MEETINGS
Guidlines for organisation of an ECM
Guidelines for financial support
Reports of ECA supported Meetings
Highlights from National Meetings
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MEETINGS
Guidlines for organisation of an ECM
Guidelines for financial support
Reports of ECA supported Meetings
Highlights from National Meetings
|
|
From June 4 to 14, 2009 one hundred twenty two total
participants convened at the E. Majorana Centre for Scientific
Culture, Erice, Italy for the 41st Course of the "International
School of Crystallography", co-directed by Elena Boldyreva
(Novosibirsk, Russia) and Przemek Dera (Chicago, USA) . This was
the second course dedicated to high-pressure research, which
followed the very successful first
course, organized in 2003 by A. Katrusiak and P.
McMillan.
The variety of topics, elements of physics, chemistry, materials
science, engineering, implications for geology, planetary
sciences, biology and pharmaceuticals (see links Purpose of the
Course and Scientific Program), explains a very gdensely packedh
program. 56 lectures were given by 46 speakers. The lectures have
been grouped into several logical blocks.
The block on the experimental techniques included the lectures
by P. Dera (USA), M. Paz-Pasternak (Israel), Yanbin Wang (USA),
M. Mezouar (France), J. Jackson (USA), J.-P. Itie (France), L.
Dubrovinsky (Germany), S. Merkel (France), A. Balagurov (Russia),
J. Loveday (UK). Apart of the lectures specially focused on the
techniques, other lectures devoted to the phenomena
also illustrated the applications of various experimental
techniques and approaches.
The block considering phenomena started with the gsimplesth
possible one: compression without any phase transitions or
chemical transformations and included the lectures by T.
Boffa-Ballaran (Germany), R. Downs (USA), and E. Boldyreva
(Russia). A. Katrusiak (Poland) has considered pressure-induced
crystallization of liquids as a tool of studying the
intermolecular interactions, N. Casati (Italy) discussed the
effects of high pressure on the intra-molecular geometry, and B.
Winkler (Germany) spoke on the experimental and modeling studies
of the role of hydrogen bonding in minerals at high pressure. P.
Macchi (Switzerland) gave a comprehensive introduction into the
semi- empirical & ab initio quantum chemistry description of
solid state phases under high pressures with a special emphasis
on the systems with hydrogen bonds, stacking interactions,
etc.
Phase transitions induced by high-pressure have been considered
in details in another block of lectures, including both
theoretical and experimental research: V. Dmitriev (France), H.
Sowa (Germany), M. Paz-Pasternak (Israel), D. Kozlenko (Russia),
A. Katrusiak (Poland), F. Rodriguez (Spain), J.-P. Itie (France),
P. Freire (Brazil), J. Jackson (USA), L. Dubrovinsky
(Germany).
High-pressure structures and properties of various types of
solids, formed by gsimpleh elements or small molecules were
covered in another lecture block. This block started with an
introduction into high-pressure research of hydrogen and
hydrides, presented by F. Occelli (France). This topic was
originally allocated to Igor Goncharenko, a recognized world
leader in the field, who disappeared in a diving accident in
2007, and the lecture started with paying tribute to him and his
work. Other lectures from this block included those by M. Santoro
(Italy), A. Polian (France), Y. Filinchuk (France), O. Degtyareva
(UK), I. Abrikosov (Sweden), S. Scandolo (Italy), W. Grochala
(Poland).
The lecture block related to the structures of materials at
high-pressures was opened by a comprehensive overview on
high-pressure synthesis of advanced materials presented by P.
McMillan (UK), which was followed by lectures given by J. Kreisel
(France), D. Gatta (Italy), C. Pulham (UK), A. Gauzzi (France),
V. Solozhenko (France), B. Winkler (Germany), A. San Miguel
(France), A. Oganov (USA), C. Sanloup (UK), P. McMillan (UK), G.
Hearne (South Africa), J. Parise (USA), and L. Ehm (USA).
The last but not less important block of lectures described the
materials and systems of biological importance, including the
pharmaceuticals: E. Boldyreva (Russia), F. Fabbiani (Germany), P.
Freire (Brazil), R. Winter (Germany), R. Fourme (France).
Five workshops were an important part of the school schedule and
a round-table discussion on the improvement of data collecting
and processing in high-pressure single-crystal diffraction
experiments was also organized.
The
questionnaire report shows an agreement factor for the whole
meeting of 82% and for the workshops of 66%.
Additional information in www.crystalerice.org/erice2009/2009.htm.
11-18 may 2009 at Giens peninsula, France
Organizers: Béatrice GRENIER (Université Joseph Fourier & CEA, Grenoble) Virginie SIMONET (Institut Néel CNRS/UJF, Grenoble) Helmut SCHOBER (ILL, Grenoble)
Scope
The aim of this school was to teach the bases of the formalism of group theory and representations, in order then to apply it to various subjects such a crystallography and phase transitions, magnetic structures, and (lattice and electronic) excitations. The associated experimental techniques are mainly neutrons and X-rays, but also Raman scattering. This school concerned as much experienced researchers as Ph-D and post-doctoral students, interested by acquiring the bases of this extremely powerful and complicated tool. The addressed themes were of interest for many neutron and X-ray users both for the spectroscopy and for the structural aspects.
