"A phenomenon which appears in nature, or human behavior, can sometimes be explained by saying that a certain potential function is maximized, or minimized. For example, the Hamiltonian mechanics, soapy films, size of an atom, business management, etc. In mathematics, a point where a given function attains an extreme value is called a critical point, or a singular point. The purpose of singularity theory is to explore the properties of singular points of functions and mappings. This is a volume on the proceedings of the fourth Japanese-Australian Workshop on Real and Complex Singularities held in Kobe, Japan. It consists of 11 original articles on singularities. Readers will be introduced to some important new notions for characterizations of singularities and several interesting results are delivered. In addition, current approaches to classical topics and state-of-the-art effective computational methods of invariants of singularities are also presented. This volume will be useful not only to the singularity theory specialists but also to general mathematicians."--Back cover.