Quark Matter 2008

It gives us immense pleasure to publish the proceedings of XI Biennial National Conference of Physics Academy of North East in the Journal Physics: Conference Series. The Physics Academy of North - East (PANE) was founded in 1998 to promote physics education, collaborative research and dissemination of scientific knowledge in India’s north-east region. The biennial conference of PANE, which is the Academy’s flag ship event, presents an opportunity for young researchers in physics of the region to disseminate their research findings through oral / poster presentations and interact with experts in their respective fields. It is also an occasion for researchers in physics of the region to meet, share new ideas and experiences and discuss problems in research among themselves. Besides the conferences, PANE organises workshops, lecture series at different institutions of the region and publishes newsletters as part of its activities.The XI edition of the biennial conference was organised by the Department of Physics, Assam University, Diphu Campus from 21st to 23rd November 2018 at Diphu and was sponsored by North Eastern Council (NEC), Government of India; Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Government of India and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). In this XI edition of the biennial conference eight technical sessions covering fields of High Energy Physics, Astrophysics & Cosmology, Plasma, Optics & Photonics, Condensed Matter Physics & Material Science, Atmospheric & Space Physics and Electronics were arranged, each of which had an invited talk followed by 3/4 oral presentations. Apart from the technical sessions there was also a poster session. A special attraction of the XI PANE conference was the Springer Author Workshop with Dr. Akash Chakraborty (Associate Editor, Applied Sciences & Engineering, Springer - a part of Springer Nature) as the resource person. Springer also sponsored awards to the first two best oral and poster presentations. Gift coupons for procurement of Springer books and certificates were presented to the winners. Professor H Nand Kumar Sarma, former Vice Chancellor, Manipur University and Professor Anil Kumar Goswami, former Principal, Cotton College were felicitated for their contribution to the development of physics education and research in the region.The conference keynote address was delivered by Professor Bala Iyer from ICTS-TIFR, Bangalore, India. It was followed by two plenary talks by Professor A. Surjalal Sharma, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA and Professor Mandar M. Deshmukh, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, India. BipinPal Memorial Oration, which has become an integral part of PANE conferences, was delivered by Professor Pijushpani Bhattacharjee, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, India. Title of these and the invited talks with short abstracts are appended here.The XI PANE proceedings contain 20 peer reviewed research papers selected from the manuscripts received for consideration for publication, all of which were presented in the conference. The editors take this opportunity to thank all authors of research articles; irrespective of their articles being published or not in the proceedings for their contribution and the reviewers who helped us by sparing their valuable time to review the manuscripts; without which publication of this proceedings could not have been accomplished.Subrata HazarikaAbhijeet DasDulen BoraDepartment of PhysicsAssam University, Diphu CampusDiphu, Assam, India20/08/2019List of Appendix, Keynote Address, Bipinpal Das Memorial Oration, Plenary Talks, Invited Talks are available in the pdf.

The XXVIIIth International Colloquium on Group-Theoretical Methods in Physics (ICGTMP), also known as the GROUP 28 conference, took place in Newcastle upon Tyne from 26–30 July 2010. There were 128 attendees from 22 countries – physicists, mathematicians, chemists and engineers who use mathematical and numerical methods based on geometry and symmetry in their work. The conference was organised jointly by Northumbria and Durham Universities. The conference website is http://group28.northumbria.ac.uk.

A moderator-type neutron monitor containing pairs of TLD 600/700 elements (Harshaw) modified with the addition of a lead layer (GSI ball) for the measurement of the ambient dose equivalent from neutrons at medium- and high-energy accelerators, is introduced in this work. Measurements were performed with the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI) ball as well as with conventional polyethylene (PE) spheres at the high-energy accelerator SPS at European Organization for Nuclear Research [CERN (CERF)] and in Cave A of the heavy-ion synchrotron SIS at GSI. The measured dose values are compared with dose values derived from calculated neutron spectra folded with dose conversion coefficients. The estimated reading of the spheres calculated by means of the response functions and the neutron spectra is also included in the comparison. The analysis of the measurements shows that the PE/Pb sphere gives an improved estimate on the ambient dose equivalent of the neutron radiation transmitted through shielding of medium- and high-energy accelerators.

