This volume is a result of a meeting which took place in June 1986 at 'll Ciocco" in Italy entitled 'Deformation theory of algebras and structures and applications'. It appears somewhat later than is perhaps desirable for a volume resulting from a summer school. In return it contains a good many results which were not yet available at the time of the meeting. In particular it is now abundantly clear that the Deformation theory of algebras is indeed central to the whole philosophy of deformations/perturbations/stability. This is one of the main results of the 254 page paper below (practically a book in itself) by Gerstenhaber and Shack entitled "Algebraic cohomology and defor mation theory". Two of the main philosphical-methodological pillars on which deformation theory rests are the fol lowing • (Pure) To study a highly complicated object, it is fruitful to study the ways in which it can arise as a limit of a family of simpler objects: "the unraveling of complicated structures" . • (Applied) If a mathematical model is to be applied to the real world there will usually be such things as coefficients which are imperfectly known. Thus it is important to know how the behaviour of a model changes as it is perturbed (deformed).

This book contains eleven refereed research papers on deformation quantization by leading experts in the respective fields. These contributions are based on talks presented on the occasion of the meeting between mathematicians and theoretical physicists held in Strasbourg in May 2001. Topics covered are: star-products over Poisson manifolds, quantization of Hopf algebras, index theorems, globalization and cohomological problems. Both the mathematical and the physical approach ranging from asymptotic quantum electrodynamics to operads and prop theory will be presented. Historical remarks and surveys set the results presented in perspective. Directed at research mathematicians and theoretical physicists as well as graduate students, the volume will give an overview of a field of research that has seen enourmous acticity in the last years, with new ties to many other areas of mathematics and physics.

Professor L. D. Faddeev's seminar at Steklov Mathematical Institute (St. Petersburg, Russia) has a long history of over 30 years of intensive work which shaped modern mathematical physics. This collection, honoring Professor Faddeev's 65th anniversary, has been prepared by his students and colleagues. Topics covered in the volume include classical and quantum integrable systems (both analytic and algebraic aspects), quantum groups and generalizations, quantum field theory, and deformation quantization. Included is a history of the seminar highlighting important developments, such as the invention of the quantum inverse scattering method and of quantum groups. The book will serve nicely as a comprehensive, up-to-date resource on the topic.

The theory of Quantum Groups is a rapidly developing area with numerous applications in mathematics and theoretical physics, e.g. in link and knot invariants in topology, q-special functions, conformal field theory, quantum integrable models. The aim of the Euler Institute's workshops was to review and compile the progress achieved in the different subfields. Near 100 participants came from 14 countries. More than 20 contributions written up for this book contain new, unpublished material and half of them include a survey of recent results in the field (deformation theory, graded differential algebras, contraction technique, knot invariants, q-special functions). FROM THE CONTENTS: V.G. Drinfeld: On Some Unsolved Problems in Quantum Group Theory.- M. Gerstenhaber, A. Giaquinto, S.D. Schack: Quantum Symmetry.- L.I. Korogodsky,L.L. Vaksman: Quantum G-Spaces and Heisenberg Algebra.-J. Stasheff: Differential Graded Lie Algebras, Quasi-Hopf Algebras and Higher Homotopy Algebras.- A.Yu. Alekseev, L.D. Faddeev, M.A. Semenov-Tian-Shansky: Hidden Quantum Groups inside Kac-Moody Algebras.- J.-L. Gervais: Quantum Group Symmetry of 2D Gravity.- T. Kohno: Invariants of 3-Manifolds Based on Conformal Field Theory and Heegaard Splitting.- O. Viro: Moves of Triangulations of a PL-Manifold.

This book gives a thorough and self-contained introduction to the theory of Hochschild cohomology for algebras and includes many examples and exercises. The book then explores Hochschild cohomology as a Gerstenhaber algebra in detail, the notions of smoothness and duality, algebraic deformation theory, infinity structures, support varieties, and connections to Hopf algebra cohomology. Useful homological algebra background is provided in an appendix. The book is designed both as an introduction for advanced graduate students and as a resource for mathematicians who use Hochschild cohomology in their work.

