ICTP in Brief May-June 2006

Tue Jul 11 12:14:00 CEST 2006

    ICTP IN BRIEF

Bi-monthly unabridged listing of news published on http://news.ictp.it/ 
<http://news.ictp.it>

*5/5/2006*

      Tsunami Workshop <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=160>

ICTP will hold a workshop on the hazards tsunamis pose to nuclear 
facilities within coastal areas. The workshop 
<http://cdsagenda5.ictp.trieste.it/full_display.php?smr=0&ida=a05200>, 
cosponsored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will take 
place on 8-12 May in the Lundqvist Lecture Hall located in the Adriatico 
Guesthouse. Among the topics to be discussed are the status of the 
UNESCO/IOC tsunami warning system, the efficacy of building codes and 
regulations, and strategies for improving standards to mitigate the 
risks posed by tsunamis.

*10/5/2006*

      ICTP Scientific Council Meets <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=159>

The ICTP Scientific Council will hold its annual meeting on 11-12 May. 
This will mark the first Scientific Council in which Italy's 
internationally renowned physicist Nicola Cabibbo, University of Rome 
/"La Sapienza"/, will preside as chairperson. José Antonio de la Peña, 
an eminent professor of mathematics from /Universidad Nacional Autónoma 
de México/, will attend the meeting as the most recently appointed 
member. The Council will review ICTP's performance over the past year 
and discuss possible future activities.

      EC on Scientific Cooperation <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=161>

Gregorio Medrano Asensio, Adviser in charge of Developing Countries at 
the Directorate General for Research of the European Commission, will 
visit ICTP to meet with ICTP and TWAS officials to explore opportunities 
for cooperation between the EC and Trieste's scientific community. He 
will also give a talk on the Seventh Framework Programme (2007-2013) of 
the European Commission on Thursday 11 May, at 10.00 a.m., Lecture Room 
C, ICTP Main Building.

*15/5/2006*

      ICTP Prize <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=162>

Xiahohua Zhu, professor, Peking University School of Mathematical 
Sciences, will be officially awarded the ICTP Prize 2005 in the Main 
Lecture Hall on 16 May. The ceremony will begin at 11:00 with opening 
remarks by ICTP director, K.R. Sreenivasan, followed by a lecture by Zhu 
titled "Canonical Metrics in Kähler Geometry". The ICTP Prize 2005 will 
be awarded in honour Armand Borel, a long-time professor at the 
Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton who lectured at ICTP.

      Italy-China Ties <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=163>

Dong Jinyi, China's Ambassador to Italy, visited ICTP on 12 May to speak 
with director K.R. Sreenivasan and to tour the Centre's faciltiies. Dong 
also met with Mohamed H.A. Hassan, executive director of TWAS (The 
Academy of Sciences for the Developing World).
Ambassador Dong Jinyi signs guestbook
/Ambassador Dong Jinyi signs guestbook/

*16/5/2006*

      The Origins: A Conference <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=165>

Julian Chela-Flores, ICTP staff associate, will speak on the "Evolution 
of the Universe: From Astrophysics to Astrobiology" at a conference 
sponsored by the /Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei/ <http://www.lincei.it> 
in Rome. The conference, "The Origins: How, When and Where It All 
Started", will take place on 22 May. Among the conference speakers will 
be frequent ICTP visitors Gabriele Veneziano, CERN, the European 
particle physics laboratory, Geneva, Switzerland; Antonio Lazcano, 
National University of Mexico; and George Coyne SJ, /Specola Vaticana/, 
Vatican City.

*22/5/2006*

      Nobel Laureate to Visit Trieste <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=166>

Roy J. Glauber, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics at Harvard University, 
Cambridge, MA, USA, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2005 
"for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence", will 
visit Trieste from Tuesday 23 to Friday 26 May. On Wednesday 24 May, 
Glauber will present a public lecture, "One Hundred Years of Light 
Quanta", at 15.30 at the University of Trieste, Building H3 Lecture 
Room. On Friday 26 May, he will give a technical lecture, "Quantum 
Optics and Heavy Ion Physics", at the closing session of the Conference 
on Perspectives in Hadronic Physics, in the ICTP Main Lecture Hall at 
15.30.

*24/5/2006*

      Geometry and Bubbles <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=167>

The next in a series of public lectures---cosponsored by ICTP, the 
University of Trieste's Department of Mathematics and Informatics and 
/Immaginario Scientifico/---will take place on Thursday, 25 May at 17:30 
when Michele Emmer, professor of mathematics, /"La Sapienza"/ 
University, Rome, speaks on "Geometry and Soap Bubbles." The lecture, in 
Italian, will take place in the Trieste University's H2-bis Building, 
Morin 2A Lecture Room. Michele Emmer is an internationally known 
scientist and scholar who has explored the intricate interface between 
science, culture and psychology.

