The Seventh International Conference on Recent Advances in Magnetic
Resonance Applications to Porous Media (MRPM7) was held at the Ecole
Polytechnique (Palaiseau, near Paris), France, from July 4th to 8th
2004 and chaired by Jean-Pierre Korb. The Ecole Polytechnique is an
internationally renowned research centre including twenty-four laboratories
encompassing almost every scientific field, from mathematics, computer
science, physics, mechanics, chemistry and biology to economics, management
and the social sciences. All the laboratories are affiliated with the
National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS). The Centre’s clearly stated
objective is basic research, but it remains attentive to the needs of
industry and national defense.
This was the seventh event
in a series of outstanding meetings in which experts in various disciplines
including physics, chemistry, engineering and the life sciences, have met to
exchange ideas, results and information in the field of Magnetic Resonance
in Porous Media (MRPM).
Porous Media are ubiquitous in
nature, technology and every day life. Magnetic Resonance provides the basis
of numerous innovative techniques for probing structure, molecular dynamics,
and transport in such systems. Pore space confinement and interactions with
pore wall surfaces give rise to a rich variety of phenomena that are
anomalous from the experimental as well as theoretical point of view. The
MRPM conferences are devoted to the progress of our understanding of such
media with regard to Physics, Chemistry, Engineering, Industrial
applications and Life sciences.
This conference series was
founded by Giulio Cesare Borgia and Paola Fantazzini, at the University of
Bologna, where the first meeting was held in 1990. MRPM2 was held in 1993 at
the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK (chairman John H. Strange), MRPM3
in 1995 at the Université Catolique of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (chairman
Jean Dereppe), MRPM4 in 1997 in the very attractive research center of
STATOIL in Trondheim, Norway (chairpersons
T. Skjetne and
G.C. Borgia). The conference returned to Bologna in 2000
and took place in the historic Aula Absidale di Santa Lucia of the Alma
Mater Studiorum, that provided a marvelous setting for the meeting of the
New Millennium (chairpersons G.C. Borgia and P. Fantazzini). MRPM6 was
organized in 2002 at the University of Ulm, the birthplace of Albert
Einstein, Germany (chairman Rainer Kimmich). Now, MRPM7 has been organized
in Palaiseau through the chairmanship of Jean-Pierre Korb. The Proceedings
of all the previous MRPM Conferences [1-6], as well as of this one, have
been published as Special Issues of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. They have
been important for the formation and the growth of the MRPM community and
give an up-to-date and complete documentation of the evolution of this
discipline.
The
seventh MRPM conference proved again to be a very stimulating event, very
well attended, with about 200 delegates from some 25 different countries
spread over five continents. As with previous meetings, both academia and
industry were well represented.
The
topics covered a wide range of magnetic resonance methods and their
application to improve the understanding of materials confined within pores,
probing structure, molecular motion and interface interaction. A wide
variety of experimental evidence together with theoretical considerations of
anomalous or new phenomena were presented in the 16 invited lectures, 27
oral contributions together with 109 poster contributions of which 33 were
selected to be presented as short oral contributions also. Most of the
lectures and oral contributions have been written up as the papers appearing
in this volume, together with the abstracts of other contributions, and
provide a rich record of an exciting meeting. The organization of the
conference under the Chairmanship of Professor Jean-Pierre Korb was
excellent in all respects and the community is indebted to him and his
efficient team for a most enjoyable meeting.
The
seventh MRPM conference was the first MRPM conference without Giulio Cesare
Borgia, who died unexpectedly from a sudden illness just a few days after
MRPM6. His work was remembered at the opening and at the closing of the
conference in Palaiseau.
At the opening, Prof. John Strange read the following message sent
to Chairman Jean-Pierre Korb by the rector of the University of Bologna,
Prof. Pier Ugo Calzolari. “ It is with pleasure and enthusiasm that I
can be here by means of this message. My thought runs immediately to the
person of Giulio Cesare Borgia, whose name is linked inseparably with this
event. It is an honor for the University of Bologna to have had among its
professors this man who succeeded in accomplishing an extraordinary work,
even under conditions that were not always pleasant, with geniality and
exceptional dedication. The combined scientific and personal collaboration
of Giulio Cesare Borgia and Paola Fantazzini, led them to organize the
first MRPM Congress at the University of Bologna in 1990, bringing together
the few groups who were at that time occupied with NMR for fluids in Porous
Media. Now these Congresses are events that are eagerly anticipated
internationally. I became aware personally, on the occasion of the opening
of MRPM5 at the University of Bologna in 2000, of the friendly and welcoming
spirit and the high scientific standard of these Congresses. I therefore
extend my greetings and wishes for a profitable time here for all the
participants, who come from so many different countries of the world, from
Universities, from Research Organizations, and from Industry. I know that
Bologna is a candidate for the next MRPM conference. It would be for me a
true pleasure to be able to greet you again, in always greater numbers, at
Bologna on the occasion of MRPM8 in 2006.”
In
the closing of MRPM7 there was awarded the Giulio Cesare Borgia Prize
for Young Researchers established with the following motivation: In
memory of the contribution made by Giulio Cesare Borgia to the development
of Magnetic Resonance in Porous Media and for the particular attention he
always paid to the enthusiasm, passion, and courage of young people who
undertook the difficult and adventurous path of scientific investigation in
this fascinating area of research. The committee, composed of Bernhard
Blümich, Paul Callaghan, and Paola Fantazzini, assigned the prize to
Dimitris Sakellariou, who presented the oral communication NMR of porous
media in rotating magnetic fields: Magic angle field spinning, by
D. Sakellariou, C. Meriles, R. Martin, and A. Pines, with the following
inscription: For outstanding leadership in the development of NMR
techniques. These techniques will have major impact in enabling new ex-situ
applications of magnetic resonance in porous media.
