Introduction

This is the second workshop and midterm meeting of the Marie Curie Research Training Network "Constituents, Fundamental Forces and Symmetries of the Universe" (ForcesUniverse) financed under the European Commission's sixth framework programme.

The workshop was held from October 9 to 13, 2006, at the conference venue of the University of Naples "Federico II", Aula Magna Partenope.

The first network conference took place in Corfu, the next network meeting will be held in Valencia.

Statistics

The workshop had 204 participants. 58 presentations were given, of which 6 were plenary lectures, 12 plenary talks and 40 talks in parallel sessions.

Plenary lecturers

• Frederik Denef (The String Theory Landscape)
• Sergei Gukov (Topological Strings and Knot Homologies)
• Fernando Marchesano (Recent Progress on D-brane Model Building)
• Thomas Mohaupt (Supersymmetric Black Holes in String Theory)
• Edward Witten (Surface Operators in Gauge Theory)
• Konstantin Zarembo (Integrability and Bethe Ansatz in AdS/CFT)

Public lecture

Prof. Edward Witten gave a public lecture on Saturday morning, October 14, 10:30, at the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici. Title: "Cosmic Acceleration and Particle Physics".

Midterm meeting

The Midterm review meeting with the EC official, took place on Thursday, October 12.

Women in Physics

The network strives to improve the number of women researchers involved in Physics. Here is a photo of the women workshop participants.

Scientific committee

Anna Ceresole, Paolo Di Vecchia, Sergio Ferrara, Costas Kounnas, Alberto Lerda, Dieter Lüst, Franco Pezzella, Kellogg Stelle, Antoine Van Proeyen, Daniela Zanon.

Local organising committee

Luigi Cappiello, Antonella Liccardo, Raffaele Marotta, Wolfgang Mück, Renato Musto, Francesco Nicodemi, Roberto Pettorino, Franco Pezzella

Secretary

Dr. Giancarlo Greca (giancarlo(dot)greca(at)na(dot)infn(dot)it)