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After almost a century of observations, the ultra-high energy sky has finally displayed an anisotropic distribution. A significant correlation between the arrival directions of ultra-high cosmic rays measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory and the distribution of nearby active galactic nuclei signals the dawn of particle astronomy. These historic results have important implications to both astrophysics and particle physics.

Roughly speaking, the more Alice is entangled with Bob, the harder it is for her to send her state to Charlie. In particular, it will be shown that the squashed entanglement, a well known entanglement measure, gives the fastest rate at which a quantum state can be sent between two parties who share arbitrary side information. Likewise, the entanglement of formation and entanglement cost is shown to be the fastest rate at which a quantum state can be sent when the parties have access to side-information which is maximally correlated. A further restriction on the type of side-information implies that the rate of state transmission is given by the quantum mutual information. This suggests a new paradigm for understanding entanglement and other correlations in terms of quantum Shannon theroy. Different types of side-information correspond to different types of correlations with the squashed entanglement and the mutual information being two extremes. Furthermore, there is a dual paradigm: if one distributes the side-information as aliciously as possible so as to make the sending of the state as difficult as possible, one finds maximum rates which give interpretations to known quantities as well as new ones.

In any attempt to construct a Quantum Theory of Gravity, one has to deal with the fact that Time in Quantum Mechanics appears to be very different from Time in General Relativity. This is the famous (or actually notorious!) \"Problem of Time\", and gives rise to both conceptual and technical problems. The decoherent histories approach to quantum theory, is an alternative formulation of quantum theory specially designed to deal with closed (no-external observer or environment) systems. This approach has been considered particularly promising, in dealing with the problem of time, since it puts space and time in equal footing (unlike standard QM) . This talk develops a particular implementation of the above expectations, i.e. we construct a general set of \"Class Operators\" corresponding to questions that appear to be \"Timeless\" (independent of the parameter time), but correspond to physically interesting questions. This is similar to finding a general enough set of timeless observables, in the evolving constants approach to the problem of time.

I will describe the emergence of geometric (Berry) phases in supersymmetric systems. In theories with degenerate states, non-Abelian geometric phases can arise. I show how supersymmetry helps to ensure the existence of this phenomenon by invoking the examples of systems with (2,2) and (4,4) supersymmetry. In the former, I show how instantons contribute crucially to the form of the non-Abelian phase. The latter system applies to D0-D4 brane dynamics in string theory, leading to a surprising re-interpretation of the Berry phase in terms of gravitational precession of a probe brane. Towards the end will comment on some work in progress on the geometric phase in (8,8) SUSY systems.

In this talk, I will talk about recent developments in studying strongly coupled gauge theory using the gauge/gravity duality in string theory. In particular, the inclusion of fundamental degrees of freedom and finite chemical potential is reviewed. As an example, I will discuss the results from analyzing the gravitational dual of a none-supersymmetric gauge theory at low temperature and finite baryon chemical potential.

After a brief motivation for studying 3d gravity, a review of Strominger argument will be given, showing that 3d quantum gravity with negative cosmological constant is a conformal field theory. Classical phase space tools will be introduced to develop semi-classical analyses of gravity with zero cosmological constant, and, with negative cosmological constant and closed timelike curves.

There has been much interest, in the past few years, in the kappa-Poincare\'/kappa-Minkowski framework as a possible scenario for a deformation of Poincare\' symmetries at Planck scale. I will show how it is possible to give a physical characterization of the concept of quantum symmetries described by a nontrivial Hopf algebra. In particular, I will discuss the generalization of the Noether analysis for a scalar field in kappa-Minkowski space-time and derive conserved charges associated with each generator of the kappa-Poincare\' Hopf-algebra. Then I will report on a recent proposal for the quantization of a scalar field enjoying kappa-Poincare\' symmetries, which consists in a construction of the Fock-space of the theory consistent with the structure of deformed symmetries. Finally I will comment on possible applications of deformed symmetries scenarios in cosmology.

Alternative gauge choices for worldsheet supersymmetry can elucidate dynamical phenomena obscured in the usual superconformal guage. In the particular example of the tachyonic E_8 heterotic string, we use a judicious gauge choice to show that the process of closed-string tachyon condensation can be understood in terms of a worldsheet super-Higgs effect. The worldsheet gravitino assimilates the goldstino and becomes a dynamical propagating field. Conformal, but not superconformal, invariance is maintained throughout.