This book provides in a pedagogical way some up-to-date reviews of properties of strongly interacting matter produced at RHIC, analytical approaches to QCD, and nuclear and high-energy astrophysics. It also contains schematic outlines of topics on high-precision non-perturbative QCD, first results from RHIC, and heavy-ion collisions at LHC with the ATLAS detector. The proceedings have been selected for coverage in: • Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings) Contents: HomagesLecturesSeminarsContributions:Lattice, Light-Front and Effective TheoriesHadron ModelsHigh-Energy CollisionsDecays and Medium-Energy ReactionsNuclear Matter, Astrophysics, GravitationStructure Functions and Sum RulesField Theories, Formal DevelopmentsOutlines Readership: Researchers, academics, graduate students and upper level undergraduates in high energy physics. Keywords:Nuclear and High Energy Astrophysics;QGP Signatures;Lattice QCD;Heavy Ions Physics/High Energy Collisions;Quark Models;RHIC Physics;Hadron Physics/Hadron Models;Gravitational Waves;Effective Theories;Decay and Low Energy Reactions;Relativistic Field Theory