In step with our growing lifespan, dementia is becoming a widespread handicap to the health and well-being of individuals and a burden on human society world-wide. The increasing prevalence of this tragic condition has stimulated an explosion of scientific research which resulted in numerous profound insights and technical innovations. This volume presents both an overall and a detailed overview of the worldwide knowledge about the neuroscientific basis of dementia. Leading authorities in their fields provide a far-reaching synthesis of all topics in dementia research, including pathogenesis of dementia, neuroimaging of the earliest alterations, potential biological and genetic markers for Alzheimer's Disease and new therapeutic strategies. Each chapter discusses clinical implications and areas of controversy, highlights the wide range of therapeutic possibilities and indicates promising directions for further research. The book will be of value not only to scientists and graduate students in medical, pharmacological and biological research, but also to physicians and researchers in the biotechnological and pharmaceutical industries.

This volume is the offspring of a week-long workshop on "Galois groups over Q and related topics," which was held at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute during the week March 23-27, 1987. The organizing committee consisted of Kenneth Ribet (chairman), Yasutaka Ihara, and Jean-Pierre Serre. The conference focused on three principal themes: 1. Extensions of Q with finite simple Galois groups. 2. Galois actions on fundamental groups, nilpotent extensions of Q arising from Fermat curves, and the interplay between Gauss sums and cyclotomic units. 3. Representations of Gal(Q/Q) with values in GL(2)j deformations and connections with modular forms. Here is a summary of the conference program: * G. Anderson: "Gauss sums, circular units and the simplex" * G. Anderson and Y. Ihara: "Galois actions on 11"1 ( *** ) and higher circular units" * D. Blasius: "Maass forms and Galois representations" * P. Deligne: "Galois action on 1I"1(P-{0, 1, oo}) and Hodge analogue" * W. Feit: "Some Galois groups over number fields" * Y. Ihara: "Arithmetic aspect of Galois actions on 1I"1(P - {O, 1, oo})" - survey talk * U. Jannsen: "Galois cohomology of i-adic representations" * B. Matzat: - "Rationality criteria for Galois extensions" - "How to construct polynomials with Galois group Mll over Q" * B. Mazur: "Deforming GL(2) Galois representations" * K. Ribet: "Lowering the level of modular representations of Gal( Q/ Q)" * J-P. Serre: - Introductory Lecture - "Degree 2 modular representations of Gal(Q/Q)" * J.