Focus on providing synergy

One more year has passed and we celebrate it with this special issue, containing the first part of the papers that integrated, as abstracts, the Pan American Materials Conference 2014. The event’s strategy was to integrate and provide partnerships between the North and South America leading materials societies. It was co-hosted by ABM (Brazilian Metallurgical, Materials and Mining Association, Brazil) and TMS (The Metals, Minerals and Materials Society, US), with the participation of Associations from Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Canada and Chile. The Conference, that occurred parallel to the 69th ABM International Annual Congress, had approximately 980 attendees and used a dynamic format with 11 symposia focused on topics of great scientific and technological importance as materials for energy; light metals and alloys; biomaterials, smart materials and structures; nanocrystalline materials and ultrafine-grain materials; dynamic properties of materials, minerals processing etc. In order to continuous these efforts on providing synergy between different issues, organizations and countries, ABM is organizing the greater event of Latin American in the metallurgy, materials and mining areas: the ABM Week, 2015. This auspicious event will integrate all the ABM’s Seminars, including its International Congress, and expects to receive about 3000 attendees. ABM Week will offer an extensive program with technical sessions, lectures by renowned worldwide specialists, panels, round tables, corporate exhibits, technical visits and many networking opportunities. The Journal of Materials Research and Technology, as ABM Week co-sponsor, will provide the opportunity for its authors to publish their papers in an extended and enhanced form. This year’s last issue counts on nine papers from the Pan American Materials Conference and four others from author’s that had spontaneously considered their papers to the journal. Due the number of papers received from the Pan American Conference, JMRT will extend the special issue to the first 2015 number. In 2014, JMRT has also passed through some improvements and one of them was the introduction of the CrossCheck tool. This feature is used to detect text similarities that may indicate plagiarism, guaranteeing the quality and originality of the papers published by the Journal of Materials Research and Technology.