- Email: [email protected]
An appreciation of ICSMA14 on behalf of the International Committee
Materials Science and Engineering A 483–484 (2008) 2
Editorial
An appreciation of ICSMA14 on behalf of the International Committee
This 14th issue of the ICSMA Conferences has benefited from unusual circumstances. It took place for the first time in China, on the year of the 90th birthday of Professor Nabarro and of the 50th anniversary of the first thin foils for transmission electron microscopy. The papers of this present issue of Materials Science and Engineering A are a proof of the level of this meeting, during the week spent in Xi’an, in June 2006. This is the result of the efforts of the Organizing Committee, co-chaired by Professors Jun Sun and Shou-Xin Li, assisted by a very active and hard working team of young Professors and Doctors. It is a great pleasure to thank and congratulate these two organisers and their whole team for their preparation of the Conference programme, for taking care of all the details and solving the numerous problems, sometimes unexpected, which arise under such circumstances. The role of the International Committee has been to select the place for the ICSMA Conference following Budapest in 2003, define the different topics of the meeting, mostly about the fundamentals of the strength of materials. With the participation of the Organizing Committee, it has also very carefully selected first-rank keynote and invited speakers, as well as the author of the Special Talk on the Thin Foils. All of them have delivered stimulating and lively presentations on the last developments of the main themes of the Conference and I am very happy to acknowledge it. It was a great privilege to have Professor Nabarro with us, in spite of his age and the long distance between Johannesburgh and Xi’an. He attended the first ICSMA meeting in Japan in 1967 and ever since has been a lively and active participant of many of them. Thanks to the kindness of the organizers, he could enjoy a very friendly and warm celebration of his last
0921-5093/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.msea.2007.11.002
birthday together with an enlightening symposium dedicated to him. Unfortunately, he passed away in July 2006, back to South Africa. Those of my generation who had repeated contacts with him will never forget this undisputed scientific leader in the fields of theoretical physics and dislocation theory, with an inimitable sense of humour. Last but not least, an obvious goal of our Chinese hosts was to spoil the participants and they succeeded. They introduced us to the world famous Chinese cuisine and to the rich history of Xi’an. Xi’an has been the capital of China for a period of time and the starting point of the Silk Road. We had the opportunity to visit the museum of the Terracota Warriors, the campus of Jiaotong University which keeps the records of the 4 Great Chinese Inventions (the compass, the art of printing, the paper and the gun powder). We also had a real cultural event consisting of traditional Chinese dances. In addition, nobody will forget the volunteer students who did their best to make our stay as pleasant as possible. To conclude, this meeting has been quite successful as a whole thanks to the coordinated efforts of the International and the Organizing Committees. Some wishes for the future of ICSMA are to try hard to be attractive to students and young researchers, to open new fields in concentrating on their fundamental aspects. Jean-Luc Martin ∗ International Committee of ICSMA, EPF Lausanne, IPMC-SB-Station 3-PH, CH 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland ∗ Tel.:
+41 216933371; fax: +41 216934470. E-mail address: [email protected]
Editorial
An appreciation of ICSMA14 on behalf of the International Committee
This 14th issue of the ICSMA Conferences has benefited from unusual circumstances. It took place for the first time in China, on the year of the 90th birthday of Professor Nabarro and of the 50th anniversary of the first thin foils for transmission electron microscopy. The papers of this present issue of Materials Science and Engineering A are a proof of the level of this meeting, during the week spent in Xi’an, in June 2006. This is the result of the efforts of the Organizing Committee, co-chaired by Professors Jun Sun and Shou-Xin Li, assisted by a very active and hard working team of young Professors and Doctors. It is a great pleasure to thank and congratulate these two organisers and their whole team for their preparation of the Conference programme, for taking care of all the details and solving the numerous problems, sometimes unexpected, which arise under such circumstances. The role of the International Committee has been to select the place for the ICSMA Conference following Budapest in 2003, define the different topics of the meeting, mostly about the fundamentals of the strength of materials. With the participation of the Organizing Committee, it has also very carefully selected first-rank keynote and invited speakers, as well as the author of the Special Talk on the Thin Foils. All of them have delivered stimulating and lively presentations on the last developments of the main themes of the Conference and I am very happy to acknowledge it. It was a great privilege to have Professor Nabarro with us, in spite of his age and the long distance between Johannesburgh and Xi’an. He attended the first ICSMA meeting in Japan in 1967 and ever since has been a lively and active participant of many of them. Thanks to the kindness of the organizers, he could enjoy a very friendly and warm celebration of his last
0921-5093/$ – see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.msea.2007.11.002
birthday together with an enlightening symposium dedicated to him. Unfortunately, he passed away in July 2006, back to South Africa. Those of my generation who had repeated contacts with him will never forget this undisputed scientific leader in the fields of theoretical physics and dislocation theory, with an inimitable sense of humour. Last but not least, an obvious goal of our Chinese hosts was to spoil the participants and they succeeded. They introduced us to the world famous Chinese cuisine and to the rich history of Xi’an. Xi’an has been the capital of China for a period of time and the starting point of the Silk Road. We had the opportunity to visit the museum of the Terracota Warriors, the campus of Jiaotong University which keeps the records of the 4 Great Chinese Inventions (the compass, the art of printing, the paper and the gun powder). We also had a real cultural event consisting of traditional Chinese dances. In addition, nobody will forget the volunteer students who did their best to make our stay as pleasant as possible. To conclude, this meeting has been quite successful as a whole thanks to the coordinated efforts of the International and the Organizing Committees. Some wishes for the future of ICSMA are to try hard to be attractive to students and young researchers, to open new fields in concentrating on their fundamental aspects. Jean-Luc Martin ∗ International Committee of ICSMA, EPF Lausanne, IPMC-SB-Station 3-PH, CH 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland ∗ Tel.:
+41 216933371; fax: +41 216934470. E-mail address: [email protected]