Translational Symmetry and Reciprocal Space â€" Mike Glazer, Oxford

Phonons and the Theory of Soft Mode Phase transitions â€" Martin Dove, QMUL

Irreducible Representation Analysis â€" Mark Senn, Warwick

Landau Theory  â€" Michael Carpenter, Cambridge

Modulated Crystal Structures and 3d+n space groups â€" John Claridge, Liverpool

Invited speakers and tutors:

• Paul Adams, Berkeley, USA
• Pavel Afonine, Berkeley, USA
• Armando Albert, Madrid, Spain
• Jose M Carazo, Madrid, Spain
• Kay Diederichs, Konstanz, Germany
• Paul Emsley, Cambridge, UK
• Rafael Fernández-Leiro, Madrid, Spain
• Carmelo Giacovazzo, Bari, Italy
• Xavier Gomis-Ruth, Barcelona, Spain
• Juan A. Hermoso, Madrid, Spain
• Eugene Krissinel, Oxford, UK
• Jose. A. Marquez, Grenoble, France
• Airlie J. McCoy, Cambridge, UK
• Rob Nicholls, Cambridge, UK
• Santosh Panjikar, Australia
• Maria Solá, Barcelona, Spain
• Isabel Usón, Barcelona, Spain

The MCS2018 is directed to 25 graduate students and/or researchers with some previous expertise in crystallography which need a deeper insight into most advanced crystallographic techniques to carry out their research projects. The school program covers aspects such as sample preparation, phasing, model building, crystallographic refinement, validation, and analysis of the structural results, as well as an overview on the newest technologies.

We are planning to include an extra day on May 20th devoted to Fundamentals on Crystallography by Carmelo Giacovazzo. Applicants interested in attending to this extra day, please indicate it so in both, the registration letter and registration form.

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This year, the international programme committee of the HTCC3 has chosen the following three hot topics: (i) HT1: non-ambient conditions, (ii) HT2: total scattering â€" crystallography hidden beyond the Bragg equation, and (iii) HT3: dynamical crystallography.

The lecturers are the leading experts in their respective fields: Elena Boldyreva, Simon Parsons and Michael Probert for the HT1; Simon Billinge, Emil Božin and Matthew Tucker for the HT2; and Christian Bressler and Michael Först for the HT3.

Aim and target

The training course is normally held biannually (March and August) and aims at providing a solid background in symmetry and group theory to students and scientists working on crystalline materials. It is divided in two branches:

1. Basic course: open to everybody, no pre-requisite apart from basic matrix algebra:
2. Advanced course: open to former participants of the basic course.

Both courses usually span five full days. Exercices proposed during the whole course are integral part of the course: participants are requested to actively take part in solving the proposed exercises. Evening sessions are proposed for discussion, practicals, solution to the exercises, questions & answers. Didactic material is distributed before and during the lectures and also made available in electronic form.

Program

Basic course

• Abstract algebra and the notion of group
• Introduction to crystallographic symmetry and lattices
• Morphological symmetry
• Stereographic projection, with exercises
• Crystallographic point groups and geometric crystal classes
• Symmetry elements with a translational component (screw axes and glide planes)
• Introduction to space groups: basic notions and the Hermann-Mauguin symbolism
• Graphical construction of space groups
• Practicals on the graphical construction of space groups
• Metric tensor and applications
• Matrix representation of symmetry operations
• Change of axial settings and alternative settings of space groups
• Normalizers of point and space groups
• Chirality
• Wyckoff positions, Wyckoff sets
• Factor groups, symmorphic groups
• Crystallographic orbits
• Reciprocal lattice and systematic absences
• Group-subgroup relations
• Structure-substructure relations and applications to displacive phase transitions

Language

The official language of the training course is Japanese. No simultaneous interpretation is provided.

Sokendai Interdisciplinary Lecture

From the fifth basic course, this training course has become part of the education provided by Sokendai, the Graduate University for Advanced Studies: University students can get credits through this university for attending the training course.

Lecture notes

The content of the lectures of the basic course is now partly being published in a series of didactic articles in the Journal of the Crystallographic Society of Japan. The first article is available from the J-Stage webiste at this address.

