IntroductionThis book is devoted to some recent mathematical developments which cover several topics including Cauchy problem, Fredholm operators, spectral theory, and block operator matrices, both dealing with linear operators. Of course, these topics play a crucial role in many branches of mathematics and also in numerous applications as they are intimately related to the stability of the underlying physical systems.One of the objectives of this book is the study of the classical Riesz theory of polynomially compact operators, in order to establish the existence results of the second kind operator equations, hence allowing to describe the spectrum, multiplicities, and localization of the eigenvalues of polynomially compact operators. Fredholm theory and perturbation results are also widely investigated. The description of the large time behavior of solutions to an abstract Cauchy problem on Banach spaces without restriction on the initial data is studied. Further, the essential state of the art of research and essential pseudo-spectra of closed, densely defined, and linear operators subjected to additive perturbations is outlined. The spectral theory of block operator matrices is of major interest, since it describes coupled systems of partial differential equations of mixed order and type. For this reason, an important part of this book is devoted to develop essential spectra of 2 2 and 3 3 block operator matrices. Based on the spectral graph theory (which is an active research area), we are interested in the study of the adjacency matrix and the discrete Laplacian acting on forms. Most of the results of this book are motivated by physical transport problems for which we address our applications at the end of the book. Now, let us describe its contents.