The XXXth International Colloquium on Group Theoretical Methods in Physics (ICGTMP), also known as the Group30 conference, took place in Ghent (Belgium) from Monday 14 to Friday 18 July 2014. The conference was organised by Ghent University (Department of Applied Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics, and Department of Mathematical Analysis). The website http://www.group30.ugent.be is still available.

6th International Conference on Aperiodic Crystals (APERIODIC'09)

The proceedings contain the papers presented at the 7th International Conference on Modern Practice in Stress and Vibration Analysis. The collection of papers represents the range of activities that are carried out to understand the functionality of engineering systems and structures through stress/strain based evaluation and dynamic response. The scope is broad and covers theoretical studies, modelling and experimental evaluations. Many of the papers cover integration techniques and approaches to better understanding of system performance and failure. All of the papers have been peer reviewed by at least two experts and represent the state of the art of research in this area.The conference is the seventh in the series, following on from previous conferences in Bath, Glasgow, Nottingham, Dublin, Sheffield and Liverpool. Although based in the British Isles the conference has a truly international flavour with offerings from 22 countries. The conference is organised by the Institute of Physics Applied Mechanics Group (formerly the Stress and Vibration Group). It incorporates activities associated with the British Society for Strain Measurement including the Measurements Lecture, the EMex Exhibition and the Young Stress Analyst Competition.The organising committee is grateful for the support of all of the authors, the scientific committee and keynote speakers who played a significant role in the review process, to John Edwards who was instrumental in managing the paper review and submission process, Dawn Stewart and Claire Garland of the Institute of Physics for organising the conference, social programme and registration and Biana Gale of the British Society for Strain Measurement for organising the Exhibition. The organising committee is also grateful to the sponsors of the conference for their kind support and to the co-sponsors for distributing information on the conference. Professor Janice M Dulieu-Barton Professor of Experimental Mechanics University of Southampton School of Engineering Sciences Conference Chairman The PDF contains lists of the organising committee, scientific committee, sponsors and co-sponsors.

The annual international conference Functional Materials and Nanotechnologies (FM&NT) was started in 2006 by scientists from the Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia. The warm welcome and open atmosphere of this scientific conference has turned it into an event where people from different countries and different fields come and meet under the shared umbrella of functional materials and nanotechnology. It is particularly important for early stage scientists who are looking for new knowledge and contacts with people from various fields to build their own network. Our Latvian colleagues, with their success in internationalization, made us neighbouring Estonians so jealous that we could not help but propose organising the conference every second year in Estonia.In a way, this conference is a continuation of the idea of the famous Baltic seminars which took place over several decades in the last century. Due to political constraints, these seminars were only open to scientists of former Eastern Europe countries, but had a great popularity and attendance from over the whole Soviet Union. Many collaborations started from the initial personal contact between scientists at these twice yearly seminars, held alternately in Latvia and Estonia.At the FM&NT 2012 conference, the decision was made that Institute of Physics, University of Tartu would organise the next event in Tartu in 2013. FM&NT-2013 was hence held in Tartu (Estonia) from 21–24 April 2013 at the Dorpat Conference Centre.The main selected topics of the conference were: (i) multifunctional materials, (ii) nanomaterials, (iii) materials for sustainable energy applications and (vi) theory. Additionally, the focus in this conference was on studies with the help of synchrotron radiation and other novel light sources such as free electron lasers.The conference provided an opportunity for 300 scientists from 21 countries to meet, establish contacts, exchange knowledge and discuss their research. During the three days of the conference, 14 invited talks were given, 45 oral and five commercial talks by companies were delivered and more than 200 posters were presented and discussed.As an outcome of the conference, 14 contributions were selected as regular papers to be submitted as a special section in Physica Scripta , and they are published in this issue. Additionally, 62 papers submitted based on the conference contributions, were included in IOP Conference Series : Materials Science and Engineering and are available at http://iopscience.iop.org/1757-899X/49/1. Additional information about FM&NT-2013 is available at its homepage http://fmnt.ut.ee/. Future information regarding the conference will be published on the website.Photograph. Participants of FM&NT-2013, the photo was taken in front of the Science Centre AHHAA on 23 April 2013.AcknowledgementThe Organizing Committee would like to thank all the speakers, contributors, session chairs and other staff involved for their personal efforts in making FM&NT-2013 successful and memorable. We express our thanks to all the authors for their research contribution presented in this issue. We express our gratitude to all of the reviewers and editors with special thanks to the Editor-in-Chief of Physica Scripta Dr Suzy Lidström, who took part of the conference with an invited talk. The efforts of members of the IOP Publishing team, especially the publisher Yasmin McGlashan, and the guest editor from the local organizing committee Dr Rainer Pärna, are also gratefully acknowledged.We would like to acknowledge financial support by Tartu University Development Fund, Estonian national projects supporting Materials Science, Science Internationalisation and Centre of Excellence programs based on the contribution of the European Structural Funds and Estonian national funding. Also, the graduate school on ‘Functional Materials and Technologies’ supported by the European Social Fund has given a generous contribution to assist in the participation of our early stage researchers. This support is gratefully acknowledged. We also would like to acknowledge and thank all the sponsors, companies (Raith, Bruker, Vistec Lithography, Saint-Tech, The Doma Group, Armgate and American Elements) who create conditions for our everyday research in the Baltics. We hope that the continuation of the tradition introduced with this conference will strengthen the international cooperation of scientists from Baltic states with researchers from other countries. In particular, we very much value the communication between new generations of researches which takes place, ensuring the fruitful development of science in our countries.The Organizing Committee hopes that the conference FM&NT-2013 gave the participants good insight into recent progress in nanotechnology, sustainable energetics, the processing and modelling of multifunctional materials and research enabled by the use of synchrotron radiation or other novel light sources such as free electron lasers. We sincerely hope that the conference has provided support for the circulation of information and brought together many young and experienced scientists from different fields, leading to fruitful discussions. We hope that all of the participants had an ejoyable and memorable time in Tartu. We welcome you back in the future.

