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Tsallis’ non-extensive thermostatistics (Tsallis et al., Physica A 261 (1998) 534; Tsallis, in: Abe, Okamoto (Eds.), Nonextensive Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Lecture Notes in Physics, Springer, Berlin, 2000; Tsallis, Braz. J. Phys. 29 (1991) 1; Plastino and Plastino, in: Ludena (Ed.), Condensed Matter Theories, Nova Science Publishers, New York, USA, 1996, p. 341; Plastino and Plastino, Braz. J. Phys. 29 (1999) 79) is by now recognized as a new paradigm for statistical mechanical considerations. In a nonextensive scenario, however, the concept of temperature should be handled with some care, as some difficulties ensue (Tsallis, 2000). In this work we discuss this problem and reach some useful conclusions.

This is an introduction to the volume of Lecture Notes in Physics on “Strongly interacting matter in magnetic fields”. The volume combines contributions written by a number of experts on different aspects of the problem. The response of QCD matter to intense magnetic fields has attracted a lot of interest recently. On the theoretical side, this interest stems from the possibility to explore the plethora of novel phenomena arising from the interplay of magnetic field with QCD dynamics. On the experimental side, the interest is motivated by the recent results on the behavior of quark-gluon plasma in a strong magnetic field created in relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC. The purpose of this introduction is to provide a brief overview and a guide to the individual contributions where these topics are covered in detail.

Lectures given at the CNRS Summer School on Solar Astrophysics, Oleron, France, 25-29 May 1998, edited by P.-P. Rozelot, L. Klein and J.-C. Vial, Lecture Notes in Physics: Vol. 553, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York, 2000. VIII+214 pp., DM 104.00, hardbound (ISBN 3-540-67595-7)

This is an introduction to the theory of decoherence with an emphasis on its microscopic origins and on a dynamic description. The text corresponds to a chapter soon to be published in: A. Buchleitner, C. Viviescas, and M. Tiersch (Eds.), Entanglement and Decoherence. Foundations and Modern Trends, Lecture Notes in Physics, Vol 768, Springer, Berlin (2009)

The beam-beam interaction in electron-positron linear colliders shows very di erent aspects from that in storage rings. The single-pass nature of the linear colliders allows drastic deformation of the bunch shape during one collision. Also, under the very strong electro-magnetic eld together with the high beam energy, phenomena which are not important in storage rings come into play, namely the phenomena involving the quantum eld theory. The synchrotron radiation in the beam-beam eld, called beamstrahlung, becomes extremely energetic. The strong eld can even create electronpositron pairs from the beamstrahlung photons. In the present lecture note both the classical and quantum phenomena are described. KEK Preprint 91-2, April 1991 Lecture at 1990 US-CERN School on Particle Accelerators, Nov.7-14, 1990, Hilton Head Island, So. Carolina, USA. Lecture Notes in Physics 400. Frontiers of Particle Beams: Intensity Limitations, Springer Verlag, pp. 415-445. Revised Nov. 1992. Printed. April 7, 1995 BEAM-BEAM PHENOMENA IN LINEAR COLLIDERS Kaoru Yokoya and Pisin Cheny Natinal Laboratory for High Energy Physics, Oho, Tsukuba-shi, Ibaraki, 305, Japan yStanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University, Stanford, CA94309, USA

Note: Lecture Notes in Physics Reference LIN-CONF-1999-006 Record created on 2007-05-22, modified on 2016-08-08

An algorithm is proposed for the simulation of unsteady viscous stratified compressible flows. The advantage of the method is its capability to deal with a broad range of subsonic Mach numbers, including nearly incompressible flows, with a single modelling, based on the fully compressible Navier-Stokes equations. The method is second-order accurate both in space and time. To remove the stiffness of the numerical problem due to the large disparity between the flow and the acoustic wave speeds at low Mach number, an approximate Newton method, based on artificial compressibility, is used. After a detailed description of the method, the accuracy of the algorithm is checked by computing compressible and incompressible benchmark test cases. Results of flows over a backward facing step with or without stratification effects for a Reynolds number of 800 are compared with the steady solution of incompressible methods, The computation of a compressible natural convection allows to evaluate the accuracy of the method for flow including significant compressibility effects, whereas numerical results of a Poiseuille-Benard channel flow for a Reynolds number of 10 demonstrate the efficiency of the present algorithm to compute unsteady hows. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

