The main goal of these proceedings was to demonstrate the use of a variety of multi-scale approaches, ranging from the atomistic to the macroscopic level, and in this it succeeds admirably.

Interest in the phenomenon of superplasticity has been increasing steadily over the past thirty-four years, both from the viewpoint of fundamental scientific understanding as well as of industrial application. The scope of superplasticity has also broadened materials-wise, and now includes, in addition to metals: intermetallics, ceramics, bulk metallic glasses, nanostructured materials and composites.

The aim of this book is to provide the reader with the latest advanced research results on, and an improved understanding of, various aspects of the processing and characterization of materials.

This collection comprises invited and contributed papers which were presented at the Advanced Structural Materials Symposium held in Cancún, México during the Annual Conference of the Mexican Academy of Materials Science.

This eighth volume in the series covering the latest results in the field includes nearly 700 abstracts of papers which appeared between the publication of Annual Retrospective VII (Volumes 233-234) and the end of November 2005 (allowing for vagaries of journal availability).

This collection of papers provides the most up-to-date information available for researchers and engineers who are interested in any aspect of the field of solidification processes. Herein, theoretical analyses are presented, as well as studies of the technological problems which are associated with solidification in various gravitational environments. The topics covered range from fundamental aspects and modelling, to practical engineering applications.

The field of Residual Stresses is surprisingly large, and also highly interdisciplinary in nature, both with regard to its applications and to its scientific and technological fundamentals.

This indispensable work is the fifth in a series of international conferences devoted to advanced materials and processing. The conferences, which are held every three years, are jointly sponsored by the Chinese Society for Metals (CSM), the Japan Institute of Metals (JIM), the Korean Institute of Metals and Materials (KIM), and the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS), and organized by them in rotation. The purpose of this international conference, PRICM, is to provide a forum for the exchange of technical and scientific information, which is always of great benefit to researchers, manufacuturers and end-users.

Recrystallization and grain growth, together with phase transformations such as precipitation, are the fundamental processes of microstructural evolution which take place during the thermomechanical processing of engineering materials. They are of major scientific interest and are of great importance in a wide range of industrial applications.

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.