The complex processes of state changes can be interpreted by resorting to Statistical Quantum Mechanics. However, it is well known that a phenomenological description of state changes can be obtained by using the classical continuum theory. This book supplies a panoramic picture of known and new mathematical models which are suitable to describe phase changes from a macroscopic view point. All these models are derived from the theory of continuous systems with a nonmaterial interface and allow to describe processes of solidification, melting, and vaporization. The nonlocal continuum theory of systems with a non material interface provides a more complex mathematical model in dealing with crystal growth either in a pure melt or in a mixture. A chapter is devoted to the analysis of phase changes in ferroelectric and ferromagnetic crystals.

... "What do you call work?" "Why ain't that work?" Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly: "Well. lI1a), he it is, and maybe it aill't. All I know, is, it suits Tom Sawvc/:" "Oil CO/lll!, IIOW, Will do not mean to let 011 that you like it?" The brush continued to move. "Likc it? Well, I do not see wlzy I oughtn't to like it. Does a hoy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?" That put the thing ill a Ilew light. Ben stopped nibhling the apple ... (From Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Chapter II.) Mathematics can put quantitative phenomena in a new light; in turn applications may provide a vivid support for mathematical concepts. This volume illustrates some aspects of the mathematical treatment of phase transitions, namely, the classical Stefan problem and its generalizations. The in tended reader is a researcher in application-oriented mathematics. An effort has been made to make a part of the book accessible to beginners, as well as physicists and engineers with a mathematical background. Some room has also been devoted to illustrate analytical tools. This volume deals with research I initiated when I was affiliated with the Istituto di Analisi Numerica del C.N.R. in Pavia, and then continued at the Dipartimento di Matematica dell'Universita di Trento. It was typeset by the author in plain TEX

Phase transition phenomena arise in a variety of relevant real world situations, such as melting and freezing in a solid-liquid system, evaporation, solid-solid phase transitions in shape memory alloys, combustion, crystal growth, damage in elastic materials, glass formation, phase transitions in polymers, and plasticity. The practical interest of such phenomenology is evident and has deeply influenced the technological development of our society, stimulating intense mathematical research in this area. This book analyzes and approximates some models and related partial differential equation problems that involve phase transitions in different contexts and include dissipation effects. Contents: Mathematical Models Including a Hysteresis Operator (T Aiki); Modelling Phase Transitions via an Entropy Equation: Long-Time Behavior of the Solutions (E Bonetti); Global Solution to a One Dimensional Phase Transition Model with Strong Dissipation (G Bonfanti & F Luterotti); A Global in Time Result for an Integro-Differential Parabolic Inverse Problem in the Space of Bounded Functions (F Colombo et al.); Weak Solutions for Stefan Problems with Convections (T Fukao); Memory Relaxation of the One-Dimensional CahnOCoHilliard Equation (S Gatti et al.); Mathematical Models for Phase Transition in Materials with Thermal Memory (G Gentili & C Giorgi); Hysteresis in a First Order Hyperbolic Equation (J Kopfovi); Approximation of Inverse Problems Related to Parabolic Integro-Differential Systems of Caginalp Type (A Lorenzi & E Rocca); Gradient Flow Reaction/Diffusion Models in Phase Transitions (J Norbury & C Girardet); New Existence Result for a 3-D Shape Memory Model (I Pawlow & W M Zajaczkowski); Analysis of a 1-D Thermoviscoelastic Model with Temperature-Dependent Viscosity (R Peyroux & U Stefanelli); Global Attractor for the Weak Solutions of a Class of Viscous Cahn-Hilliard Equations (R Rossi); Stability for Phase Field Systems Involving Indefinite Surface Tension Coefficients (K Shirakawa); Geometric Features of p -Laplace Phase Transitions (E Valdinoci). Readership: Applied mathematicians and researchers in analysis and differential equations."

The Physics of Phase Transitions occupies an important place at the crossroads of several fields central to materials sciences. This second edition incorporates new developments in the states of matter physics, in particular in the domain of nanomaterials and atomic Bose-Einstein condensates where progress is accelerating. New information and application examples are included. This work deals with all classes of phase transitions in fluids and solids, containing chapters on evaporation, melting, solidification, magnetic transitions, critical phenomena, superconductivity, and more. End-of-chapter problems and complete answers are included.

This book of lecture notes contains theoretical background material required for computer generation of random fields, which is of interest in various fields of applied mathematics.The necessary probabilistic background suitable for applied work in engineering as well as signal and image processing is also covered.The book is a valuable guide for higher level engineering students.

This is a memorial volume in honor of Serguei Kozlov, one of the founders of homogenization, a new branch of mathematical physics. This volume contains original contributions of leading world experts in the field.

Advances in metrology depend on improvements in scientific and technical knowledge and in instrumentation quality, as well as better use of advanced mathematical tools and development of new ones. In this volume, scientists from both the mathematical and the metrological fields exchange their experiences. Industrial sectors, such as instrumentation and software, are likely to benefit from this exchange, since metrology has a high impact on the overall quality of industrial products, and applied mathematics is becoming more and more important in industrial processes.This book is of interest to people in universities, research centers and industries who are involved in measurements and need advanced mathematical tools to solve their problems, and to those developing such mathematical tools.

This volume collects refereed contributions based on the presentations made at the Sixth Workshop on Advanced Mathematical and Computational Tools in Metrology, held at the Istituto di Metrologia “G. Colonnetti” (IMGC), Torino, Italy, in September 2003. It provides a forum for metrologists, mathematicians and software engineers that will encourage a more effective synthesis of skills, capabilities and resources, and promotes collaboration in the context of EU programmes, EUROMET and EA projects, and MRA requirements. It contains articles by an important, worldwide group of metrologists and mathematicians involved in measurement science and, together with the five previous volumes in this series, constitutes an authoritative source for the mathematical, statistical and software tools necessary to modern metrology.The proceedings have been selected for coverage in: Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings® (ISTP® / ISI Proceedings)Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)CC Proceedings — Engineering & Physical Science

The main purpose of this book is to provide a self-contained, complete and geometrically clear presentation of the recent results on global controllability and stabilization. It contains many pictures and exercises so as to develop a geometrical control intuition and inspire the reader to think independently. The material presented is organized such that for Part I, it is only assumed that the reader has mastered the very basic notions of ordinary differential equation theory, general topology and analytic geometry. For Part II, the reader is assumed to be familiar with the elements of differential geometry.

The subject of this book is time, one of the small number of elusive essences of the world, unsubdued by human will. The three global problems of natural science, those of the origin of the Universe, life and consciousness, cannot be solved without finding out the nature of time. Without a good construction of time it is impossible to describe, to qualify, to forecast and to control various processes in the animate and inanimate nature. Special attention is paid to the ways of adequate inclusion of the properties of time in the derivation of the fundamental equations of motion for natural systems.