As far as the number of new results and quoted papers is concerned the present book may be considered a monograph. However, it also has some features of a textbook. Firstly, it proceeds from concrete problems to abstract ones, and secondly, all considerations and procedures are presented in much detail when met for the first time (such very elementary expositions can be found especially at the beginning of Chapters III and V). Finally, the authors focus their attention on elementary problems which can be dealt with by relatively simple methods. The authors hope that all this will make it...