Nonlinear dynamical systems and the formation of spatio-temporal patterns play an important role in current research on partial differential equations. This book contains articles on topics of current interest in applications of dynamical systems theory to problems of pattern formation in space and time. Topics covered include aspects of lattice dynamical systems, convection in fluid layers with large aspect ratios, mixed mode oscillations and canards, bacterial remediation of waste, gyroscopic systems, data clustering, and the second part of Hilbert's 16th problem. Most of the book consists of expository survey material, and so can serve as a source of convenient entry points to current research topics in nonlinear dynamics and pattern formation. This volume arose from a workshop held at the Fields Institute in December of 2003, honoring Professor William F. Langford's fundamental work on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. Information for our distributors: Titles in this series are copublished with the Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences (Toronto, Ontario, Canada).

Spatio-temporal patterns appear almost everywhere in nature, and their description and understanding still raise important and basic questions. However, if one looks back 20 or 30 years, definite progress has been made in the modeling of insta bilities, analysis of the dynamics in their vicinity, pattern formation and stability, quantitative experimental and numerical analysis of patterns, and so on. Universal behaviors of complex systems close to instabilities have been determined, leading to the wide interdisciplinarity of a field that is now referred to as nonlinear science or science of complexity, and in which initial concepts of dissipative structures or synergetics are deeply rooted. In pioneering domains related to hydrodynamics or chemical instabilities, the interactions between experimentalists and theoreticians, sometimes on a daily basis, have been a key to progress. Everyone in the field praises the role played by the interactions and permanent feedbacks between ex perimental, numerical, and analytical studies in the achievements obtained during these years. Many aspects of convective patterns in normal fluids, binary mixtures or liquid crystals are now understood and described in this framework. The generic pres ence of defects in extended systems is now well established and has induced new developments in the physics of laser with large Fresnel numbers. Last but not least, almost 40 years after his celebrated paper, Turing structures have finally been ob tained in real-life chemical reactors, triggering anew intense activity in the field of reaction-diffusion systems.

An account of how complex patterns form in sustained nonequilibrium systems; for graduate students in biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and physics.

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications PATTERN FORMATION IN CONTINUOUS AND COUPLED SYSTEMS is based on the proceedings of a workshop with the same title, but goes be yond the proceedings by presenting a series of mini-review articles that sur vey, and provide an introduction to, interesting problems in the field. The workshop was an integral part of the 1997-98 IMA program on "EMERG ING APPLICATIONS OF DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS." I would like to thank Martin Golubitsky, University of Houston (Math ematics) Dan Luss, University of Houston (Chemical Engineering), and Steven H. Strogatz, Cornell University (Theoretical and Applied Mechan ics) for their excellent work as organizers of the meeting and for editing the proceedings. I also take this opportunity to thank the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Army Research Office (ARO), whose financial support made the workshop possible. Willard Miller, Jr., Professor and Director v PREFACE Pattern formation has been studied intensively for most of this cen tury by both experimentalists and theoreticians, and there have been many workshops and conferences devoted to the subject. In the IMA workshop on Pattern Formation in Continuous and Coupled Systems held May 11-15, 1998 we attempted to focus on new directions in the patterns literature.

This volume represents the proceedings of the Noncommutative Geometry Workshop that was held as part of the thematic program on operator algebras at the Fields Institute in May 2008. Pioneered by Alain Connes starting in the late 1970s, noncommutative geometry was originally inspired by global analysis, topology, operator algebras, and quantum physics. Its main applications were to settle some long-standing conjectures, such as the Novikov conjecture and the Baum-Connes conjecture. Next came the impact of spectral geometry and the way the spectrum of a geometric operator, like the Laplacian, holds information about the geometry and topology of a manifold, as in the celebrated Weyl law. This has now been vastly generalized through Connes' notion of spectral triples. Finally, recent years have witnessed the impact of number theory, algebraic geometry and the theory of motives, and quantum field theory on noncommutative geometry. Almost all of these aspects are touched upon with new results in the papers of this volume. This book is intended for graduate students and researchers in both mathematics and theoretical physics who are interested in noncommutative geometry and its applications.

"This book is a testimony to the BIRS Workshop, and it covers a wide range of topics at the interface of number theory and string theory, with special emphasis on modular forms and string duality. They include the recent advances as well as introductory expositions on various aspects of modular forms, motives, differential equations, conformal field theory, topological strings and Gromov-Witten invariants, mirror symmetry, and homological mirror symmetry. The contributions are roughly divided into three categories: arithmetic and modular forms, geometric and differential equations, and physics and string theory. The book is suitable for researchers working at the interface of number theory and string theory."--BOOK JACKET.

This volume collects a set of contributions by participants of the Workshop Partially hyperbolic dynamics, laminations, and Teichmuller flow held at the Fields Institute in Toronto in January 2006. The Workshop brought together several leading experts in two very active fields of contemporary dynamical systems theory: partially hyperbolic dynamics and Teichmuller dynamics. They are unified by ideas coming from the theory of laminations and foliations, dynamical hyperbolicity, and ergodic theory. These are the main themes of the current volume. The volume contains both surveys and research papers on non-uniform and partial hyperbolicity, on dominated splitting and beyond (in Part I), Teichmuller dynamics with applications to interval exchange transformations and on the topology of moduli spaces of quadratic differentials (in Part II), foliations and laminations and other miscellaneous papers (in Part III). Taken together these papers provide a snapshot of the state of the art in some of the most active topics at the crossroads between dynamical systems, smooth ergodic theory, geometry and topology, suitable for advanced graduate students and researchers.Non-specialists will find the extensive, in-depth surveys especially useful.

Provides an overview of the distinct variety and diversity of current research in this field. In every chapter of this book, which covers themes ranging from cancer modelling to infectious diseases to orthopaedics and musculoskeletal tissue mechanics, there is clear evidence of the strong connections and interactions of mathematics with the biological and biomedical sciences that have spawned new models and novel insights.

Spencer J. Bloch has, and continues to have, a profound influence on the subject of Algebraic $K$-Theory, Cycles and Motives. This book, which is comprised of a number of independent research articles written by leading experts in the field, is dedicated in his honour, and gives a snapshot of the current and evolving nature of the subject. Some of the articles are written in an expository style, providing a perspective on the current state of the subject to those wishing to learn more about it. Others are more technical, representing new developments and making them especially interesting to researchers for keeping abreast of recent progress.