The series, “Hungarian Conference and Exhibition on Materials Science, Testing and Informatics”, was founded in order to provide a forum in which Hungarian and foreign scientists and research groups - interested in metals and alloys, silicates, polymers and composites - would have the opportunity to exchange and publish ideas and to establish new integrated partnerships. The 4th Hungarian Conference and Exhibition on Materials Science, Testing and Informatics was held on the Balaton lakeside, at Balatonfüred, October 12-14th , 2003.

This collection comprises a selection of over 180 papers; submitted to the editors by numerous universities and industrial concerns, and subjected to peer-review by at least two expert referees. The papers were selected on the basis of their quality, and their combined coverage of the main topics of the book.

The aim of this 3-volume set is to bring together the expertise of scientists and engineers, in academia and industry, who are active in the field of non-destructive testing and evaluation. The papers cover activities which include analytical techniques as well as experimental case studies.

The II International Materials Symposium is a scientific forum which discusses advances in the science and technology of materials, and is organized by the Portuguese Materials Society. The II International Materials Symposium followed a series of bi-annual national and international conferences that began 20 years ago and has became, since 2001, an international forum where scientists, engineers and technologists working in the fields of Materials Science and Engineering discuss their recent results and exchange ideas and information.

There is no doubt that, when it comes to the study of the structures and defects of materials, there is presently no technique that rivals positron annihilation. The increasing demands for higher accuracy and reliability provide a constant stimulus to the field, and the present work presents the newest and most important scientific discoveries made in the field of positron annihilation.

This 5-volume set comprises the Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Processing and Manufacturing of Advanced Materials, "THERMEC2003", held from July 7-11, 2003 at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Leganes, Spain, under the co-sponsorship of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS), USA.

This book presents the proceedings of the second International Conference on Advanced Materials Processing (ICAMP 2002). The papers read during the conference are included here in full-length form. They comprise 2 keynote addresses, 9 invited papers and over 130 oral presentations, by delegates from more than 20 countries.

This First International Materials Symposium in Portugal was organised in order to provide a forum within which material scientists and engineers, drawn from a very wide range of specialties, could present and discuss new research findings and compare points of view concerning advanced materials.

Materials science and engineering is a multidisciplinary area of research which encompasses the physics, chemistry and engineering of every class of material. In recent years, the field has attracted increasing attention, following the discovery of new types of material and their subsequent application in new technologies.

Texture is a fundamental material characteristic which results from the microstructural evolution that takes place during various processes, including the thermomechanical deformation of materials. Therefore, texture-related phenomena will continue to be of great importance, because of their scientific interest as well as their effect upon industrial applications, in the 21st century.