This volume is one in a series which attempts to bring together comprehensive articles on recent advances in ceramics. The volume is dedicated to Professor Shigeyuki Somiya on the occasion of his retirement from the Tokyo Institute of Technology; and it is a most fitting tribute. Professor Somiya has been one of the earliest and most persistent and versatile champions of research in ceramic materials in Japan. He has served this cause extraordinarily well by mixing two strategies. First, by making bridges to the entire international community of ceramic researchers in the US and Europe....