The theory of subfactors of von Neumann algebras made an amazing development in the past ten years or so. In order to appraise the present state of the art in subfactor theory and to look for promising directions of future research, the workshop was organised. This workshop gives an overview of the foremost developments in subfactor theory and related topics.

This volume contains the proceedings from the International Conference on Operator Algebras and Operator Theory held at the East China Normal University in Shanghai (China). Participants in the conference ranged from graduate students to postdocs to leading experts who came from around the world. Topics covered were $C*$-algebras, von Neumann algebras, non-self-adjoint operator algebras, wavelets, operator spaces and other related areas. This work consists of contributions from invited speakers and some mathematicians who were unable to attend. It presents important mathematical ideas while maintaining the uniqueness and excitement of this very successful event.

The study of operator algebras, which grew out of von Neumann's work in the 1920s and the 1930s on modelling quantum mechanics, has in recent years experienced tremendous growth and vitality. This growth has resulted in significant applications in other areas - both within and outside mathematics. The field was a natural candidate for a 1994-1995 program year in Operator Algebras and Applications held at The Fields Institute for Research in the Mathematical Sciences. This volume contains a selection of papers that arose from the seminars and workshops of the program. Topics covered include the classification of amenable C*-algebras, the Baum-Connes conjecture, E[subscript 0] semigroups, subfactors, E-theory, quasicrystals, and the solution to a long-standing problem in operator theory: Can almost commuting self-adjoint matrices be approximated by commuting self-adjoint matrices?

This book is intended for graduate students, research mathematicians, and mathematical physicists working in operator algebras.

Is there a vector space whose dimension is the golden ratio? Of course not—the golden ratio is not an integer! But this can happen for generalizations of vector spaces—objects of a tensor category. The theory of tensor categories is a relatively new field of mathematics that generalizes the theory of group representations. It has deep connections with many other fields, including representation theory, Hopf algebras, operator algebras, low-dimensional topology (in particular, knot theory), homotopy theory, quantum mechanics and field theory, quantum computation, theory of motives, etc. This book gives a systematic introduction to this theory and a review of its applications. While giving a detailed overview of general tensor categories, it focuses especially on the theory of finite tensor categories and fusion categories (in particular, braided and modular ones), and discusses the main results about them with proofs. In particular, it shows how the main properties of finite-dimensional Hopf algebras may be derived from the theory of tensor categories. Many important results are presented as a sequence of exercises, which makes the book valuable for students and suitable for graduate courses. Many applications, connections to other areas, additional results, and references are discussed at the end of each chapter.

This text contains expository contributions by respected researchers on the connections between algebraic geometry, topology, commutative algebra, representation theory, and convex geometry.