Understanding the spontaneous formation and dynamics of spatiotemporal patterns in dissipative nonequilibrium systems is one of the major challenges in nonlinear science. This collection of expository papers and advanced research articles, written by leading experts, provides an overview of the state of the art. The topics include new approaches to the mathematical characterization of spatiotemporal complexity, with special emphasis on the role of symmetry, as well as analysis and experiments of patterns in a remarkable variety of applied fields such as magnetoconvection, liquid crystals, granular media, Faraday waves, multiscale biological patterns, visual hallucinations, and biological pacemakers. The unitary presentations, guiding the reader from basic fundamental concepts to the most recent research results on each of the themes, make the book suitable for a wide audience.

Contains a collection of expository papers and advanced research articles which provide an overview the state of the art. Topics include new approaches to the mathematical characterization of spatiotemporal complexity as well as analysis of patterns in a variety of applied fields.

Spontaneous pattern formation in nonlinear dissipative systems far from equilibrium occurs in a variety of settings in nature and technology, and has applications ranging from nonlinear optics through solid and fluid mechanics, physical chemistry and chemical engineering to biology. This book explores the forefront of current research, describing in-depth the analytical methods that elucidate the complex evolution of nonlinear dissipative systems.

This book is a monograph on chaos in dissipative systems written for those working in the physical sciences. Emphasis is on symbolic description of the dynamics and various characteristics of the attractors, and written from the view-point of practical applications without going into formal mathematical rigour. The author used elementary mathematics and calculus, and relied on physical intuition whenever possible. Substantial attention is paid to numerical techniques in the study of chaos. Part of the book is based on the publications of Chinese researchers, including those of the author's collaborators.

Spontaneous pattern formation in nonlinear dissipative systems far from equilibrium occurs in a variety of settings in nature and technology, and has applications ranging from nonlinear optics through solid and fluid mechanics, physical chemistry and chemical engineering to biology. This book explores the forefront of current research, describing in-depth the analytical methods that elucidate the complex evolution of nonlinear dissipative systems.

The mathematical description of complex spatiotemporal behaviour observed in dissipative continuous systems is a major challenge for modern research in applied mathematics. While the behaviour of low-dimensional systems, governed by the dynamics of a finite number of modes is well understood, systems with large or unbounded spatial domains show intrinsic infinite-dimensional behaviour --not a priori accessible to the methods of finite dimensionaldynamical systems. The purpose of the four contributions in this book is to present some recent and active lines of research in evolution equations posed in large or unbounded domains. One of the most prominent features of these systems is the propagation of various types of patterns in the form of waves, such as travelling and standing waves and pulses and fronts. Different approaches to studying these kinds of phenomena are discussed in the book. A major theme is the reduction of an original evolution equation in the form of a partial differential equation system to a simpler system of equations, either a system of ordinary differential equation or a canonical system of PDEs. The study of the reduced equations provides insight into the bifurcations from simple to more complicated solutions and their stabilities. .

This project consists of experimental investigations of heat transport, pattern formation, and bifurcation phenomena in non-linear non-equilibrium fluid-mechanical systems. These issues are studies in Rayleigh-B\'enard convection, using both pure and multicomponent fluids. They are of fundamental scientific interest, but also play an important role in engineering, materials science, ecology, meteorology, geophysics, and astrophysics. For instance, various forms of convection are important in such diverse phenomena as crystal growth from a melt with or without impurities, energy production in solar ponds, flow in the earth's mantle and outer core, geo-thermal stratifications, and various oceanographic and atmospheric phenomena. Our work utilizes computer-enhanced shadowgraph imaging of flow patterns, sophisticated digital image analysis, and high-resolution heat transport measurements.