Robert Friedman – författare

Interferons: A Primer covers general information on interferon, including analysis, purification, production, properties, mechanism of action, and clinical uses. Organized into 10 chapters, the book starts with a short history of interferon''s discovery by Isaacs and Lindenmann, followed by topics on assays for interferon, such as factors affecting interferon assays and rapid biological assay. Chapters 3 to 6 discuss the purification, properties, production, antiviral action, and other functions of interferon. Chapters 7 and 8 examine the recovery from viral infection and clinical uses of interferon, with emphasis on treatment of human cancer. The concluding chapters focus on the application of interferon studies on two revolutionizing fields of biology, namely, the cloning of animal genes in microorganisms and the production of monoclonal antibodies. This book is intended for students, scientists, physicians, or educated laypersons who wish to know something about interferons, but do not plan carrying out research in this area.

This book is based on courses given at Columbia University on vector bun­ dles (1988) and on the theory of algebraic surfaces (1992), as well as lectures in the Park City lIAS Mathematics Institute on 4-manifolds and Donald­ son invariants. The goal of these lectures was to acquaint researchers in 4-manifold topology with the classification of algebraic surfaces and with methods for describing moduli spaces of holomorphic bundles on algebraic surfaces with a view toward computing Donaldson invariants. Since that time, the focus of 4-manifold topology has shifted dramatically, at first be­ cause topological methods have largely superseded algebro-geometric meth­ ods in computing Donaldson invariants, and more importantly because of and Witten, which have greatly sim­ the new invariants defined by Seiberg plified the theory and led to proofs of the basic conjectures concerning the 4-manifold topology of algebraic surfaces. However, the study of algebraic surfaces and the moduli spaces ofbundles on them remains a fundamen­ tal problem in algebraic geometry, and I hope that this book will make this subject more accessible. Moreover, the recent applications of Seiberg­ Witten theory to symplectic 4-manifolds suggest that there is room for yet another treatment of the classification of algebraic surfaces. In particular, despite the number of excellent books concerning algebraic surfaces, I hope that the half of this book devoted to them will serve as an introduction to the subject.

Ulises en San Juan relata la relación entre Wolf, un judío sobreviviente de un campo de concentración, que llegó a Puerto Rico para tratar de reconstruir su vida otra vez, y Carmen, una drogadicta. La novela se sitúa en 1980, y lleva al lector por un viaje al bajo mundo de San Juan, y a otras partes de la isla para conocer a los deshonestos, a los honestos y a los personajes profundamente humanos. El tema de la supervivencia se extiende a Stevie Díaz, un joven neorrican, que acaba de volver a la isla y busca, a través de su escritura, encontrar en dónde está verdaderamente, y a Doris Jackson, que se mudó a la isla para escapar de un esposo agresivo.

El mar que nos define es una novela que sigue las aventuras de Richie Pérez, un estudiante universitario de 20 años que vive en Puerto Rico. La novia de Richie fue asesinada por la policía durante una protesta contra la Marina en el campus de la universidad por las décadas que llevaban realizando ejercicios de bombardeo en las cosas de la isla de Vieques en Puerto Rico. Para recaudar fondos para un beca que lleve su nombre, Richie se vuelve una mula entre la isla y Estados Unidos, aprendiendo verdades dolorosas sobre la vida, el amor y las pérdidas en la camino de la vida.

Un reconocido artista puertorriqueño va en busca de la verdad de un posible pasado homicida de su difunto padre, Cornelius Rhoads, un médico estadounidense al que enviaron a la isla con fines investigativos. El médico declaró en una carta que había matado intencionalmente a ocho de sus pacientes debido a su desprecio por los «nativos». Las obsesiones personales y los eventos políticos colisionan a medida que los personajes de la novela luchan contra mentiras, identidades falsas, conexiones desconcertantes, guerras estadounidenses y colonialismo.

