Preface: Special issue on mathematical study on liquid crystals and related topics: Statics and dynamics

In recent years, materials related to liquid crystals have attracted many scientists due to their fascinating structures for potential applications and many challenging problems. These materials are ubiquitous in our daily life and understanding such materials are crucial to many applied areas such as in technology and gives rise to a variety of mathematical open questions which require new theories to be developed. This special issue of Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems is devoted to modelings, numerics and analysis of new developments in the study of the phenomena observed in the systems of these materials.
    The Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in the University of Cambridge, UK, ran a special program on the Mathematics of Liquid Crystals from January 7, 2013 to July 5, 2013. Many active researchers related to the topics ranging from computational and theoretical modeling to mathematical analysis took a part in the program, exchanged their knowledge and ideas, and conducted stimulating discussion on challenging issues in both modelings and analysis. New computational and theoretical results for statics and dynamics were reported after the program. This special issue consists of some of these results and papers from invited speakers of a special session in the 9th AIMS Conference on Dynamical Systems and Differential Equations held at Orlando, Florida, USA, July 1-7, 2012. We hope papers in this volume can provide the current issues of mathematical problems in liquid crystals and related topics.
    Final acceptance of all the papers in this volume were made by the normal referee procedure and standard practice of AIMS journals. We wish to thank all the referees who generously agreed to devote their time and effort to read and check all the papers carefully and give comments and recommendations. We also express our thanks to AIMS for the opportunity to publish this special issue and for the technical help.