This book introduces various notions defined in graded terms extending the notions most frequently used as basic ingredients in the theory of Azumaya algebras: separability and Galois extensions of commutative rings, crossed products and Galois cohomology, Picard groups, and the Brauer group.

"Based on papers presented at a recent international conference on algebra and algebraic geometry held jointly in Antwerp and Brussels, Belgium. Presents both survey and research articles featuring new results from the intersection of algebra and geometry. "

This volume is devoted to the Brauer group of a commutative ring and related invariants. Part I presents a new self-contained exposition of the Brauer group of a commutative ring. Included is a systematic development of the theory of Grothendieck topologies and étale cohomology, and discussion of topics such as Gabber's theorem and the theory of Taylor's big Brauer group of algebras without a unit. Part II presents a systematic development of the Galois theory of Hopf algebras with special emphasis on the group of Galois objects of a cocommutative Hopf algebra. The development of the theory is carried out in such a way that the connection to the theory of the Brauer group in Part I is made clear. Recent developments are considered and examples are included. The Brauer-Long group of a Hopf algebra over a commutative ring is discussed in Part III. This provides a link between the first two parts of the volume and is the first time this topic has been discussed in a monograph. Audience: Researchers whose work involves group theory. The first two parts, in particular, can be recommended for supplementary, graduate course use.

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"Based on papers presented at a recent international conference on algebra and algebraic geometry held jointly in Antwerp and Brussels, Belgium. Presents both survey and research articles featuring new results from the intersection of algebra and geometry. "