Tropical Classical

In Tropical Classical the author of Video Nights in Katmandu and The Lady and the Monk visits a holy city in Ethiopia, where hooded worshippers practice a Christianity that has remained unchanged since the Middle Ages. He follows the bewilderingly complex route of Bombay's dabbawallahs, who each day ferry 100,000 different lunches to 100,000 different workers. Iyer chats with the Dalai Lama and assesses the books of Salman Rushdie and Cormac McCarthy. And he brings his perceptive eye and unflappable wit to bear on the postmodern vogues for literary puffery, sexual gamesmanship, and frequent-flier miles. Glittering with aphorisms, overflowing with insight, and often hilarious, Tropical Classical represents some of Iyer's finest work.

This volume is a collection of papers from the International Conference on Tropical and Idempotent Mathematics, held in Moscow, Russia in August 2007. This is a relatively new branch of mathematical sciences that has been rapidly developing and gaining popularity over the last decade. Tropical mathematics can be viewed as a result of the Maslov dequantization applied to 'traditional' mathematics over fields. Importantly, applications in econophysics and statistical mechanics lead to an explanation of the nature of financial crises. Another original application provides an analysis of instabilities in electrical power networks. Idempotent analysis, tropical algebra, and tropical geometry are the building blocks of the subject. Contributions to idempotent analysis are focused on the Hamilton-Jacobi semigroup, the max-plus finite element method, and on the representations of eigenfunctions of idempotent linear operators. Tropical algebras, consisting of plurisubharmonic functions and their germs, are examined. The volume also contains important surveys and research papers on tropical linear algebra and tropical convex geometry.

Marine biogeography, the study of the spatial distribution of organisms in the world’s oceans, is one of the most fascinating branches of oceanography. This book continues the pioneering research into the distributions of molluscan faunas, first studied by biologists over 160 years ago. It illustrates 1778 species of gastropods in full color, many of which are extremely rare and poorly known endemic species that are illustrated for the first time outside of their original descriptions. The spatial arrangements of malacofaunas shown in this book can be considered proxies for worldwide oceanic conditions and used as tools for determining patterns of global climate change. The book's documentation of evolutionary "hot spots" and geographically restricted endemic faunas can also be used as a base line for future studies on patterns of environmental deterioration and extinction in the marine biosphere. Documenting the evolution of the amazingly rich worldwide gastropod fauna, this book will appeal to physical and chemical oceanographers, systematic and evolutionary biologists, historical geologists, paleontologists, climatologists, geomorphologists, and physical geographers. The authors incorporate aspects of all of these disciplines into a new classification system for the nomenclature of biogeographical spatial units found in tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate seas.

This volume contains the proceedings of the CIEM workshop on Tropical Geometry, held December 12-16, 2011, at the International Centre for Mathematical Meetings (CIEM), Castro Urdiales, Spain. Tropical geometry is a new and rapidly developing field of mat

This volume contains the proceedings of the International Workshop on Tropical and Idempotent Mathematics, held at the Independent University of Moscow, Russia, from August 26-31, 2012. The main purpose of the conference was to bring together and unite researchers and specialists in various areas of tropical and idempotent mathematics and applications. This volume contains articles on algebraic foundations of tropical mathematics as well as articles on applications of tropical mathematics in various fields as diverse as economics, electroenergetic networks, chemical reactions, representation theory, and foundations of classical thermodynamics. This volume is intended for graduate students and researchers interested in tropical and idempotent mathematics or in their applications in other areas of mathematics and in technical sciences.

This volume contains the proceedings of the conference on tropical geometry and integrable systems, held July 3-8, 2011, at the University of Glasgow, United Kingdom. One of the aims of this conference was to bring together researchers in the field of tropical geometry and its applications, from apparently disparate ends of the spectrum, to foster a mutual understanding and establish a common language which will encourage further developments of the area. This aim is reflected in these articles, which cover areas from automata, through cluster algebras, to enumerative geometry. In addition, two survey articles are included which introduce ideas from researchers on one end of this spectrum to researchers on the other. This book is intended for graduate students and researchers interested in tropical geometry and integrable systems and the developing links between these two areas.

This book presents a timely collection of pioneering work in the study of these diverse and fascinating ecosystems. It consists of facsimiles of papers chosen by world experts in tropical biology as the 'classics' in the field.