At the Cross-Roads of Astrophysics and Cosmology (IAU S376)

Part I. Setting the Scene – The Extragalactic 'Problem': The Cepheid extragalactic distance scale: Past, present and future Wendy Freedman; The local value of H0 Adam Riess; The tip of the Red Giant Branch as a cosmological probe Myung Gyoon Lee; Period–luminosity relations in the Local Group of galaxies Igor Soszyński; Part II. Stellar Pulsation Physics: Theoretical stellar pulsation physics Marcella Marconi; Anomalous Cepheids: Updated theoretical period–luminosity–color and period–wesenheit relations Giulia De Somma; Pulsation of chemically peculiar stars Ernst Paunzen; A study of the stellar photosphere–hydrogen ionization front interaction in δ Scuti stars Mami Deka; A multi-wavelength analysis of BL Her stars: Models vs observations Susmita Das; Part III. Primary Period–Luminosity Relation Calibrators in the Milky Way: Cepheids and RR Lyrae Gisella Clementini; Primary PL-relation calibrators in the Milky Way: Cepheids and RR Lyrae: Physical basis, calibration, and applications Martin Groenewegen; Cepheids with giant companions: A new, abundant source of Cepheid astrophysics Bogumił Pilecki; Part IV. Disentangling the Structural Components of the Milky Way: Implication of the period–magnitude relation for massive AGB stars and its astronomical applications Akiharu Nakagawa; The structure of the Milky Way from period-luminosity relations Dorota Skowron; Granulation in red supergiants: The scaling relations Yi Ren; The distance scale of Type II Cepheids from near infrared observations in the Magellanic Clouds Teresa Sicignano; Binary star masses and distances from interferometry Alexandre Gallenne; Globular clusters metallicity and distance from their RR Lyrae stars light curves Armando Arellano Ferro; The PL diagram for δ Sct stars: back in business as distance estimators Antonio García Hernández; Part V. Period–Luminosity Relations in the Nearby Universe: Period–Luminosity–Metallicity relations for classical pulsators at near-infrared wavelengths Anupam Bhardwaj; A multiphase study of classical Cepheids in the Magellanic Clouds – Models and observations Kerdaris Kurbah; Double-mode RR Lyrae star – robust distance and metallicity indicators Shu Wang; Empirical constraints for the instability strip from the analysis of LMC Cepheids Felipe Espinoza-Arancibia; Part VI. Non-traditional Period–Luminosity Relations: The period-luminosity relations of red supergiants Biwei Jiang; Long-period variables as distance and age indicators in the era of Gaia and LSST Michele Trabucchi; China Space Station Telescope and variable star studies Xiaodian Chen; OH/IR stars and the period–luminosity relation of Mira variables Dieter Engels.