* Employs proven conception of teaching topics in commutative algebra through a focus on their applications to algebraic geometry, a significant departure from other works on plane algebraic curves in which the topological-analytic aspects are stressed

*Requires only a basic knowledge of algebra, with all necessary algebraic facts collected into several appendices

* Studies algebraic curves over an algebraically closed field K and those of prime characteristic, which can be applied to coding theory and cryptography

* Covers filtered algebras, the associated...