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This volume contains selected expository lectures delivered at the Maurice Auslander Distinguished Lectures and International Conference, held May 1–6, 2014, at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Woods Hole, MA. Several significant developments of the last decade in representation theory of finite-dimensional algebras are related to combinatorics. Three of the five lectures in this volume deal, respectively, with the Catalan combinatorics, the combinatorics of Gelfand-Zetlin polytopes, and the combinatorics of tilting modules. The remaining papers present history and recent advances in the study of left orders in left Artinian rings and a survey on invariant theory of Artin-Schelter regular algebras.

In 1989, Edward Witten discovered a deep relationship between quantum field theory and knot theory, and this beautiful discovery created a new field of research called Chern-Simons theory. This field has the remarkable feature of intertwining a large number of diverse branches of research in mathematics and physics, among them low-dimensional topology, differential geometry, quantum algebra, functional and stochastic analysis, quantum gravity, and string theory. The 20-year anniversary of Witten's discovery provided an opportunity to bring together researchers working in Chern-Simons theory for a meeting, and the resulting conference, which took place during the summer of 2009 at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, included many of the leading experts in the field. This volume documents the activities of the conference and presents several original research articles, including another monumental paper by Witten that is sure to stimulate further activity in this and related fields. This collection will provide an excellent overview of the current research directions and recent progress in Chern-Simons gauge theory.

This volume contains the proceedings of the Maurice Auslander Distinguished Lectures and International Conference, held April 25–30, 2012, in Falmouth, MA. The representation theory of finite dimensional algebras and related topics, especially cluster combinatorics, is a very active topic of research. This volume contains papers covering both the history and the latest developments in this topic. In particular, Otto Kerner gives a review of basic theorems and latest results about wild hereditary algebras, Yuri Berest develops the theory of derived representation schemes, and Markus Schmidmeier presents new applications of arc diagrams.

Ring theorists and researchers in invariant theory and operator algebra met at Bowdoin for the 1984 AMS-IMS-SIAM Joint Summer Research Conference to exchange ideas about group actions on rings and to stimulate general interaction among their various fields. Collecting together the proceedings of that meeting, this interdisciplinary volume reveals many topics common to the three fields: $K$-theory, dual actions, semi-invariants, and crossed products. A high percentage of the papers here are expository; of particular significance are the papers by the four survey lecturers, Edward Formanek on noncommutative invariant theory; Melvin Hochster on invariant theory of commutative rings; D. S. Passman on algebraic crossed products; and Marc A. Reiffel on $K$-theory of crossed products of $C•$-algebras by discrete groups.

The last ten years have seen a number of significant advances in Hopf algebras. The best known is the introduction of quantum groups, which are Hopf algebras that arose in mathematical physics and now have connections to many areas of mathematics. In addition, several conjectures of Kaplansky have been solved, the most striking of which is a kind of Lagrange's theorem for Hopf algebras. Work on actions of Hopf algebras has unified earlier results on group actions, actions of Lie algebras, and graded algebras. This book brings together many of these recent developments from the viewpoint of the algebraic structure of Hopf algebras and their actions and coactions. Quantum groups are treated as an important example, rather than as an end in themselves. The two introductory chapters review definitions and basic facts; otherwise, most of the material has not previously appeared in book form. Providing an accessible introduction to Hopf algebras, this book would make an excellent graduate textbook for a course in Hopf algebras or an introduction to quantum groups.