Venue

The training course is normally held at KEK, Tsukuba campus. Occasionally, alternative venues are considered, depending on the availability of the facilities and local organizers. The third basic was held at the Institute for Protein Research, Osaka University.

Lecturer

Prof. Massimo Nespolo, Université de Lorraine, France (on behalf of MaThCryst)

Local Organizing Committee

Dr. Maki Okube, Tohoku University
Prof. Takashi Kamiyama, KEK
Prof. Noriyuki Igarashi, KEK

Further information

Details are available at the Japanese web site.

Necessary background (assumed achieved by all participants)

• Basic matrix algebra (matrix multiplication, calculation of determinant and trace)
• Interaction of radiation with matter.
• Elementary physics of scattering and diffraction. Fourier transform, atomic scattering factor and structure factor.
• Reciprocal lattice
• Bragg's law and Ewald's sphere.

Aim and target

This training course aimed at providing a solid background in symmetry and group theory to students and scientists working on crystalline materials.

Program

The training course will span five full days, from 6 to 10 March, 2017. The program is essentially the same as that of the previous training courses.

Exercises proposed during the whole course will be an integral part of the course: participants are requested to actively take part in solving the proposed exercises. Evening sessions are also proposed for discussion, practicals, solution to the exercises, questions and answers.

Didactic material will be distributed before and during the lectures and also made available in electronic form.

Monday, 6 March

• Matrix algebra
• Abstract algebra and the notion of group
• Introduction to crystallographic symmetry and lattices
• Evening: welcome reception

Tuesday, 7 March

• Morphological symmetry
• Stereographic projection, with exercises
• Crystallographic point groups and geometric crystal classes
• Symmetry elements with a translational component (screw axes and glide planes)
• Introduction to space groups: basic notions and the Hermann-Mauguin symbolism
• Graphical construction of space groups
• Evening (20:00-23:00): on-demand practicals, questions & answers optional session

Wednesday, 8 March

• Practicals on the graphical construction of space groups
• Metric tensor and applications
• Matrix representation of symmetry operations
• Change of axial settings and alternative settings of space groups
• Evening (20:00-23:00): on-demand practicals, questions & answers optional session

Thursday, 9 March

• Normalizers
• Chirality
• Wyckoff positions, Wyckoff sets
• Factor groups, symmorphic groups
• Crystallographic orbits
• Evening (20:00-23:00): on-demand practicals, questions & answers optional session

Friday, 10 March

• Reciprocal lattice and systematic absences
• Group-subgroup relations
• Structure-substructure relations and applications to displacive phase transitions

Coffee break will be served at 10:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Lunch break will be from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Language

The official language of the training course is Japanese. No simultaneous interpretation will be provided.

Venue

The training course will held at the seminar hall of the 4th building of KEK, Tsukuba campus.

Lecturer

Prof. Massimo Nespolo, Université de Lorraine, France (on behalf of MaThCryst)

Local Organizing Committee

Dr. Maki Okube, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Prof. Takashi Kamiyama, KEK
Prof. Noriyuki Igarashi, KEK

Registration and accommodation

Details are available at the this address.

Satellite School of the 24th IUCr Congress 2017

The main focus of the event is the symmetry analysis of structural phase transitions in functional materials like ferroics and multiferroics. The first four days would cover fundamental crystallographic topics related to space group symmetry and its representation in International Tables for Crystallography, symmetry relations between space groups including group-subgroup and group-supergroup relationships, structure descriptions and comparison, crystal structure relationships. The last two days would be devoted to brief introduction to space group representations and their application in the analysis of structural phase transitions. The lecture sessions will be accompanied by hands on practical sessions on description of space groups in International Tables for Crystallography, Vol. A and online training for determination of subgroups of space groups, crystal structure relations and pseudosymmetry, representations of space groups and symmetry-mode analysis using Bilbao Crystallographic Server.

Shanghai International Crystallographic School
working with Bilbao Crystallographic Server
http://www.cryst.ehu.es

The aim of the school is to provide an introduction to group theoretical methods and tools necessary for appropriate applications of symmetry properties in solid state material science. Special emphasis is given to tutorials on computational crystallography using the Bilbao Crystallographic Server (BCS) (www.cryst.ehu.es) for the study of specific problems in solid state physics, like phase transitions, and their symmetry-mode analysis, comparison between crystal structures, magnetic symmetry and its applications in the description of magnetic structures, etc. The applications of BCS tools to ab initio calculations is specifically discussed for the study of ferroelectric polarization in organic and inorganic crystalline structures, phonon properties and computational materials design by structure prediction.