This volume contains invited and contributed papers from the 17th international conference on ‘Microscopy of Semiconducting Materials’ held at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, on 4–7 April 2011. The meeting was organised under the auspices of the Institute of Physics and supported by the Royal Microscopical Society as well as the Materials Research Society of the USA. This conference series deals with recent advances in semiconductor studies carried out by all forms of microscopy, with an emphasis on electron microscopy and related techniques with high spatial resolution. This time the meeting was attended by 131 delegates from 25 countries world-wide, a record in terms of internationality.As semiconductor devices shrink further new routes of device processing and characterisation need to be developed, and, for the latter, methods that offer sub-nanometre spatial resolution are particularly valuable. The various forms of imaging, diffraction and spectroscopy available in modern microscopes are powerful tools for studying the microstructure, the electronic structure, the chemistry and also electric fields in semiconducting materials. Recent advances in instrumentation, from lens aberration correction in both TEM and STEM instruments, to the development of a wide range of scanning probe techniques, as well as new methods of signal quantification have been presented at this conference. Two examples of topics at this meeting that have attracted a number of interesting studies were: the correlation of microstructural, optical and chemical information at atomic resolution with nanometre-scale resolved maps of the local electrical fields in (In,Al)GaN based semiconductors and tomographic approaches to characterise ensembles of nanowires and stacks of processed layers in devices Figure 1. Opening lecture by Professor Sir Colin J Humphreys.Each manuscript submitted for publication in this proceedings volume has been independently reviewed and revised where necessary. In the end, 61 manuscripts were accepted for publication. The Editors are very grateful to the following colleagues for their rapid and careful reviewing of manuscripts: M Albrecht, J S Barnard, R Beanland, G A Botton, D Cooper, L Clement, A J Craven, A G Cullis, N Daneu, V Grillo, E Grünbaum, A Gustafsson, P-H Jouneau, O L Krivanek, D Larson, M Luysberg, S I Molina, F A Ponce, A Rosenauer, F M Ross, I M Ross, J-L Rouviere, and Z L Wang.Prizes for student presentations at the conference were awarded to Mr Alberto Eljarrat, Universitat de Barcelona, and Mr Thibaud Denneulin, CEA-LETI Grenoble, both of whom are presenting their results also as contributions to this proceedings volume.Entertainment during the conference dinner was provided by the college's string quartet, and after the meal we held the now traditional friendly competition between teams of microscopists; this year teams were asked to construct models of scientific instruments using only cardboard, paper, sticky tape and glue. By unanimous vote, the team who presented the ‘Atomic Food Microscope (AFM)’ prototype won first prize – the deft ‘dipping mode’ of the cardboard cantilever (see photo) was a highlight! Figure 2. The prize winning ‘Atomic Food Microscope (AFM)’ in action!The organisers are very grateful to the following companies who contributed to the success of the meeting by presenting trade stands during an exhibition on the evening of 5 April: Agar Scientific, Bruker, CamScan, FEI, Gatan, Hitachi High Technologies, HREM Research, IOP Publishing, JEOL, Leica Microsystems and MICOS.Finally, we would like to thank the staff of the Institute of Physics for their expert assistance in planning and organising this conference and in particular Claire Garland for her dedicated professional support and her always joyful approach to any issues that arose.October 2011 T Walther P A Midgley