Students
Among the 98 participants (including 19 lecturers) attending the school, 22 were Ph-D students and 6 were post-doctoral students. The students were distributed over Europe as follows: two Ph-D students from Spain, one post-doc from Czech Republic, one post-doc from Germany, and all other students were coming from France. All students coming from France and who applied for it got a financial support, yielding reduced registration fees, while all students coming from a foreign country had no registration fees to pay, thanks to the various supports we obtained.
Organisation
This school was conducted in the French language (except for a few lectures given by non french speakers) and lasted 7 days. It was organized outside of Grenoble, in a Belambra club, in order to favor the exchange between the participants outside of the lectures/tutorials hours (during the meals, after dinner, …). It started with a formal introduction to group theory and then concentrated on representations theory. Some lectures, tutorials and practicals, dedicated to each of the themes concerned in condensed matter physics, were then developed. Except for general knowledge of condensed matter physics, no requirement on group theory was necessary to follow the lectures. The participants of the school were also encouraged to present posters on their work related to the theme of the school (27 posters were presented). During these poster sessions, as well as during the "questions to speakers" sessions, the experts on the subject and the participants could work together in a less formal manner.
The detailed program was as follows:.
-LECTURES (28 hours): General presentation, Formalism of Group theory and representations,
Recall on Crystallography and space group representations, Landau
theory: extensions and applications, Crystallographic phase
transitions, Bilbao website presentation, Magnetic structures,
Point groups and localized electronic states, Phonons: neutrons
and X rays, Raman spectroscopy, Application of group theory to
multiferroism and superconductivity.
-TUTORIALS / PRACTICALS (9.5 hours): Space groups, Crystallographic transitions, Bilbao
website, Magnetic structures, Phonons, Raman spectroscopy..
-OTHERS (7.5 hours): Questions to speakers, poster
sessions.
Written copies of the talks were distributed to the participants before each lecture. After the meeting, PDF versions of the talks have been deposited on the school website. For more detail, see: http://www.ill.eu/news-events/workshops-events/ecole-theorie-des-groupes. Next year, a book gathering all lectures given during the school will be published by EDP Science.
Results
Although the school was mostly in French (except a few lectures), the topics treated during the school has attracted people from foreign European countries (5 from Spain, 2 from Germany, 2 from Portugal, 1 from Czech Republic, 1 from United Kingdom).
All participants and lecturers were asked to fill in a questionnaire, in order for us to have a feedback. People in general were very satisfied about the program of the school, its organization, the high quality and the pedagogy of the talks, as well as the good equilibrium between lectures, tutorials and practicals. The sessions "questions to speakers" and the supports we distributed before each lecture (copies of the talks slides) were also well appreciated. To the question: "do you wish a continuation of this school to be organized?", most of them answered "yes" and gave some suggestions: organize such a school every 2-3 years and focus alternatively on one of the treated subjects (structural phase transitions, magnetic structures, excitations, ...). So we do not exclude the possibility to re-organize such a school, and why not in English language, so that more people from the European community can attend it.
The Department of Condensed-Matter Physics of the University of the Basque Country and the IUCr Commission on Mathematical and Theoretical Crystallography have organized a school on "Crystallography online: International School on the use and application of the Bilbao Crystallographic Server" at Lekeitio, in the Basque Country of Spain, from 21st to 27th of June 2009. The school was held at the ground floor of the Aisia Emperatriz Zita hotel, where all the participants were accommodated: this solution made easy to organize evening sessions centred on practical exercises and question&answer sessions. As a matter of fact, the school sessions practically lasted from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. with the only intermissions for meals and coffee breaks. The School was attended by 55 registered participants from 15 countries and presented 17 lectures by 10 invited speakers (Mois I. Aroyo, Bilbao; Michele Catti, Milan; Juan Rodríguez-Carvajal, Grenoble; Gervais Chapuis, Lausanne; Robert Evarestov, St. Petersburg; Karen Friese, Bilbao; Yuri Kitaev, St. Petersburg; Boriana Mihailova, Hamburg; Massimo Nespolo, Nancy; Juan Manuel Pérez-Mato, Bilbao; Harold Stokes, Provo, Utah), who presented fundamental crystallographic problems that can be treated with the help of the Bilbao Crystallographic Server like phase transitions, derivative structures, pseudosymmetry, twins, phonons, symmetry modes, site-symmetries, irreducible representation of point and space groups. Each lecture was accompanied by a series of guided exercises. Didactic material and presentations are ] available for download from the school website.
The financial support by the Basque Government and the University of the Basque Country contributed significantly to the successful running of the school. The funds sponsored by IUCr, ECA and GE3C (Grupo Especializado de Cristalografia y Crecimiento Cristalino) were used mainly for helping young participants to partly cover their travel and lodging expenses. The financial aid from Bruker, Panalytical, Stoe and Taylor and Francis allowed the organisers to cover the organisation costs.
