2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/185321The study of strange and also charmed hadronic particle production in nuclear relativistic collisions offers an opportunity to explore the physical properties of the deconfined quark-gluon phase. We survey the recent accomplishments and the future directions of this research program.20pages including 5 figures in J.Phys format, Summary talk presented at the International Conference Strangeness in Quark Matter held in Padova, July 1998 v2 comprises more technical detailsHigh Energy Physics - Phenomenologytext