On August 10-14, 1998, the 10th International Conference on X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS X) was held on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus in Chicago. This is one of the major synchrotron radiation conferences, held every two years since 1981 when the first international meeting of XAFS experts was held in Daresbury, coincident with the operation of the first of the second-generation dedicated synchrotron radiation sources. The XAFS conferences have evolved over the years with the more recent conferences covering not only the advances in instrumentation, theory and method but also their applications in disciplines ranging from biological to environmental sciences. Approximately 360 scientists from 23 countries attended the conference. The program consisted of 467 abstracts for plenary talks, invited talks, contributed talks, and posters. The co-chairs for the conference were B. Bunker, S. Heald, and T. Morrison and the Program Chair was J. Penner-Hahn. The first IXS award for career contributions to the field was presented to F. Lytle who gave a plenary talk on 'The EXAFS Family Tree: History of the Development of X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy'. In addition, awards were given for the best poster by a young scientist at each session. The winners were M. Duff,more » D. Cabaret and S. Rossano. The International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) also sponsored poster prizes for the best posters in the areas of biology and instrumentation and methods. These winners were A. Templeton and M. Suzuki.« less

June7-10 Transducers '99 10th International Conference on Solid State Sensors and Actuators, Sendai, Japan Details: J Etizen, telephone: +81 3 3299 1371, fax: +81 3 3299 1361, e-mail: tr99@twics.com, WWW: http://www.com.cas.uec.ac.jp/trans99.html 13-18 IMEKO XV World Congress, Osaka, Japan Details: c/o The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers, 35-28-303, 1-Chome Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113. Telephone: +81 3 3814 4121, fax: +81 3 3814 4699, e-mail: mnami@sice.or.jp 14-17 Laboratory Health and Safety, Loughborough University, UK Details: Joyce Bostock, Centre for Hazard and Risk Management (CHaRM), Loughborough University, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, UK. Telephone: +44 1509 222 175, fax: +44 1509 223 991, e-mail: j.g.bostock@lboro.ac.uk 21-25 Frontiers and Science and Measurement, National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, UK Details: Jane Tsakalou, telephone: +44 181 943 6400, fax: +44 181 943 6735, e-mail: jane.tsakalou@npl.co.uk, WWW: http://www.npl.co.uk July 11-15 National Conference of Standards Laboratories, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA Details: Tom Huttemann, 4890 County Road #11, Rushville, NY 14544, USA. Telephone: +1 716 554 6295, fax: +1 716 554 4434, e-mail: info@charlottecvb.org, WWW: http://www.ncsl-hq.org 13-15 The 6th International Workshop on Femtosecond Technology, Chiba, Japan Details: FST'99 Secretariat, The Femtosecond Technology Research Association, 5-5 Tokodai, Tsukuba 300-2635, Japan. Telephone: +81 298 47 5181, fax: +81 298 47 4417, e-mail: fst@festa.or.jp, WWW: http://www.festa.or.jp September 5-8 Sensors & their Applications X, Cardiff, UK Details: Belinda Hopley, Institute of Physics, Conferences Department, 76 Portland Place, London W1N 3DH. Telephone: +44 171 470 4800, fax: +44 171 470 4848, e-mail: belinda.hopley@iop.org, WWW: http://map.eng.abdn.ac.uk/ISAT 12-15 1st International Symposium on Turbulence and Shear Flow Phenomena, Santa Barbara, CA, USA Details: N Kasagi, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113 8656, Japan. Telephone: +81 3 3812 2111 ext. 6417, fax: +81 3 5800 6999, e-mail: kasagi@thtlab.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp, WWW: http://tsfp.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp 12-15 EUROSENSORS XIII, The Hague, The Netherlands Details: R F Wolffenbuttel, telephone: +31 15 278 6287, fax: +31 15 278, e-mail: eurosensors@ei.et.tudelft.nl 16-18 September 3rd International Workshop on Particle Image Velocimetry, University of California-Santa Barbara, USA Details: Professor C D Meinhart, Mechanical and Environmental Engineering Department, University of California-Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. Telephone: +1 217 333 3752, fax: 217 244 5707, e-mail: piv99@engineering.ucsb.edu, WWW: http://www.engineering.ucsb.edu/\\~piv99 October 5-7 ISA TECH 1999, Philadelphia, PA, USA Details: Telephone: +1 919 990 9217, fax: +1 919 549 8288, e-mail: kragland@isa.org, WWW: http://www.isa.org/techexpo/ 2000 July 10-13 10th International Symposium on Applications of Laser Techniques to Fluid Mechanics Details: Graça Pereira, Mechanical Engineering Department, Instituto Superior Técnico, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal. Fax: +351 1 849 6156, e-mail: llaser@dem.ist.utl.pt, WWW: http://in3.dem.ist.utl.pt/lisboa-laser