A summer school on `Ageing and the glass transition' was held at the University of Luxembourg on 18–24 September 2005. It brought together about 60 scientists actively studying the related fields of physical ageing and of the thermodynamics of glass-forming systems when undergoing a glass transition. The programme of the school can be found on the homepage ( http://www.theorie1.physik.uni-erlangen.de/sommerschule.html). The school contained both invited lectures and contributed talks and posters. This volume presents the works contributed to the summer school, while the invited lectures will be published elsewhere (M Henkel, M Pleimling and R Sanctuary (eds), Ageing and the glass transition, Springer Lecture Notes in Physics, Springer (Heidelberg 2006)). We have tried to encourage the exchange between theorists and experimentalists to which the topics treated in these proceedings bear witness. They range from experimental studies on the mechanical response of glasses, biopolymers, and granular materials to the effects of ageing on the long-time modification of the properties of glass-forming polymers, from simulational and analytical studies of theoretical models describing the non-equilibrium statistical mechanics of systems displaying the dynamical scaling typical of ageing phenomena and which are thought to capture essential aspects of glass-forming materials close to a glass transition to more mathematically oriented investigations on the symmetries of these systems. The `Grande Region' Sar-Lor-Lux is leading European efforts to overcome national and linguistic barriers, with the view of creating a common academic education. Physics has a standing internationalist tradition and the existing trinational integrated course in Physics SLLS (see the homepage http://www.uni-saarland.de/fak7/krueger/integ/sll/d/cursus.htm) is busily developing ways and means towards this goal, in particular through the delivery of multinational and multilingual university degrees in physics, recognized by the partner countries as national degrees. This summer school was a very welcome opportunity for our students to get in contact with leading international activities. It is a pleasure to thank many individuals for their help, notably J Baller, E Apel, M Heinen-Krumreich and R Wagener. We gratefully acknowledge generous financial support form the Universite Franco-Allemande/Deutsch-Franzosische Hochschule, the University of Luxembourg and the Institute of Physics making the holding of this school possible.

Grothaus M and Streit L (1999) Construction of relativistic quantum fields in the framework of white noise analysis. Journal of Mathematical Physics 40(11): 5387. Morchio G and Strocchi F (1980) Infrared singularities, vacuum structure and pure phases in local quantum field theory. Ann. Inst. H. Poincare 33: 251. Steinmann O (2000) Perturbative Quantum Electrodynamics and Axiomatic Field Theory. Berlin: Springer. Strocchi F (1993) Selected Topics on the General Properties of Quantum Field Theory. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol. 51. Singapore: World Scientific.

Lecture Notes in Physics, Vol. 656, K. Scherer, H. Fichtner, B. Heber, U. Mall, Editors; Springer, 300 pp., Hardcover; ISBN: 3-540-22907-8; 2005; $59.95.

In: Lecture notes in physics, ISSN 0075-8450 (vol. 514) / Hehl, F.W., Kiefer, C., Metzler, R.J.K. (eds.)

References Milton, B. E., "The Focusing of Shock Waves in Two-Dimensional and Axi-Symmetric Ducts," Proceedings of the International Workshop on Shock Wave Focusing, edited by K. Takayama, Inst. of Fluid Science, Tohoku Univ., Sendai, Japan, 1989, pp. 155-191. Milton, B. E., "Mach Reflection Using Ray-Shock Theory," AIAA Journal, Vol. 13, No. 11, 1975, pp. 1531-1533. Leer, B. V., "Flux-Vector Splitting for the Euler Equations," Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Numerical Methods in Fluid Dynamics, Lecture Notes in Physics, Vol. 170, SpringerVerlag, 1982, pp. 507-512.

We show that using Frieden and Soffer’s extreme information principle [Phys. Rev. E 52, 2274 (1995)] with a Fisher measure constructed with escort probabilities [C. Beck and F. Schlögel, Thermodynamics of Chaotic Systems (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 1993)], the concomitant solutions obey a type of Naudts’s duality (e-print cond-mat/990470) for nonextensive ensembles., Facultad de Ciencias Exactas

The circuit equations for certain series arrays of Josephson junctions can be mapped onto a simple model originally introduced by Kuramoto [in Proceedings of the International Symposium on Mathematical Problems in Theoretical Physics, edited by H. Araki, Lecture Notes in Physics Vol. 39 (Springer, Berlin, 1975)] to study fundamental aspects of frequency locking in large populations of nonlinear oscillators. This correspondence makes it possible to derive accurate theoretical predictions of transitions signalling the onset of partial and complete locking, respectively. We calculate that both transitions should be observable experimentally using present fabrication tolerance., Research was supported in part by the ONR under Contract No. N00014-J- 1257, NATO Collaborative Research Grant No. CRG- 950282, NSF Grants Nos. DMS-9057433 and DMS- 9500948, and DGICYT ~Spain! Grant No. PB94-1167.

