Contents:Progress of RFQ and Superconducting Accelerators in China (C E Chen et al.)QCD Phase Transition in the Laboratory and in the Early Universe (B Sinha)Frontiers in Ultrafast Laser Science (W Sibbett)Asymmetries of Sea Quark Distributions in Baryons (M Alberg et al.)A Variational Approach to Many-Particle Systems (C K Kim et al.)Synchrotron Radiation Activities at KEK (M Kihara)Results of the UNU/ICTP PFF Network (S Lee)New Generation Positron-Atom Scattering Theories (K Ratnavelu)Superconducting Pairing of Quarks in QCD (N V Hieu & L T Tuong)Photon-Gated Persistent Spectral Hole Burning (Y X Nie & L Z Zhao)Wind Driven Circulation of the South China Sea (A Camerlengo)Effect of Soil Type on Environmental Terrestrial Gamma Radiation Dose in Johor State, Malaysia (A T Ramli et al.)Research in Optical Fibres Devices at Telekom Malaysia Photonics Laboratory (H B Ahmad et al.)Simplifying Complexity (W A T Wan Abdullah)Gravitational Wave Detection in the Laboratory (Y T Chen et al.)and other papers Readership: Theoretical physicists.

There is a great interest in improving the limits on neutron lifetime to the level of a precision of 0.1 s. The neutron lifetime is both an important fundamental quantity as well as a parameter influencing important processes such as nucleosynthesis (Helium production in the early universe) and the rate of energy production in the Sun.Aiming to create a roadmap of R&D for a next generation neutron lifetime experiment that can be endorsed by the North American neutron community, the focus of the workshop was on experiments using traps that utilize ultracold neutrons and confinement by a combination of magnetic and/or gravitational interaction in order to avoid systematic uncertainties introduced by neutron interactions with material walls. The papers in this volume summarize the limitations of present experiments, the discussion of new experiments in planning stage, and the discussion of systematic effects that must be addressed to achieve a lifetime measurement at an accuracy of 0.1 second.Cover image courtesy of Elena Fernández, Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The first part of the conference explores two major environmental concerns that arise from fuel use: (1) the prospect that the globe will become warmer as a result of emissions of carbon dioxide, and (2) the effect upon health of the fine particles emitted as combustion products. The conference focused on the fact that there was lack of data direct enough to enable us to predict an entirely satisfactory result, and that makes policy options particularly difficult. With regard to (1) above, in the second half of the 20th century there were major increases in anthropogenic C02 emissions, and it is generally agreed that these were responsible for an increase in C02 concentrations. But the relationship between global temperature and CO2 concentrations remains murky. The principal problem is that water vapor is a more important greenhouse gas than C02 and that the concentrations of water vapor vary widely in time and space. The approach to this problem is probably, but not certainly, a positive feedback effect: as temperature increases so does the water vapor leading to further temperature increases. Scientists associated with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tend to believe the general features of the models. Other scientists are often less convinced.