CERN@school is a program that brings CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, into the classroom. By supplying schools with cutting-edge detector technology and giving them access to the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, students in the United Kingdom are being offered the opportunity to conduct authentic research in the field of nuclear and particle physics. Thanks to the support of the Science and Technology and Facilities Council (STFC), the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, and the Institute of Physics, the program has resulted in a nationwide network of student scientists working together to conduct a number of research projects. This article looks at how CERN@school has achieved this, some of the ongoing experiments, and the potential for rolling out the approach across the world.

The 15th International Conference on X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS15) was held on 22-28 July 2012 in Beijing, P. R. China. About 340 scientists from 34 countries attended this important international event. Figure 1. Main hall of XAFS15.The rapidly increasing application of XAFS to the study of a large variety of materials and the operation of the new SR source led to the first meeting of XAFS users in 1981 in England. Following that a further 14 International Conferences have been held. Comparing a breakdown of attendees according to their national origin, it is clear that participation is spreading to include attendees from more and more countries every year.The strategy of development in China of science and education is increasing quickly thanks to the large investment in scientific and technological research and infrastructure. There are three Synchrotron Radiation facilities in mainland China, Hefei Light Source (HLS) in the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSRL), Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility (BSRF) in the Institute of High Energy Physics, and Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) in the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics. More than 10000 users and over 5000 proposals run at these facilities. Among them, many teams from the USA, Japan, German, Italy, Russia, and other countries. More than 3000 manuscript were published in SCI journals, including (incomplete) Science (7), Nature (10), Nature Series (7), PNAS (3), JACS (12), Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. (15), Nano Lett. (2), etc.In XAFS15, the participants contributed 18 plenary invited talks, 16 parallel invited talks, 136 oral presentations, 12 special talks, and 219 poster presentations. Wide communication was promoted in the conference halls, the classical banquet restaurant, and the Great Wall.Figure 2. Parallel hallFigure 3. CommunicationFigure 4. Poster roomThis volume contains 136 invited and contributed papers, accepted after a rigorous peer review procedure. A group of about 90 outstanding scientists in the field reviewed and suggested revisions of the manuscripts to improve scientific presentation. As a result, we believe the entire volume has reached a high standard. The 19 topics covered are listed as follows:Theory Data analysis New technology and devices of XAFS Applications in Nano science and technology Applications in Life Science Applications in Chemistry Applications in Catalytic Science Applications in Surface and Interface Science Applications in Material ScienceApplications in Energy and Environmental Science Applications in Magnetic and Related Material Science Applications in Nuclear Science Applications in Disordered Systems Applications in Extreme Conditions Applications for Time-resolved experiments XMCD technology and its applications Advanced methods (e.g., new coherent sources and spectroscopic imaging techniques) XAFS combined with other experimental methods Other related studies We hope this volume will be a useful reference for the ongoing scientific activity in XAFS. We would also like to express our sincere appreciation to the sponsors for their generous support: Chinese Academy of Science, National Natural Science Foundation of China, China Center of Advanced Science and Technology World Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China, National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, Institute of High Energy Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences, and our commercial sponsors (AREVA, Xi'an Action Power Electric Co., Ltd).Finally, we would like to acknowledge the entire local organizing staff (names are given below) and particularly the collaborators and members of the XAS group at the National Natural Science Foundation of China and Institute of High Energy Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences for their efforts to make the XAFS15 conference a success.Ziyu Wu Chair of the Conferenceand Proceedings Editor Hefei, P. R. China, 28 September 2012Committees and StaffChair of the Conference Ziyu WuInternational Advisory Committee Adam Hitchcock, Canada Adriano Filipponi, Italy Alain Manceau, France Alexander Soldatov, Russia Andrea Di Cicco, Italy Britt Hedman, USA Bruce Bunker, USA Calogero R. Natoli, Italy Christopher T. Chantler, Australia Frank M. F. De Groot, Netherlands Hiroyuki Oyanagi, Japan Ingolf Lindau, USA J. Mustre de Leon, México James E Penner-Hahn, USA Joaquin Garcia Ruiz, Spain John Evans, UK John J. Rehr, USA Kiyotaka Asakura, Japan Majed Chergui, Switzerland Mark Newton, UK Shiqiang Wei, P. R. China Tsun-Kong Sham, Canada Ziyu Wu, P. R. ChinaInternational Program Committee Antonio Bianconi, Italy Augusto Marcelli, Italy Emad Flear Aziz, Germany Jinghua Guo, USA Joly Yves, France Masaharu Nomura, Japan Maurizio Benfatto, Italy Pieter Glatzel, France Shiqiang Wei, China Tiandou Hu, China Toshihiko Yokoyama, Japan Way-Faung Pong, Taiwan Xinyi Zhang, China Yi Xie, China Yuying Huang, China Zhonghua Wu, China Ziyu Wu, ChinaLocal Organizing Committee Bo He Fengchun Hu Haifeng Zhao Jing Zhang Meijuan Yu Qin Yu Shuo Zhang Wangsheng Chu Wei He Wei Xu Wensheng Yan Xiaomei Gong Xing Chen Yang Zou Yi Xia Zheng Jiang Zhi Xie Zhihu Sun Zhiyun PanAdditional Staff Chengxun Liu