School website: http://www.ehu.es/ocs/index.php/fmc/CoL2009/
Further MaThCryst activities at http://www.crystallography.fr/mathcryst/
Contact address:
Mois I. Aroyo, School Chairman
Massimo Nespolo, MaThCryst Chairman
Group photo at the Aisia Emperatriz Zita hotel terrace - click to enlarge
A snapshot of the lectures at the school in Lekeitio - click to enlarge
The eleventh European Powder Diffraction Conference EPDIC-11 was held in Warsaw, POLAND on 19-22 September 2008 and was preceded by six workshops on 18-19 September. The principal organizer of the event was the Institute of High Pressure Physics "UNIPRESS" of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Co-organizing institutions were the Institutes of Physics and Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Faculties of Physics and Chemistry of the Warsaw University of Technology. The Scientific Programme Committee was chaired by Bogdan Palosz, Warsaw, Poland and Jordi Rius, Barcelona, Spain. The Local Organizing Committee was chaired by Bogdan Palosz, Institute of High Pressure Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
EPDIC-11 enjoyed financial support from the Committee of Crystallography of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the International Union of Crystallography, the European Crystallographic Association, PANalytical, Bruker AXS and the International Center for Diffraction Data.
The place of the event was the building of the Faculty of Physics of the Warsaw University of Technology. Parallel microsymposia were also organized in the near-by building of the Faculty of Chemistry. According to EPDIC's tradition the conference started on Friday evening and lasted until Monday evening.
Eleven companies presented their crystallographic hardware and software throughout the meeting. EPDIC awards were delivered to: Andrew Goodwin (Young Scientist Award for the contribution 'The crystallography of flexibility: using powder diffraction to study local structure and dynamics in framework materials') and Juan Rodriguez-Carvajal (Distingushed Scientist Award with the contribution 'Powder Diffraction Data Analysis with FullProf. Past, Present and Future'). In total 142 persons attended the workshops preceding the conference. The free-of-charge ICDD workshop had 60 participants. There where 286 regular conference participants representing 35 countries. Attendance of 39 junior scientists was partially supported by the organizers: 28 persons received IUCr grants, 4 persons received ECA grants, 7 persons received the Organizing Committee grants.
Seven plenary sessions were organized with 8 invited speakers. The first plenary session was the joint session with the E-MRS (European Materials Research Society) Fall Meeting which was held in another building of the Warsaw University of Technology and had one-day overlap with EPDIC-11. Three sessions devoted to the presentation of commercially available diffraction equipment were organized by Bruker, PANalytical and Rigaku. There where 15 microsymposia with 77 oral presentations, while 183 poster presentations were on display throughout the conference.
Lunches were served to the Conference participants free of charge. The informal Welcome Party was organized on the evening of September 19, Friday, right after the Opening Ceremony. On Sunday evening, September 21, more than 200 Conference participants gathered for the Gala Dinner in the building of the Warsaw Stock Exchange, formerly the headquarters of the Polish Communist Party.
| Name | Institution/Supervisor | Age/Position | Presentation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anna Dobrowolska | Faculty of Cemistry, University of Wrocław, POLAND Prof. E. Zych | 24 5-th year student | Poster Structural and spectroscopic properties of BaHfO3:Eu - the issue of the dopant location in the host lattice |
| Zdenek Matej | Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Prague, CZECH REPUBLIC Prof. R. Kuzel | 28 PhD student | Poster Coplanar grazing exit X-ray diffraction on thin polycrystalline films |
| Natasa Jovic | Istitute of Nulear Sciences "VINCA", Belgrade, SERBIA Dr. B. Antic | 35 PhD student | Poster In situ study of the crystal symmetry changes in lithium titanate spinel by X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy |
| Zsombor Santa | Research Institute for Solid State Physics and Optics, Budapeszt Neutron Centem, HUNGARY Dr. L. Rosta | 34 PhD student | Poster Archaeological bronze objects studied by neutron based methods |
A view of the conference hall of EPDIC-11
A lecture at EPDIC-11
University of Zürich June 22 - July 5, 2008
The second Zürich School of Crystallography was intended predominantly for Masters and Ph.D. students, plus postdocs, in the molecular and solid-state sciences, particularly those who do not have ready access to crystallography courses at their own institution. The twenty participants came from Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland and Turkey; 12 young women and 8 young men. The participants unanimously agreed that the School was worthwhile and that they now feel better equipped to determine their own structures. The personal impressions of one of the students are given below.
Tony Linden, Hans-Beat Bürgi, School Directors
A Student's Perspective
THE ZÜRICH SCHOOL OF CRYSTALLOGRAPHY 2008 - THE MEANING BEHIND THE NUMBERS
Crystallography for me is a tool for the investigation of the conformational and host guest properties of my compounds, as well as an analytical method, alongside NMR and mass spectroscopy, for the confirmation of the structure of my synthesis product. However, determining a crystal structure is a much more complicated task than running a proton NMR measurement, and requires a sufficient amount of training and knowledge before it can be done reliably. I had some experience in solving crystal structures, but wasn't able to make the connection between routinely done procedures and theory, which was the main reason for me attending the Zurich School of Crystallography.
The course in itself offered an exclusive coverage of crystallography from growing single crystals to collecting and processing data, and finally to solving and validating the structure and reporting the results. During the first few days, the theoretical information provided seemed overwhelming, but when given a chance to put it in use during the practical work, it was easier to see where the theory comes into play when setting up the data collection or finding the correct structure solution. To me, this was one of the best things about the school. Also, I was extremely grateful for having the expertise and helping hand of the tutors at my disposal whenever I was puzzled about something I couldn't figure out on my own. The days were intensive and long, but I felt I had accomplished a lot at the end of each day, which made it worth the effort.
