This volume contains seven chapters based on lectures given by invited speakers at two May 2010 workshops held at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute.

The volume is based on a course, ``Geometric Models for Noncommutative Algebras'' taught by Professor Weinstein at Berkeley. Noncommutative geometry is the study of noncommutative algebras as if they were algebras of functions on spaces, for example, the commutative algebras associated to affine algebraic varieties, differentiable manifolds, topological spaces, and measure spaces. In this work, the authors discuss several types of geometric objects (in the usual sense of sets with structure) that are closely related to noncommutative algebras. Central to the discussion are symplectic and Poisson manifolds, which arise when noncommutative algebras are obtained by deforming commutative algebras. The authors also give a detailed study of groupoids (whose role in noncommutative geometry has been stressed by Connes) as well as of Lie algebroids, the infinitesimal approximations to differentiable groupoids. Featured are many interesting examples, applications, and exercises. The book starts with basic definitions and builds to (still) open questions. It is suitable for use as a graduate text. An extensive bibliography and index are included.

Noncommutative Geometry is one of the most deep and vital research subjects of present-day Mathematics. Its development, mainly due to Alain Connes, is providing an increasing number of applications and deeper insights for instance in Foliations, K-Theory, Index Theory, Number Theory but also in Quantum Physics of elementary particles. The purpose of the Summer School in Martina Franca was to offer a fresh invitation to the subject and closely related topics; the contributions in this volume include the four main lectures, cover advanced developments and are delivered by prominent specialists.

This excellent book will be very useful for students and researchers wishing to learn the basics of Poisson geometry, as well as for those who know something about the subject but wish to update and deepen their knowledge. The authors' philosophy that Poisson geometry is an amalgam of foliation theory, symplectic geometry, and Lie theory enables them to organize the book in a very coherent way. —Alan Weinstein, University of California at Berkeley This well-written book is an excellent starting point for students and researchers who want to learn about the basics of Poisson geometry. The topics covered are fundamental to the theory and avoid any drift into specialized questions; they are illustrated through a large collection of instructive and interesting exercises. The book is ideal as a graduate textbook on the subject, but also for self-study. —Eckhard Meinrenken, University of Toronto

The aim of this book is twofold. On the one hand, it gives a quick, self-contained introduction to Poisson geometry and related subjects. On the other hand, it presents a comprehensive treatment of the normal form problem in Poisson geometry. Even when it comes to classical results, the book gives new insights. It contains results obtained over the past 10 years which are not available in other books.

The papers, some of which are in English, the rest in French, in this volume are based on lectures given during the meeting of the Seminare Sud Rhodanien de Geometrie (SSRG) organized at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in 1989. The SSRG was established in 1982 by geometers and mathematical physicists with the aim of developing and coordinating research in symplectic geometry and its applications to analysis and mathematical physics. Among the subjects discussed at the meeting, a special role was given to the theory of symplectic groupoids, the subject of fruitful collaboration involving geometers from Berkeley, Lyon, and Montpellier.

This volume is a collection of articles by speakers at the Poisson 2006 conference. The program for Poisson 2006 was an overlap of topics that included deformation quantization, generalized complex structures, differentiable stacks, normal forms, and group-valued moment maps and reduction.