Noise in physical systems - as a consequence of the corpuscular nature of matter - conveys information about microscopic mechanisms determining the macroscopic behavior of the system. Besides being a source of information, noise also represents a source of annoying disturbances which affect information transMission along a physical system. Therefore, noise analysis can promote our insight into the behavior of a physical system, as well as our knowledge of the natural constraints imposed upon physical-information transmission channels and devices. In recent years the continuous scientific and technical interest in noise problems has led to a remarkable progress in the understanding of noise phenomena. This progress is reflected by the rich material presented at the Fifth International Conference on Noise in Physical Systems. The conference papers originally published in these proceedings cover the various aspects of today's noise research in the fields of solid-state devices, l/f-noise, magnetic and superconducting materials, measuring methods, and theory of fluctuations. Each session of the conference was introduced by one or two invited review lectures which are included in these proceedings in full length. The 12 invited papers and more than 40 contributed papers on specific topics (only three of them have been omitted from the proceedings since they will be published elsewhere) provide a comprehensive survey of the current state-of-the-art and recent advances of noise analysis.

In recent years kinetic theory has developed in many areas of the physical sciences and engineering, and has extended the borders of its traditional fields of application. New applications in traffic flow engineering, granular media modeling, and polymer and phase transition physics have resulted in new numerical algorithms which depart from traditional stochastic Monte--Carlo methods. This monograph is a self-contained presentation of such recently developed aspects of kinetic theory, as well as a comprehensive account of the fundamentals of the theory. Emphasizing modeling techniques and numerical methods, the book provides a unified treatment of kinetic equations not found in more focused theoretical or applied works. The book is divided into two parts. Part I is devoted to the most fundamental kinetic model: the Boltzmann equation of rarefied gas dynamics. Additionally, widely used numerical methods for the discretization of the Boltzmann equation are reviewed: the Monte--Carlo method, spectral methods, and finite-difference methods. Part II considers specific applications: plasma kinetic modeling using the Landau--Fokker--Planck equations, traffic flow modeling, granular media modeling, quantum kinetic modeling, and coagulation-fragmentation problems. Modeling and Computational Methods of Kinetic Equations will be accessible to readers working in different communities where kinetic theory is important: graduate students, researchers and practitioners in mathematical physics, applied mathematics, and various branches of engineering. The work may be used for self-study, as a reference text, or in graduate-level courses in kinetic theory and its applications.

The development of high temperature superconductors is one of the major technological discoveries of this century. The impact and interactions from the scientific, technical, business and political aspects will be presented.

Greiner's lectures, which underlie these volumes, are internationally noted for their clarity, their completeness and for the effort that he has devoted to making physics an integral whole; his enthusiasm for his science is contagious and shines through almost every page. These volumes represent only a part of a unique and Herculean effort to make all of theoretical physics accessible to the interested student. Beyond that, they are of enormous value to the professional physicist and to all others working with quantum phenomena. Again and again the reader will find that, after dipping into a particular volume to review a specific topic, he will end up browsing, caught up by often fascinating new insights and developments with which he had not previously been familiar. Having used a number of Greiner's volumes in their original German in my teaching and research at Yale, I welcome these new and revised English translations and would recommend them enthusiastically to anyone searching for a coherent overview of physics.