This volume is comprised of the invited lectures given at the 14th British Combinatorial Conference. The lectures survey many topical areas of current research activity in combinatorics and its applications, and also provide a valuable overview of the subject, for both mathematicians and computer scientists.

This short introduction to microlocal analysis is presented, in the spirit of Hormander, in the classical framework of partial differential equations. This theory has important applications in areas such as harmonic and complex analysis, and also in theoretical physics. Here Grigis and Sjostrand emphasize the basic tools, especially the method of stationary phase, and they discuss wavefront sets, elliptic operators, local symplectic geometry, and WKB-constructions.

The theory of blowup algebras--Rees algebras, associated graded rings, Hilbert functions, and birational morphisms--is undergoing a period of rapid development. One of the aims of this book is to provide an introduction to these developments. The emphasis is on deriving properties of rings from their specifications in terms of generators and relations. While this places limitations on the generality of many results, it opens the way for the application of computational methods. A highlight of the book is the chapter on advanced computational methods in algebra built on current understanding...

In 1963 Walter Feit and John G. Thompson published a proof of a 1911 conjecture by Burnside that every finite group of odd order is solvable. This proof, which ran for 255 pages, was a tour-de-force of mathematics and inspired intense effort to classify finite simple groups. This book presents a revision and expansion of the first half of the proof of the Feit-Thompson theorem. Simpler, more detailed proofs are provided for some intermediate theorems. Recent results are used to shorten other proofs.

The aim of these notes is to link algorithmic problems arising in knot theory with statistical physics and classical combinatorics. Apart from the theory of computational complexity needed to deal with enumeration problems, introductions are given to several of the topics, such as combinatorial knot theory, randomized approximation models, percolation, and random cluster models.

This book covers a topic of great interest in abstract algebra. It gives an account of invariant theory for the action of a finite group on the ring of polynomial functions on a linear representation, both in characteristic zero and characteristic p. Heavy use is made of techniques from commutative algebra, and these are developed as needed. Special attention is paid to the role played by pseudoreflections, which arise because they correspond to the divisors in the polynomial ring that ramify over the invariants. The author includes the recent proof of the Carlisle-Kropholler conjecture.

This study is concerned with computing the homotopy classes of maps algebraically and determining the law of composition for such maps. The problem is solved by introducing new algebraic models of a 4-manifold. Including a complete list of references for the text, the book appeals to researchers and graduate students in topology and algebra.

This collection of survey papers by leading researchers in ergodic theory and low-dimensional and topological dynamics comprises nine chapters on a range of important topics. These include: the role and usefulness of ultrafilters in ergodic theory, topological dynamics and Ramsey theory; topological aspects of kneading theory together with an analogous 2-dimensional theory called pruning; the dynamics of Markov odometers, Bratteli-Vershik diagrams and orbit equivalence of non-singular automorphisms; geometric proofs of Mather's connecting and accelerating theorems; recent results in one...

Over the past thirty years significant progress has been made in the investigation of nonlinear waves--including "soliton equations," a class of nonlinear wave equations that arise frequently in such areas as nonlinear optics, fluid dynamics, and statistical physics. The broad interest in this field can be traced to understanding "solitons" and the associated development of a method of solution termed the inverse scattering transform (IST). The IST technique applies to continuous and discrete nonlinear Schrodinger (NLS) equations of scalar and vector type. This work presents a detailed...

Concerned with two fundamental problems in low-dimensional topology, the D(2)-problem and the realization problem, F.E.A. Johnson develops general methods and provides complete solutions in some instances. His book is suitable for graduate students wanting to learn low-dimensional homotopy theory as well as established researchers in the field.