As for the social aspect of the course, I think that the small size of the group made the learning environment intimate and it was possible to get to know everyone involved. It was great to meet people from different areas (and countries) and I especially enjoyed the daily dinners we had at the hotel restaurant and the discussions at the end of the day. Also, I feel that the small size of the group enabled us to have opportunities, such as setting up our own measurement at the diffractometer, which I think made a big difference in learning the whole method and not just the theory.
Before attending the school, I used to check certain values in the .lst file routinely without completely understanding the meaning behind the numbers, but now I feel more confident in evaluating my crystal structure solutions as a whole and not just by looking at the R-value. In every respect, I was very pleased with the school and gained more than I had anticipated.
Kirsi Salorinne, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
The Associazione Italiana di Cristallografia (AIC) and the Grupo Especializado de Cristalografia y Crecimiento Cristalino (GE3C) have agreed to join their respective annual meetings in the year 2007. The first meeting of the Italian and Spanish Crystallographic Associations (MISCA) was held in Copanello di Stallettì (Calabria, Italy) from September 24 to 28 2007, and organized by the Department of Chemistry and the Laboratory of X Ray Diffraction (LDiffRax) of the Centre of Excellence in Functional Nanostructurated Materials of the University of Calabria.
The University of Calabria (Unical), located in the south of Italy, is a medium size university and one of the few examples of residential university campuses in Italy. Unical provides high quality education focused on students qualification in important fields such Arts, Economics, Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Natural Sciences, Pharmacy and Political Sciences. The primary goals are academic excellence, internationalization, integration of our students in other university realities, expansion and support of international student exchanges.
Misca2007 has taken place at Gugliemo Village, in Copanello, a top class hotel resort on the Calabrian ionic coast, and was attended by 143 scientists (well distributed between Italian and Spanish) properly skilled in the fields of Crystallography and Crystal Growth. Recent advancements and frontiers in the investigation of structure and properties of crystalline materials constituted the core of the scientific program organized in 8 miscro-symposia:
The meeting included 7 plenary lectures given by:
David R. Allan form Diamond Light Source, Didcot, Oxforshire, Hector A. Calderon from ESFM-IPN, Mexico, Angelo Gavezzotti from the University of Milan, Carmelo Giacovazzo from IC-CNR, Bari, Miguel Julve from University of Valencia, Carlos Pina from University of Complutense, Madrid, Roger Williams from Research Council Centre, Cambridge.
20 keynote lectures, 22 oral presentations and 50 poster presentations. Details containing the Misca program can be found at http://misca2007.unical.it web site.
During the meeting, special sessions have been reserved to “Nardelli Price 2007”, reserved to young crystallographers, and the first Mario Mammi Price, devoted to senior crystallographers and their exceptional contribution to the development of the Italian Crystallagraphy, sponsored by the AIC.
Two young crystallographers received the Nardelli Price 2007 and summarized their results during the Opening ceremony of the meeting: Simona Galli (University of Insubria) reporting on “Playing with Powder Diffraction on Functional Transition Metal Pyridiminolates” and Loretta Pretto (University of Ferrara) reporting on “Comprehensive View on Hydrogen Bond Theory”.
In a special after dinner session the first Mario Mammi medal has been awarded to Prof. Giuseppe Zanotti from the University of Padova and the celebration was followed by a talk on “Pathogenicity factors of Helicobacter pylori. The crystallographic perspective”.
Misca was co-sponsored by the Department of Chemistry of the University of Calabria and by the following companies, which actively participated to the meeting trough oral presentations and/or disposable stands:
Bruker AXS Milano, Rigaku Europe UK, Thermo Scientific Italia, Oxford Diffraction Limited UK, Molecular Dimensions Limited UK, PANalytical Milano, CCDC Cambridge UK.
Integrating Crystallography in Drug Discovery
May 29 to June 8, 2008
sponsored by: the International Union of Crystallography, the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the European Crystallographic Association
As the fortieth consecutive Erice course, a remarkable anniversary, certainly, it deserved the RUBYstatus it was accorded. The drug discovery focus is a recurring theme begun in 1983 and this year's scientific program, the collaboration of Directors Colin Groom of UCB UK, and Joel Sussman of Weizmann Institute, featured several presenters who were regulars from all earliest meetings, notably Tom Blundell, University of Cambridge and Astex Therapeutics, himself now Director of the Erice International School of Crystallography, Peter Goodford, University of Oxford, formerly of Wellcome and creator of GRID, Trevor Petcher, migrated from Cambridge to Basel Pharma industry (now retired). The program offered a rich diet of recent structural and bio-informatics results from academia (with a limit of only two examples, Bill Weis's (Stanford) beta-andrenergic receptor and Gabriele Cruciani's (Perugia) probing of the impact of structure on metabolic studies) and examples of drug-design applications from both industry (Giovanna Scapin's Merck) on dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitionplus (Sandra Cowan-Jacob's Novartis) on countering Gleevec resistance and academia (Joe Marcotrigiano's Rutgers) on the quite mysterious problem posed by Hepatitis C, unfortunately full of question marks - again to name only three). Piquing widespread interest was the introduction of some nifty new tools for communication of structure by Eran Hodis and Joel Sussman, including Proteopedia (check it out:www.proteopedia.org ).
