The XVIII Lisbon Autumn School brought together physicists from different areas, ranging from QCD to condensed matter. This subject will be of ever-growing importance in the coming years. The topics covered are: Anomalies, Physical Charges, Chiral Symmetry, Vortices (Superconductivity, Solitons, Kosterlitz-Thouless Transitions), Non-trivial Topology on the Lattice, Confinement (Wilson Loops and Strings, Instantons, Abelian Higgs Model, Dual QCD).

The problem of quark confinement is one of the classic unsolved problems of particle physics and is fundamental to our understanding of the physics of the strong interaction and the behaviour of non-Abelian gauge theories in general. The confinement problem is also are area in which concepts from topology and techniques of computational physics both find important applications. This volume contains a snapshot of current research in this field as of January 2002. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of topological field configurations such as centre vortices and monopoles in proposed confinement mechanisms. Other topics covered include colour superconductivity, instantons and chiral symmetry breaking, matrix models and the construction of chiral gauge theories. Readership: Research scientists and graduate students of high energy physics and nuclear physics.

New theories are explored and discussed on establishing relations between the fundamental theory of strong interactions, known as QCD, and experiment. Powerful theoretical models, known as effective theories, based on symmetries of QCD, have been developed to address the non-perturbative regime of QCD in an approximate, yet quantitatively controllable way. The present workshop focussed on the most recent developments in this area. New results on meson and baryon physics are discussed as well and new directions towards the possible experimental confirmation of nuclear/quark matter and quark-gluon plasma are indicated.

The goal of these notes is to provide a fast introduction to symplectic geometry for graduate students with some knowledge of differential geometry, de Rham theory and classical Lie groups. This text addresses symplectomorphisms, local forms, contact manifolds, compatible almost complex structures, Kaehler manifolds, hamiltonian mechanics, moment maps, symplectic reduction and symplectic toric manifolds. It contains guided problems, called homework, designed to complement the exposition or extend the reader's understanding. There are by now excellent references on symplectic geometry, a subset of which is in the bibliography of this book. However, the most efficient introduction to a subject is often a short elementary treatment, and these notes attempt to serve that purpose. This text provides a taste of areas of current research and will prepare the reader to explore recent papers and extensive books on symplectic geometry where the pace is much faster. For this reprint numerous corrections and clarifications have been made, and the layout has been improved.

Extreme weather and climate events, interacting with exposed and vulnerable human and natural systems, can lead to disasters. This Special Report explores the social as well as physical dimensions of weather- and climate-related disasters, considering opportunities for managing risks at local to international scales. SREX was approved and accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on 18 November 2011 in Kampala, Uganda.

The geography of networks and R&D collaborations, in particular the spatial dimension of interactions between organisations performing joint R&D, have attracted a burst of attention in the last decade, both in the scientific study of the networks and in the policy sector. The volume is intended to bring together a selection of articles providing novel theoretical and empirical insights into the geographical dynamics of such networks and R&D collaborations, using new, systematic data sources and employing cutting-edge spatial analysis and spatial econometric techniques. It comprises a section on analytic advances and methodology and two thematic sections on structure and spatial characteristics of R&D networks and the impact of R&D networks and policy implications. The edited volume provides a collection of high-level research contributions with an aim to contribute to the recent debate in economic geography and regional science on how the structure of formal and informal networks modifies and influences the spatial and temporal diffusion of knowledge.