Operads Proceedings Of Renaissance Conferences

``Operads'' are mathematical devices which model many sorts of algebras (such as associative, commutative, Lie, Poisson, alternative, Leibniz, etc., including those defined up to homotopy, such as $A_{\infty}$-algebras). Since the notion of an operad appeared in the seventies in algebraic topology, there has been a renaissance of this theory due to the discovery of relationships with graph cohomology, Koszul duality, representation theory, combinatorics, cyclic cohomology, moduli spaces, knot theory, and quantum field theory. This renaissance was recognized at a special session ``Moduli Spaces, Operads, and Representation Theory'' of the AMS meeting in Hartford, CT (March 1995), and at a conference ``Operades et Algebre Homotopique'' held at the Centre International de Rencontres Mathematiques at Luminy, France (May-June 1995). Both meetings drew a diverse group of researchers. The authors have arranged the contributions so as to emphasize certain themes around which the renaissance of operads took place: homotopy algebra, algebraic topology, polyhedra and combinatorics, and applications to physics.

The book aims to exemplify the recent developments in operad theory, in universal algebra and related topics in algebraic topology and theoretical physics. The conference has established a better connection between mathematicians working on operads (mainly the French team) and mathematicians working in universal algebra (primarily the Chinese team), and to exchange problems, methods and techniques from these two subject areas.

Since the work of Stasheff and Sugawara in the 1960s on recognition of loop space structures on $H$-spaces, the notion of higher homotopies has grown to be a fundamental organizing principle in homotopy theory, differential graded homological algebra and even mathematical physics. This book presents the proceedings from a conference held on the occasion of Stasheff's 60th birthday at Vassar in June 1996. It offers a collection of very high quality papers and includes some fundamental essays on topics that open new areas. It's features include: accessible to a broad audience interested in mathematics and physics; offers a comprehensive overview of Stasheff's work; and, contains papers on very current research topics, including operads, combinatorial polyhedra and moduli spaces.

Algebra, as we know it today, consists of many different ideas, concepts and results. A reasonable estimate of the number of these different items would be somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000. Many of these have been named and many more could (and perhaps should) have a name or a convenient designation. Even the nonspecialist is likely to encounter most of these, either somewhere in the literature, disguised as a definition or a theorem or to hear about them and feel the need for more information. If this happens, one should be able to find enough information in this Handbook to judge if it is worthwhile to pursue the quest. In addition to the primary information given in the Handbook, there are references to relevant articles, books or lecture notes to help the reader. An excellent index has been included which is extensive and not limited to definitions, theorems etc. The Handbook of Algebra will publish articles as they are received and thus the reader will find in this third volume articles from twelve different sections. The advantages of this scheme are two-fold: accepted articles will be published quickly and the outline of the Handbook can be allowed to evolve as the various volumes are published. A particularly important function of the Handbook is to provide professional mathematicians working in an area other than their own with sufficient information on the topic in question if and when it is needed. - Thorough and practical source of information - Provides in-depth coverage of new topics in algebra - Includes references to relevant articles, books and lecture notes

This volume presents the proceedings from the AMS-IMS-SIAM Summer Research Conference on Homotopy Methods in Algebraic Topology held at the University of Colorado (Boulder). The conference coincided with the sixtieth birthday of J. Peter May. An article is included reflecting his wide-ranging and influential contributions to the subject area. Other articles in the book discuss the ordinary, elliptic and real-oriented Adams spectral sequences, mapping class groups, configuration spaces, extended powers, operads, the telescope conjecture, $p$-compact groups, algebraic K theory, stable and unstable splittings, the calculus of functors, the $E_{\infty}$ tensor product, and equivariant cohomology theories. The book offers a compendious source on modern aspects of homotopy theoretic methods in many algebraic settings.

This book contains the papers presented at the ICM2002 Satellite Conference on Nonlinear Evolution Equations and Dynamical Systems. About 50 mathematicians and scientists attended the meeting ? including E Witten (IAS), C Nappi (Princeton), K Khanin (Cambridge), D Phong (Columbia), d'Hoker (UCLA) and Peng Chiakuei (CAS). The book covers several fields, such as nonlinear evolution equations and integrable systems, infinite-dimensional algebra, conformal field theory and geometry.The proceedings have been selected for coverage in: ? Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)

Operads are mathematical devices which describe algebraic structures of many varieties and in various categories. From their beginnings in the 1960s, they have developed to encompass such areas as combinatorics, knot theory, moduli spaces, string field theory and deformation quantization.