This volume is based on the proceedings of the International Symposium on "Strangeness in Nuclear and Hadronic Systems (SENDAI08)," which is the third in a series of symposia on nuclear physics involving strangeness following SENDAI98 and SENDAI03. With the expectation of the completion of new accelerator facilities such as J-PARC and other new experimental facilities, recent theoretical and experimental results and future prospects of strangeness nuclear physics are discussed in great depth by leading experts of the field. The topics involved are electromagnetic production of strangeness, structure and decay of hypernuclei, hyperon-nucleon and hyperon-hyperon interactions, among others. It will also serve as a good textbook for studying the current status of strangeness in nuclear and hadronic physics.

This symposium focused on new developments in the fields of experimental and theoretical nuclear physics which will help us to better understand subatomic physics, including the new quark-gluon plasma matter. The participants also reported on new developments in instrumentation, including large-scale facilities in China and Japan, such as accelerators and beamlines that will be essential for future work.

The book is a collection of papers from the Proceedings of the 5th Italy-Japan Symposium 'Recent Achievements and Perspectives in Nuclear Physics', held in Naples as part of the framework of the INFN-RIKEN Research Collaboration Program. The meeting was devoted to recent achievements and new challenges in the different fields of nuclear physics, with the aim to promote new collaborations between the two communities and thereby enhance the development of nuclear physics in the two countries. Particularly interesting are the topics dedicated to radioactive beams and innovative instrumentation: the prospects for future accelerators and experimental setups as well as novel future research directions. These projects are of key importance for the future of heavy ion nuclear physics.