Interfaces are geometrical objects modelling free or moving boundaries and arise in a wide range of phase change problems in physical and biological sciences, particularly in material technology and in dynamics of patterns. Especially in the end of last century, the study of evolving interfaces in a number of applied fields becomes increasingly important, so that the possibility of describing their dynamics through suitable mathematical models became one of the most challenging and interdisciplinary problems in applied mathematics. The 2000 Madeira school reported on mathematical advances in some theoretical, modelling and numerical issues concerned with dynamics of interfaces and free boundaries. Specifically, the five courses dealt with an assessment of recent results on the optimal transportation problem, the numerical approximation of moving fronts evolving by mean curvature, the dynamics of patterns and interfaces in some reaction-diffusion systems with chemical-biological applications, evolutionary free boundary problems of parabolic type or for Navier-Stokes equations, and a variational approach to evolution problems for the Ginzburg-Landau functional.

Pseudo-differential operators were initiated by Kohn, Nirenberg and Hörmander in the sixties of the last century. Beside applications in the general theory of partial differential equations, they have their roots also in the study of quantization first envisaged by Hermann Weyl thirty years earlier. Thanks to the understanding of the connections of wavelets with other branches of mathematical analysis, quantum physics and engineering, such operators have been used under different names as mathematical models in signal analysis since the last decade of the last century. The volume investigates the mathematics of quantization and signals in the context of pseudo-differential operators, Weyl transforms, Daubechies operators, Wick quantization and time-frequency localization operators. Applications to quantization, signal analysis and the modern theory of PDE are highlighted.

Nowadays we are facing numerous and important imaging problems: nondestructive testing of materials, monitoring of industrial processes, enhancement of oil production by efficient reservoir characterization, emerging developments in noninvasive imaging techniques for medical purposes - computerized tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET), X-ray and ultrasound tomography, etc. In the CIME Summer School on Imaging (Martina Franca, Italy 2002), leading experts in mathematical techniques and applications presented broad and useful introductions for non-experts and practitioners alike to many aspects of this exciting field. The volume contains part of the above lectures completed and updated by additional contributions on other related topics.

In this volume, a result of The CIME Summer School held in Cetraro, Italy, in 2006, four leading specialists present different aspects of quantum transport modeling. It provides an excellent basis for researchers in this field.

Stochastic Geometry is the mathematical discipline which studies mathematical models for random geometric structures. This book collects lectures presented at the CIME summer school in Martina Franca in September 2004. The main lecturers covered Spatial Statistics, Random Points, Integral Geometry and Random Sets. These are complemented by two additional contributions on Random Mosaics and Crystallization Processes. The book presents a comprehensive and up-to-date description of important aspects of Stochastic Geometry.

This set of lectures, which had its origin in a mini course delivered at the Summer Program of IMPA (Rio de Janeiro), is an introduction to intrinsic scaling, a powerful method in the analysis of degenerate and singular PDEs.In the first part, the theory is presented from scratch for the model case of the degenerate p-Laplace equation. The second part deals with three applications of the theory to relevant models arising from flows in porous media and phase transitions.

The lectures gathered in this volume present some of the different aspects of Mathematical Control Theory. Adopting the point of view of Geometric Control Theory and of Nonlinear Control Theory, the lectures focus on some aspects of the Optimization and Control of nonlinear, not necessarily smooth, dynamical systems. Specifically, three of the five lectures discuss respectively: logic-based switching control, sliding mode control and the input to the state stability paradigm for the control and stability of nonlinear systems. The remaining two lectures are devoted to Optimal Control: one investigates the connections between Optimal Control Theory, Dynamical Systems and Differential Geometry, while the second presents a very general version, in a non-smooth context, of the Pontryagin Maximum Principle. The arguments of the whole volume are self-contained and are directed to everyone working in Control Theory. They offer a sound presentation of the methods employed in the control and optimization of nonlinear dynamical systems.