This Conference was inspired by the original idea of having an lAU meeting on Cataclysmic \'ariables. Although CV meetings occur steadily and cyclically as outbursts in the Dwarf Novaxc tlu' previous to this lAU sponsored meeting of such kind was back in 1995. However during discussions among members of Scientific Organizing Committee we came to the conclusion th a t simultaneous discussion of broadc'r phenomenon, known as close, interactive binaries is needed in the era when exciting d ata

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... aming from lU'w modern telescopes and over wide range of wavelengths starts to appear. Thus, the title of the conference and accordingly topics were enhanced to embrace all kinds of interactive compact binary objects. Close Binaries comprise a compact and easily distinguishable group of objt'cts. They are also a perfect laboratory for the study of a wide variety of exciting astrophysical processc's. such as the following: Roche lobe overflow, the effects of irradiation on the rate of mass transfer and possible' feedback ('Ih'cts. orbital evolution by magnetic braking and by emission of gravitational waves, dynamics of inter obje'ct st reams, impact and overflow of streams on accretion disks, turbulent and magnetohydrodynamic transfer of angular momentum within disks, local and global instabilities in disks, including tidal stresses, the growt h of ('ccentric and tilted modes in disks, disk chromospheres and coronae, the dynamics and magnetodynamics of winds from disks, the thermal structure of winds, boundary layers between disks and stars, the effect of accretion heating, angular momentum transfer and deposition of accretion energy and accreted gas of different chemical compositions into the envelope of a rotating white dwarf, nonequilibrium nuclear reactions during t hermonuclear runawa\ s. the possibility of some cataclysmic variables being supernova progenitors, the hydrodviiamics of asymmetrical explosive ejections, the interaction between ejecta and a companion star, the desynchronization of polars during nova explosions, the contribution of novae ejecta to the composition of interstellar medium, iio\ae as gammaray line sources, the interaction between plasma and magnetospheres, the structure of magnetic fields in white dwarfs, the dynamics of the interaction of the magnetic moments of two stars, the ('fleets of mass loss on the thermal equilibrium of a donor star, etc. The presence of X-Ray binaries and cataclysmic variables in globular clusters, the compact binaries as the likely progenitors of the cosmologically critical Type la supeniovae. the rate of nova explosions, and the rate and chararcteristics of extragalactic novae underscore tlu' role of compact binaries in probing stellar systems and galactic structure in tlu' galaxy and beyond.