This report summarizes the activities conducted under IFPRI support from November 97 to November 98. The main target of our work is to understand, characterize, and quantify the behavior of powders in the early stages of compaction attendant to the intrinsic properties of the material and the processing conditions. The project involves theoretical, numerical, and experimental components. It is framed within a collaborative effort with concentration on pharmaceutical manufacturing, but the results are relevant to powder compaction in many other industries. The topics addressed in this report include die pouring (Section 2); the reaccomodation process of Region I of the compaction curve (Section 3); the mechanics of regular aggregates as they obtain in pre-compaction structures (Section 4); the deformation process of Region II of the compaction curve (Section 5); and an ongoing experimental program aimed at verifying our theoretical and computational results (Section F). In the Introduction these topics are motivated in the context of the overall goals of the project.