*29/5/2006*

      Allotey on Stamp <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=168>

Francis K.A. Allotey, a former pro-vice chancellor of Kwame Nkrumah 
University of Science and Technology, Ghana, and member of the ICTP 
Scientific Council since 1996, has been honoured by his native country 
by having his image placed on a postage stamp 
<http://library.ictp.it/FP-DB/image.php?IM=1262&headerName=ALLOTEY%2C+Francis+Kofi+Ampenyin&dgID=276>. 
The official ceremony honouring Allotey took place on 29 March during 
Ghana's nation-wide celebration of the total eclipse of the sun. 
Allotey, an internationally renowned physicist and mathematician, is one 
of Africa's most eminent scientists.
F.K.A. Allotey shows stamp at ICTP Scientific Council, 11 May
/F.K.A. Allotey shows stamp at ICTP Scientific Council, 11 May/

      ICTP Scientists among FsRS 2006 <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=169>

Three members of ICTP Scientific Council are among the six Foreign 
Members recently elected to the Royal Society for 2006. They are: Nobel 
Laureate Kenneth Arrow (ICTP Scientific Council Member 2002-2005), 
Edouard Brézin (ICTP Scientific Council Member 1996-2003) and Nobel 
Laureate Paul Crutzen (ICTP Scientific Council since 2004).
Other eminent scientists also earning membership in the Royal Society 
include the following speakers at ICTP activities: Stephen Barnett, 
University of Strathclyde; Charles Thomas Bayley Foxon, University of 
Nottingham; Karl John Friston, University College London; Mriganka Sur, 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA; Peter Christopher West, 
King's College London; and David Phillip Woodruff, University of 
Warwick. For the complete roster of members in the Royal Society, one of 
the world's oldest and most prestigious science academies, see 
www.royalsoc.ac.uk <http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk>.

*8/6/2006*

      Algumas razoes para ser um cientista
      <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=170>

A Portuguese version of /One Hundred Reasons To Be A Scientist/, 
/Algumas razões para ser um cientista/, has been published by /Centro 
Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas/ (CBPF). Ricardo Galvão, CBPF Director 
and winner of the ICTP Prize in 1984, has written an introduction to the 
book. / One Hundred Reasons To Be A Scientist/, a compilation of 
personal accounts by eminent scientists from around the world assembled 
by ICTP Director K.R. Sreenivasan, was first published in 2004. Both 
books are on display at the ICTP Library.

*9/6/2006*

      American Physical Society Fellows
      <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=171>

Yu Lu, former head of the ICTP Condensed Matter Physics Section and now 
director of the Interdisciplinary Center of Theoretical Studies (ICTS) 
in Beijing, China, and Riazzudin, director of the National Centre for 
Physics (NCP) at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. Pakistan, and 
frequent participant in ICTP activities, have been officially inducted 
as Fellows of the American Physical Society 
<http://www.aps.org/fellowship/2005>. The award ceremony took place at 
the annual meeting of APS in Baltimore in March. Yu Lu was honoured "For 
his important and long time contributions to a wide range of topics in 
condensed matter theory and for his significant role in fostering 
international collaboration in physics." Riazuddin was honoured "For 
original and outstanding contributions to theory and phenomenology of 
strong and eletroweak interactions, especially where an interplay of 
such interactions is involved and for internationalization of physics in 
developing countries."

*13/6/2006*

      Science Cafe on Physics and Art <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=173>

"Science is art" is the title of the Science Café that will be held 
today, 13 June, at 6 pm, at Caffè San Marco (via Cesare Battisti 18, 
Trieste). Claudio Tuniz, ICTP Assistant Director, and Gianrossano 
Giannini, professor of physics at the University of Trieste, will 
discuss how physicists and acheologists are now working together to 
improve our understanding of the past, and to solve many historical 
mysteries. Music and readings will enrich the event.

*14/6/2006*

      UNESCO Science Report 2005 <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=172>

The UNESCO Science Report 2005 is now available online 
<http://publishing.unesco.org>. Mohamed H.A. Hassan, Executive Director 
of TWAS (The Academy of Sciences for the Developing World), served as a 
coauthor, and Daniel Schaffer, Public Information Officer for ICTP/TWAS, 
as a contributing author for the chapter on Africa. Other authors, who 
are closely associated with ICTP, include: Adnan Badran, former Deputy 
Director General of UNESCO and former Prime Minister of Jordan, who 
authored the chapter on the Arab States; and Ana María Cetto, IAEA 
Deputy Director General and Head of Department of Technical Cooperation, 
and a frequent visitor to ICTP, who coauthored the chapter on Latin 
America.

*16/6/2006*

      In Nature <http://news.ictp.it/index.php?p=175>

Sandro Scandolo, ICTP staff member in the Condensed Matter Physics 
Group, has co-authored a paper titled "Amorphous silica-like carbon 
dioxide" in the 15 June edition of /Nature/. The paper focuses on a new 
kind of glass in which silicon atoms have been replaced by carbon atoms. 
The material, named "carbonia", was created by scientists from LENS 
(European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy) and INFM in Florence 
heating solid carbon dioxide at pressures of 500,000 times greater than 
atmospheric pressure. Scandolo's theoretical contribution was to provide 
a microscopic model for the local arrangement of atoms in carbonia. 
Current collaborative efforts between LENS and ICTP are seeking to 
stabilize carbonia at ambient conditions, which could lead to the 
application of carbonia as a ultra-hard glass and as a coating for 
microelectronic devices.
ICTP Director Katepalli R.Sreenivasan and two scientists from the 
University of Maryland and Yale University published a brief 
communication on "Superfluid helium: Visualization of quantized 
vortices" in the 1 June issue of /Nature/. The paper describes the 
behaviour of liquid helium when cooled below its phase transition at 
2.172 Kelvin, and the formation of peculiar vortices.

©2005-2006 ICTP || *news.ictp.it* <http://news.ictp.it>

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