In the final analysis, though, the Erice meeting is a school and the emphasis was firmly on students. They made up the majority of the 165 scientific participants and came from countries all across the globe including Turkey, Croatia, Latvia, Lithuania, Brazil, Nigeria, South Africa, India, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam, within a total 37 nationalities. After lectures in the morning, the program most days shifted to workshops in the afternoon. These offered demonstration sessions by experts on crystallization, database resources like CCDC, EBI and PDB, CCP4 and computational and bio-informatics tools like CCP4, DOCK and GRID. Among the several innovations targeting young scientists were the award of special priority for younger questioners in discussion periods after lectures and the spirited oral poster sessions where presenters had two minutes to preview and promote their posters. Supervisors and mentors take note: this is a powerful and intense experience for young scientists, one they benefit from greatly in terms of new knowledge, new techniques, new friendships, new self-confidence and new spirit. It was a powerful thing to witness.
There were many opportunities for the 164 attendees from thirtyeight nations to interact outside formal settings. Most meals were informal collections around tables at local restaurants and covered by the registration fees. Many evening meals after workshops were social events: pizza and pasta parties, the RUBY dinner and dance. In addition there were two excursions to archeological and historical sitesof Phoenician, Elymian (said to be refugees fled the victors after the fall of Troy) and Greek heritage.
None of this could have happened without the careful preparation and precise execution of the schedule by the local organizers, Paola Spadon, Università di Padova, and Lodovico Riva di Sanseverino, Università di Bologna. The computational and communications resources were the work of John Irwin (UCSF), who since a couple of years has been made a permanent member of the team. As in the past, an enthusiastic cadre of young scientists, immediately recognizable by the orange scarves they flourished, provided all manner of assistance to the organizers. Arrivals, departures, lectures, workshops, parties, excursions, everything worked, everything was on time. It's safe to say that none will forget their time in Erice this year. That is especially true of the young scientists.
Prizewinners
Annually, the organizers assign the Vaciago Award to the young scientist judged most energetic questioner in discussion after lectures. The winner was the Brazilian Taiana de Oliveira, PhD student at the University of Tromso, Norway. In addition, the IUCr presented two poster prizes, a copy of Int'l Tables, Volume F, signed by Editors Michael Rossmann and Eddy Arnold, both attending this year, and a copy of Int'l Tables, Volume A. They went to Alice Clark from Massey University, New Zealand for her poster on Filamin A and Ida Rosnes from the National University Hospital, Oslo, Norway for her poster on Endonuclease V (5), respectively.
Ruby (!!!???) necklaces and crystals, plus local souvenir tiles of the RUBY night were also assigned to elegance, ability, spirit and luck by several participants
Statistics.
126 responses covered by anonimousicity (over a theoretical number of potential 150) to a questionnaire on the web gave a total score of 91.39 to the question "Score the meeting 0 to 100, 100 maximum", while preceeding meetings only once reached 90. A similar question re the workshop organization (there is an increasing demand for this activity) gave 80% from 108 answers. A complete overview of the answers to the questionnaire may be seen in http://www.crystalerice.org/Erice2008/report/Surveysummary.html
From a text by Howard Einspahr, slightly modified by Lodovico Riva di Sanseverino, 23 June 2008
Following a number of similar scientific events organized by us since 1992 in several locations throughout Italy (Modena, Gargnano, Pisa, Trento, Frascati, Milano, Alessandria and Martina Franca), the 2008 Workshop on X-ray Diffraction of Polycrystalline Materials was given a more international flavour and, therefore, was jointly organized in Switzerland (Villigen) by the Italian and Swiss Crystallographic Societie, as well by the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), on June 18th – 22nd, 2008.
To the best of our knowledge, this has been the first hands-on workshop combining theory, hands-on experimental sessions at both a synchrotron radiation facility (SLS) and an X-ray powder diffraction laboratory and hands-on tutorials on structural solution using various computer programs. In order to maintain a high teacher-to-student ratio, we limited to 46 the maximum number to participants. Of these, 22 regular participants were accepted with the first come-first served basis, while the remaining 24 were helped with a partial or a total (in few cases) financial support. The grants were assigned according to merit, pertinence with the on-going research subject, internationality, age and chronology of registration. More than 130 people registered and/or informally applied after the closure of the registrations.
Lectures were typically given in the morning sessions with the whole audience in the main lecture room and tutorials (experimental sessions and data analyses) were given in the afternoons, in smaller groups. A vast set of polycrystalline compounds of progressive complexity was pre-selected by the school teachers and synchrotron radiation and laboratory X-ray measurements performed prior to the school, as well as during the hands-on session, together with samples that the students brought with them. Data collected were, then, analyzed during the hands-on afternoon computer tutorials sessions. A minimum of three teachers or tutors were present in each room.
In the first day, Prof. Bürgi and Rius introduced some fundamentals of symmetry, crystallography and the basics of diffraction and of the powder method. On the next morning, Prof. Masciocchi, Dr. Guagliardi and Dr. Gozzo illustrated laboratory and synchrotron radiation experimental set-ups, sample preparation techniques and the basics of profile analysis. In the following days, specific sessions were given on the Rietveld method and on the structure solution process, from indexing to direct space and reciprocal space methods of solution, with particular emphasis on new computational techniques and the solution of difficult cases (Prof. Černy, Dr. Rodriguez-Carvajal, Dr. David, Dr. Hinrichsen). On the last day, complementarity of neutron diffraction, SR and X-rays were illustrated in the presentations of Dr. Sheptyakov and Dr. Pomjakushin. Finally, applications of XRD in drug development and formulation were presented by Prof. Finney. Data analysis programs, such as EXPO (Dr. Altomare and Dr. Rizzi), TOPAS (Dr. Hinrichsen and Dr. Galli), FOX (Prof. Černy) and FULLPROF (Dr. Rodriguez-Carvajal), were widely employed during the afternoon sessions, with the students subdivided into small groups. Presentation of ICDD activities and products was also included in the School program.
