2007-2008
1. Introduction.
SIG-8 was totally responsible for the following microsymposia: MS31 “Advances in Powder Diffraction: Structural aspects”, chaired by J. Rius, R. Kuzel, MS46 “Advances in Powder Diffraction: Microstructural aspects” (R. Kuzel. J.Rius). SIG-8 also participated in the microsymposia: MS25 “Coupling spectroscopy and diffraction” (RJ Cernik, JL. Hodeau) and “Structure and function” (K.Stahl and Glazer) at ECM-24 in Marrakesh (Morocco, August, 2007).
2. Past Activities.
Title: Diffraction analysis of the microstructure of materials (October 7-9, 2007) in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Number of Participants: approx. 100
Sponsors / Organizers:Max Planck Institute for Metals Research/ E.J. Mittemeijer, P. Scardi, A.Leineweber, U. Welzel
Short Description: The 5th size-strain conference is intended as a continuation of a successful series of conferences initiated in 1995, the last one being a satellite workshop of the EPDIC9 Conference in Prague (2004). The conference deals with materials microstructure and properties, as they can be studied by diffraction methods, with a special interest in the application of diffraction techniques to polycrystalline materials.
One of the two conference chairs, one local organizer and one third of the scientific committee are SIG8 members.
3. Future/Programmed Activities.
Title: EPDIC-11 (11-th European Powder Diffraction Conference Warsaw, POLAND 19-22 September 2008 and satellite workshops)
Sponsors / Organizers: IUCr, Panalytical, Bruker-AXS, ICDD, ECA / Prof. Bodgan Palosz (Institute for High Pressure Physics of the Academy of Sciences)
Short Description: The European Powder Diffraction Conference takes place every two years. The present edition will be in Warsaw (Poland). This is now the major European powder diffraction conference regularly attracting around 300 scientists. These are not just crystallographers but also include materials scientists, chemists or even engineers. There is a strong emphasis on applied and industrial themes.
4. Other matters.
Publication of the EPDIC-10 Proceedings (on-line, free access) as Supplement of Zeitschrift für Kristallographie (5. Dec. 2007)
Editors: Radovan Cerny, Jordi Rius, Udo Welzel
5. Five year ‘overview’, brief activity report (2004-2008)
You can find the ‘overview’ in the attached yearly activity reports.
6. Estimated number of active members:
22
7. List SIG officers, name and e-mail, and specify their main function in the SIG:
SIG8 chair: Jordi Rius, Barcelona, Spain (se.ba1713484567mci@s1713484567uir.i1713484567droj1713484567)
SIG8 co-chair I: Paolo Scardi. Trento, Italy (ti.nt1713484567inu.g1713484567ni@id1713484567racS.1713484567oloaP1713484567)
SIG8 co-chair II: Robert Cernik, Manchester, UK < “#008000”>ku.ca1713484567.rets1713484567ehcna1713484567m@kin1713484567rec.r1713484567>
Supplementary Materials.
2006-2007
1. Introduction.
SIG-8 was responsible for the two microsymposia entitled ” Advances in Powder Diffraction: Structural aspects” and ” Advances in Powder Diffraction: Microstructural aspects”, chaired by (R. Cernik, Ch. Kirschhock) and (P. Scardi, N. Audebrand) in the ECM-23 held in Leuven near Brussels.
2. Past Activities.
The SIG has been active in the organisation of the following activities on behalf of the user community
Title: EPDIC-10 (1-4 September 2006)
Number of Participants: 400
Sponsors/Organizers: Panalytical, Bruker-AXS, STOE, Anton Paar, Incoatec, Thermo, inel, IUCr, ECA, ICDD, Loterie Romande, Huber, Univ. of Geneve, Foundation Ernest Boninchi , etc. / Radovan Cerny
Short Description: This is a conference that deals with all topics related to powder diffraction including those with an applied or industrial theme.
Title: School on structure determination by the combination of X-ray powder diffraction and Electron Crystallography (August 1 to 4, 2006 – ANTWERPEN | Belgium)
Number of Participants: approx. 70
Sponsors/Organizers: SIG on Electron Crystallography and scientific support of SIG8 (FEI, EMS, INTAS, BVM, The University of Antwerp, ESTEEM, Calidris and Nanomegas)/ J. Hadermann, L. Meshi
International Advisory Committee: G. Van Tendeloo, T. Weirich, X. Zou
Short Description:
The X-EL 2006 school is addressed to young scientists searching to acquire knowledge on the usefulness and practical application of both X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy for determining and refining the structure of materials.
