This book is the fourth in the series of review papers on advanced problems of phase transitions and critical phenomena, the first three volumes appeared in 2004, 2007, and 2012. It presents reviews in those aspects of criticality and related subjects that have currently attracted much attention due to new and essential contributions. The contents are divided into five chapters, and they include: anomalous diffusion, kinetics of pattern formation, scaling, renormalization group approaches in soft matter and socio-physics, Monte Carlo simulation of critical Casimir forces.As with the first three volumes, this book is based on the review lectures that were given in Lviv (Ukraine) at the “Ising lectures” — a traditional annual workshop on phase transitions and critical phenomena which aims to bring together scientists working in these fields with university students and those who are interested in the subject.

In this book, ten substantive chapters examine how collisions between technological developments (globalizing forces) and thickening populist pressures (localizing dynamics) constantly keep reinventing the state in unforeseen and unpredictable ways. We learn of how international organizations have fared, and to what extent grass-roots grumbles have impacted big-picture developments in quite diverse parts of the world. Just placing unfolding crises under the microscope cannot but generate policy-solving observations. Treated in corresponding order, these crises revolve around adjusting international institutions; absorbing current populist outbursts; shifting from peacekeeping to peacemaking; spying in the global south; absorbing displaced persons; Rwandan land reform; pandemic and RMG readjustments; Bangladesh’s democratic transition; Rohingyan-Syrian refugees; and Mexico’s 1990s liberalization. Though overarching, observations in the book accent state strength battling with state porosity; the downward spiraling of global order; and the simple lack of any controlling mechanism against globalizing/localizing dynamics in the trenches of everyday life being matched by continued uncertainty on the analytical plane.

In an innovative departure from the much-studied field of 'crime in the media', this lively book focuses its attention on the forces of law and order; how they visualize and represent danger and criminality and how they represent themselves as authorities. After two chapters covering basic terms and tools in the study of culture and representation, the book covers such topics as the history of justice - system methods for visualizing criminality, from fingerprinting to DNA; the emergence of a 'forensic gaze' that begins with Edgar Allan Poe and Sherlock Holmes and culminates in the American television show Crime Scene Investigation and the rise of ways of seeing urban space that constantly divide the city into 'good' and 'bad' areas. The final chapter uses some recent conflicts regarding the legal admissibility of 'gruesome pictures' to reflect on the importance of the visual in our everyday experiences, both of safety and of danger. Shortlisted for the Hart SLSA Book Prize 2007

"Crime, disorder, and decay symbolize the decline of America's inner cities. Skogan's book is theoretically acute, methodologically sophisticated, and politically astute. It should be required reading for every urban sociologist, policy planner, and public official."--Jerome H. Skolnick, University of California, Berkeley "Panhandling, graffiti, prostitution, abandoned cars and buildings, and junk-filled lots are evidence of neighborhood disorder and decline. In this absorbing and valuable study, Skogan discusses the implications of disorder and skillfully analyzes experimental efforts undertaken to confront it in several American cities."--Gilbert Geis, University of California, Irvine "This timely book not only documents the relationship between disorder and neighborhood decline, but provides a cogent analysis of the currently favored solutions to problems such as community policing and citizen self-help."--Dr. Thomas A. Reppetto, President, Citizens Crime Commission of New York City

This book is dedicated to the fundamental physical aspects of stability, the influence of structural defects on the properties and structural phase transformations of BCC alloys. The authors present patterns that occur in the structural-phase states of functional alloys with low stability or instability under thermal cycling effects. Structural-phase transformations and the physical laws governing the influence of the thermomechanical effect on the properties of alloys are examined to advance development of technological processes for processing functional materials. Features: Studies the correlation between structural phase states and changes in the physico-mechanical properties of intermetallic compounds Explores the influence of thermomechanical cycling on the properties of functional alloys Details low-stability pretransition states in alloys