Progress in Advanced Materials and Processes : Proceedings of the Fifth Yugoslav Materials Research Society, Held in Herceg-Novi, Serbia and Montenegro, September 15-19, 2003

These proceedings, PROGRESS IN ADVANCED MATERIALS AND PROCESSES, include selected papers which were presented at the Fifth Yugoslav Materials Research Society Conference (Yu-MRS Meeting), held in Herceg Novi, Yugoslavia, September 15-19th, 2003. The previous four conferences were also held there, and the Yugoslav Materials Research Society was formed as a non-governmental, non-profit, scientific association, whose main goals and tasks are to encourage creativity in materials science and engineering, to achieve the harmonic coordination of these fields in Serbia and Montenegro, and to link these researches to analogous activities carried out worldwide; in order to incorporate them into international - even global - programs. Materials science and engineering involve the acquisition of knowledge concerning the synthesis and processing of materials, their composition and structure, properties and behaviour, characteristics and potential, and their application in devices, machines, consumer units and other finished products. Our economic prosperity, quality of life and hopes for a healthy environment are closely connected with improvements in existing products and the development of new ones together with their associated processing technologies.