As commodity markets have continued their expansion an extensive and complex financial industry has developed to service them. This industry includes hundreds of participating firms, including asset managers, brokers, consultants, verification agencies and a myriad of other institutions. Universities and other training institutions have responded to this rapid expansion of commodity markets as well as their substantial future growth potential by launching specialized courses on the subject.

"The Economics of Commodity Markets" attempts to bridge the gap between academics and working professionals by way of a textbook that is both theoretically informative and practical. Based in part on the authors' teaching experience of commodity finance at the University Paris Dauphine, the book covers all important commodity markets topics and includes coverage of recent topics such as financial applications and intuitive economic reasoning.

The book is composed of three parts that cover: commodity market dynamics, commodities and the business cycle, and commodities and fundamental value. The key original approach to the subject matter lies in a shift away from the descriptive to the econometric analysis of commodity markets. Information on market trends of commodities is presented in the first part, with a strong emphasis on the quantitative treatment of that information in the remaining two parts of the book. Readers are provided with a clear and succinct exposition of up-to-date financial economic and econometric methods as these apply to commodity markets. In addition a number of useful empirical applications are introduced and discussed.

This book is a self-contained offering, discussing all key methods and insights without descending into superfluous technicalities. All explanations are structured in an accessible manner, permitting any reader with a basic understanding of mathematics and finance to work their way through all parts of the book without having to resort to external sources.

Defect engineering has come of age. That theme is well documented by both the academic and industrial research communities in this book from MRS. Going beyond defect control, the book explores the engineering of desired properties in semiconductor materials and devices through the deliberate introduction and manipulation of defects and impurities. Papers are grouped around ten distinct topics covering materials, processing and devices. Topics include: grown-in defects in bulk crystals; grown-in defects in thin films; gettering and related phenomena; hydrogen interaction with semiconductors; defect issues in widegap semiconductors; defect characterization; ion implantation and process-induced defects; defects in devices; interfaces, quantum wells and superlattices; and defect properties, reaction, activation and passivation.