We also organized lunches and dinners all together to encourage the participants to further discuss among themselves and with the teachers. Accordingly, students, teachers and tutors fruitfully merged their ideas, skills and experience throughout the whole week.
At the end of the school, we have asked all participants to answer to a questionnaire. The average of the overall estimate of the school on a 1-10 scale (1=poor, 10=excellent) has been 8.45. The comments were also positive and encouraging the continuation of this event in the future, a possibility that we will soon discuss. Moreover, we have decided not to produce any written material but we have created a location on the school web site where all lectures, tutorials and experimental data (with appropriate input files, publically available) are uploaded.
See http://user.web.psi.ch/powder08/downloads/
Of the many highlights to be mentioned here, we like to cite the possibility of measuring diffraction data with one of the fast solid state detector, MYTHEN II, particularly suitable to the analysis of organic compounds that suffer from radiation damage, since it acquires high statistics full diffraction patterns in a few seconds. Attendees from pharmaceutical industries were significantly attracted by the data quality (compared with their in-house instruments) and the contacts established during the school will be certainly pursued.
Finally, we are pleased to mention that a number of Industrial, Academic and Public sponsors have kindly supported this School, to whom we are gratefully indebted: their detailed list can be found in the School web site. ECA, SGK/SSCr, PSI and ICCD itself has generously provided a substantial support to our initiative, which, given the extreme success, will be likely repeated in the future.
Dinner on Saturday June 21st evening at PSI
Cake made on purpose for the School
The 5th European Charge Density meeting took place in Gravedona (Italy), on the shores of the Lake Como on 6-11 June. The meeting was organized by University of Milan, University of Insubria (Como), CNR-INST Milan, in conjuction with the SPP 1178 network founded by the Deutsche Forschungs Gemeinschaft (DFG). The congress was supported by several crystallographic organizations (IUCr, Italian Crystallographic association AIC and European Crystallographic Association ECA), by the Universities of Milan and Como, by the CNR-ISTM Milan, by Cariplo Fundation, INSTM and it obtained the patronage of the Lombardy government.
Participation and program schedule exceed any expectation and were much larger than in all previous editions of this series of conferences. 170 registered participants attended the meeting, from more than 20 countries and 4 continents. 11 keynote lectures, 38 talks (in 11 microsymposia) and 70 posters were presented during the meeting.
Scientific Committee
| Destro Riccardo | Milano University, Milano, Italy |
| Espinosa Enrique | Nancy University, Nancy, France |
| Farrugia Louis J. | Glasgow University, Glasgow, UK |
| Gatti Carlo | CNR-ISTM, Milano, Italy |
| Kozícek Jozef | Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovakia |
| Larsen Finn | Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark |
| Larsen Sine | ESRF, Grenoble, France |
| Luger Peter | Freie Universitaet, Berlin, Germany |
| Macchi Piero | Milano University, Milano, Italy |
| Martín Péndas Angel | Oviedo University, Oviedo, Spain |
| Pietsch Ullrich | Siegen University, Siegen, Germany |
| Scherer Wolfgang | Augsburg University, Augsburg, Germany |
| Stalke Dietmar | Göttingen University, Göttingen, Germany |
| Wozniak Krzysztof | Warsaw University, Warsaw, Poland |
Organizing Committee
| Dr. Cargnoni Fausto | CNR-ISTM, Milano |
| Dr. Casati Nicola | Università di Milano, Milano |
| Dr. Forni Alessandra | CNR-ISTM, Milano |
| Prof. Destro Riccardo | Università di Milano, Milano |
| Dr. Galli Simona | Università dell'Insubria, Como |
| Dr. Gambillara Roberto | Università dell'Insubria, Como |
| Dr. Gatti Carlo | CNR-ISTM, Milano |
| Dr. Lasi Davide | Università di Milano, Milano |
| Dr. Lo Presti Leonardo | Università di Milano, Milano |
| Dr. Loconte Laura | Università di Milano, Milano |
| Dr. Maccaroni Elisabetta | Università dell'Insubria, Como |
| Dr. Macchi Piero | Università di Milano, Milano |
| Prof. Masciocchi Norberto | Università dell'Insubria, Como |
| Prof. Sironi Angelo | Università di Milano, Milano |
| Dr. Soave Raffaella | CNR-ISTM, Milano |
| Dr. Tiana Davide | Università di Milano, Milano |
 |
Summer School on Mathematical and Theoretical CrystallographyGargnano, Garda lake (Italy), 27 April – 2 May 2008 |
The IUCr Commission on Mathematical and Theoretical Crystallography, in cooperation with the Commission on Crystallographic Teaching, has organized a Summer School on Mathematical and Theoretical Crystallography at Gargnano, on the Garda lake (Italy), from 27th April to 2nd May 2008. The school was held at Palazzo Feltrinelli, an historical palace on the lake that is currently owned by the University of Milan.
