We dedicate this volume to Professor Parimala on the occasion of her 60th birthday. It contains a variety of papers related to the themes of her research. Parimala's rst striking result was a counterexample to a quadratic analogue of Serre's conjecture (Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, 1976). Her in uence has cont- ued through her tenure at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai (1976-2006),and now her time at Emory University in Atlanta (2005-present). A conference was held from 30 December 2008 to 4 January 2009, at the U- versity of Hyderabad, India, to celebrate Parimala's 60th birthday (see the conf- ence's Web site at http://mathstat.uohyd.ernet.in/conf/quadforms2008). The or- nizing committee consisted of J.-L. Colliot-Thel ' en ' e, Skip Garibaldi, R. Sujatha, and V. Suresh. The present volume is an outcome of this event. We would like to thank all the participants of the conference, the authors who have contributed to this volume, and the referees who carefully examined the s- mitted papers. We would also like to thank Springer-Verlag for readily accepting to publish the volume.In addition, the other three editors of the volume would like to place on record their deep appreciation of Skip Garibaldi's untiring efforts toward the nal publication.