This book explores the latest advances in algebraic structures and applications, and focuses on mathematical concepts, methods, structures, problems, algorithms and computational methods important in the natural sciences, engineering and modern technologies. In particular, it features mathematical methods and models of non-commutative and non-associative algebras, hom-algebra structures, generalizations of differential calculus, quantum deformations of algebras, Lie algebras and their generalizations, semi-groups and groups, constructive algebra, matrix analysis and its interplay with topology, knot theory, dynamical systems, functional analysis, stochastic processes, perturbation analysis of Markov chains, and applications in network analysis, financial mathematics and engineering mathematics. The book addresses both theory and applications, which are illustrated with a wealth of ideas, proofs and examples to help readers understand the material and develop new mathematical methods and concepts of their own. The high-quality chapters share a wealth of new methods and results, review cutting-edge research and discuss open problems and directions for future research. Taken together, they offer a source of inspiration for a broad range of researchers and research students whose work involves algebraic structures and their applications, probability theory and mathematical statistics, applied mathematics, engineering mathematics and related areas.

Comprises six presentations on new developments in category theory from the March 1997 workshop. The topics are categorification, computads for finitary monads on globular sets, braided n- categories and a-structures, categories of vector bundles and Yang- Mills equations, the role of Michael Batanin's monoidal globular categories, and braided deformations of monoidal categories and Vassiliev invariants. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Quantum groups are not groups at all, but special kinds of Hopf algebras of which the most important are closely related to Lie groups and play a central role in the statistical and wave mechanics of Baxter and Yang. Those occurring physically can be studied as essentially algebraic and closely related to the deformation theory of algebras (commutative, Lie, Hopf, and so on). One of the oldest forms of algebraic quantization amounts to the study of deformations of a commutative algebra A (of classical observables) to a noncommutative algebra A*h (of operators) with the infinitesimal deformation given by a Poisson bracket on the original algebra A. This volume grew out of an AMS--IMS--SIAM Joint Summer Research Conference, held in June 1990 at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The conference brought together leading researchers in the several areas mentioned and in areas such as ``q special functions'', which have their origins in the last century but whose relevance to modern physics has only recently been understood. Among the advances taking place during the conference was Majid's reconstruction theorem for Drinfel$'$d's quasi-Hopf algebras. Readers will appreciate this snapshot of some of the latest developments in the mathematics of quantum groups and deformation theory.

'It may be that a real synthesis of quantum and relativity theories requires not just technical developments but radical conceptual renewal.'J S BellBeyond Peaceful Coexistence: The Emergence of Space, Time and Quantum brings together leading academics in mathematics and physics to address going beyond the 'peaceful coexistence' of space-time descriptions (local and continuous ones) and quantum events (discrete and non-commutative ones). Formidable challenges waiting beyond the Standard Model require a new semantic consistency within the theories in order to build new ways of understanding, working and relating to them. The original A. Shimony meaning of the peaceful coexistence (the collapse postulate and non-locality) appear to be just the tip of the iceberg in relation to more serious fundamental issues across physics as a whole.Chapters in this book present perspectives on emergent, discrete, geometrodynamic and topological approaches, as well as a new interpretative spectrum of quantum theories after Copenhagen, discrete time theories, time-less approaches and 'super-fluid' pictures of space-time.As well as stimulating further research among established theoretical physicists, the book can also be used in courses on the philosophy and mathematics of theoretical physics.

The study of noncommutative rings is a major area in modern algebra. The structure theory of noncommutative rings was originally concerned with three parts: The study of semi-simple rings; the study of radical rings; and the construction of rings with given radical and semi-simple factor rings. Recently, this has extended to many new parts: The zero-divisor theory, containing the study of coefficients of zero-dividing polynomials and the study of annihilators over noncommutative rings, that is related to the Köthe's conjecture; the study of nil rings and Jacobson rings; the study of applying ring-theoretic properties to modules; representation theory; the study of relations between algebraic and concepts of other branches (for example, analytic and topological), etc. Thus, noncommutative rings are ubiquitous in mathematics, and occur in numerous sciences.This volume consists of a collection of original articles refereed by world experts that was presented at the Sixth China–Japan–Korea International Conference on Ring Theory. These articles exhibit new ideas, tools and techniques needed for successful research and investigation in noncommutative ring theory, and show the trend of current research. It is a useful resource book for beginners and advanced experts in ring theory.