The School was attended by 40 registered participants from 13 countries and presented 10 lectures by six invited speakers (Mois I. Aroyo, Bilbao; Michele Catti, Milan and Angelo Gavezzotti, Milan; Ulrich Müller, Marburg; Massimo Nespolo, Nancy; Bernd Souvignier, Nijmegen), which covered basic and advanced topics, from fundamental crystallographic group theory to applications in phase transitions, derivative structures, solid-state thermodynamics and molecular packing. Each lecture was accompanied by a series of guided exercises. Didactic material is available for download from the school website.
Most participants were lodged either directly in the venue or in a detached property of the University, close to the venue. This allowed for extra evening sessions on demand, during which further exercises and topic discussions were also held.
Participants had also the occasion of presenting their work in a poster session. The abstracts of the posters are also available for download from the school website.
Young participants got financial support to partly cover their travel and lodging expenses. Eleven grants were assigned from IUCr funds, 8 from ECA funds and 4 from AIC (Italian Crystallographic Association) funds. The financial aid from Panalytical, from the "Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per la Scienza e Tecnologia dei Materiali" and from the Department of Materials Science of the University Milano-Bicocca allowed the organisers (Angiolina Comotti and Massimo Nespolo) to cover the organisation costs.
School website:
http://www.crystallography.fr/mathcryst/gargnano2008.htm
Further MaThCryst activities at http://www.crystallography.fr/mathcryst/
Contact address:
(Prof. Massimo Nespolo, chairman)
The Anniversary 10th Heart of Europe bio-Crystallography (HEC-X) Meeting, held in Bedlewo, Poland, September 27-29, 2007, was organized by the Center for Biocrystallographic Research, Polish Academy of Sciences (Poznan). It brought together 118 participants, mostly students, from the three Heart-of-Europe countries (Germany, Poland, Czech Rep.). In keeping with the HEC tradition, the 31 scientific presentations (20-min. lectures) were given exclusively by young scientists. A special HEC Lecture on "Crystallography, chemistry and insulin's biological processes" was delivered by Prof. Guy Dodson (Univ. of York, UK). An IUCr-sponsored HEC Prize for the best presentation went to Robert Kolodziejczyk (A. Mickiewicz Univ.) for his talk entitled "Insect Juvenile Hormone Binding Protein exhibits ancestral fold present in human lipid binding proteins". The ECA generously sponsored 9 registration fee waivers. (http://hec-x.ibch.poznan.pl/)
Mariusz Jaskolski, HEC-X Chairman
The first ever Zürich Crystallography School was intended for masters and Ph.D. students in chemistry and crystallography from all over Europe, particularly those who do not have ready access to crystallography courses at their own institution. The impressions given below by one of the students says it all...
Tony Linden, Hans-Beat Bürgi, School Directors
A Student's Perspective
The Zürich Crystallography School 2007
Hosted by the University of Zürich and organized by PD Dr. Anthony Linden and Prof. Hans-Beat Bürgi, The Zürich Crystallography School took place for the first time in August, 2007. Interested in crystallography, twenty participants, mainly PhD students from all over Europe, came together to attend this two-week class.
The course started Sunday evening with a nice get-together, so people got a chance to get to know each other and every student received a folder with all the documents and teaching material for the next two weeks. As you could download the course material beforehand, you were able to prepare yourself and get a rough idea of what's to come.
Starting with the main principles of diffraction, growing crystals and how to mount them, to discussing difficulties and problems and finally solving and refining your own crystal structures during the practical work, the course covered all topics. So no matter whether you were already experienced or not, the course covered both basic and advanced skills and provided new and more in-depth insights into the subject. Therefore, everyone was able to profit and gain plenty of new knowledge about crystallography. Determining your crystal structures, you learned both gwhich button to pushh but more importantly gwhyh.
The first week was dominated by theory whereas during the second week the morning and afternoon sessions were split into a theoretical and a practical part. For the practical work, the twenty participants were divided into ten groups of two people each, depending on their previous knowledge, so every group consisted of one more and one less experienced student.
The lectures were hosted in a modern classroom and the practical exercises took place in a fully equipped computer-room. One computer was provided to each group, but you were welcome to bring your own laptop. During the time of the course, internet access to the University WLAN was provided and could also be used over the weekend. The nine tutors, who have been working in this field for years, supervised the ten groups during all the tutorials and exercises, so the students profited from intense supervision and support while trying to solve their structures.
With access to four different types of diffractometers on offer, every student got the chance to set up a crystal measurement on a machine similar to the one their own group is using. Each evening, the class ended with a short summary of the day where students got the chance to comment on the day's lectures or to mention things they noticed.
I would like to emphasize the extraordinary commitment of all of the tutors. Even though many of them lived close enough to go home in the evening, they all joined the evening dinner to have discussions or simply pleasant conversations. They worked unsocial hours no matter whether it was to prepare the lectures, to help us deal with difficult crystal structures or give us an extra maths-refresher in a nice evening get-together. Not just the organization of the course was absolutely flawless, but also the social gatherings like the excursion to the PSI with the synchrotron and SINQ or the two barbecues we had. With a big dinner on the last evening, the course concluded with a little surprise for the students: they received a certificate for their attendance and a great book about crystal structure refinement (Müller et al. Crystal Structure Refinement, a Crystallographer's Guide to SHELXL – donated by the IUCr and OUP).
