This volume contains contributions based on the lectures delivered and posters presented at the Fifth International Conference on Quantum Communication, Measurement and Computing (QCM&C-Y2K). This Conference is the fifth of a successful series hosted this time in Italy, was held in Capri, 3-7 July, 2000. The conference was attended by more than 200 participants from all over the world. There was also a high level of participation from graduate students, who greatly benefited from the opportunity to attend world-class conferences. The Conference Hall was hosted in La Residenza Hotel in Capri, where part of p- ticipants where housed, while others where housed in various cozy nearby - tels. All enjoyed the pleasant atmosphere offered by the island of Capri. There were 59 invited lectures given as oral presentations of 30 minutes and 94 poster papers. The major topics covered at the Conference where new experimental and theoretical results in quantum information. They were divided in five parts; i) Quantum Information and Communication, ii) Quantum Measurement, - coherence, and Tomography, iii) Quantum Computing, iv) Cryptography, v) Entanglement and Teleportation. We were lucky in that almost all major - perimental groups in the world working in this area were represented, as were the major theoreticians. There was very active audience participation. A n- ber of graduate students and post-docs were able to present their contributions in four after dinner poster sessions.

Since the discovery in 1986 of high temperature superconductors by J. G. Bednorz and K. A. Müller, a considerable progress has been made and several important scientific problems have emerged. Within this NATO Advanced Study Institute our intention was to focus mainly on the controversial topic of the symmetry of the superconducting gap and given the very short coherence length, the role of fluctuations. The Institute on ‘The Gap Symmetry and Fluctuations in High- Superconductors’ took place in the “Institut d’Etudes Scientifiques de Cargèse” in Corsica, France, between 1 - 13 September 1997. The 110 participantsfrom 18 countries (yet 30 nationalities) including 23 full time lecturers, have spent two memorable weeks in this charming Mediterranean resort. All lecturers were asked to prepare pedagogical papers to clearly present the central physical idea behind specific model or experiment. The better understanding of physics of high temperature superconductivity is certainly needed to guide the development of applications of these materials in high and weak current devices.

For someone with a hammer the whole world looks like a nail. Within the last 10-13 years Binar·y Decision Diagmms (BDDs) have become the state-of-the-art data structure in VLSI CAD for representation and ma­ nipulation of Boolean functions. Today, BDDs are widely used and in the meantime have also been integrated in commercial tools, especially in the area of verijication and synthesis. The interest in BDDs results from the fact that the data structure is generally accepted as providing a good compromise between conciseness of representation and efficiency of manipulation. With increasing number of applications, also in non CAD areas, classical methods to handle BDDs are being improved and new questions and problems evolve and have to be solved. The book should help the reader who is not familiar with BDDs (or DDs in general) to get a quick start. On the other hand it will discuss several new aspects of BDDs, e.g. with respect to minimization and implementation of a package. This will help people working with BDDs (in industry or academia) to keep informed about recent developments in this area.