Presented in this volume are the Invited Lectures and the Contributed Papers of the Sixth International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy – DICE 2012, held at Castello Pasquini, Castiglioncello (Tuscany), 17–21 September 2012. These proceedings may document to the interested public and to the wider scientific community the stimulating exchange of ideas at the meeting. The number of participants has been steadily growing over the years, reflecting an increasing attraction, if not need, of such conference. Our very intention has always been to bring together leading researchers, advanced students, and renowned scholars from various areas, in order to stimulate new ideas and their exchange across the borders of specialization. In this way, the series of meetings successfully continued from the beginning with DICE 20021, followed by DICE 20042, DICE 20063, DICE 20084, and DICE 20105, Most recently, DICE 2012 brought together more than 120 participants representing more than 30 countries worldwide. It has been a great honour and inspiration to have Professor Yakir Aharonov (Tel Aviv) with us, who presented the opening Keynote Lecture 'The two-vector quantum formalism'. With the overarching theme 'Spacetime – Matter – Quantum Mechanics – from the Planck scale to emergent phenomena', the conference took place in the very pleasant and inspiring atmosphere of Castello Pasquini – in beautiful surroundings, overlooking a piece of Tuscany's coast. The 5-day program covered these major topics: Quantum Mechanics, Foundations and Quantum-Classical Border Quantum-Classical Hybrids and Many-Body Systems Spectral Geometry, Path Integrals and Experiments Quantum –/– Gravity –/– Spacetime Quantum Mechanics on all Scales? A Roundtable Discussion under the theme 'Nuovi orizzonti nella ricerca scientifica. Ci troviamo di fronte ad una rivoluzione scientifica?' formed an integral part of the program. With participation of E Del Giudice (INFN & Universita di Milano), F Guerra (Universita 'La Sapienza', Roma) and G Vitiello (Universita di Salerno), this event traditionally dedicated to the public drew a large audience involved in lively discussions until late. The workshop was organized by L Diosi (Budapest), H-T Elze (Pisa, chair), L Fronzoni (Pisa), J J Halliwell (London), E Prati (Milano) and G Vitiello (Salerno), with most essential help from our conference secretaries L Fratino, N Lampo, I Pozzana, and A Sonnellini, all students from Pisa, and from our former secretaries M Pesce-Rollins and L Baldini. Several institutions and sponsors supported the workshop and their representatives and, in particular, the citizens of Rosignano/Castiglioncello are deeply thanked for the generous help and kind hospitality: Comune di Rosignano – A Franchi (Sindaco di Rosignano), S Scarpellini (Segreteria sindaco), L Benini (Assessore ai lavori pubblici), M Pia (Assessore all' urbanistica) REA Rosignano Energia Ambiente s.p.a. – F Ghelardini (Presidente della REA), E Salvadori and C Peccianti (Segreteria) Associazione Armunia – A Nanni (Direttore), G Mannari (Programmazione), C Perna, F Bellini, M Nannerini, P Bruni and L Meucci (Tecnici). Special thanks go to G Mannari and her collaborators for advice and great help in all the practical matters that had to be dealt with, in order to run the meeting at Castello Pasquini smoothly Funds made available by Universita di Pisa, Domus Galilaeana (Pisa), Centro Interdisciplinare per lo Studio dei Sistemi Complessi – CISSC (Pisa), Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale (Universita di Salerno), Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici – IISF (Napoli), Solvay Italia SA (Rosignano), Institute of Physics Publishing – IOP (Bristol), Springer Verlag (Heidelberg), and Hungarian Scientific Research Fund OTKA are gratefully acknowledged. Last, but not least, special thanks are due to Laura Pesce (Vitrium Galleria, San Vincenzo) for the exposition of her artwork 'arte e scienza' at Castello Pasquini during the conference. The papers submitted in the wake of the conference have been edited by L Diosi, H-T Elze, L Fronzoni, J J Halliwell, E Prati, G Vitiello and J Yearsley. The proceedings follow essentially the order of presentation during the conference, separating, however, invited lectures and contributed papers6. In the name of all participants, we would like to thank S Toms with her collaborators at IOP Publishing (Bristol) for friendly advice and most valuable immediate help during the editing process and, especially, for their continuing efforts to make the Journal of Physics: Conference Series available to all. Budapest, Pisa, London, Milano, Salerno, Cambridge, April 2013 Lajos Diosi, Hans-Thomas Elze, Leone Fronzoni, Jonathan Halliwell, Enrico Prati, Giuseppe Vitiello and James Yearsley 1 Decoherence and Entropy in Complex Systems ed H-T Elze Lecture Notes in Physics 633 (Berlin: Springer, 2004) 2 Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy – DICE 2004 ed H-T Elze Braz. Journ. Phys. 35 A & 2B (2005) pp 205–529; free access at: www.sbfisica.org.br/bjp 3 Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy – DICE 2006 eds H-T Elze, L Diosi and G Vitiello Journal of Physics: Conference Series 67 (2007); free access at: www.iop.org/EJ/toc/1742-6596/67/1 4 Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy – DICE 2008> eds H-T Elze, L Diosi, L Fronzoni, J J Halliwell and G Vitiello Journal of Physics: Conference Series 174 (2009); free access at: http://www.iop.org/EJ/toc/1742-6596/174/1 5 Proceedings of the Fifth International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy – DICE 2010 eds H-T Elze, L Diosi, L Fronzoni, J J Halliwell, E Prati, G Vitiello and J Yearsley Journal of Physics: Conference Series 306 (2011); free access at: http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/306/1 6 We regret that invited lectures by Y Aharonov, J Barbour, G Casati and X-G Wen could not be reproduced here, partly for copyright reasons