The school is intended for scientists in Material Science, Solid State Physics and Crystallography in general and specifically for graduate students and young researchers interested in a deep and practical knowledge of group theory and crystallography as applied in material science. The maximum number of participant is limited to 70. Official language of the School is English. Location: The school will take place LeHu Hotel in Shanghai University (Baoshan Campus) http://www.lhljt.shu.edu.cn

This workshop will provide an overview of the methods of structural analysis of incommensurately modulated crystals and composite crystals.Â

Lectures will cover the basic principles of the superspace approach as well as recent developments on modulation functions and structure solution.Â

Participants will have the opportunity to practice structural analysis in superspace with the computer programs Superflip and JANA2006.Â

A step-by-step tutorial will guide you through structure determination, symmetry analysis, structure refinement and t-plots for crystal-chemical analysis of selected examples of modulated structures and composite crystals.

Organisation: German Association for Crystallography (DGK)Â

Local Organisation: Sander van Smaalen and Andreas Schönleber. Email: [email protected]

We are pleased to announce that the second annual “Modern Methods in Rietveld Refinement for Structural Analysis” school will be held from August 8-11, 2016, at Stony Brook University (New York, USA) in close partnership with Brookhaven National Laboratory and Bruker-AXS.  There will be a special emphasis on the new XPD beamline at the NSLS-II synchrotron, with one day of new exercises and lectures dedicated to the collection and analysis of synchrotron diffraction data using 2D area detectors.  The primary goal of this school is to teach participants Rietveld refinement and other methods for evaluating crystal structures from powder diffraction data with an emphasis on data collected on national user facility beamlines such as the 11-BM synchrotron beamline at the APS at Argonne National Laboratory, the POWGEN and NOMAD time-of-flight neutron diffraction beamlines at the SNS of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the XPD beamline at the NSLS-II synchrotron at BNL.  The combination of advances in instrumentation and advances in software algorithms now allow many challenging structural problems to be resolved solely from powder diffraction data, and an up-to-date instruction in modern methods will be provided.  This course will emphasize traditional non-molecular solid state compounds, and will use the TOPAS software as the platform for Rietveld refinement (complementary trial license will be provided to participants).   Confirmed 2016 instructors include Prof. Peter Khalifah (SBU), Prof. John Parise (SBU), Prof. Cora Lind  (U. Toledo), Prof. Tyrel McQueen (Johns Hopkins University), Dr. Eric Dooryhee (BNL, XPD) Dr. Saul Lapidus (ANL, 11-BM), Dr. Wenqian Xu (ANL, 17-BM), and Dr. Christina Drathen (Bruker-AXS).  Further information about the course, including the application materials, are available through the website: https://sites.google.com/a/stonybrook.edu/mmrrsa-portal/.  There will be no registration fee associated with this course.  There are ongoing fundraising efforts to additionally support the lodging and meal expenses of most or all participants in this program, though all travel expenses will remain the responsibility of participants.  While this course is open to all applicants, priority will be given to Ph.D. students and post-doctoral researchers from North American institutions.  Completed applications should be received by June 15, 2016, although later applications may still be considered.

FPSchool aims to contribute to the training of scientists in treatment of X-ray and neutron diffraction data.

The school is based on intensive hands-on sessions using the computer programs of the FullProf Suite.

We are happy to announce VI-th National Crystallographic Symposium (NCS2016) that will be held on October 05-07, 2016, Sofia, Bulgaria.

As you may have already recognized this is will be the sixth "NCS" of the series started in 2009.

We have already started the preparation of the next issue of the conference (submitted manuscripts will be published in the journal “Bulgarian Chemical Communications”, a special issues due April 2017).NCS16 papers will also be online available in full text via the present platform.  You are warmly invited to come and join us!

