You might well wonder why TFPC in Practice is a part of the Monographs in Visualization series. However, if you really think about typesetting, especially fine typesetting, you soon realize that in large part it is a visual art as well as a science. 'lEX's algorithms produce in almost all cases aesthetic results of the highest quality. On the other hand, occasionally one may want to insert some additional space before a subscript or superscript, or one may want to adjust the vertical spacing in a fraction. Fortunately Donald Knuth, the author of 'lEX, allows one to program such corrections easily where needed. The four volumes of Stephan von Bechtolsheim's long awaited TFPC in Prac­ tice present a comprehensive view of 'lEX. His thorough discussion of each aspect of 'lEX is liberally laced with cogent illustrative examples. Many of these exam­ ples represent complete, ready to use macros that enhance the capabilities of 'lEX. These examples are of particular interest to both the typesetter and the 'lEX programmer. The typesetter can often solve an immediate problem by ei­ ther using one of the examples directly or by making minor changes to adapt it to the problem at hand. The 'lEX programmer can use the examples, along with Stephan's detailed discussion, to increase both the depth and breadth of his or her knowledge of 'lEX. The value of the text is further enhanced by Stephan's concerted effort to explain the reasoning behind each topic or example.

TEX has always been regarded as the most elegant and powerful system for computer typesetting. However, its widespread use, beyond academia, was hampered by its complexity. Recently, fairly good TEX implementations have come out for PCs putting TEX on the desks of many people: writers, designers, desktop publishers, engineers, and consequently, the interest in TEX has surged. What is needed at this point is a book that teaches step-by-step how to use TEX, illustrating each step by meaningful examples. This is exactly what S.v. Bechtolsheim's book does. It is a tutorial and guide for the first-time users of TEX, as well as a reference for the most experienced "TEXpert." TEX in Practice will appear as a four volume set, starting with volume 1 Basics, followed by volume 2 Paragraphs, Math and Fonts, volume 3 Tokens, Macros and volume 4 Output Routines, Tables. TEX in Practice will be an indispensable reference for the TEX community and a guide through the first steps for the TEX novice.

Arnold's Problems contains mathematical problems brought up by Vladimir Arnold in his famous seminar at Moscow State University over several decades. In addition, there are problems published in his numerous papers and books.

This volume collects original work and reviews on work in the field of proba- bility which took place within the framework of the DFG-Schwerpunkt: Inter- acting stochastic systems of high complexity. This research network started in May 1997 and was funded till May 2003. In this network between 20–30 (depending on the 2-year periods of grant renewal) groups from probabil- ity, statistical physics and mathematical statistics within Germany were ac- tive. An extensive international collaboration was an essential part of this network and here particularly intense contacts were built up between the DFG-Schwerpunkt and EURANDOM, a European institute for research in stochastics, which was founded in 1997. This partnership reached from joint workshops and colloquia to collaborations on specific projects.

This volume, "Theory and Applications of Special Functions," is d- icated to Mizan Rahman in honoring him for the many important c- tributions to the theory of special functions that he has made over the years, and still continues to make. Some of the papers were presented at a special session of the American Mathematical Society Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, in January 2003 organized by Mourad Ismail. Mizan Rahman's contributions are not only contained in his own - pers, but also indirectly in other papers for which he supplied useful and often essential information. We refer to the paper on his mathematics in this volume for more information. This paper contains some personal recollections and tries to describe Mizan Rahman's literary writings in his mother tongue, Bengali. An even more personal paper on Mizan Rahman is the letter by his sons, whom we thank for allowing us to reproduce it in this book. The theory of special functions is very much an application driven field of mathematics. This is a very old field, dating back to the 18th century when physicists and mathematician were looking for solutions of the fundamental differential equations of mathematical physics. Since then the field has grown enormously, and this book reflects only part of the known applications.

The idea for this book came when I was an assistant at the Department of Mat- matics and Computer Science at the Philipps-University Marburg, Germany. S- eraltimesIfacedthetaskofsupportinglecturesandseminarsoncomplexanalysis of several variables and found out that there are very few books on the subject, compared to the vast amount of literature on function theory of one variable, let alone on real variables or basic algebra. Even fewer books, to my understanding, were written primarily with the student in mind. So it was quite hard to ?nd s- porting examples and exercises that helped the student to become familiar with the fascinating theory of several complex variables. Of course, there are notable exceptions, like the books of R.M. Range [9] or B. and L. Kaup [6], however, even those excellent books have a drawback: they are quite thick and thus quite expensive for a student’s budget. So an additional motivation to write this book was to give a comprehensive introduction to the theory of several complex variables, illustrate it with as many examples as I could ?nd and help the student to get deeper insight by giving lots of exercises, reaching from almost trivial to rather challenging. There are not many illustrations in this book, in fact, there is exactly one, becauseinthetheoryofseveralcomplexvariablesI?ndmostofthemeithertrivial or misleading. The readers are of course free to have a di?erent opinion on these matters.

Existe-t-il des planètes comparables à la Terre ? Hébergent-elles la vie ? La pluralité des mondes fascine les savants depuis des millénaires. Aujourd’hui, pour la première fois dans l’histoire de notre espèce, nous possédons la science et la technologie requises pour éclairer cette question, notamment grâce à la découverte de milliers d’exoplanètes et d’une profusion de "super-Terres".

1er août 1944, Varsovie se soulève contre les nazis. Pendant deux mois, les insurgés vont affronter les plus impitoyables unités Waffen-SS. Les Polonais ne disposent que de quelques fusils et grenades face aux bombardiers, canons, mitrailleuses, lance-flammes et mortiers ennemis. Staline, dont les troupes stationnent sur l'autre rive de la Vistule, laisse cyniquement les mains libres à Hitler.

Romain, un marginal affligé d'un bec-de-lièvre qui lui vaut le surnom de Lapin, est l'un des seuls habitants de son village du centre de la France à ne pas travailler à l'abattoir de poulets. Depuis son enfance, il est épris de Solène, l'actuelle maire. Quand cette dernière disparaît, mêlée malgré elle à une histoire d'enfouissement illégal de déchets, Romain n'aspire qu'à se venger. …