When the editorial office of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General of the Institute of Physics Publishing asked me to review a book on nonlinear dynamics I experienced an undeniable apprehension. Indeed, the domain is a rapidly expanding one and writing a book aiming at a certain degree of completeness looks like an almost impossible task. My uneasiness abated somewhat when I saw the names of the authors, two well-known specialists of the nonlinear domain, but it was only when I held the book in my hands that I felt really reassured. The book is not just a review of the recent (and less so) findings on nonlinear systems. It is also a textbook. The authors set out to provide a detailed, step by step, introduction to the domain of nonlinearity and its various subdomains: chaos, integrability and pattern formation (although this last topic is treated with far less detail than the other two). The public they have in mind is obviously that of university students, graduate or undergraduate, who are interested in nonlinear phenomena. I suspect that a non-negligible portion of readers will be people who have to teach topics which figure among those included in the book: they will find this monograph an excellent companion to their course. The book is written in a pedagogical way, with a profusion of examples, detailed explanations and clear diagrams. The point of view is that of a physicist, which to my eyes is a major advantage. The mathematical formulation remains simple and perfectly intelligible. Thus the reader is not bogged down by fancy mathematical formalism, which would have discouraged the less experienced ones. A host of exercises accompanies every chapter. This will give the novice the occasion to develop his/her problem-solving skills and acquire competence in the use of nonlinear techniques. Some exercises are quite straightforward, like `verify the relation 14.81'. Others are less so, such as `prepare a write-up on a) frequency-locking and b) devil's staircase'. I do not quite grasp the usefulness of such project-like exercises. Projects must be assigned by the person who indeed teaches the course. There are things that I really like a lot in this book. For instance, the section on `chaos in nonlinear electronic circuits' is particularly interesting. It offers a simple and rather inexpensive way to visualize chaos in the laboratory. The closing section of the book devoted to technological applications of nonlinear dynamics is also quite useful. The fact that the treatment remains rather elementary, based on review articles and monographs rather than research articles, adds to the intelligibility of the chapter, which will certainly prove stimulating to many a student. Of course, not everything can be perfect, and a 600-page book is bound to have some weak points. I find the treatment of quantum chaos rather sketchy and that of chaotic scattering even more so. Also, while the authors are aware of the importance of complex time in integrability, they do not attempt an explanation of the fundamental puzzle: `why, while the physical time is par excellence real, do we need a complex time in order to study the long-time behaviour of dynamical systems?'. Also the book devotes just four pages to integrable discrete systems. Given the tremendous development of this domain over the past decade, this short presentation is not doing justice to the subject. (However as the present reviewer is editing Springer Lecture Notes in Physics on precisely `Integrable Discrete Systems', to appear in early 2004, he would be the last one to complain about the absence of more details on the matter in the present book.) To sum it up, the monograph of Lakshmanan and Rajasekar is a book written by physicists and for physicists. It will be of interest to both the experienced practitioner and to the uninitiated. Its main quality resides in its thorough, pedagogical approach to the matter. Moreover the relaxed, not too formal, style makes for easy reading. Given that I am writing this review just a few days before Christmas I cannot help thinking that this book could be a nice present for a physicist.

We present an exact solution for the order parameters that characterize the stationary behavior of a population of Kuramoto's phase oscillators under random external fields [Y. Kuramoto, in International Symposium on Mathematical Problems in Theoretical Physics, Lecture Notes in Physics, Vol. 39 (Springer, Berlin, 1975), p. 420]. From these results it is possible to generate the phase diagram of models with an arbitrary distribution of random frequencies and random fields.

