Real Algebraic Geometry and Ordered Structures

This volume contains 16 carefully refereed articles by participants in the Special Semester and the AMS Special Session on Real Algebraic Geometry and Ordered Structures held at Louisiana State University and Southern University (Baton Rouge). The 23 contributors to this volume were among the 75 mathematicians from 15 countries who participated in the special semester. Topics include the topology of real algebraic curves (Hilbert's 16th problem), moduli of real algebraic curves, effective sums of squares of real forms (Hilbert's 17th problem), efficient real quantifier elimination, subanalytic sets and stratifications, semialgebraic singularity theory, radial vector fields, exponential functions and valuations on nonarchimedean ordered fields, valued field extensions, partially ordered and lattice-ordered rings, rings of continuous functions, spectra of rings, and abstract spaces of (higher-level) orderings and real places.