The book is the Proceedings Volume of a symposium held in Vancouver, British Columbia October 3-6, 2010 within the Conference of Metallurgists organized by the Metallurgial Society of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy, and Petroleum. It is dedicated to Michel Rigaud, Professor Emeritus at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal who organized and chaired the previous four conferences held in 1987 [Winnipeg], 1996 [Montreal], 1999 [Quebec City], and 2004 [Hamilton]. Rigaud is also the Executive Secretary of Federation International for Refractories Research and Education. The book provides information for manufacturers, users, and academics about the recent technical achievements in producing, testing or characterizing bricks, monolithics and insulating refractories for metallurgical industries. It contains 50 papers presented by delegates from 11 countries and covers the following topics:

• Synthesis and sintering of refractories [16 papers] • Refractories for the iron and steelmaking industries [9 papers]

• Refractories for the non-ferrous metals, cement, gasification, and other industries [7 papers]

• Refractory castables and other monolithics [8 papers]

• Testing, characterization, and simulation of refractory behaviour [10 papers]

This symposium was co-sponsored by the Refractory Ceramics Division of the American Ceramic Society and the Refractories Institute. Editor George Oprea is with the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and James G. Hemrick is with Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. The book will certainly become a reference work for researchers and students for the next decades.

Fathi Habashi Laval University, Quebec City, Canada Fathi.Habashi@arul.ulaval.ca