This book contains the extended lectures of the 8th Adriatic meeting which is traditionally devoted to the presentation of lectures on the most advanced scientific topics to young scientists, who actively participate, on an international level, in the development of their respective fields. The emphasis of the present meeting was on gauge theories, particle phenomenology, string theories and cosmology. The accompanying CD-ROM contains 27 additional contributions, of a length somewhat shorter than 25 presented in the printed book.  

The Adriatic Meetings have traditionally been conferences on the most - vanced status of science. They are one of the very few conferences in physics aiming at a very broad participation of young and experienced researchers with di?erent backgrounds in particle physics. Particle physics has grown into a highly multi-faceted discipline over the sixty years of its existence, mainly because of two reasons: Particle physics as an experimental science is in need of large-scale laboratory set-ups, involving typically collaborations of several hundreds or even thousands of researchers and technicians with the most diverse expertise. This forces particle physics, being one of the most fundamental dis- plines of physics, to maintain a constant interchange and contact with other disciplines, notably solid-state physics and laser physics, cosmology and - trophysics, mathematical physics and mathematics. Since the expertise necessary in doing research in particle physics has become tremendously demanding in the last years, the ?eld tends to organize purely expert conferences, meetings and summer schools, such as for detector development, for astroparticle physics or for string theory. TheAdriaticMeetingthroughitsentirehistoryhasbeenaplaceforest- lishing exchange between theory and experiment. The 9th Adriatic Meeting successfully continued this tradition and even intensi?ed the cross-discipline communication by establishing new contacts between the community of c- mologists and of particle physicists. The exchange between theorists and - perimentalists was impressively intensive and will certainly have a lasting e?ect on several research projects of the European and world-wide physics community.

The Adriatic Meetings have traditionally been conferences on the most - vanced status of science. They are one of the very few conferences in physics aiming at a very broad participation of young and experienced researchers with di?erent backgrounds in particle physics. Particle physics has grown into a highly multi-faceted discipline over the sixty years of its existence, mainly because of two reasons: Particle physics as an experimental science is in need of large-scale laboratory set-ups, involving typically collaborations of several hundreds or even thousands of researchers and technicians with the most diverse expertise. This forces particle physics, being one of the most fundamental dis- plines of physics, to maintain a constant interchange and contact with other disciplines, notably solid-state physics and laser physics, cosmology and - trophysics, mathematical physics and mathematics. Since the expertise necessary in doing research in particle physics has become tremendously demanding in the last years, the ?eld tends to organize purely expert conferences, meetings and summer schools, such as for detector development, for astroparticle physics or for string theory. TheAdriaticMeetingthroughitsentirehistoryhasbeenaplaceforest- lishing exchange between theory and experiment. The 9th Adriatic Meeting successfully continued this tradition and even intensi?ed the cross-discipline communication by establishing new contacts between the community of c- mologists and of particle physicists. The exchange between theorists and - perimentalists was impressively intensive and will certainly have a lasting e?ect on several research projects of the European and world-wide physics community.

The traditional purpose of the Adriatic Meeting is to present most advanced scienti?c research conducted by the lecturers who take part in the development of their ?elds and, in addition, to provide a school-like atmosphere for young scientists. Dubrovnik, as a geographical centre of this region of Europe, provided a most adequate location for this conference. Having very agreeable surroundings, the conference site nevertheless gave a focus for very strong scienti?c interaction. The subjects chosen for the 8th meeting, in September 2001, were gauge theories, particle phenomenology, string theories and cosmology. We were able to bring together a very good cross section of outstanding scientists who gave extraorinarily good presentations. Certainely one reason for this success is that most of us feel obliged to help the scienti?c life in South East Europe return to its former level. However, there are very exciting new scienti?c developments as well. Part of the meeting was dominated by neutrino physics which has just seen exciting progress by establishing neutrino masses experimentally. This was d- cussed within neutrino masses and grand uni?ed theories (GUTs). General - pects of neutrino physics and CP violation, neutrino mixing and the bayron asymmetry were presented along the same lines. On the theoretical side the idea of the construction of gauge theories on non-commutative spaces and their phenomenological implications is accepted worldwide within the particle physics community.