Preface Acknowledgments Author biography 1 Tokamak MHD equilibrium 1.1 The Grad-Shafranov equation 1.2 Toroidal flux coordinates 1.3 The tokamak force balance: the hoop force Bibliography 2 Ideal MHD instabilities 2.1 The global MHD spectrum 2.2 Internal and external global MHD modes 2.3 Radially localized modes: the Mercier criterion 2.4 The ballooning modes and ballooning representation 2.5 The peeling and free boundary ballooning modes 2.6 The toroidal Alfven eigenmodes 2.7 The kinetically driven MHD modes 2.8 Discussion Bibliography 3 Resistive MHD instabilities 3.1 The resistive MHD theory of Glasser, Greene and Johnson 3.2 The resistive MHD ballooning modes 3.3 The tearing mode and its coupling to interchange-type modes 3.4 Discussion: neoclassical tearing modes, etc Bibliography 4 Gyrokinetie theory 4.1 The general gyrokinetic formalism and equilibrium 4.2 The electrostatic gyrokinetic equation 4.3 Electrostatic drift waves 4.3.1 The slab-like branch 4.3.2 The toroidal branch 4.4 The electromagnetic gyrokinetic equation 4.5 FLR effects on the interchange modes 4.6 The kinetic ballooning mode theory 4.7 Discussion Bibliography 5 Physical interpretations of experimental observations 5.1 The tokamak confinement modes 5.2 Enhanced electron transport 5.3 Transport barriers 5.4 Nonlocal transport 5.5 The edge localized modes 5.6 Blob transport 5.7 Edge harmonic oscillations Bibliography 6 Concluding remarks Bibliography Appendix A Derivation of the gyrokinetics equations A. 1 The first harmonic solution of the gyrokinetic equation A.2 The gyrophase-averaged gyrokinetic equation A.3 The gyrokinetic vorticity equation ��݋��ӛ