Title: ‘Under the Bonnet’ Powder Diffraction Software Workshop 8:50am to 6:00pm, Friday, 1st September 2006, Uni Mail, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
Number of Participants: approx. 70
Sponsors/Organizers: BRUKER-AXS, PANANALYTICAL, EPDIC/ Prof. Simon Billinge and
Lachlan Cranswick
Short Description:
To have powder diffraction software developers present the advanced features in their indexing, solution and refinement programs. To help participants answer the following questions about the programs: what does it do? why/when should I use it? how/where can I use/get it? what is under the bonnet?
Title: WS on Pharmaceutical Applications of X-ray PD (Geneva, August 31)
Number of Participants:80
Sponsors/Organizers: PSI, Novartis, Roche, Serono, Panalytical, Bruker-AXS, EPDIC/ Fabia Gozzo, Olaf Grassmann, Frank Stowasser
Short Description:
The purpose of the WS is to bring together outstanding X-ray powder diffraction scientists and pharmaceutical industry representatives to discuss issues of current mutual interest. New methods and trends in the XRPD field will be presented which are relevant to the pharmaceutical industry. In particular, regulatory aspects of daily laboratory work are discussed which are crucial for this industry.
Title: Nano-materials and Powder Diffraction (31 August 2006, Uni Mail, Geneva)
Number of Participants: approx.100
Sponsors/Organizers: BRUKER-AXS, Panalytical, EPDIC / Robert L. Snyder and Bogdan F. Palosz
Short Description:
Diffraction is one of the most useful techniques for determination of the atomic structure of matter. However, the complex structure of nano-materials causes the standard methods of structural analysis to be of limited use so that non-standard and new approaches and tools for structural analysis are necessary. New XRD techniques and instrumentation for specifically designed for nano-materials characterization were described in this meeting.
3. Future/Programmed Activities.
Title: 11-th European Powder Diffraction Conference Warsaw, POLAND 19-22 September 2008 and satellite workshops
Organizers: Prof. Bodgan Palosz (Institute for High Pressure Physics of the Academy of Sciences)
Short Description:
This is now the major European powder diffraction conference regularly attracting 350-400 scientists. These are not just crystallographers but include many would see themselves more as materials scientists, chemists or even engineers. There is a strong emphasis on applied or industrial themes and it is evolving in its philosophy. The powder community still interacts enthusiastically with the ECM conferences as highlighted below. These sessions tend to be more focused on the crystallographic method itself applied to powders and theoretical developments of structure solution.
Title: Organisation of two microsymposia in ECM-24 (Advances in PD: Structural Aspects (SA) and Microstructural Aspects (MA)) Organizers: Jordi Rius (SA) and Radomir Kuzel (MA). In addition the powder SIG has made a significant contribution to the eCombining spectroscopy and diffractionf (Cernik and Hodeau) and estructure and functionf (Stahl and Glazer) microsymposia.
Title:Publication of the EPDIC10 Proceedings in a special issue of Zeitschrift für Kristallographie
This is an important development as we are trying to make the output from the powder diffraction conferences available to a wide audience.
4. Other matters.
The updated list of SIG officers is:
SIG chair: Jordi Rius, Barcelona, Spain
SIG co-chair: Paolo Scardi. Trento, Italy
SIG Secretary: Robert Cernik, Manchester, UK
2005-2006
The main activities during 2005 were:
1. The approval by the EPDICom to propose to the IUCr-ECA to hold a joint ECM-EPDIC in 2010, in France or in Germany. The two events would keep two different scientific committees and would take place one after the other. EPDIC, of course, would gather all contributions regarding powder diffraction (and in general the more materials science oriented contributions). The EPDIC part of the joint event would be run according to the rules of the EPDIC committee. (Note: The EPDIC 11 conference will take place between 1-15 September 2008 in Warsaw; chairman of the organising committee will be B.Palosz).
2. The IUCr2005 Congress took place in Firenze in the last week of August. During this congress the ECA held two meetings (on 25. and 28. August. Robert Cernik represented EPDIC in the first session and Jordi Rius in the second one. During the first session our resolution regarding a common meeting for 2010 in Germany or France was accepted and passed by ECA 100%. Later the site of ECM 2010 was voted – this was won by Darmstadt and the count passed 100%. To conclude, the joint EPDIC-ECM meeting in 2010 will be held in Darmstadt one after the other. One model would consist on partially sharing the commercial exhibition, although the details will have to be discussed further.