It was a total of 90 hours of crystallography, two weeks of really hard work for both the students and the tutors, but believe me it was absolutely worth it! I think all of them did a great job and I honestly hope some more courses like this one will follow so other people interested in crystallography will get the chance to attend this really great course, too, and to go home and not just be satisfied with the massive amount of knowledge they gained during these two weeks, but with the inspiration to improve themselves in this art.
Last but not least, I'd like to use this opportunity to thank all the sponsors of this course who made this great experience possible and affordable. Thank you.
Julia Rinck, Karlsruhe
The third French Crystallographic School on Structural Analysis by X-ray Diffraction was held in Pont à Mousson (Nancy, France) in September 2006. The school was attended by 57 participants coming from 5 countries (France, Spain, Belgium, Marocco, Algeria) and 15 international speakers.
The program covered basis of structural analysis, extended to crystallography under perturbation (pressure and optical excitation). The organization was based on the close relationship between plenary lectures, held each morning, and tutorials on computers during the afternoons and evenings.
A round table was organized with discussions on various subjects including ghow to run a service crystallographyh. Participants had the occasion to exchange their experience and opinion between each other and with sponsors.
Dr Sébastien Pillet, Chairman
The regional Heart of Europe bio-Crystallography Meeting (HEC-8), the eighth in a popular annual series, took place in Karlovy Vary from September 29 to October 1, 2005. The Meeting was funded in part by the European Crystallographic Association, and also supported by the Czech and Slovak Crystallographic Association. The organizer was the Institute of Molecular Genetics, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague. The Meeting was attended by about 100 participants and provided a forum for 32 presentations by young bio-crystallographers from Germany, Poland, Austria and the hosting Czech Republic. A memorable HEC-8 Lecture on "Phasing on anomalous scattering: Multi- vs Single-wavelength" was given by Zbyszek Dauter from the Argonne National Laboratory, USA.
(prof. Juraj Sedlacek, chairman)
The 9th edition of the International Conference on Crystal Chemistry of Intermetallic Compounds was held in Lviv, Ukraine, on September 20-24, 2005. This series of All-Union conferences was initiated in 1971 in context with the creation of the School on Crystal Chemistry at Lviv University, and since then, a meeting takes place approximately every third year. The 2005 edition was organized under the auspices of Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, the Ministry of Ukraine for Education and Science, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Crystallographic Committee (UCC), and was further sponsored by the International Center for Diffraction Data (ICDD) and the European Crystallographic Association (ECA).
145 scientists from eleven different countries attended the conference to present recent results in the fields of phase diagrams, crystal structures and physical properties of intermetallic compounds. The program included eleven plenary lectures presented by leading scientists:
17 shorter oral presentations and 95 poster presentations covered further aspects of intermetallic and related compounds and gave the opportunity to numerous interesting discussions.
An open meeting of the UCC was organized within the frame of the conference. It was opened by the President of ECA, H. Fuess, who exposed the activities of the parent association ECA. The conference was followed-up by an ICDD workshop, where different products and grant-in-aid programs of ICDD were presented.
The conference abstracts are available in electronic form at the web-site www.franko.lviv.ua/conference/imc. Proceedings will be published in a special issue of the Journal of Alloys and Compounds in 2006.
Thanks to financial support granted by ECA, 33 young scientists could attend the conference free-of-charge.
Vice chairperson of the IX-IMC Organizing Committee: R. Gladyshevskii
Secretary of the IX-IMC Organizing Committee: B. Belan
21-29 June, Białowieża,Poland.
Organizer: Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Bialystok, Poland
The School and Symposium gathered 65 participants from 10
countries. Its programme constituted natural continuation of the
previous School (2004) on the “Structural Aspects of
Matter”. The main emphasis was put on the transient effects
and time-resolved characteristics of structural phase
transitions, especially the ones induced by light. Attention was
also put to the catalytic phenomena and less-known halogen
bonding. The School program covered also the basics and
up-to-date application of neutron scattering, muon spin rotation
and various visualization techniques – all of them
essential in the studies of phase transitions.
About 30 PhD and undergraduated students participated in the
School. Most of them were supported through the funds of IUCr and
ECA, whose sponsorship was acknowledged in all official
documents, in the internet announcements, and at the opening and
closing of the School. All students who received the grants were
obliged to present a poster. Five of them were next selected for
a short oral presentation. In addition to regular courses and
talks, training in using crystallographic software was organized
for the students.
In the opinion of lecturers and other participants the School
and Symposium was very successful and the organizers got strong
support for continuation of such events.
(prof. Ludwik Dobrzynski, chairman)
Nancy, France, 20-24 June 2005.
The School was attended by 61 registered participants from 20 countries with different backgrounds (chemistry, physics, mineralogy, mathematics, biology...).
This heterogeneous public was introduced to several aspects of modern theoretical crystallography by nine invited lecturers:
Theo Hahn, Hans Wondratschek, Ulrich Muller (Germany), Mois I. Aroyo (Spain), Vojtech Kopský (Czech Republic),
Michele Catti (Italy), Artem Oganov, Howard Flack (Switzerland) and Takamitsu Yamanaka (Japan).
The School included also a poster session, with 23 posters presented: the electronic version of the abstracts, as well as didactic
material related to the lectures, is available for download from the school website.
A special issue of Acta Crystallographica Section A will be published with articles from the lecturers and manuscripts submitted by the participants.
(prof. Massimo Nespolo, chairman)
