Materials play a key role in our search for solutions to many pressing issues. They underpin industries, are critical for developing new consumer goods, are essential components for medical diagnosis, offer hope for the treatment of currently incurable diseases, and help solve environmental problems. This is a guide to materials for the future.

I am honored to chair this International Workshop on Functionally st Graded Materials in the 21 Century: A Workshop on Trends and Forecasts, and would like to first express my sincere gratitude to everyone participating. The Mechanical Engineering Laboratory and the Japan International Science and Technology Exchange Center (JISTEC) have co-organized this workshop with the sponsorship of the Science and Technology Agency of Japan and the cooperation of the Association of Mechanical Technology. This workshop is an international conference to focus on functionally graded materials and the aim is to provide an overview of the present global technical trends and the future development of functionally graded materials over the next 10 years. I am very happy to see many researchers meeting together here - including seven researchers invited from abroad. During the three-day oral sessions, 36 research reports will be presented, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who is very anxious to hear and participate in the upcoming interesting discussions. At present, the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory is conducting fundamental and ground-breaking research in such major areas as materials science and technology, bioengineering, information & system science, advanced machine technology, energy technology, manufacturing technology and robotics. In particular, we consider research on materials science and technology to have the highest priority for the 21st century. and since 1996 have participated in the US-Japan joint research project, Precompetitive Processing and Characterization of Functionally Graded Materials.

In order to achieve the revolutionary new defense capabilities offered by materials science and engineering, innovative management to reduce the risks associated with translating research results will be needed along with the R&D. While payoff is expected to be high from the promising areas of materials research, many of the benefits are likely to be evolutionary. Nevertheless, failure to invest in more speculative areas of research could lead to undesired technological surprises. Basic research in physics, chemistry, biology, and materials science will provide the seeds for potentially revolutionary technologies later in the 21st century.

There are numerous technological materials - such as metals, polymers, ceramics, concrete, and many others - that vary in properties and serviceability. However, the almost universal common theme to most real materials is that their properties depend on the scale at which the analysis or observation takes place and at each scale "probabilities" play an important role. Here the word "probabilities" is used in a wider than the classical sense. In order to increase the efficiency and serviceability of these materials, researchers from NATO, CP and other countries were brought together to exchange knowledge and develop avenues for progress and applications in the st 21 century. The workshop began by reviewing progress in the subject area over the past few years and by identifying key questions that remain open. One point was how to observe/measure material properties at different scales and whether a probabilistic approach, at each scale, was always applicable and advantageous. The wide range of materials, from wood to advanced metals and from concrete to complex advanced composites, and the diversity of applications, e.g. fatigue, fracture, deformation, etc., were recognized as "obstacles" in identifying a "universal" approach.

In order to achieve the Army's envisioned Objective Force related to deployability, transportability, and mobility, the Committee on Lightweight Materials for the 21st Century Army Trucks was asked to identify research and technology development opportunities related to the introduction of new lightweight structural materials for light medium and heavy Army trucks.

Advanced carbon materials such as graphene, fullerenes, hierarchical carbon, and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have exceptional physical properties, making them useful for several applications in fields ranging from energy and industry to electronics and drug delivery. This book includes comprehensive information on fabrication, emerging physical properties, and technological applications of advanced carbon materials. Over three sections, chapters cover such topics as advanced carbon materials in engineering, conjugation of graphene with other 2D materials, fabrication of CNTs and their use in tissue engineering and orthopaedics, and advanced carbon materials for sustainable applications, among others.

Special Interest Catogories: biotechnology; materials science; medicine; ecology and chemistry. The book summarizes the literature data and research results on biodegradable polyesters of microbiological origin -- polymers of hydroxy alkanoic acids (polyhydroxyalkanoates, PHAs). These polymers are thermoplastic, biodegradable, and biocompatible. They are promising candidates for applications in agriculture, communal services, pharmacology, medicine, and other spheres. The book sums up the most recent data on the known types of polyhydroxyalkanoates, their producers, substrates, and methods of biosynthesis. The structure and physicochemical properties of these polymers, the methods used to process them to make specialised products and spheres of their application are described in the book.

Nanostructured materials (NMs) are attracting interest as low-dimensional materials in the high-tech era of the 21st century. Recently, nanomaterials have experienced breakthroughs in synthesis and industrial and biomedical applications. This book presents recent achievements related to NMs such as graphene, carbon nanotubes, plasmonic materials, metal nanowires, metal oxides, nanoparticles, metamaterials, nanofibers, and nanocomposites, along with their physical and chemical aspects. Additionally, the book discusses the potential uses of these nanomaterials in photodetectors, transistors, quantum technology, chemical sensors, energy storage, silk fibroin, composites, drug delivery, tissue engineering, and sustainable agriculture and environmental applications.

Drawing on the collective expertise of language scholars and educators in a variety of subdisciplines, the Handbook for Arabic Language Teaching Professionals in the 21st Century, Volume II, provides a comprehensive treatment of teaching and research in Arabic as a second and foreign language worldwide. Keeping a balance among theory, research and practice, the content is organized around 12 themes: Trends and Recent Issues in Teaching and Learning Arabic Social, Political and Educational Contexts of Arabic Language Teaching and Learning Identifying Core Issues in Practice Language Variation, Communicative Competence and Using Frames in Arabic Language Teaching and Learning Arabic Programs: Goals, Design and Curriculum Teaching and Learning Approaches: Content-Based Instruction and Curriculum Arabic Teaching and Learning: Classroom Language Materials and Language Corpora Assessment, Testing and Evaluation Methodology of Teaching Arabic: Skills and Components Teacher Education and Professional Development Technology-Mediated Teaching and Learning Future Directions The field faces new challenges since the publication of Volume I, including increasing and diverse demands, motives and needs for learning Arabic across various contexts of use; a need for accountability and academic research given the growing recognition of the complexity and diverse contexts of teaching Arabic; and an increasing shortage of and need for quality of instruction. Volume II addresses these challenges. It is designed to generate a dialogue—continued from Volume I—among professionals in the field leading to improved practice, and to facilitate interactions, not only among individuals but also among educational institutions within a single country and across different countries.