Survey articles based on the invited lectures given at the Twenty-first British Combinatorial Conference, first published in 2007.

This volume contains the invited talks from the 18th British Combinatorial Conference, held in 2001.

Up-to-date resource on combinatorics for graduate students and researchers.

Surveys of recent important developments in combinatorics covering a wide range of areas in the field.

The British Combinatorial Conference is held every two years and is a key event for mathematicians worldwide working in combinatorics. In June 2003 the conference was held at the University of Wales, Bangor. The papers contained here are surveys contributed by the invited speakers and are of the high quality that befits the event. There is also a tribute to Bill Tutte who had a long-standing association with the BCC. The papers cover topics currently attracting significant research interest as well as some less traditional areas such as the combinatorics of protecting digital content. They will form an excellent resource for established researchers as well as graduate students who will find much here to inspire future work.

The primary goal of this 2003 book is to give a brief introduction to the main ideas of algebraic and geometric invariant theory. It assumes only a minimal background in algebraic geometry, algebra and representation theory. Topics covered include the symbolic method for computation of invariants on the space of homogeneous forms, the problem of finite-generatedness of the algebra of invariants, the theory of covariants and constructions of categorical and geometric quotients. Throughout, the emphasis is on concrete examples which originate in classical algebraic geometry. Based on lectures given at University of Michigan, Harvard University and Seoul National University, the book is written in an accessible style and contains many examples and exercises. A novel feature of the book is a discussion of possible linearizations of actions and the variation of quotients under the change of linearization. Also includes the construction of toric varieties as torus quotients of affine spaces.

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the interactions between descriptive set theory and various aspects of the theory of dynamical systems, including ergodic theory and topological dynamics. This volume, first published in 2000, contains a collection of survey papers by leading researchers covering a wide variety of recent developments in these subjects and their interconnections. This book provides researchers and graduate students interested in either of these areas with a guide to work done in the other, as well as with an introduction to problems and research directions arising from their interconnections.

Ever since the seminal work of Goppa on algebraic-geometry codes, rational points on algebraic curves over finite fields have been an important research topic for algebraic geometers and coding theorists. The focus in this application of algebraic geometry to coding theory is on algebraic curves over finite fields with many rational points (relative to the genus). Recently, the authors discovered another important application of such curves, namely to the construction of low-discrepancy sequences. These sequences are needed for numerical methods in areas as diverse as computational physics and mathematical finance. This has given additional impetus to the theory of, and the search for, algebraic curves over finite fields with many rational points. This book aims to sum up the theoretical work on algebraic curves over finite fields with many rational points and to discuss the applications of such curves to algebraic coding theory and the construction of low-discrepancy sequences.

Second order linear parabolic and elliptic equations arise frequently in mathematics and other disciplines. For example parabolic equations are to be found in statistical mechanics and solid state theory, their infinite dimensional counterparts are important in fluid mechanics, mathematical finance and population biology, whereas nonlinear parabolic equations arise in control theory. Here the authors present a state of the art treatment of the subject from a new perspective. The main tools used are probability measures in Hilbert and Banach spaces and stochastic evolution equations. There is then a discussion of how the results in the book can be applied to control theory. This area is developing very rapidly and there are numerous notes and references that point the reader to more specialised results not covered in the book. Coverage of some essential background material will help make the book self-contained and increase its appeal to those entering the subject.