Acknowledgments

Prof. Glenn Boreman and his wife, Maggie, friends since my PhD studies at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, encouraged me to consider preparing a Wiley book on nematicons. George Telecki soon joined them in keeping up the necessary pressure. Thanks a lot. I hope you were right and that readers will enjoy this book.

I thank all the authors who kindly accepted my invitation to contribute one or more chapters, and to subject themselves to a number of requests concerning contents, style, mode of presentation, and deadlines. I express my gratitute to all the students and colleagues who do not appear as book contributors but are coauthors of papers and precious actors inspiring various portions of the scientific activities. They include R. Asquini, R. Barboza, I. Burgess, O. Buchnev, G. Coschignano, D. Christodoulides, A. d'Alessandro, A. de Luca, R. Dabrowski, A. Dyadyusha, A. Fratalocchi, M. Kaczmarek, I. C. Khoo, M. Kwasny, L. Lucchetti, R. Morandotti, E. Nowinowski-Kruszelnicki, A. Pasquazi, K. A. Rutkowska, S. V. Serak, F. Simoni, G. I. Stegeman, N. Tabiryan, M. Trotta, and C. Umeton.

Finally, I pay a special tribute to Alessandro Alberucci and Armando Piccardi for greatly supporting me in the no less important task of arranging, organizing, managing, and editing the manuscript.

GA