0. Preliminaries. - 0. 1. Hilbert-Space Operators. - 0. 2. Spectrum of an Operator. - 0. 3. Convergence and Stability. - 0. 4. Projections and Isometries. - 0. 5. Invariant Subspaces. - 0. 6. Spectral Theorem. - 1. Equivalence. - 1. 1. Parts. - 1. 2. Norms. - 2. Shifts. - 2. 1. Unilateral Shifts. - 2. 2. Bilateral Shifts. - 3. Contractions. - 3. 1. The Strong Limits of {T*nTn} and {TnT*n}. - 3. 2. The Isometry V on R(A)-. - 4. Quasisimilarity. - 4. 1. Invariant Subspaces. - 4. 2. Hyperinvariant Subspaces. - 4. 3. Contractions Quasisimilar to a Unitary Operator. - 5. Decompositions. - 5. 1. Nagy-Foia?Langer Decomposition. - 5. 2. von Neumann-Wold Decomposition. - 5. 3. A Decomposition for Contractions with A = A2. - 6. Models. - 6. 1. Rota's Model. - 6. 2. de Branges-Rovnyak Refinement. - 6. 3. Durszt Extension. - 7. Applications. - 7. 1. A Pattern for Contractions. - 7. 2. Foguel Decomposition. - 8. Similarity. - 8. 1. Power Boundedness. - 8. 2. Weak and Strong Stability. - References. Language: English