The seventh MRPM
conference has been an important event also from
the point of view of the future of the MRPM Community and of this conference
series. During the Conference in Ulm in 2002, the growing vitality and
interest of these Conferences and the consideration that the community which
the conference series serves had grown considerably over the years, in such
a way that it now extends to cover all continents of the globe, suggested
the organizing/advisory committee meet to discuss how best the future
organization of meetings for this community might be assured. An interim
committee, composed of G.C. Borgia, P. Fantazzini, R. Kimmich, J-P Korb, and
chaired by Peter McDonald was asked to prepare a proposal to discuss at
MRPM7 in order to give to the MRPM community a more formal structure to
preserve the continuity and quality of future meetings. The document
prepared by the steering committee was discussed and approved at MRPM7
during the scientific advisory committee meeting on July 6th.
The
proposal was designed to take into account both the growth of the community
and the fact that the Conference Series came about and is the success that
it is today as a result of the efforts of G.C. Borgia and P. Fantazzini
working with the University of Bologna, so that the future organizational
structure of the series must acknowledge this debt. The major points of the
proposal, approved in Palaiseau, are as follows: 1- The Community applies to
join the Groupement Ampere in 2005/6 as a “Magnetic Resonance in Porous
Media Division”. 2- Executive and Scientific Advisory committees will be
established in accordance with Groupement Ampere statutes. 3- In order to
adequately recognize the Bologna contribution to the series it is proposed
that the following be appropriately encoded in the statutes: (i) The
Conferences are explicitly named “The Bologna Conference” in the same
way that the Spatially Resolved meetings have become known as “The
Heidelberg Conference”. (ii) There shall be a regular prize, awarded at each
Conference, called the “Giulio Cesare Borgia Award for Young Researchers”.
The award will be presented to the emerging scientist who, based on a
presentation to the community at the conference, shows greatest promise for
future scientific leadership. The award will normally be given to those
under the age of 35. Dr. Fantazzini offers to fund this prize (2000 Euro)
for the foreseeable future and, while wishing to do so, will aid the
selection committee. (iii) While it remains appropriate, and while wishing
to do so, Dr. Fantazzini or an alternate representative from Bologna will
continue to help edit the special edition of Magnetic Resonance Imaging in
which the Proceedings of the Conferences are traditionally published. (iv)
The future organizers of meetings look sympathetically upon requests to
return the conference venue periodically to Bologna.
In
the course of MRPM7 a new Steering Committee was elected, consisting of P.
McDonald, P. Fantazzini, R. Kimmich, J-P. Korb, and P. Sen, charged with the
responsibility to carry out the proposal. After MRPM7 the proposal was
submitted for the approval of the Bureau and of the Committee of the
Groupement Ampere and was accepted unanimously. Now, work is proceeding to
draw up by-laws of the MRPM Division which incorporate the contents of the
proposal.
Now, the series of
conferences, which G.C. Borgia inaugurated from Bologna and continuously
nurtured, continues and will stand as a fitting memorial to the considerable
contribution that he made to the subject. In fact, during MRPM7 the
committee voted to return to Bologna, where Paola Fantazzini will chair the
8th Bologna MRPM Conference 10-14 September 2006, to be held at
the Engineering Faculty of the University of Bologna. The 9th
Bologna MRPM Conference is expected to cross the Ocean; we have received
most favorably an offer to organize it in the USA in 2008 at the research
center of Schlumberger, which will then be in Boston.
Paola Fantazzini
John C. Gore
Jean-Pierre Korb
[1] Borgia GC, Brown RJS, Fantazzini P,
Gore J, Mansfield P, Maraviglia B, Mesini E, Sgubini L. Editors,
Proceedings of the First International Meeting on Recent Advances in NMR
Applications to Porous Media, Bologna 14-16 Nov. 1990.
Magn Res Imaging 1991; 9(5):
639-888.
[2] Borgia GC, Fantazzini
P, Gore J, Smith RM, Strange JH. Editors, Proceedings of the
Second International Meeting on Recent Advances in MR Applications to Porous
Media, Canterbury 14-16 April 1993, Magn Res Imaging 1994;12(2):
161-378.
[3] Borgia GC, Fantazzini
P, Gore J, Halse MR, Strange JH. Editors, Proceedings of the Third
International Meeting on Recent Advances in MR Applications to Porous Media,
Louvain-la-Neuve, 3-6 Sept. 1995, Magn Res Imaging 1996; 14(7/8): 697-1006.
[4] Borgia GC, Fantazzini P, Gore J,
Strange JH. Editors,
Proceedings of the Fourth International Meeting on Recent Advances in MR
Applications to Porous Media, Trondheim, 31 Aug-3 Sept 1997. Magn Res
Imaging 1998; 16(5/6): 449-714.
[5] Borgia GC, Fantazzini
P, Gore J, Strange JH. Editors, Proceedings of the Fifth
International Meeting on Recent Advances in MR Applications to Porous Media,
Bologna, 9-11 Oct 2000. Magn Res Imaging 2001; 19(3/4).
[6] Borgia GC,
Fantazzini P, Gore J, Holz M, Strange JH, Editors, Proceedings of the Sixth
International Meeting on Recent Advances in MR Applications to Porous Media,
Ulm, 2-12 Sept 2002. Magn Res Imaging 2003; 21: (3/4).
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