IUCr 1996 Triennial Report - Commission on Crystallographic Computing

In the present triennium, the Commission has been engaged in the following activities:

(1) Organization of an Open Commission Meeting at the Beijing Congress with seven communications on different modern aspects of crystallographic computing.

(2) Since August 1993, refereeing the section Computer Program Abstracts in J. Appl. Cryst. has been carried out by D. Watkin and M. Ramanadham.

(3) The seed spread by H. D. Flack (past Chairman and Consultant to the Commission) of a Crystallography WWW page has grown into a very useful tree with many branches, accessed by thousands of people. Recently, P. Bourne has set up a Commission on Crystallographic Computing home page and a software repository.

(4) The plans for the organization of a small regional school, more oriented towards computational aspects, after the poor response to D. Watkin's explorations, were deferred.

(5) The Asian Crystallographic Computing School was held in Bangkok, Thailand, 25-28 November 1995. The school was organized jointly with the Commission on Crystallographic Teaching as a satellite of AsCA '95. The school programme included lectures in the mornings, and a short lecture and practical sessions in the afternoons. The morning lectures covered all basic aspects of crystallographic computing, with also some introductions to more advanced topics. In the afternoon, after a short introduction to some computational aspects, the practical sessions were mainly hands-on usage of a rather wide variety of crystallographic software running on PCs. Handouts with lecture notes were distributed to the participants. The lecturers who contributed to the school were: P. Coppens, G. R. Desiraju, Fan Hai-fu, C. M. Gramaccioli, S. R. Hall, C. Kennard, P. Phavanantha, M. Ramanadham, W. T. Robinson, J. Simpson, B. Skelton, H. Toraya, D. Viterbo and T. Yamane. The local organizational aspects were coordinated by P. Phavanantha, A. Ungkitchanukit and C. Poorakkiat. The number of participants was 42 from seven different Asian countries. The setting up of the school encountered many difficulties and problems and its realization took a lot of effort and determination from the Chairmen and some members of the two IUCr Commissions, the AsCA President W. T. Robinson, with the invaluable help of J. Simpson, and of the local organizers. Before embarking on another initiative of this type, in a large and inhomogeneous region, it is advisable to make sure that there is a strong and general will to realize it and that the more developed countries are willing to support the meeting financially and scientifically. The only alternative would be to have a guarantee of almost total support from the IUCr.

(6) The Macromolecular Crystallography Computing School, a satellite meeting of the Seattle Congress, will take place 17-23 August 1996, at the Western Washington University, with P. Bourne and K. Watenpaugh acting as local organizers.

(7) The Commission is also contributing to the organization of the Seattle Congress. P. Bourne and G. Kruger, as members of the International Programme Committee, have contributed to the setting up of the microsymposia on computing. In particular, the organization and programme for the microsymposium Computing II on General Advances & Applications as an Open Commission Meeting is being undertaken. H. D. Flack is organizing both the microsymposium Computing I - The Internet and two half-day workshops on Surfing the Crystallographic Net.

6 May 1996 D. L. M. VITERBO, Chairman

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