LINEAR ALGEBRA AND ITS APPLICATIONS
             Special issue on the JOINT SPECTRAL RADIUS
             
                         Second call for papers
                           
The joint spectral radius is a measure of the maximal growth of
products of matrices taken from a set. Fuelled by applications in many
areas there has been intensive research on this topic over the last
two decades. This special issue aims to highlight the advances that
have been achieved in recent times and to generate a state of the art
account of the developments in algebraic and analytic theory of the
joint spectral radius, computational aspects and application areas.
Papers devoted to further subjects concerning long products of matrices are 
also welcome.


Theoretical developments in the area have used methods from diverse
mathematical fields. Computational complexity theory has been used to
show that in general the joint spectral radius is hard to
determine, while convex analysis lies at the foundation of many
results obtained on analytic properties, and methods from ergodic
theory can be used to characterize the continuous time version of the
joint spectral radius in the framework of stochastic dynamical systems.
In order to make the broad scope of methods visible we encourage
submissions from all areas that have an impact on the understanding of
the joint spectral radius ranging from matrix analysis, numerical
analysis, algebraic theory of matrix semigroups, computational
complexity theory, stability theory of switched linear systems,
spectral theory of semigroups of matrices. Furthermore, long products of 
matrices play a prominent role in certain areas in automata theory, 
iterated functions systems and various other fields. 

We note that depending on the authors the joint spectral radius is
also known as the maximal Lyapunov exponent or Lyapunov indicator, the
Bohl exponent or the exponential growth rate and we encourage the
submission of papers that create links to fields where notions similar
to the joint spectral radius are studied, e.g. papers on continuous
time versions of the joint spectral radius and extensions to infinite
dimensions.

The joint spectral radius has found numerous applications in diverse
areas; e.g. it has been used in coding theory to express the capacity
of certain channels, in the stability analysis of consensus algorithms, 
to quantify the smoothness of wavelets obtained via dilation equations, 
in combinatorial number theory, in probability to analyze the 
distributions of random power series,  in stability analysis of switched 
linear systems, in approximation theory to verify the convergence of 
subdivision algorithms,and in the theory of fractals and attractors. We 
particularly invite papers that explore applications in these or other 
areas. 

All papers submitted must meet the publication standards of Linear Algebra
and its Applications and will be refereed in the usual way. They should be
submitted to one of the special editors of this issue listed below by 31
December 2006. Submission via email by sending a ps or pdf file is encouraged.

Vincent Blondel
Department of Mathematical Engineering
Université catholique de Louvain
4 Avenue George Lemaitre
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Belgium
vincent.blondel@uclouvain.be

Micheal Karow
Department of Mathematics
Berlin University of Technology
Strasse des 17. Juni 136
10623 Berlin
Germany
karow@math.tu-berlin.de

Vladimir Protasov
Department of Mechanics and Mathematics
Moscow State University
Vorobyovy Gory 
119992 Moscow
Russia
vladimir_protassov@yahoo.com

Fabian Wirth
The Hamilton Institute
NUI Maynooth
Maynooth, Co. Kildare
Ireland
fabian.wirth@nuim.ie

The responsible editor-in-chief of the special issue is:

Hans Schneider
Department of Mathematics
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Van Vleck Hall
480 Lincoln Drive
Madison, Wisconsin 53706
U.S.A.
email: hans@math.wisc.edu