5th Brazilian MRS Meeting

Abstract

Almost 1,000 scientists from 14 countries gathered in Florianopolis from October 8–12, 2006, for the 5th meeting of the Brazilian Society for Materials Research (BrazilMRS), also known by its Portuguese name, Sociedade Brasileira de Pesquisa em Materiais (SBPMat). The program committee chaired by Aloisio Klein and Andre Pasa from Federal University of Santa Catarina assembled 13 symposia as follows: Symposium A, Tribology and Surface Engineering; Symposium B, Recent Advances on Powder Technology; Symposium C, Materials for High Temperature Applications; Symposium D, Materials for Photodevices; Symposium E, International Symposium on Hybrid Materials and their Applications; Symposium F, Nanostructures and Defect Analysis by Electron Microscopy; Symposium G, Synchrotron Radiation in Materials Science; Symposium H, 5th Brazilian Electroceramics Symposium; Symposium I, Nanostructured Biological Materials; Symposium J, 2nd Brazilian Symposium on Microscopy Applied to Forensic Science; Symposium L Microscopy Applied to the Industrial World ; Symposium M, Advanced Techniques of Microscopy for Characterization and Modification of Materials; Symposium N, Computational Simulation as a Technique to Design New Materials. It should be mentioned that, joining efforts with the Brazilian Society for Microscopy and MicroanalysisSBMM, the Brazilian MRS did incorporate in the 2006 meeting the X MICROMAT (Microscopy of Materials) Meeting, featuring symposia F, J, L and M. The program included five plenary sessions. Plenary I: On Shared Responsibility for the Future and Health of Materials Research; Plenary II: Quantum Information: From Einstein to Quantum Computers; Plenary III: Bioceramics—Materials Engineering at the Interface to Biology; Plenary IV: Funding Opportunities in Materials Research with NSF; Plenary V: Opportunities of Collaboration with the ICMR and third Countries. The Meeting opened with an official ceremony which included welcome address talks delivered by local authorities representing the State Government and the host Federal University of Santa Catarina. Except for their talks, nearly all the oral presentations were presented in English, which emphasized the international flavor of the meeting. A poster session was held each evening, and there was an equipment exhibit. Slightly more than 1,000 technical presentations were made (321 orally and 743 posters) and the strongly interdisciplinary program provoked lively discussions both informally and in the formal sessions. With a population of around 1 million (850 thousand), the city of Florianopolis ranks 10th in Brazil and is the second major metropolitan area in the southern region of the country. Surrounded by beautiful beaches and mountain scenery, part in the continent and part in the magnificent island of Santa Catarina, Florianopolis has an important industrial and tourism infrastructure and host the Federal University of Santa Catarina, one of the largest and productive in the country. Previous Brazilian MRS meeting did take place in Rio de Janeiro, in Foz de Iguacu and in Recife, sites also famous for their natural beauty and hospitality. The papers contained in this special issue are from topics presented in different symposia; therefore, this volume does not capture the full spectrum of activities that G. Solorzano (&) Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, PUC-Rio, Rua Marques de Sao Vicente 225, Gavea, Rio de Janeiro 22453-900, Brazil e-mail: guilsol@dcmm.puc-rio.br