The field of phase transitions and critical phenomena continues to be active in research, producing a steady stream of interesting and fruitful results. It has moved into a central place in condensed matter studies. Statistical physics, and more specifically, the theory of transitions between states of matter, more or less defines what we know about 'everyday' matter and its transformations. The major aim of this serial is to provide review articles that can serve as standard references for research workers in the field, and for graduate students and others wishing to obtain reliable information on important recent developments.

VOLUME 19 TABLE OF CONTENTS: -- General Preface -- Preface to Volume 19 -- Chapter 1: Exactly solvable models for many-body systems far from equilibrium -- Gunter M. Schütz -- Introduction -- Quantum Hamiltonian formalism for the master equation -- Integrable stochastic processes -- Asymptotic behaviour -- Equivalences of stochastic processes -- The symmetric exclusion process -- Driven lattice gases -- Reaction-diffusion processes -- Free-fermion systems -- Experimental realizations of integrable reaction-diffusion systems -- Acknowledgements -- A. The two-dimensional vertex model -- Universality of interface fluctuations -- Exact solution for empty-interval probabilities in the ASEP with open boundaries -- Frequently-used notation -- Chapter 2: Polymerized membranes, a review -- Kay J̲rg Wiese -- Introduction and outline -- Basic properties of membranes -- Field theoretic treatment of tethered membranes -- Some useful tools and relation to polymer theory -- Proof of perturbative renormalizability -- Calculations at 2-loop order -- Extracting the physical information: Extrapolations -- Other critical exponents -- The tricritical point -- Variants -- Dynamics -- Disorder and non-conserved forces -- N-colored membranes -- Large orders -- Conclusions -- Appendices -- Exercises with solutions -- References.

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