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During the past few decades there has been increasing interest inthe studyof complexitywithaview tobetterunderstandphysical,biological,economicand social systems. The speci?c features of complexitydealing with nonequil- rium phenomena are intimately connected with statisticaldynamics andform one of the growing research areas inmodern nonlinear physics. These studies encompass the ideas of self-organization, phase transition, critical phen- ena, self-organized criticality and turbulence. In this book we have tried to bring together into a coherent account the recent developments in the study of nonequilibrium phenomena in plasmas. The complexity of plasmas is well recognized, arising mainly from its - herent nonlinearity and far from equilibrium nature, aspects that are actively being studied now. The nonequilibrium behavior of plasmas is evident in the naturalsetting,forexample,intheEarth'smagnetosphere.Similarly,laboratory plasmas like fusion bottles also have their fair share of complex behavior. The common issues of nonequilibrium phenomena in plasmas motivated us to c- veneaworkshopinAhmedabad,IndiaduringMarch2001.Thisvolumederives from the proceedings of the workshop, which brought together scientists from a broad spectrum of research areas. These articles present the studies of c- plexity in the context of nonequilibrium phenomena using theory, modeling, simulations and experiments, both in the laboratory and in nature. The?rstgroupofarticlesinSection1representsacrosssectionoftherecent developments in the study of complexity in space plasmas. The ?rst chapter is an overview of the current developments and the different paradigms used to study complexity, mainly of geospace plasmas. The ubiquitous global and multiscale phenomena in the Earth's magnetosphere have been studied using the frameworksof phase transitions, self-organized criticality and turbulence.

Cosmology --- Astrophysics --- Mathematical physics --- Plasma physics --- Atomic physics --- astrofysica --- plasmafysica --- wiskunde --- fysica --- kosmologie