These proceedings present the Invited Lectures and Contributed Papers of the Fifth International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy – DICE 2010, held at Castello Pasquini, Castiglioncello (Tuscany), 13–17 September 2010. These proceedings are intended to document the stimulating exchange of ideas at this conference for both the interested public and the wider scientific community, as well as for the participants. The number of participants attending this series of meetings has been growing steadily, which reflects its increasing attraction. Our intention to bring together leading researchers, advanced students, and renowned scholars from various areas in order to stimulate new ideas and their exchange across the borders of specialization seems to bear fruit. In this way, the series of meetings has continued successfully from the beginning with DICE 2002 [1], followed by DICE 2004 [2], DICE 2006 [3], and DICE 2008 [4], uniting more than 100 participants representing almost 30 countries worldwide. It has been a great honour and inspiration to have Professor Luc Montagnier (Nobel Prize for Medicine 2008) from the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention with us, who presented the lecture DNA waves and water (included in this volume). The discussions took place under the wider theme Space-Time-Matter – current issues in quantum mechanics and beyond in the very pleasant and inspiring atmosphere of Castello Pasquini, which – with its beautiful surroundings, overlooking the Tuscany coast – hosted the conference very successfully for the second time. The five-day program was grouped according to the following topics: Gravity and Quantum Mechanics Quantum Coherent Processes in Biology / Many-Body Systems From Quantum Foundations to Particle Physics The Deep Structure of Spacetime Quantum – Relativity – Cosmology A Public Roundtable Discussion formed an integral part of the program under the theme Sull' Onda Della Coerenza" – le nuove frontiere della scienza moderna with the participation of E Del Giudice (INFN & Universita di Milano), L Fronzoni (Universita di Pisa) and G Vitiello (Universita di Salerno). By now forming a tradition, this evening event drew a large audience, who participated in lively discussions until late. The workshop was organized by L Diosi (Budapest), H-T Elze (Pisa, chair), L Fronzoni (Pisa), J Halliwell (London), E Prati (Milano) and G Vitiello (Salerno), with essential help from our conference seceretaries M Pesce-Rollins and L Baldini and from our students G Gambarotta and F Vallone, all from Pisa. Several institutions and sponsors supported the workshop; their representatives and, in particular, the citizens of Rosignano / Castiglioncello are deeply thanked for their generous help and kind hospitality: Comune di Rosignano – A Franchi (Sindaco di Rosignano), S Scarpellini (Segreteria sindaco), L Benini (Assessore ai lavori pubblici), M Pia (Assessore all' urbanistica). REA Rosignano Energia Ambiente s.p.a. – F Ghelardini (Presidente della REA), E Salvadori (Segreteria). Associazione Armunia – M Paganelli (Direttore), G Mannari (Programmazione). Special thanks go to G Mannari and her collaborators for their advice and great help in all the practical matters that had to be dealt with in order to run the meeting at Castello Pasquini smoothly. Funds made available by Universita di Pisa, by Domus Galilaeana (Pisa), Centro Interdisciplinare per lo Studio dei Sistemi Complessi – CISSC (Pisa), Dipartmento di Matematica e Informatica (Universita di Salerno), Instituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici – IISF (Napoli), and by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund OTKA, are gratefully ackowledged. Last, but not least, special thanks are due to Laura Pesce (Vitrium Galleria, San Vincenzo) for the exposition for her artwork Dal io al cosmo at Castello Pasquini during the conference. The papers presented at the workshop and collected here have been edited by L Diosi, H-T Elze, L Fronzoni, J J Halliwell, E Prati, G Vitiello and J Yearsley. The proceedings essentially follow the order of presentation during the conference program, however, divided into Invited Lectures and Contributed Papers. (We regret that lectures by D Bouwmeester, G G Guerreschi, G C Ghirardi and C Kiefer could not be reproduced here, partly for copyright reasons.) In the name of all the participants, we would like to thank S Toms and G Douglas, and their collaborators at IOP Publishing (Bristol) for their friendly advice and most valuable and immediate help during the editing process and, especially, for their continuing efforts to make the Journal of Physics: Conference Series available to all. Budapest, Pisa, London, Milano and Salerno, May 2011 Lajos Diosi, Hans-Thomas Elze, Leone Fronzoni, Jonathan Halliwell, Enrico Prati, Guiseppe Vitiello and James Yearsley [1] Elze H-T (ed) 2004 Decoherence and Entropy in Complex Systems Lecture Notes in Physics 633 (Berlin: Springer) [2] Elze H-T (ed) 2005 Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy – DICE 2004 Braz. Journ. Phys. 35 2A and B pp 205-529free access at: www.sbfisica.org.br/bjp[3] Elze H-T, Diosi L, Fronzoni L, Halliwell J J and Vitiello (eds) 2007 Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy – DICE 2006 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 67free access at: www.iop.org/EJ/toc/1742-6596/67/1[4] Elze H-T, Diosi L, Fronzoni L, Halliwell J J and G Vitiello (eds) 2009 Proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy – DICE 2008 J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 174free access at: www.iop.org/EJ/toc/1742-6596/67/1

A Collection of Research Papers Written in Commemoration of the 60th Birthday of Sidney Leibovich, edited by J. L. Lumley, Lecture Notes in Physics: Vol 566, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York, 2001. VI+412 pp., DM 149.00, hardbound (ISBN 3-540-41475-4)