3. Referee work of EPDIC 9 proceedings. Two members of the EPDIC committee (R.Kuzel and U.Welzel) are co-Editors of the EPDIC proceedings. The EPDIC committee has performed most of the referee work of the proceedings that will be published in Z.Kristallogr in due course. Mittemeijer did the contacts with the publisher.
4. There has been an especial issue of Powder Diffraction dedicated to Professor Daniel Louër on occasion of his retirement. Most of the contributors either belong to the Epdic Committee or are participants of the EPDIC conferences [Powder Diffraction 20 (4) December 2005].
5. The chairman of the EPDICom helped the ICCD to organise the 4th Pharmaceutical Powder X-ray Diffraction Symposium (PXRD-4) in Barcelona (Spain) 21-24 February 2005.
6. National meetings:
Powder diffractionists who are EPDIC Committee/SIG8 members remain active in organising national meetings, which partly have also educational purposes. For example in Spain the ” 5. School on the Rietveld method” took place from 4-7 July 2005 in Castellón (Spain).
Prospective for 2006:
1. The EPDIC committee is working in the scientific program of EPDIC 10 in Geneva (1-4 September 2006; chairman of the organising committee: R.Cerny).
2. Contribution to the definition of the content of ECM-23 that will take place one month before EPDIC 10. SIG-8 is responsible for the two microsymposia entitled ” Advances in Powder Diffraction: Structural aspects” and ” Advances in Powder Diffraction: Microstructural aspects”, chaired by (B.Cernik, Ch.Kirschhock) and (P.Scardi, N.Audebrand).
3. X-El 2006 School on combined X-ray and Electron diffraction techniques organised jointly by the SIGs on Electron and Powder Diffraction. This school is a satellite of ECM-23 and will take place in Antwerp from 1 to 4 August.
J.Rius (Bellaterra)
On behalf of SIG 8/the EPDIC committe
26- May- 2006
2004-2005
The main activities during the last twelve months were:
1. The organisation of EPDIC 9 in Prague (2-5 September 2004; chairman of the organising committee: R. Kuzel). During the conference, the meeting of the EPDIC committee took place, chaired by P.Scardi, and the new chairman and vice-chairmen of the EPDIC committee were elected, i.e. J.Rius and P.Scardi, B.Cernik in substitution of E.Mittemeijer and G.Artioli, respectively. The President of the European Crystallographic Asscociation (ECA) (H.Fuess) was invited to the meeting. He proposed the audience to consider the opportunity of holding ECM and EPDIC at the same location in the future. The EPDIC committee decided to invite the ECA President to future meetings of the committee to discuss this matter again, always in due advance with respect to future events.
2. The organisation by SIG 8 of microsymposium 27 at ECM22 devoted to “Advances in Powder Diffraction Methods” (organisers: J.Rius and E.J.Mittemeijer). P.Scardi was also co-chairman in MS 28 on nanocrystalline materials.
3. EPDIC 11 will take place between 1-15 September 2008 (Warsaw; chairman of the organising committee: B.Palosz).
4. The improvement of the EPDIC homepage. The present webmaster is U.Welzel (Stuttgart)
5. At present the EPDIC committee is working in the organisation of EPDIC 10 in Geneva (1-4 September 2006; chairman of the organising committee: R.Cerny) as well as in the definition of the content of ECM-23 that will take place one month before EPDIC 10. In principle two microsymposia entitled ” Advances in Powder Diffraction: Structural aspects” and ” Advances in Powder Diffraction: Microstructural aspects”, chaired by (B.Cernik, J.Rius) and (P.Scardi, N.Audebrand) respectively, have been proposed for ECM-23.
6. Publication of EPDIC 9 proceedings. Two members of the EPDIC committee (R.Kuzel and U.Welzel) are co-Editors of the EPDIC proceedings. The EPDIC committee has performed most of the referee work of the proceedings that will be published in Z.Kristallogr in due course. In this connection, Ch.Baerlocher and L.McCusker who are members of the local organising committee of EPDIC 10, have acted as guest co-editors of a special issue of Z.Kristallogr. devoted to “Structure Determination from Powder Diffraction Data”. Some contributors to this issue belong to the EPDIC committee.
7. National meetings
Powder diffractionists who are EPDIC Committee/SIG8 members remain active in organising national meetings, which partly have also educational purposes. For example in Spain the ” 5. School on the Rietveld method” will take place from 4-7 July in Castellón.
