Introduction

Abstract

This issue of the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry consists of contributions coming from the V. A. Fock School on Quantum and Computational Chemistry held in Novgorod the Great from April 26 to 30, 2004. This was the eighth annual meeting of this school. The first meeting of the V. A. Fock School was held in December 1998 in celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Professor V. A. Fock of the St. Petersburg (Leningrad) University, whose work such as the ubiquitous Hartree–Fock approximation is central to physical chemistry and chemical physics. These meetings are attended by the established researchers as well as by younger scientists from leading research centers of Russia. The 2004 meeting was attended by participants from Moscow State University, Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry of Russian Academy of Science (RAS), Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of RAS, Karpov Institute of Physical Chemistry, Boreskov Institute of Catalysis of SB RAS (Novosibirsk), Fock Research Institute for Physics (St. Petersburg), St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg Institute of Nuclear Physics, Ivanovo Institute of Chemical Technology, Favorski Institute of Chemistry SB RAS (Irkutsk), and others. The meeting held in 2004 was remarkable by a special session, the Satellite Symposium on Embedding Methods in Quantum Chemistry of Condensed Phase, organized by Professor I. V. Abarenkov from the Fock Institute. This event gathered established researchers who delivered plenary lectures on their current research. The meetings of this series are sponsored by the Scientific Council on Chemical Structure and Reactivity of RAS. The 2004 meeting, as the previous ones, was also supported by the Section of Quantum and Computational Chemistry at the D. I. Mendeleev Chemical Society of Russia and by the European Working Party for Computational Chemistry at the Federation of European Chemical Societies extended their sponsorship to the V. A. Fock School. Financial support for this activity comes from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grant 04-03-42015, and the Fock School, 04-03-42017, the Embedding Symposium. The topics presented at the Fock School range from the theoretical foundations of quantum chemistry to its applications related to structure dynamics and reactivity and from diatomics to solid states and biomolecules. The applications involve small molecules as well as biomolecules and condensed-phase systems. These meetings would not be possible without the kind support and assistance of many people. Among them, Professor A. L. Buchachenko, chairman of the Division for Computational Chemistry at the Mendeleev Society chairman of the RAS Council on Chemical Structure and Reactivity, and Professor G. Náray-Szabó, former Chairman of the European Working Party for Computational Chemistry and the President of the Federation of European Chemical Societies must be mentioned. Also, the kind hospitality on the part of the president of the Yaroslav the Wise State University of Novgorod. Professor A. L. Gavrikov has been indispensable to the success of this series of meetings. Key roles were played by the chairman of the local Organizing Committee Prof. Dr. B. I. Seleznev, rector for the Institute of Electronic Information Systems at Novgorod University and his coworkers. Dr. T. M. Lebedeva, Mrs. I. Telina, and Mrs. G. G. Zlatina, whose solutions to all problems made the sessions successful and comfortable and eased the concerns created by the necessary paperwork. Finally, Professor Yngve Öhrn (Florida, USA) is acknowledged for his devotion in organizing the preparation and publication of these Proceedings in the International Journal of Quantum Chemistry.