These proceedings present the Invited Lectures and Contributed Papers of the Fourth International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy – DICE 2008, held at Castello Pasquini, Castiglioncello (Tuscany), 22–26 September 2008. We deliver these proceedings as a means to document to the interested public, to the wider scientific community, and to the participants themselves the stimulating exchange of ideas at this conference. The steadily growing number of participants, among them acclaimed scientists in their respective fields, show its increasing attraction and a fruitful concept, based on bringing leading researchers together and in contact with a mix of advanced students and scholars. Thus, this series of meetings successfully continued from the beginning with DICE 2002, (Decoherence and Entropy in Complex Systems ed H-T Elze Lecture Notes in Physics 633 (Berlin: Springer, 2004)) followed by DICE 2004 (Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy – DICE 2004 ed H-T Elze Braz. Journ. Phys. 35, 2A & 2B (2005) pp 205–529; free access at: www.sbfisica.org.br/bjp) and by DICE 2006, (Proceedings of the Third International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy – DICE 2006 eds H-T Elze, L Diosi and G Vitiello Journal of Physics: Conference Series 67 (2007); free access at: http://www.iop.org/EJ/toc/1742-6596/67/1) uniting about one hundred participants from more than twenty different countries worldwide this time. It has been a great honour and inspiration for all of us to have Professor Sir Roger Penrose from the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford with us, who presented the lecture ``Black holes, quantum theory and cosmology'' (included in this volume). Discussions under the wider theme ``From Quantum Mechanics through Complexity to Spacetime: the role of emergent dynamical structures'' took place in the very pleasant and inspiring atmosphere of Castello Pasquini, which – with its beautiful surroundings, overlooking a piece of Tuscany's coast, and with splendid weather throughout – was conducive to the success of the meeting. The 5-day program was grouped according to the following topics: Quantum Physics and Some Important Questions it Raises Emergent Dynamics, from Quantum to Brain and Beyond Exploring Quantum Mechanics Atomistic Theories of Spacetime Quantum-Entanglement/Gravity/Cosmology A Public Roundtable Discussion formed an integral part of the program under the theme ``Dialoghi sulla complessita' – dall' atomo all' Universo'' and with the participation of physicists and philosophers: F T Arecchi (Firenze), L Fronzoni (Pisa), A M Iacono (Pisa), F Luccio (Pisa) and G Vitiello (Salerno, coordinator). This event drew a large audience, who participated in the lively discussions until late in the evening. The workshop has been organized by L Diosi (Budapest), H-T Elze (Pisa, chair), L Fronzoni (Pisa), J Halliwell (London) and G Vitiello (Salerno), with great help from our conference secretaries M Pesce-Rollins (Siena) and L Baldini (Pisa) and from our students F Caravelli and E Di Nardo, both from Pisa. Several institutions and sponsors generously supported the workshop and their representatives and, in particular, the citizens of Rosignano/Castiglioncello are deeply thanked for the help and kind hospitality: Comune di Rosignano A Nenci (Sindaco di Rosignano), S Scarpellini (Segreteria sindaco), D Del Seppia (Assessore allo Sviluppo Economico del Comune di Rosignano), A Franchi (Assessore al turismo del Comune di Rosignano/Presidente dell' associazione Armunia), A Corsini (Ufficio economato del Comune di Rosignano). REA Rosignano Energia Ambiente s.p.a. F Ghelardini (Presidente della REA), A Cecchini (Ufficio - Responsabile stampa della REA). Solvay Chimica Italia s.a. Dott S Piccoli (Responsabile Relazioni Esterne, Solvay Rosignano), G Becherucci (Comunicazione e Relazioni Esterne). Associazione Armunia M Paganelli (Direttore), G Mannari (Programmazione). Special thanks go to G Mannari for her advice and great help in all the many practical matters that had to be dealt with, in order to run the meeting at Castello Pasquini smoothly. Funds made available by Universita di Pisa, by Domus Galilaeana (Pisa), Centro Interdisciplinare per lo Studio dei Sistemi Complessi – CISSC (Pisa), Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica (Universita di Salerno), Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici – IISF (Napoli), and by IOP Publishing (Bristol) are gratefully acknowledged. Last but not least, special thanks go to L Pesce (Vitrium Galleria, Populonia) for her artwork (``Art and Science'') displayed during the conference at Castello Pasquini. The research papers presented at the workshop, often incorporating further developments since then, or presenting original new work, have been edited by L Diosi, H-T Elze, L Fronzoni, J J Halliwell and G Vitiello, with major assistance from J Yearsley (London), which we gratefully acknowledge. They are collected here, essentially following the program of the workshop, however, divided into Invited Lectures (we regret that lectures by E Arimondo, N Gisin, and W Schleich could not be reproduced here) and Contributed Papers, respectively. In the name of all participants, we would like to thank Dr J Schwarz and G Douglas (IOP Publishing, Bristol), and their collaborators, for friendly advice, always immediate help during the editing process, and for their efforts making the Journal of Physics: Conference Series available to all. Budapest, Pisa, London and Salerno, May 2009 Lajos Diosi, Hans-Thomas Elze, Leone Fronzoni, Jonathan Halliwell and Giuseppe Vitiello

