research. Previous volumes presented over the last three years have focused on special topics of present interest in ~'ontemporary biomedicine such as endocrine cells, reproduction, and connective tissues. In these fielCls, in fact, integrated methods of electron microscopy have contributed much to generate new ideas and concepts of general value in both basic and clinical applications. The Ultrastructure of the Digestive Tract basically follows the same guidelines and style of the other books in the series and is an invited collection of selected contributions of authors from various laboratories active in the field of electron microscopy. Therefore, although the various chapters consist of individual topics, they nevertheless should be considered as interrelated contributions of specific subjects in the field. The idea was to have critical reviews of aspects previously published elsewhere by experts in the field who, as a rule, include other relevant information in their articles in order to update and enrich the subject. This book contains fifteen chapters by renowned electron microscopists. Each chapter, according to the policy of the editors, reviews a particular topic in great detail, providing updated information, study methods and results, authors' ideas on future investigative approaches, and possible guidelines for forthcoming work. We hope that this book will be useful to cell biologists, morphologists, physiologists, and pathologists.