This book has its roots in a monograph on cancer of the esophagus and gastric cardia edited by us in 1965 and published in Chinese on ly. Along with a number of colleagues in various fields, we summa rized our work in the epidemiology, pathology, diagnosis, radiother apy, and surgery of carcinoma of the esophagus and gastric cardia, carried out chiefly at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Fu wai Hospital, and the Cancer Institute of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences during the 25 years from 1939 to 1964. In the 18 years since the publication of that monograph, further progress has been made in China in various aspects of research and surgical treatment. Abundant material has been accumulated on the long term results of surgery, and a number of newer principles and meth ods for diagnosis and management have been evolved. In order to meet the need for the exchange of scientific and technical informa tion, both domestically and internationally, we have invited a group of our current colleagues working on the different aspects of carci noma of the esophagus and gastric cardia to contribute to the pre sent volume, which is being printed in both Chinese and English. The Chinese edition, like the original monograph, is being publish ed by Shanghai Science and Technology Publishers. Through the kind invitation of Dr. Heinz Gotze, the English text is being publish ed for international circulation by Springer-Verlag.

The 22nd International Free Electron Laser Conference and 7th FEL User Workshop were held August 13-18, 2000 at Washington Duke Inn and Golf Club in Durham, North Carolina, USA. The conference and the workshop were hosted by Duke University's Free Electron laser (FEL) Laboratory. Following tradition, the FEL prize award was announced at the banquet. The year 2000 FEL prize was awarded to three scientists propelling the limits of high power FELs: Steven Benson, Eisuke Minehara and George Neill.
The conference program was comprised of traditional oral sessions on First Lasing, FEL theory, storage ring FELs, linac and high power FELs, long wavelength FELs, SASE FELs, accelerator and FEL physics and technology, and new developments and proposals. Two sessions on accelerator and FEL physics and technology reflected the emphasis on the high quality of accelerators and components for modern FELs. The breadth of the applications was presented in the workshop oral sessions on materials processing, biomedical and surgical applications, physics and chemistry as well as on instrumentation and methods for FEL applications. A special oral session was dedicated to FEL center status reports for users to learn more about the opportunities with FELs. As usual, the oral sessions were supplemented by poster sessions with in-depth discussions and communications. The FEL physicists and FEL users had excellent opportunities to interact throughout the duration of the event, culminating a Joint Sessions. The year 2000 was very successful being marked by lasing with two SASE and one storage ring short-wavelength FELs, and by the first human surgery with the use of FEL, to mention but a few. The International Program Committee and chairs of the sessions had the challenging and exciting problem of selecting invived and contributed talks for the conferences and the workshop from the influx of abstracts mentioning new results and ideas. The success of the conference was determined by these contributions. Scientists from 15 countries gave 70 talks, presented 176 posters and submitted 146 papers, which are published in the present volume of proceedings.