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Final Draft of SAS Commission Annual Rept for 1996

For your reference and retention 

As approved by NIST Washington Editorial Review Board, 5 Mar 1997
IUCr Commission on Small-Angle Scattering
Annual Report for 1996

The creation of a Commission on Small-Angle Scattering (SAS) was first suggested
at the American Crystallographic Association's Annual Meeting in Montreal in
July of 1995. At that time a working group was established with Dr. John
Barnes of NIST (USA) as chair and Dr. Terence Sabine of ANSTO (Australia) as
co-chair. By February of 1996 these two had recruited 6 additional members to
the working group.

The working group sponsored, under the leadership of Drs. Barnes and Sabine, 
two sessions on small-angle scattering  at the XVII Congress of the
Internation Union of crystallography (IUCr) in Seattle. The working group
also drafted Terms of Reference for a permanent SAS Commission. The working
group approved these and presented them to the worldwide SAS community at
the X International Conference on Small-Angle Scattering (SAS-96) in
Campinas, Sao Paolo, Brazil in July of 1996. The draft terms of Refernce
were forwarded to the IUCr Executve Committee in time for the IUCr General
Assembly to approve the SAS Commission as a permanent entity at its
gathering in Seattle in August of 1996.

The general assembly approved the membership of the Commission as follows: John
D. Barnes (USA, Chair), Terence M. Sabine (Australia), Gernot Kostorz
(Switzerland), Aldo Craievich (Brazil), Jeffrey Penfold (UK), Eric Kaler
(USA), Dmitri Svergun (Russia), and Kozo Osamura (Japan). The Executive
Committee appointed Dr. Michael Hart (USA) as its liaison with the Commission.

Since that time the Commission members have been mainly engaged in
"community building." Dr. Barnes has established a site on the World Wide
Web (http://www.nist.gov/sas) which the worldwide SAS community can use to
communicate with one another. Up to date details on all matters regarding
the Commission's membership, its history, and its activities can be found at
that address. The community's internet listserver has in excess of 260
subscribers as of this writing. The Commission is attempting to expand this
list to include as many practitioners of SAS as possible. Additional
content, in the form of links to SAS laboratories, and SAS literature
compilations are being sought for the web site.

Commission member Aldo Craievich deserves special recognition for organizing and
promoting the X InternationalConference on Small-Angle Scattering. This event,
held in Campinas, Sao Paolo, Brazil brought together over 250 SAS practitioners
from all over the world for four days of outstanding technical sessions. A visit
to the newly commissioned Brazilian National Synchrotron Light Laboratory was a
highlight of the meeting. The proceedings of the conference, co-edited by Aldo
Craievich, Gernot Kostorz, and Jose Teixeira will be published in an issue of
the Journal of Applied Crystallography by mid-1997.


Preparations are underway for the XI International SAS Conference, to be held at
Brookhaven National Laboratory in the spring of 1999.

A preliminary technical agenda has been drafted and the Commission is
recruiting volunteers to carry out parts of that agenda. The Commission is
cooperating with the Small Angle Special Interest Group of the American
Crystallographic Association to sponsor three sessions at the 1997 ACA
annual meeting in St. Louis, MO, USA. A series of tutorial sessions on
"Small-Angle Scattering for the Industrial Plastics Laboratory" is planned
for the 1998 Society of Plastics Engineers ANTEC meeting. These activities
are part of an outreach effort aimed at bringing SAS methods into more
widespread use in the world materials community. Proposals for
interlaboratory testing programs are being formulated.
. 
Respectfully submitted
John D. Barnes
Chair, IUCr Commission on Small-Angle Scattering

John D. Barnes                   john.barnes@nist.gov
Bldg 224 Rm A209                 voice: 301-975-6786
N.I.S.T                          fax: 301-977-2018
Gaithersburg, MD 20899