This is the fifth edition of H Dieter Zeh's classic text on the physical foundations of time-irreversibility in the phenomena. A forerunner of this book was the 1984 German text 'Die Physik der Zeitrichtung' of about 80 pages, which appeared as volume 200 in the Springer series Lecture Notes in Physics. It was soon followed by a largely revised and extended English edition of about twice the length. Since then each new edition has been thoroughly revised and, edition by edition, new topics and chapters have been added. As the author says in the introduction: 'The prime intention of this book is to discuss the relations between various arrows of time, and to search for a universal master arrow'. Correspondingly, after a short chapter on 'the physical concept of time', the author systematically discusses in the remaining five chapters the time arrows in electromagnetic radiation theory, in thermodynamics, in quantum mechanics, in black-hole physics and cosmology, and in quantum cosmology. The chapters on thermodynamics and quantum mechanics slightly outweigh the others in terms of length. The fifth edition now includes two new section on 'cosmic probabilities and history' and 'quantum computers', and the section on the 'expansion of the universe' has been restructured and extended. Other changes concentrate on the sections on radiation damping, decoherence, interpretation of quantum theory, and quantum cosmology. It should also be mentioned that the author maintains a regularly updated website for the book at www.time-direction.de. The reading is always highly stimulating and uses results and ideas from a very broad range of physics, with interspersed historical and philosophical comments. Somehow outstanding and of particular interest is the chapter on quantum cosmology, which raises novel interpretational issues that cannot be found in any other textbook I know of on time asymmetry. As regards the mathematical prerequisites, the reader is assumed to have some knowledge on Green functions, special-relativistic electrodynamics, Hamiltonian mechanics, the formalisms of phenomenological and statistical thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and general relativity. At some rare places the author avowedly shows a certain impatience with mathematical details, in particular if they do not fit with his expectations based on personal intuition. This stands in peculiar contrast to the conceptual depth and thoroughness that otherwise characterizes most of the book. Quite generally, the reader should be prepared to encounter provoking and partially controversial statements, but this should not be too surprising in such a complex and partially highly speculative field. All this certainly sets high standards for the reader's intellectual independence and maturity, but this is definitely in accord with the philosophy of Springer's 'Frontiers Collection'. On the other hand, from personal experience I can say that already the original German text has been very popular with beginning graduate students who had a serious interest in foundational issues. (I obtained my first personal copy as a birthday present from a fellow student.) This is essentially due to the fact that the author's genuine urge to understand, rather than just describe, gives the text a characteristic flair of freshness and authenticity to which beginning researchers are particularly susceptible. Being provocative at places is just part of that. This spirit has essentially survived the various editions, thanks to the author's constant efforts to improve the existing presentation, and also by adding modern topics. However, the negative side of this constant streamlining of presentation according to the author's evolving understanding is that it tends to amplify the already existing idiosyncratic tendencies, sometimes resulting in cryptic remarks which fail their intended clarifying purpose. This already applies to the fairly steep introduction, where the author attempts to clarify in a few lines the central issue of what it means (structurally) to say that a particular dynamical law is (a)symmetric under time reversal. Here I think it would definitely be necessary to give more detailed explanations, e.g., by elaborating on the author's own discussion in 'Note on the time reversal asymmetry of equations of motion' (1999 Found. Phys. Lett. 12 193?96). Also, the structural relations between the operation of time reversal and other space-time symmetries are hardly mentioned. This may be excused insofar as T symmetry in quantum-field theory is not generally addressed in this book (which itself may be regretted), but as part of a structural characterization of the operation of time reversal it would certainly have been useful. The books provides an extensive bibliography which seems (as far as I can tell) fairly complete, though sometimes and for no obvious reason, preprints posted on web-archives are cited instead of the corresponding journal articles. Each reference comes with the page numbers of where it is cited in the text, which is very useful indeed. The positive aspects by far outweigh the critical ones. The new edition of H Dieter Zeh's classic text is highly recommended to anybody interested in foundational issues and ready to take the challenge to follow the sometimes intuitive approach of someone who has spent much time and effort to understand the conceptual intricacies and variations of this indisputably difficult and demanding subject.