The multidisciplinary two-day Nano Meets Spectroscopy (NMS) event was held at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), Teddington, UK, in September 2011. The event was planned from the outset to be at the interface of several areas—in particular, spectroscopy and nanoscience, and to bring together topics and people with different approaches to achieving common goals in biomolecular science. Hence the meeting cut across traditional boundaries and brought together researchers using diverse techniques, particularly fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy. Despite engaging common problems, these techniques are frequently seen as mutually exclusive with the two communities rarely interacting at conferences.The meeting was widely seen to have lived up to its billing in good measure. It attracted the maximum capacity of ~120 participants, including 22 distinguished speakers (9 from outside the UK), over 50 posters and a vibrant corporate exhibition comprising 10 leading instrument companies and IOP Publishing. The organizers were Professor David Birch (Chair), Dr Karen Faulds and Professor Duncan Graham of the University of Strathclyde, Professor Cait MacPhee of the University of Edinburgh and Dr Alex Knight of NPL. The event was sponsored by the European Science Foundation, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry, NPL and the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance. The full programme and abstracts are available at http://sensor.phys.strath.ac.uk/nms/program.php.The programme was quite ambitious in terms of the breadth and depth of scope. The interdisciplinary and synergistic concept of 'X meets Y' played well, cross-fertilization between different fields often being a source of inspiration and progress. Fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy provided the core, but the meeting had little repetition and also attracted contributions on more specialist techniques such as CARS, super-resolution, single molecule and chiral methods. In terms of application the event bridged as far as medical application of nanotechnologies. It could have turned out that such a hotchpotch produced an incoherent event that lacked direction and focus, but in truth, as the feedback showed, the delegates revelled in the diversity and depth of quality. Excellent speakers, the common application to biomolecules and common language of spectroscopy were probably the reasons why things worked out so well.I am delighted to bring together in this special feature in Measurement Science and Technology a selection of contributions from the meeting and I thank all the authors for their excellent contributions. Included are papers on nanoparticles, plasmonics, sensing and imaging. This special feature, and indeed similar meetings in the future, will undoubtedly help sustain the 'nanomeeters' message of NMS.