NCS2016 is held under the auspices of BCS and is the major event on Crystallography, crystal growth, structure analyses and related techniques in Bulgaria. The Symposium aims at the applications of different crystallographic techniques in combination with other methods in the fields of materials sciences, mineralogy, biology, environmental engineering, computational methods etc. Bringing together researchers from different areas NCS16 will provide them with a high-qualified platform for them to share their latest studies and to assist further findings and collaboration.

With passionate participants from the world, NCS2016 Â would be perfect for you to present your research and find collaboration for your future work.

Sponsors: The Crystallographic Society of Japan, Institute of Materials Structure Science of the High Energy Accelerator Organization

Co-sponsors: The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Department of Materials Structure Science, School of High Energy Accelerator Science

Aim and target

The first advanced training course is open to the participants of the four basic training courses hold from August 2014 to March 2016 and proposes applications of the basic knowledge obtained during the previous courses.

Program

The training course will span five full days, from 1st to 5 August 2016. Exercises proposed during the whole course form an integral part of the course: participants are requested to actively take part in solving the proposed exercises. Evening sessions willl also be proposed for discussion, practicals, solution to the exercises, questions & answers.

Didactic material will be distributed during the lectures and also made available in electronic form.

• Refresher about the fundamental notions proposed during the basic courses
• Twinning and chromatic symmetry for the description of twins
• Bilbao Crystallographic Server

Coffee break will be served at about 10:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Lunch break will be from 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Language

The official language of the training course is Japanese. No simultaneous interpretation will be provided.

Venue

The training course will be held at the seminar hall of the 3th building of KEK, Tsukuba campus.

Lecturer

Prof. Massimo Nespolo, Université de Lorraine, France (on behalf of MaThCryst)

Local Organizing Committee

• Dr Maki Okube, Tokyo Institute of Technology
• Prof. Takashi Kamiyama, KEK
• Prof. Noriyuki Igarashi, KEKÂ

The AIC International Crystallography School 2016, entitled "Polymorphism, stability and phase transitions in crystals: theory, experiments and applications" aims at bringing together PhD students and young researchers from all over Europe and the rest of the world in a friendly and stimulating atmosphere, and introduce them to the fundamental concepts of polymorphism and phase transitions.

The School will address all aspects of crystallographic analysis of structural phase transitions, including basics of thermodynamics, kinetics and atomistic mechanisms ruling the processes. These concepts will be presented along with phenomenological theories for the treatment of phase transitions, with emphasis on the application of general theory to experimental data.Â

Phase transformations occur in most types of materials, including minerals, diverse organic, inorganic and hybrid compounds, pharmaceuticals, foods, ceramics and even crystalline viruses, and have been studied in almost all branches of science. Perovskites will be the teaching tool of AICS2016, with examples spanning from mineralogical to hybrid organic-inorganic samples. Therefore, the School is mainly directed to students working in the fields of chemistry, Earth sciences, mineral physics and materials science, and is as well of interest for metal-organic chemists and molecular crystallographers.

Ambition of the School is to give the attendees a unitary view, despite the many and apparently diverse materials such phenomena occur in, and the sometimes different terminologies used in the different fields.

Confirmed speakers Mois I. Aroyo (Universidad del País Vasco, Bilbao, Spain), Tiziana Boffa Ballaran (Bayerisches Geoinstitut, Bayreuth, Germany), Michael A. Carpenter (University of Cambridge, UK), Angelo Gavezzotti (University of Milan, Italy), A. Mike Glazer (University of Oxford, UK), Lucia Maini (University of Bologna, Italy), Marcus Müller (Dectris Ltd., Switzerland), Massimo Nespolo (University of Lorraine, Nancy, France), Emanuela Schingaro (University of Bari, Italy), Serena C. Tarantino (University of Pavia, Italy), Ian D. Williams (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong)

Deadlines:

Bursary request: 15 May 2016
Registration and payment: 12 June 2016Â

LecturersÂ

Prof. Vladislav A. Blatov
Samara Center for Theoretical Materials Science (SCTMS), Samara State Aerospace University

Prof. Davide M. Proserpio
Università degli Studi di Milano (Italy)
Samara Center for Theoretical Materials Science (SCTMS), Samara State Aerospace University

Prof. Vladimir A. Saleev
Samara Center for Theoretical Materials Science (SCTMS), Samara State Aerospace University