One of the main missions of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, founded in 1964 by Abdus Salam, is to foster the growth of advanced studies and research in developing countries.
To this aim, the Centre organizes a large number of schools and workshops in a great variety of physical and mathematical disciplines. Since unpublished material presented at the meetings might prove of great interest also to scientists who did not take part in the schools the Centre has decided to make it available through a new publication titled ICTP Lecture Note Series. It is hoped that this formally structured pedagogical material in advanced topics will be helpful to young students and researchers, in particular to those working under less favourable conditions.