The publishers of Physics in Medicine and Biology (PMB), IOP Publishing, in association with the journal owners, the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (IPEM), jointly award the Roberts prize for the best paper published in PMB during the previous year. The procedure for deciding the winner is a two-stage process. First, a shortlist of contenders is drawn up based on those papers that had the best referees' quality assessments, with a further quality check and endorsement by the Editorial Board. The papers on the shortlist are then reviewed by a specially convened IPEM committee consisting of members with fellow status. This committee reads the shortlisted papers and selects the winner.We have much pleasure in advising readers that the Roberts Prize for the best paper published in 2012 is awarded to Michel Defrise, Ahmadreza Rezaei and Johan Nuyts from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium for their breakthrough paper that describes how the information needed for attenuation correction in PET imaging can be extracted, to within a constant, from time-of-flight emission data:Time-of-flight PET data determine the attenuation sinogram up to a constant 2012 Phys. Med. Biol. 57 885 Michel Defrise1, Ahmadreza Rezaei2 and Johan Nuyts21Department of Nuclear Medicine, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, B-1090 Brussels, Belgium 2Department of Nuclear Medicine, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, B-3000 Leuven, BelgiumThis paper represents an important and timely contribution to the literature as time-of-flight PET scanners are now offered by several manufacturers. In hybrid PET/CT scanners, the PET attenuation correction, necessary for quantitative reconstruction of the tracer distribution, can be derived directly from the CT data. Sometimes, however, the PET and CT scans may be poorly aligned due to patient motion and other approaches are needed. In addition, hybrid PET/MRI scanners also, have been developed recently, and in these scanners attenuation correction of the PET data is a particularly difficult challenge as there is no direct relationship between MR signal intensity and tissue attenuation for 511 keV photons. This paper offers a possible path forwards for attenuation correction in these circumstances by exploiting consistency conditions in tandem with time-of-flight information and proves under these circumstances that the data for PET attenuation correction can be determined to within a constant.Our congratulations go to these authors. Of course all of the shortlisted papers were of an extremely high standard, and merit recognition by the community. They are listed below in alphabetical order. We also would like to thank the PMB Editorial Board and the IPEM Committee members for their hard work in assessing the papers.Simon R Cherry Editor-in-Chief Jon Ruffle Publisher ReferencesBuhr H, Büermann L, Gerlach M, Krumrey M and Rabus H 2012 Measurement of the mass energy-absorption coefficient of air for x-rays in the range from 3 keV to 60 keV Phys. Med. Biol. 57 8231Chen W, Unkelbach J, Trofimov A, Madden T, Kooy H, Bortfeld T and Craft D 2012 Including robustness in multi-criteria optimization for intensity modulated proton therapy Phys. Med. Biol. 57 591Clasie B M, Sharp G C, Seco J, Flanz J B and Kooy H M 2012 Numerical solutions of the gamma index in two and three dimensions Phys. Med. Biol. 57 6981Connell T, Alexander A, Evans M and Seuntjens J 2012 An experimental feasibility study on the use of scattering foil free beams for modulated electron radiotherapy Phys. Med. Biol. 57 3259Defrise M, Rezaei A and Nuyts J 2012 Time-of-flight PET data determine the attenuation sinogram up to a constant Phys. Med. Biol. 57 885Dowdell S J, Clasie B, Depauw N, Metcalfe P, Rosenfeld A B, Kooy H M, Flanz J B and Paganetti H 2012 Monte Carlo study of the potential reduction in out-of-field dose using a patient-specific aperture in pencil beam scanning proton therapy Phys. Med. Biol. 57 2829Scott A J D, Kumar S, Nahum A E and Fenwick J D 2012 Characterizing the influence of detector density on dosimeter response in non-equilibrium small photon fields Phys. Med. Biol. 57 4461Stam M K, Crijns S P M, Zonnenberg B A, Barendrecht M M, van Vulpen M, Lagendijk J J W and Raaymakers B W 2012 Navigators for motion detection during real-time MRI-guided radiotherapy Phys. Med. Biol. 57 6797Xia T, Alessio A M, De Man B, Manjeshwar R, Asma E and Kinahan P E 2012 Ultra-low dose CT attenuation correction for PET/CT Phys. Med. Biol. 57 309Yamaguchi M et al 2012 Beam range estimation by measuring bremsstrahlung Phys. Med. Biol. 57 2843For more information on this article, see medicalphysicsweb.org

19th International Conference on Nuclear Tracks in Solids, Besançon, France, 31 August-4 September 1998