Chemistry International
Vol. 21, No. 3
May 1999
Reports
from IUPAC-Sponsored Symposia
International Symposium
on Calorimetry and Chemical Thermodynamics
5 - 8 April 1998,
Campinas, Brazil
This meeting was the fourth in a series of international
symposia on thermodynamics with special emphasis on calorimetry sponsored
by IUPAC. The three earlier symposia were held in China (Beijing, 1989)
and India (New Delhi, 1993 and Amritsar, 1997). The aim of these meetings
has been to organize international conferences of high quality in locations
where young scientists, in particular, would be able to participate
without prohibitively high travel costs. Traditionally, these types
of conferences have been held in Europe or North America.
The symposium in Campinas was the first of its kind organized
in South America. It attracted 111 participants, of whom 56 were from
Brazil, 36 from Europe, 8 from North America, 8 from Latin America outside
Brazil, and 3 from the rest of the world. The program consisted of 4
plenary lectures, 9 invited lectures, and 32 oral presentations in parallel
sessions, along with 80 poster presentations. The strong Brazilian participation
was also reflected in the large number of scientific presentations.
The lectures and posters gave a representative coverage of current activities
in chemical and biological calorimetry and thermodynamics. In a final
session, possibilities for research collaboration with Latin America
were discussed.
The symposium was held at a hotel with good facilities
just outside the city. The poster sessions were particularly successful,
with ample space for the presentations and a congenial atmosphere stimulating
scientific discussion and interchange. The meeting was well organized
and the program was conducted in a smooth and efficient manner. Excellent
work by the local organizing committee at Universidade Estadual de Campinas
(Chairman, Professor C. Airoldi and Secretary, Professor W. Loh) resulted
in a successful symposium that fulfilled its intentions. We hope that
more conferences of this kind will be organized in "far away" countries
to stimulate cooperation and scientific exchange over geographical distances
and language boundaries.
Proceedings from the meeting have been published by Elsevier
Science as manuscripts in Thermochimica Acta, Volume 328 (1-2),
1999, which was available 29 March 1999. Plenary lectures from the symposium
are slated for publication in the Journal of Chemical Thermodynamics.
Dr.
Gerd Olofsson
Lund University, Sweden
Titular Member, IUPAC Physical Chemistry
Division (I)