Croatian-Slovenian meeting

Vrsar, Croatia, June 15-18, 2005

The 14^th Croatian-Slovenian Crystallographic Meeting was held in Vrsar, a famous tourist resort on the western coast of the Istria peninsula, pointing far into the Adriatic.

There were five plenary lectures. Nina Lah (Ljubljana) presented the extraordinary structural diversity and possibilities in copper coordination compounds. Len MacGillivray (Iowa City) gave a molecular architecture story - namely how to construct molecules in the solid state using UV radiation instead of wet chemistry Radovan Cerny (Geneva) explained how it is possible to extract 3D information if the data is accumulated in 1D only – a survey was given on how crystal structures are obtained from powder diffraction patterns. Milorad Milun (Zagreb) gave us an educational overview of atomic structures of surfaces and thin films – we were thrilled with his description of a terrace with a step of only one atom height. The last lecture was given by Eugen Libowitzky (Vienna) on dynamics of crystal structures and the interplay between diffraction and spectroscopy – comparing how to make fruit brandy from apples and pears. There were 50 short oral contributions by 144 authors (48 contributing authors). Beside Croatians and Slovenians, there were representatives from 13 other countries, which is quite an achievement.

B. Kamenar (Zagreb) and Lj. Golic (Ljubljana) were the honorary Chairs of the meeting, while S. Popovic (Zagreb) and I. Leban (Ljubljana) were the program co-Chairs; due to their stamina these meetings are so successful and regular. Special thanks to A. Tonejc (Zagreb) as the Chair of the Organizing Committee and to the colleagues who actually performed the job – Mario Cetina, Željko Skoko, Zoran Štefanic and Aleksandar Višnjevac. We shall proceed with this concept for future meetings and we shall also try to have the meetings without a registration fee. This is the 14^th meeting in a row of this sort which is good proof that this is possible.
Therefore we thank the sponsors and donors: Ministry of Science, Education and Sport of the Republic of Croatia; RENACON, Zagreb, representative of PANalytical; Rigaku, UK; SCAN, Preddvor, Slovenia; Marresearch GmBH, Germany; Oxford Diffraction Ltd, UK; Micro-Polo, Slovenia, representative of Bruker-Nonius; Physics Dept., Faculty of Science, U. of Zagreb, Croatia; Tourist Enterprise Maistra dd, Rovinj, Croatia; Croatian Tourist Assn; Školska Knjiga (School Books Publisher), Zagreb, Croatia. Only with their help was all this possible.
The participants enjoyed a crystallographic trip inside the Istria peninsula, where they admired the Baredine cave (the forming and crystallization of calcite and aragonite in action, having long range order, of course). The trip also included Eufrasius basilica in Porec, a UNESCO protected monument, where we saw nice mosaic patterns (which are also connected with crystallography; stone pieces forming a mosaic show of short range order and a long range disorder). The participants also experienced some practical work (of a workshop type) in a nearby wine cellar. During wine and cheese tasting they listened to secrets of wine producing (organoleptic group analysis of various samples of biotechnological origins; it did not matter that tasting different sorts of wine might result in a long-term disorder). One may be sure that the text in brackets will only appear in the report to the Ministry of Science, Education and Sport. For more information please visit www.hazu.hr/kristalografi .

The next meeting will be held in Slovenia in June 2006. We would like to welcome again all participants of our previous meetings as well as others who would like to experience a gathering of crystallographers in very friendly and familiar circumstances, in a resort of natural beauty, somewhere in Slovenia. For more information please contact: Ivan Leban, Ljubljana, ivan.leban@fkkt.uni-lj.si or Stanko Popovic, Zagreb, spopovic@phy.hr

Stanko Popovic
Secretary, Croatian Crystallographic Assn