The physics of highly charged ions has become an essential ingredient of many modern research fields, such as x-ray astronomy and astrophysics, con trolled thermonuclear fusion, heavy ion nuclear physics, charged particle ac celerator physics, beam-foil spectroscopy, creation of xuv and x-ray lasers, etc. A broad spectrum of phenomena in high-temperature laboratory and astrophysical plasmas, as well as many aspects of their global physical state and behaviour, are directly influenced, and often fully determined, by the structure and collision properties of multiply charged ions. The growth of...