The phenomenon of phase transitions is a very exciting subject whose theoretical development can be regarded as one of the major achievements in physics during the 1960’s and 1970’s. We have witnessed the great success manifested by the spectacular agreement between theory and experiment. It was indeed a triumph of modern science! All these achievements are described in the book under review in a clear and simple form. All the commonly encountered problems in other phase transition books (Ginzburg–Landau theory, Wilson renormalization group, Kosterlitz–Thouless transition, the effect of dimensions, quantum phase transitions) are the subject matter of this book. The most valuable feature of the book the numerous problems together with their solutions. However, it is hard to agree with the word “Modern” in the title. From many references in the book only five date to the twenty-first century in spite of the fact that critical phenomena is not a closed subject, but remains a developing theory with many new applications. One can mention, among others, critical phenomena in electrolytes (M.E. Fisher and colleagues), cosmology as a problem in critical phenomena (E. Smolin in Lecture Notes in Physics, vol. 46), critical phenomena in strings (arXiv: hep-th/980206), critical phenomena in complex networks with 508 references (arXiv: cond-mat/0705.oo10v6). My impression is that, by supplemented these and other references, both teachers and students will find this book very useful.

These proceedings are based on the Invited Lectures and Contributed Papers of the Third International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy—DICE 2006, which was held at Castello di Piombino (Tuscany), 11–15 September 2006. They are meant to document the stimulating exchange of ideas at this interdisciplinary workshop and to share it with the wider scientific community. It successfully continued what was begun with DICE 20021 and followed by DICE 20042 uniting more than seventy participants from more than a dozen different countries worldwide. It has been a great honour and inspiration for all of us to have Professor G. 't Hooft (Nobel Prize for Physics 1999) from the Spinoza Institute and University of Utrecht with us, who presented the lecture `A mathematical theory for deterministic quantum mechanics' (included in this volume). Discussions under the wider theme `Quantum Mechanics between decoherence and determinism: new aspects from particle physics to cosmology' took place in the very pleasant and productive atmosphere at the Castello di Piombino, with a fluctuation of stormy weather only on the evening of the conference dinner. The program of the workshop was grouped according to the following topics: complex systems, classical and quantum aspects Lorentz symmetry, neutrinos and the Universe reduction, decoherence and entanglement quantum, gravity and spacetime -- emergent reality? quantum gravity/cosmology The traditional Public Opening Lecture was presented this time by E. Del Giudice (Milano), who captivated the audience with `Old and new views on the structure of matter and the special case of living matter' on the evening of the arrival day. The workshop has been organized by S. Boccaletti (Firenze), L. Diosi (Budapest), H.-T. Elze (Pisa, chair), L. Fronzoni (Pisa), J. Halliwell (London), and G. Vitiello (Salerno), with great help from our conference secretaries M. Pesce-Rollins (Siena) and L. Baldini (Pisa). Several institutions and sponsors generously supported the workshop and their representatives and, in particular, the citizens of Piombino are deeply thanked for the hospitality: G. Anselmi (Sindaco del Comune di Piombino), O. Dell'Omodarme (Assessore alle Culture), A. Tempestini (Assessore alla Pubblica Istruzione), E. Murzi (Assessore al Turismo), A. Falchi (Dirigente dei Servizi Educativi e Culturali), M. Gianfranchi (Responsabile del Servizio Promozione Culturale), T. Ghini (Ufficio Beni Culturali), and L. Grilli, C. Boggero and P. Venturi (Ufficio Cultura), M. Pierulivo (Segreteria del Sindaco), L. Pasquinucci (URP e Comunicazione). Thanks go to Idearte (Cooperativa di Servizi Culturali) and especially to L. Pesce (Vitrium Galleria, Populonia). Funds made available by Universita di Pisa (Centro Interdisciplinare per lo Studio dei Sistemi Complessi -- CISSC and Domus Galilaeana) and Universita di Salerno (Dipartimento di Fisica and INFN) are gratefully acknowledged. The research papers presented at the workshop, often incorporating further developments since then, have been edited by L. Diosi, H.-T. Elze and G. Vitiello. They are collected here, essentially following the program of the workshop, however, divided into Invited Lectures and Contributed Papers, respectively. In the name of all participants, we would like to thank G. Douglas (IOP Publishing, Bristol) for his friendly advice and immediate help during the editing process. Lajos Diosi, Hans-Thomas Elze and Giuseppe Vitiello Budapest, Pisa, Salerno, March 2007 1Decoherence and Entropy in Complex Systems ed H-T Elze Lecture Notes in Physics 633 (Berlin: Springer, 2004) 2Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Decoherence, Information, Complexity and Entropy–DICE 2004 ed H-T Elze Braz. J. Phys. 35, 2A and 2B (2005) pp 205–529; freely accessible at: www.sbfisica.org.br/bjp

ALLEN G. HUNT. 2005. Springer, New York. Hardcover, 202 pp. $59.95. ISBN: 3-540-26110-9. In an essay titled “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” the philosopher Isaiah Berlin classified writers as hedgehogs or foxes. His inspiration was a line of Greek poetry: “The fox knows many things, but the