This meeting on Hadron Spectroscopy and the Confinement Problem took place from June 27 to July 8, 1995. The first four days were at Queen Mary and Westfield College, London and the last six at the University College of Swansea, Wales. The reason for the split sites was a question of accomodating the 54 students and 12 lecturers. However, it was enjoyed by all concerned, providing the opportunity to sample the nightlife of London one week and enjoy the delightful coastal area around Swansea the following week. The meeting immediately preceded the Hadron '95 conference in Manchester. The contents of this volume run roughly parallel to the order of the lectures. Martin Faessler's brief and that of Madjid Boutemeur was to review experimental tech niques as well as physics results. We have tried to review all the areas which are currently active experimentally. This means mostly Light Meson Spectroscopy. However, Simon Capstick gave us a welcome review of Baryon Spectroscopy and the coming CEBAF program. This is an opportunity to thank NATO for their generous financial support, and also the two host institutions for excellent coordination and an enjoyable stay.

The 20-year-old problem of the confinement and the resulting spectrum of the bound states is central to quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Many approaches have been tried starting from different points of view: the potential theory, the Bethe-Salpeter equation, string and flux tube models, bag models, vacuum structure, current algebra, lattice theory, and numerical simulations. Phenomenological assumptions and first-principle theoretical results or indications have been combined. Many partial successes have been attained, but a unified and comprehensive treatment is still lacking.In recent years, new attention has been given to the problem, both in terms of theoretical developments and for the purpose of evaluating the spectrum and other properties of the particles. In particular, attention has been focussed on areas like numerical simulations, the derivation of the potential, the use of the Bethe-Salpeter equation, the connection between the potential and the chiral symmetry approach.This workshop was an opportunity for a synthesis and a comparison of the different points of view.

The primary objective of the book on "Contemporary Topics in Medium Energy Physics" is to help the reader in exploring important frontier research, as of the year of 1992, in the area of medium energy physics. The book is the result of the multi-pronged efforts by the authors who were invited to speak at the Second German Chinese Symposium on "Medium Energy Physics" (September 7-10, 1992, Bochum, Germany). The premise of the meeting is to investigate primarily how quantum chromo dynamics (QCD), the candidate theory of strong interactions, manifests itself in high energy and nuclear physics. This book is divided into four parts: (i) field-theoretic treatments in QCD; (ii) effective chirally symmetric models and QCD; (iii) electroweak physics in general; and (iv) topological solutions. The focus is more on exposition of new ideas, rather than a comprehensive review of the current status, concerning these subjects, as of the year of 1992. As there are many distinctly different research areas in contemporary intermediate energy physics, we could only choose a few topics of current interest, especially those which are related, directly or indirectly, to the structural studies of the nucleon (proton or neutron). Fortunately, there are in recent years merging trends in these studies: There is a call for an alternative, and more efficient, method to handle problems related to strong interactions (as described by QCD). This is the focus of the papers included in Part I.

This book provides an update on our understanding of strong interaction, with theoretical and experimental highlights included. It is divided into five sections. The first section is devoted to the investigations into and the latest results on the mechanism of quark confinement. The second and third sections focus respectively on light and heavy quarks (effective field theories, Schwinger-Dyson approach and lattice QCD results). The fourth section deals with the deconfinement mechanism and quark-gluon plasma formation signals. The last section presents highlights of experiments, new physics beyond QCD, and nonperturbative approaches in other theories (strings and SUSY) that may be useful in QCD.

This book provides an update on our understanding of strong interaction, with theoretical and experimental highlights included. It is divided into five sections. The first section is devoted to the investigations into and the latest results on the mechanism of quark confinement. The second and third sections focus respectively on light and heavy quarks (effective field theories, SchwingerOCoDyson approach and lattice QCD results). The fourth section deals with the deconfinement mechanism and quarkOCogluon plasma formation signals. The last section presents highlights of experiments, new physics beyond QCD, and nonperturbative approaches in other theories (strings and SUSY) that may be useful in QCD."

The field of low-dimensional conductors has been very active for more than twenty years. It has grown continuously and both the inorganic and organic materials have remark able properties, such as charge and spin density waves and superconductivity. The discovery of superconductivity at high temperature in copper-based quasi two-dimensional conducting oxides nearly ten years ago has further enlarged the field and stimulated new research on inorganic conductors. It was obviously impossible to cover such a broad field in a ten day Institute and it seemed pertinent to concentrate on inorganic conductors, excluding the high Tc superconducting oxides. In this context, it was highly desirable to include both physics and chemistry in the same Institute in order to tighten or in some cases to establish links between physicists and chemists. This Advanced Study Institute is the continuation of a series of similar ones which have taken place every few years since 1974. 73 participants coming from 13 countries have taken part in this School at the beautiful site of the Centre de Physique des Houches in the Mont-Blanc mountain range. The scientific programme included more than forty lectures and seminars, two poster sessions and ten short talks. Several discussion sessions were organized for the evenings, one on New Materials, one on New Topics and one on the special problem of the Fermi and Luttinger liquids. The scientific activity was kept high from the beginning to the end of the Institute.

The 1997 International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics was held at the campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at the Jerusalem Renaissance Hotel, from August 19th to August 25th, 1997. This was the first time that the European Physical Society had its High Energy Physics Conference outside the boundary of Europe. A total of 550 physicists participated in the conference with a total of 250 presentations in the parallel sessions and 26 presentations in the plenary sessions. The Board of the of the High Energy and Particle Physics division (HEPP) of the EPS acted as the Scientific Organizing Committee. The Board acknowl edges the help of the International Advisory Committee as well as that of the Local Organizing Committee. The conference was co-organized by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and by the Weizmann Institute of Science, with important help by physi cists from the Israeli Institute of Technology (Technion) and the Tel Aviv University.