The SMST Conferences focus on real-world issues and applications of shape memory materials. This expanded special issue of the Journal of Materials Engineering and Performance features more than 60 peer-reviewed and edited contributions based on papers presented at SMST-2008, which was held September 21-25, 2008 in Stresa, Italy. Applications covered range from medical devices to engineering applications such as actuators. The volume, edited by Ausonio Tuissi, Michael Mitchell, and Joe San Juan, is an excellent reference on the latest technical advances, industrial applications, and...

Black Politics in a Time of Transition appears at an historic point in American politics. From the vantage point of the maturation of the study of black politics, this volume provides a framework for current and future discussion of this critical time. Incorporating the expanded stream of work on today's black politics, this latest volume of the National Political Science Review is also a new assessment of the period from which the study of black politics emerged.

Selected for this volume are chapters of contemporary relevance alongside those that reconsider an early...