J.Rius (Bellaterra), P.Scardi (Trento) and R.Cernik (Daresbury)
On behalf of SIG 8/the EPDIC committee
26- May- 2005
2003-2004
Since the last report (August 2003) the main activities were:
- The organization of EPDIC 9 in Prague (2-5 September 2004; chairman of the organizing committee: R. Kuzel). In particular also the tuning of the contents of EPDIC 9 and a part of ECM 22, that takes place briefly before EPDIC 9, absorbed time: among others, especially Microsymposium 27 at ECM 22 is organized fully by SIG 8 (=EPDIC committee) and is devoted to “Advances in Powder Diffraction Methods” (organizers: J. Rius and E.J. Mittemeijer).
- EPDIC 10 will take place from 1-4 September 2006 (Geneva; chairman of the organizing committee: R. Cerny)
- The EPDIC committee has to decide about date and place of EPDIC 11 in September this year during its meeting in Prague during EPDIC 9 in Geneva.
- Publication of EPDIC proceedings
After having considered a number of variants and two rounds of voting, it was finally decided to have simultaneous publication of a hard copy and an electronic (www) version of the proceedings. Starting with EPDIC 9 this new way of publication, now in association with the Zeitschrift fuer Kristallographie, will be a fact. - National meetings
Powder diffractionists, who are EPDIC committee/SIG 8 members, remain active in organizing national meetings, which partly have also educational purposes. For example, in Italy a national School on Powder Diffraction takes place next month in Alessandria.
E. J. Mittemeijer (Stuttgart) and G. Artioli (Milan)
On behalf of SIG 8/the EPDIC committee
25-5-2004
2002-2003
Since EPDIC 8 in Uppsala (23-26 May 2002) and awaiting EPDIC 9 in Prague (2-5 September 2004) two major topics have kept our attention.
1. Decision on the date and location of EPDIC 10.
The time interval to be kept between two successive EPDICs remains a topic of recurring debate. The extremes are a time interval of 1.5 years and a time interval of 3 years. Arguments used are (i) there are two many conferences and new science should have the chance to develop, thereby keeping the EPDICs at a high level (ii) the constraints imposed by other conferences where powder diffractionistst may also be interested to go (as ECM and ECRS) (iii) interest from diffraction equipment producers to have a high frequency of EPDICs.
The EPDIC committee decided to organize EPDIC 10 in September 2006 in Geneva.
2. Publication of EPDIC proceedings
The transition to electronic publication of the EPDIC proceedings has still not been taken. A proposal has now been prepared involving:
(i) the full EPDIC proceedings would be published only electronically (a CD and at the time of issue of the CD, publication of the proceedings on the www as well with 100% free accessibility for anybody capable of searching the net,and
(ii) journal publication of a selected number of papers in one or two journal issues.
It is remarkable to note that this non-commercial solution is not cheapier as the commercial hard copy paper printing publication of the proceedings until now (as volumes of the journal Materials Science Forum); in fact it appears to be somewhat more expensive. On the other hand, a wider dissemination seems to be guaranteed by the “electronic” alternative.
The EPDIC committee now considers the detailed proposal and will likely reach a decision in a couple of weeks.
E. J. Mittemeijer (Stuttgart) and G. Artioli (Milan)
On behalf of SIG 8/the EPDIC committee
1-8-2003
2001-2002
from Gilberto Artioli
20 June 2002.
Report on the activities of the Powder Diffraction SIG (EPDIC)
1. The main concern of SIG 8/the EPDIC committee has been the organizing of EPDIC 8 in Uppsala (23-26 May 2002).
EPDIC 8 was a success. About 250 participants enjoyed a three day conference highlighting various aspects of powder diffraction by means of invited lectures, contributed orals and posters. EPDIC continues to be the reference conference for powder diffraction.
2. The committee decided to organize the next EPDIC after about 2.5 years in 2004 in Prague. The venue and the date should not interfere with other ECA activities.
3. A major concern of SIG8/the EPDIC committee was and is the continuation of the publication of the proceedings of the EPDIC conferences. Electronic publication versus hard copy, preferably as part of a journal/series. The majority still wants also a hard copy in addition to an electronic version on the web. At the moment a discussion with ICDD and IXAS has been initiated to evaluate the possibility of a joint publication with the Denver conference proceedings. In this context also the choice of journal is discussed. The entire issue has not been definitively settled yet.
The Proceedings of EPDIC 8 (Uppsala 2002) will still be published as part of “Materials Science Forum” (see also our website : http://iummix.terra.unimi.it/~epdic/epdic.html).
E.J. Mittemeijer (Stuttgart) and G. Artioli (Milan)
on behalf of SIG8/the EPDIC committee
(see the EPDIC web site: http://iummix.terra.unimi.it/~epdic/epdic.html)