The conference NSTAR 2000 was part of a series of conferences and workshops that began in New York in 1988. Since then, the field of excited nucleons and hadron structure has developed enormously, and the scope has broadened. Most significantly, new experimental facilities have come into operation, allowing precise measurements of resonance couplings and transition form factors. The search for ?missing? quark model states and gluonic excitations in complex hadronic channels is now possible.On the theory side, new and promising developments have emerged: quark models with meson degrees of freedom, hybrid baryon models, and studies of baryons in the limit of many colors. For the first time, lattice QCD has been employed to calculate masses of excited nucleons. Nucleon resonances are now recognized as providing significant contributions to the nucleon spin sum rules, as well as the Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn and Bjorken integrals, at finite momentum transfer.

Dramatic progress has been made in all branches of physics since the National Research Council's 1986 decadal survey of the field. The Physics in a New Era series explores these advances and looks ahead to future goals. The series includes assessments of the major subfields and reports on several smaller subfields, and preparation has begun on an overview volume on the unity of physics, its relationships to other fields, and its contributions to national needs. Nuclear Physics is the latest volume of the series. The book describes current activity in understanding nuclear structure and symmetries, the behavior of matter at extreme densities, the role of nuclear physics in astrophysics and cosmology, and the instrumentation and facilities used by the field. It makes recommendations on the resources needed for experimental and theoretical advances in the coming decade.

This book is devoted to the investigation of the strongly interacting hadrons — to a quark model operating with effective color particles, constituent quarks, massive effective gluons and diquarks. The study of strong interactions based on effective constituent particles requires a solid ground of experimental data, which we now have at our disposal with the serious progress made in the investigation of hadrons, especially meson states.The present understanding of QCD applied to strong interactions can be distorted by prejudices. Therefore, the way followed by the quark model is to rely on the experiment and to restore the effective Hamiltonian on the basis of QCD on the one hand, and, on the other, of the spectral integral method.Baryon-baryon and antibaryon-baryon interactions are studied with the purpose of unambiguous applications of the written formulae to the interpretation of experimental data — to the observation of new meson and baryon resonances. The technique used is the spin-orbital momentum expansion of the amplitude. This method is our basic approach to the proper treatment of experimental data. The photon-induced reactions are also considered and the problem of form factors is discussed.

The conference NSTAR 2000 was part of a series of conferences and workshops that began in New York in 1988. Since then, the field of excited nucleons and hadron structure has developed enormously, and the scope has broadened. Most significantly, new experimental facilities have come into operation, allowing precise measurements of resonance couplings and transition form factors. The search for “missing” quark model states and gluonic excitations in complex hadronic channels is now possible.On the theory side, new and promising developments have emerged: quark models with meson degrees of freedom, hybrid baryon models, and studies of baryons in the limit of many colors. For the first time, lattice QCD has been employed to calculate masses of excited nucleons. Nucleon resonances are now recognized as providing significant contributions to the nucleon spin sum rules, as well as the Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn and Bjorken integrals, at finite momentum transfer.

Intended for graduate students, advanced undergraduates and research staff in particle physics and related disciplines and will also be of interest to physicists not working in this field who want an overview of the present development of the subject.

The 14th RCNP OSAKA International Symposium on Nuclear Reaction Dynamics of Nucleon-Hadron Many Body System was held in Osaka from December 6 to 9, 1995. The symposium covered current topics from Nucleon Spins and Mesons in Nuclei to Quark Lepton Nuclear Physics. Thus it included the field of hadron/nuclear physics from sub-GeV to multi-GeV energy region, as well as recent activities and development at RCNP. It was also intended to be a kind of winter school for young researchers/graduate students.This proceedings consists of the invited talks and lectures presented by leading physicists in the field and short oral presentations.