The First Asia-Pacific and the Fourth Taipei International Workshop and Symposium on Statistical Physics

3 August - 11 August at Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei

Preface of the Proceedings    [ Physica A 254 (1998) ]

      The "First Asia-Pacific and the Fourth Taipei International Workshop and Symposium on Statistical Physics: New Directions in Statistical Physics (StatPhys-Taipei-1997)" was held at Academia Sinica (Taipei) from 3-11 August 1997. StatPhys-Taipei-1997 follows previous meetings in 1991, 1993, and 1995, The proceedings of StatPhys-Taipei-1991, 1993 and 1995 were published in AIP Conference Proceedings 248, Physica A Vol. 205(1994), and Physica A Vol. 221(1995), respectively, StatPhys-Taipei-1997 was sponsored by Academia Sinica (Taipei), Asian Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP), Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics (Dubna, Russia), National Science Council (Taipei) and The Physical Society located in Taipei, APCTP was established in 1996 in Seoul. Professor Yuan T. Lee, President if Academia Sinica (Taipei) and a 1986 Nobel Laureate, is a trustee of APCTP.

      In the opening section of StatPhys-Taipei-1997 at the Academic Activity Center of Academia Sinica (Taipei) on 4 August 1997, Professor Yuan T. Lee and Tien-Tzou Tsong represented Academia Sinica (Taipei), APCTP, Institute of Physica of Academia Sinica, and the Physical Society located in Taipei to welcome the participants who came from Armenia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Russia, Singapore, The Netherlands, USA and Taiwan. We had also sent invitation letters and entry permits to six physicists in Mainland China, Unfortunately, they were not able to obtain permit from their authority to participate despite the efforts of Dr. P. Schindler, Executive Secretary of Freedom in the Conduct of Science, ICSU. Dr. Bin-Hong Wang, one of the six, contributed three papers to StatPhys-Taipei-1997, which were put in the poster section. One of Dr. Wang's paper has been included in the proceedings of StatPhys-Taipei-1997.

     The meeting began with three-day workshop from 4-6 August on applications of statistical physics to biological problem. The invited and contributed papers were presented at conference from 6-11 August. Professor Ta-You Wu, former President of Academia Sinica (Taipei) and a famous physicist and educator, was 90 years old in 1997. StatPhys-Taipei-1997 and the Second Joint Meeting of the World-Wide Chinese Physicists, 11-15 August 1997 at Academia Sinica (Taipei), cosponsored a section on statistical physics on 11 August to celebrate Prof. Wu's birthday. Participants of StatPhys-Taipwi-1997 also signed a conference handbook of StatPhys-Taipei-1997 and presented the handbook to Prof. Wu as a gift.

      This special issue contains most of the invited papers and some contributed papers presented at StatPhys-Taipei-1997, which brought together contributors and participants from communities of physics, mathematics, chemistry, biological and social sciences, Although the emphasis of our meeting was on biology inspired physics, the papers in this issue also show how the idea (e.g., fractals, scaling, universality, relaxation time) and methods (e.g., Monte Carlo simulations) of statistical physics have been applied to wider and wider areas of sciences.

      Besides expressing our sincere thanks to the sponsors, he speakers, the section chairmen, the referees of contributed papers and participants of StatPhys-Taipei_1997, we are also grateful to the members of the International Advisory Committee and the Organizing Committee for their suggestions, encouragement and contributions. Finally, we should give special thanks to Professor Y. M. Cho, Secretariat of APCTP, for help in getting support from APCTP, Professor W. Sung for leading a delegation of participants from Korea to attend StatPhys-Taipei-1997, Dr. Chi-Ning Chen for editing the conference handbook, Dr. Jau-Ann Chen for transforming many papers to TEX fake versions for this proceedings, Misses Shun-Huw Hu, Yi-Chia Lin, and Jui-Lin Yu for secretarial work, and many others for helping various matter of the conference.

Chin-Kun Hu and K -t. Leung
Academia Sinica, Taipei
March 1998