Volume 2 Issue 1

China
An ICDD Grant-in Aid Workshop was held at Xiyung Hotel, Nanning, Guangxi, China on 31-Oct-2003, in conjunction with The 8th National Chinese Symposium on X-Ray Diffraction (29-Oct-2003 to 1-Nov-2003). The workshop instructors included two ICDD members, Prof. Lingming Zeng and Prof. Shao-Fan Lin as well as Dr. Fangling Needham from ICDD headquarters. Another ICDD member Ting Huang was an Invited Speaker at the Symposium. 
Read more about the workshop and see some pictures

North America
ICDD displayed products at exhibits for the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) and the Material Research Society (MRS) meetings. The AAPS meeting was held at the end of October in Salt Lake City, Utah. The booth highlighted the capabilities of the second edition of PDF-4/Organics and demonstrated its utility in pharmaceutical analysis. The meeting, the largest of its kind in North America, was well attended with 574 exhibiting companies occupying 1,012 booths and 7,660 attendees.

The MRS meeting was held in Boston, MA during the first week of December. This meeting is well timed with the fall annual release of the PDF-2 and PDF-4 databases and the winter release of PDF-4/Organics. Attendance was up from the 2002 meeting and had 4,872 attendees with a 33% draw from outside the US. This was a record breaking attendance level for MRS according to the society's records.

Both meetings presented ICDD with the opportunity to meet both new and experienced users and diverse scientific groups that utilize ICDD products. Many ICDD members presented technical papers and several distributors also exhibited at these meetings demonstrating the strengths and capabilities of X-ray analysis.

ICDD Annual Spring Meeting
Headquarters
22-26 March 2004

ICDD XRF Clinic
Headquarters
Practical X-ray Fluorescence
26-30 April 2004

ICDD XRD I Clinic
Headquarters
Session I - Fundamentals
of X-ray Powder Diffraction
7-11 June 2004

ICDD XRD II Clinic
Headquarters
Session II - Advanced Methods
in X-ray Powder Diffraction
14-18 June 2004

Denver X-Ray Conference
Steamboat Springs, CO, USA
2-6 August 2004

In the last year, the ICDD conducted several surveys in order to improve service to our customers. Several groups were surveyed including members, distributors, frequent customers of the PDF, clinic attendees and Denver conference attendees. 
Click here to see a sample of questions and answers that were a direct result of the surveys.

Membership, Distributor and Frequent Customer Survey
This survey covered issues regarding the general opinion of the ICDD member services, customer support and educational/scientific activities. The latter two activities received highly favorable responses as did the journal Powder Diffraction and Advances in X-ray Analysis. We also received several suggestions for improving services. Based on these recommendations, the ICDD took the following actions

• Electronic Newsletters were initiated for faster communication
• HELP documentation was expanded on all database products
• Q&A section and Hot Tip sections were created and added to the ICDD website

The ICDD's new collaboration with MPDS will result in many technical additions to the PDF that were requested in the survey.

Clinic Survey
Excellent Rating given to the Faculty!

At the completion of each year's clinics, attendees are asked to complete an evaluation form reflecting their clinic experience. These surveys help the ICDD staff and faculty to better understand and meet the training needs of attendees. After the 2003 clinics, 100% of the returned clinic evaluations rate our instructors as excellent or good! The ICDD XRF and XRD clinics would not be the success and yearly tradition that they are today without our faculty. This talented team has provided a challenging, yet enjoyable, learning experience to hundreds in need of XRF and XRD training. Specially selected from both academia and industry, our faculty shares with attendees their diverse hands-on experiences and wide application knowledge through lectures and workshops. These personal field experiences, combined with just enough theory, create this truly unique learning experience that has become the ICDD's X-ray Clinics. 
Find out more about our faculty

Denver X-Ray Conference Survey
This survey covered issues regarding the general opinion of the conference, technical content, exhibits, location, hotels, and administration. Results demonstrated that the large majority of the respondents were either satisfied or extremely satisfied with the existing manner in which the conference is being organized and administrated. Questions regarding ideas for future workshop and session topics were of great interest. These suggestions were forwarded to the Denver X-ray Conference Organizing Committee, and may prove useful for the development of future programs. Another question regarding exhibits at the conference showed that 57% of attendees are purchasing or evaluating equipment, reinforcing the need for continued strong vendor participation at the meeting. 
View information regarding the 2004 Denver X-ray Conference

© 2004 The International Centre for Diffraction Data

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