This book explores the theory and application of locally nilpotent derivations. It provides a unified treatment of the subject, beginning with sixteen First Principles on which the entire theory is based. These are used to establish classical results, such as Rentschler’s Theorem for the plane, right up to the most recent results, such as Makar-Limanov’s Theorem for locally nilpotent derivations of polynomial rings. The book also includes a wealth of pexamples and open problems.

Motivated by some notorious open problems, such as the Jacobian conjecture and the tame generators problem, the subject of polynomial automorphisms has become a rapidly growing field of interest. This book, the first in the field, collects many of the results scattered throughout the literature. It introduces the reader to a fascinating subject and brings him to the forefront of research in this area. Some of the topics treated are invertibility criteria, face polynomials, the tame generators problem, the cancellation problem, exotic spaces, DNA for polynomial automorphisms, the Abhyankar-Moh theorem, stabilization methods, dynamical systems, the Markus-Yamabe conjecture, group actions, Hilbert's 14th problem, various linearization problems and the Jacobian conjecture. The work is essentially self-contained and aimed at the level of beginning graduate students. Exercises are included at the end of each section. At the end of the book there are appendices to cover used material from algebra, algebraic geometry, D-modules and Gröbner basis theory. A long list of ''strong'' examples and an extensive bibliography conclude the book.

Automorphisms of Affine Spaces describes the latest results concerning several conjectures related to polynomial automorphisms: the Jacobian, real Jacobian, Markus-Yamabe, Linearization and tame generators conjectures. Group actions and dynamical systems play a dominant role. Several contributions are of an expository nature, containing the latest results obtained by the leaders in the field. The book also contains a concise introduction to the subject of invertible polynomial maps which formed the basis of seven lectures given by the editor prior to the main conference. Audience: A good introduction for graduate students and research mathematicians interested in invertible polynomial maps.

Hybrid systems describe the interaction of software, described by finite models such as finite-state machines, with the physical world, described by infinite models such as differential equations. This book addresses problems of verification and controller synthesis for hybrid systems. Although these problems are very difficult to solve for general hybrid systems, several authors have identified classes of hybrid systems that admit symbolic or finite models. The novelty of the book lies on the systematic presentation of these classes of hybrid systems along with the relationships between the hybrid systems and the corresponding symbolic models. To show how the existence of symbolic models can be used for verification and controller synthesis, the book also outlines several key results for the verification and controller design of finite systems. Several examples illustrate the different methods and techniques discussed in the book.