This book is based on courses given at Columbia University on vector bun­ dles (1988) and on the theory of algebraic surfaces (1992), as well as lectures in the Park City lIAS Mathematics Institute on 4-manifolds and Donald­ son invariants. The goal of these lectures was to acquaint researchers in 4-manifold topology with the classification of algebraic surfaces and with methods for describing moduli spaces of holomorphic bundles on algebraic surfaces with a view toward computing Donaldson invariants. Since that time, the focus of 4-manifold topology has shifted dramatically, at first be­ cause topological methods have largely superseded algebro-geometric meth­ ods in computing Donaldson invariants, and more importantly because of and Witten, which have greatly sim­ the new invariants defined by Seiberg plified the theory and led to proofs of the basic conjectures concerning the 4-manifold topology of algebraic surfaces. However, the study of algebraic surfaces and the moduli spaces ofbundles on them remains a fundamen­ tal problem in algebraic geometry, and I hope that this book will make this subject more accessible. Moreover, the recent applications of Seiberg­ Witten theory to symplectic 4-manifolds suggest that there is room for yet another treatment of the classification of algebraic surfaces. In particular, despite the number of excellent books concerning algebraic surfaces, I hope that the half of this book devoted to them will serve as an introduction to the subject.

This book is based on courses given at Columbia University on vector bun­ dles (1988) and on the theory of algebraic surfaces (1992), as well as lectures in the Park City lIAS Mathematics Institute on 4-manifolds and Donald­ son invariants. The goal of these lectures was to acquaint researchers in 4-manifold topology with the classification of algebraic surfaces and with methods for describing moduli spaces of holomorphic bundles on algebraic surfaces with a view toward computing Donaldson invariants. Since that time, the focus of 4-manifold topology has shifted dramatically, at first be­ cause topological methods have largely superseded algebro-geometric meth­ ods in computing Donaldson invariants, and more importantly because of and Witten, which have greatly sim­ the new invariants defined by Seiberg plified the theory and led to proofs of the basic conjectures concerning the 4-manifold topology of algebraic surfaces. However, the study of algebraic surfaces and the moduli spaces ofbundles on them remains a fundamen­ tal problem in algebraic geometry, and I hope that this book will make this subject more accessible. Moreover, the recent applications of Seiberg­ Witten theory to symplectic 4-manifolds suggest that there is room for yet another treatment of the classification of algebraic surfaces. In particular, despite the number of excellent books concerning algebraic surfaces, I hope that the half of this book devoted to them will serve as an introduction to the subject.

The lectures in this volume provide a perspective on how 4-manifold theory was studied before the discovery of modern-day Seiberg-Witten theory. One reason the progress using the Seiberg-Witten invariants was so spectacular was that those studying $SU(2)$-gauge theory had more than ten years' experience with the subject. The tools had been honed, the correct questions formulated, and the basic strategies well understood. The knowledge immediately bore fruit in the technically simpler environment of the Seiberg-Witten theory. Gauge theory long predates Donaldson's applications of the subject to 4-manifold topology, where the central concern was the geometry of the moduli space. One reason for the interest in this study is the connection between the gauge theory moduli spaces of a Kahler manifold and the algebro-geometric moduli space of stable holomorphic bundles over the manifold. The extra geometric richness of the $SU(2)$-moduli spaces may one day be important for purposes beyond the algebraic invariants that have been studied to date. It is for this reason that the results presented in this volume will be essential.

Part treasure hunter, part problem solver, and part keen observer of human nature,Robert Friedman has spent decades buying, restoring, and finding new homes forpianos built by one of the finest manufacturers in the world: Steinway & Sons.In his search for grand pianos that could be brought back to their originalmagnificence, Bob--aka the Steinway Hunter--has traveled from the Canadian border tosouth Florida and west to the Mississippi River. Navigating through hills andhollows and along dark city roads before the era of GPS and cell phones, he reliedon pay phones and paper maps to locate old country churches, opulent mansions filledwith surprises, and the homes of an astonishingly wide range of people, from genteelelderly ladies to a down-on-their-luck family about to lose their ramshackle homeand on to a faded but wily Southern belle intent on revisiting her glory days andgetting top dollar for her piano at the same time. Throughout his trove of storiesand experiences, Bob''s love of music, family, friends, and colleagues shinesthrough. By turns humorous and poignant, the Steinway Hunter''s accounts of hisjourneys give us a look into a life spent in one of the best ways imaginable,combining a passion for music and fine pianos with a desire to bring about thehappiest possible ending not only for his clients, but also for the venerable,beautiful pianos he seeks out along the way.

In 1961 Smale established the generalized Poincare Conjecture in dimensions greater than or equal to 5 [129] and proceeded to prove the h-cobordism theorem [130]. This result inaugurated a major effort to classify all possible smooth and topological structures on manifolds of dimension at least 5. By the mid 1970's the main outlines of this theory were complete, and explicit answers (especially concerning simply connected manifolds) as well as general qualitative results had been obtained. As an example of such a qualitative result, a closed, simply connected manifold of dimension 2: 5 is determined up to finitely many diffeomorphism possibilities by its homotopy type and its Pontrjagin classes. There are similar results for self-diffeomorphisms, which, at least in the simply connected case, say that the group of self-diffeomorphisms of a closed manifold M of dimension at least 5 is commensurate with an arithmetic subgroup of the linear algebraic group of all automorphisms of its so-called rational minimal model which preserve the Pontrjagin classes [131]. Once the high dimensional theory was in good shape, attention shifted to the remaining, and seemingly exceptional, dimensions 3 and 4. The theory behind the results for manifolds of dimension at least 5 does not carryover to manifolds of these low dimensions, essentially because there is no longer enough room to maneuver. Thus new ideas are necessary to study manifolds of these "low" dimensions.

In 1961 Smale established the generalized Poincare Conjecture in dimensions greater than or equal to 5 [129] and proceeded to prove the h-cobordism theorem [130]. This result inaugurated a major effort to classify all possible smooth and topological structures on manifolds of dimension at least 5. By the mid 1970's the main outlines of this theory were complete, and explicit answers (especially concerning simply connected manifolds) as well as general qualitative results had been obtained. As an example of such a qualitative result, a closed, simply connected manifold of dimension 2: 5 is determined up to finitely many diffeomorphism possibilities by its homotopy type and its Pontrjagin classes. There are similar results for self-diffeomorphisms, which, at least in the simply connected case, say that the group of self-diffeomorphisms of a closed manifold M of dimension at least 5 is commensurate with an arithmetic subgroup of the linear algebraic group of all automorphisms of its so-called rational minimal model which preserve the Pontrjagin classes [131]. Once the high dimensional theory was in good shape, attention shifted to the remaining, and seemingly exceptional, dimensions 3 and 4. The theory behind the results for manifolds of dimension at least 5 does not carryover to manifolds of these low dimensions, essentially because there is no longer enough room to maneuver. Thus new ideas are necessary to study manifolds of these "low" dimensions.

In 1961 Smale established the generalized Poincare Conjecture in dimensions greater than or equal to 5 [129] and proceeded to prove the h-cobordism theorem [130]. This result inaugurated a major effort to classify all possible smooth and topological structures on manifolds of dimension at least 5. By the mid 1970''s the main outlines of this theory were complete, and explicit answers (especially concerning simply connected manifolds) as well as general qualitative results had been obtained. As an example of such a qualitative result, a closed, simply connected manifold of dimension 2: 5 is determined up to finitely many diffeomorphism possibilities by its homotopy type and its Pontrjagin classes. There are similar results for self-diffeomorphisms, which, at least in the simply connected case, say that the group of self-diffeomorphisms of a closed manifold M of dimension at least 5 is commensurate with an arithmetic subgroup of the linear algebraic group of all automorphisms of its so-called rational minimal model which preserve the Pontrjagin classes [131]. Once the high dimensional theory was in good shape, attention shifted to the remaining, and seemingly exceptional, dimensions 3 and 4. The theory behind the results for manifolds of dimension at least 5 does not carryover to manifolds of these low dimensions, essentially because there is no longer enough room to maneuver. Thus new ideas are necessary to study manifolds of these "low" dimensions.