Dissipative structures and weak turbulence

The fundamental principles of turbulence and instability theory are presented in a unified analysis emphasizing recent developments. Topics addressed include evolution and stability, instability mechanisms, thermal convection, low-dimensional dynamical systems, systems which exhibit nonperiodic behavior, the characterization of temporal chaos, pattern formation in weakly confined systems, applications of the envelope formalism, and the dynamics of textures and turbulence. Considered in appendices are macroscopic dynamics, the differential calculus of initial and boundary-value problems, and numerical simulation techniques.