This collection ot ten tutorial reviews by leading researchers in the field introduces and renews recent advances on irreversible deformation phenomena in solid state and soft condensed matter physics. The focus in applications is on amorphous materials, crystalline solids under stress and more generally, elastic manifolds driven by external processes. This book addresses in particular nonspecialists and graduate students wishing to enter the field.

This work covers in some detail the application of neutron scattering to different fields of physics, materials science, chemistry, biology, the earth sciences and engineering. Its goal is to enable researchers in a particular area to identify aspects of their work in which neutron scattering techniques might contribute, conceive the important experiments to be done, assess what is required to carry them out, write a successful proposal for one of the major user facilities, and perform the experiments under the guidance of the appropriate instrument scientist. The authors of the various chapters take account of the advances in experimental techniques over the past 25 years--for example, neutron reflectivity and spin-echo spectroscopy and techniques for probing the dynamics of complex materials and biological systems. Furthermore, with the third-generation spallation sources recently constructed in the United States and Japan and in the advanced planning stage in Europe, there is an increasing interest in time-of-flight techniques and short wavelengths. Correspondingly, the improved performance of cold moderators at both reactors and spallation sources has extended the long-wavelength capabilities. - Chapter authors are pre-eminent in their field - Seminal experiments are presented as examples - Provides guidance on how to plan, execute and analyse experiments

A major scholarly work, published in conjunction with the exhibition titled "Splendors of Imperial China: Treasures from the National Palace Museum, Taipei" (on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art during 1996, and scheduled for several other American cities during 1996-1997). Written by scholars of both Chinese and Western cultural backgrounds and conceived as a cultural history, the book synthesizes scholarship of the past three decades to present the historical and cultural significance of individual works of art and analyses of their aesthetic content, as well as reevaluation of the cultural dynamics of Chinese history. Includes some 600 illustrations, 436 in color. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR