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ICNS in Daejeon, South Korea

ICNS in Daejeon, South Korea

This last week I’ve been in South Korea for the ICNS (International Neutron Scattering Conference), held in Daejeon. It was an amazing trip, and a great conference – and I have a million pictures to sort through now! I’ll share some of them here.

Helsinki layover

I had a 7 hours layover in Helsinki Airport on my way there, so I tried to make the best of it by taking a little sightseeing tour to the city. I’ve never flown via Helsinki before, so it was nice to get this opportunity with a little extra time to spend. I had time enough to take the train into the center of the city, and then walk along some of the beautiful old streets and parks down to the harbour with the markets and all of the little ferries. I then went – with one of the ferries – to the island Suomenlinna, where I walked around for a few hours to see the beautiful sights and views, before I took the ferry back, and then went towards the airport again. I could see myself returning to Finland again, to see the rest of the city, as well as the surrounding land. 

The conference

The conference itself went from Sunday July 9 – with a little welcome ceremony – to Thursday July 13. There were lots of company and institute presentations in one of the large halls, and the sheer number of parallel sessions in many different locations were overwhelming at times.

There were several poster sessions mixed in throughout the week, and I got to present my poster Tuesday in the long lunch break. I don’t think I’ve ever had a poster presentation be that busy and satisfying at the same time. Several people came to talk with me about my poster, and I got plenty of feedback on my work, and even a few new contacts. I had my phone on the poster, just as I tested out during the last DanScatt meeting, and I think it did the trick to draw attention from people.

Tuesday we got to visit the High-Flux Advanced Neutron Application Reactor (HANARO) a short bus drive away from the conference center. They are currently on shutdown, and have been for a while – so we got the rare opportunity to go inside the outer containment to see the beam ports and guides right up close and personal. That was extremely interesting, and I’m very glad that I got to go. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures within the research complex, and were even made to sign agreements about this and put stickers on our phone cameras before the bus transported us to the site. However, one of the conference photographers were there to take pictures of us!

HANARO tour group picture

The whole pile of us visiting HANARO, before we went back to the conference venue

The conference banquet was held Wednesday evening, with entertainment by a traditional Nanta performance – a group of entertainers that did all kinds of dancing and fighting and music with food and cooking utensils. It was really funny and impressive at the same time, and a super great choice for our group of very mixed nationalities.

Poster prize

The poster prizes were awarded on Thursday evening, during the closing ceremony. I had signed up to have my poster evaluated for a prize, but was not too hopeful – with how extremely many posters were presented at the many poster sessions. I ended up winning one of the 12 prizes though, which was amazing!

Included with the prize was also a €100 voucher for books from SpringerNature. On top of that, this diploma is nicer looking than both my bachelor’s and master’s diplomas…

You can see the poster itself on my poster page if you’re interested.

Exploring Daejeon

Unfortunately I did not have eons of time to explore the surrounding city during the week, but we did go out to find some local restaurants and to see the beautiful river front right behind the conference center. The weather was sweltering hot and humid, and I even had problems with the insides of my camera fogging up when I took it out of the bag several times – so I did not get many pictures as I wanted. We did, however, get some absolutely delicious food, and that I got pictures of!

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Posted by PJR in Conferences, Travel, 0 comments
DanScatt 2017 meeting in Odense

DanScatt 2017 meeting in Odense

Yesterday and today I’ve been in Odense for the yearly meeting for DanScatt, the organization for Danish users of synchrotron- and neutron-sources and free-electron X-ray lasers. This time it was held at SDU (Syddansk Universitet), just like the first time I joined the meeting back in 2012.

There were plenty of talks, and also a poster session about scattering – I got to present some of my LSCO superstructures with a poster. I had some fun testing out a new idea I got for the poster I will be presenting later this Summer in South Korea at the ICNS conference, where I want to put my phone or tablet onto the poster (at least during the actual poster session). I used my phone this time, with animations of some of my reciprocal space data. It worked out really well, and functioned as a good eyecatcher for the poster.

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DanScatt 2016 meeting close to home

DanScatt 2016 meeting close to home

This year the  DanScatt (the organization for Danish users of synchrotron- and neutron-sources and free-electron X-ray lasers) meeting was held at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences right on my campus, on May 26 and 27.

The talks were very centered on biology this year, and I found myself learning a lot of new things – even though I would have preferred talks more relevant to what I do myself. Hopefully it will be better balanced next year.

I got to present a poster on the afternoon of the second day, but the arrangements were so cramped that I’m not really sure that anyone actually saw it – we were so many people in a tiny, tiny space. At least there was beer and great people present!

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ICNS in Edinburgh, Scotland

ICNS in Edinburgh, Scotland

I have been in Scotland since July 7, and just got home yesterday. A large flock of us from my group went together to the International Conference for Neutron Scattering (ICNS) at the Edinburgh International Conference Center. Several of us also attended the Science & Scientists @ ESS satellite conference, which was arranged on Monday at the university.

The welcome reception was held at Dynamic Earth – with their cool white tent-like structure – and an amazing view towards Arthur’s Seat in the warm evening. It was so full of all of the conference participants, but a great place to see nevertheless – and it forced us all to take a rather long walk through the main part of the city, which was a wonderful start to the trip, to be honest.

At the actual conference center, when we got our materials handed out, they gave us umbrellas – expecting a normal Scottish Summer, I’m assuming. However, it seems like they jinxed the rain with all of those hundreds of umbrellas, as we got only beautiful warm days with lots of sunshine for the whole week. For once the weather gods were agreeable! To my delight, that also meant plenty of time (even in the evenings after it got dark) for me to wander around and take pictures. Edinburgh is a beautiful city!

During the poster session on the afternoon of Wednesday, I was busy presenting a poster about some of my LSCO+O superstructures. I did not have too many people come over, but at least a few was fine for me. We had a poster about our VNT e-learning neutron scattering project to present as well, so that was interesting.

Also Wednesday, there was a small reception-type-thing held as a private event up in the castle, which was absolutely mind-blowing! There was wine and little mini-haggis, and we could all mill about and see the crown jewels, and other little treasures they had hidden away in the chambers of the beautiful old buildings. What I loved the most, though, was the view as we walked up to the castle. You can see the whole city from there, and the weather was perfect as well!

The conference dinner Friday evening was held inside of the National Museum of Scotland, and what an absolutely beautiful place that was as well!

Oh, and we also had the pleasure of seeing Kim juggling not just balls, but also apples!

Saturday we took some time to go to Arthur’s Seat and enjoy yet another awesome view of the city. It was quite the hike, and I ended up not going all the way up there – but it was still beautiful!

Arthur's Seat

The view from Arthur’s Seat was spectacular

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Nordic Physics Days in Lund, Sweden

Nordic Physics Days in Lund, Sweden

Between Wednesday and Friday this week, a number of us from the group have been in Lund to participate in the Nordic Physics Days held at the university there.

I got to present a poster with a few status updates on my LSCO+O superstructures project, and I tried making it a little more general – for a general physicist audience instead of an audience of specialized crystallographers. One of the steps to do that, was to make the title more fun – so I named it “Superstructures in a superoxygenated superconductor”, which I felt was maybe enough “super”. I also gave it the subtitle “An ongoing study of the high-temperature superconductor La\(_2\)CuO\(_{4+y}\)”, just in case someone wanted to actually know what was going on…

On Thursday, we also got to go on a little tour to visit the Max IV build site. It was extremely cool to see how they’ve started doing things on site, even though they haven’t gotten that far yet. At least you can actually kind of see the ring coming into shape!

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DanScatt 2012 meeting in Odense

DanScatt 2012 meeting in Odense

This Thursday and Friday the group went to the yearly meeting of the Danish Centre for the use of Synchrotron X-ray and Neutron facilities (DanScatt). This year it was held at the university in Odense (Syddansk Universitet), and it was the first time that I was there.

Some of us went together in one of the minibuses owned by the institute, and had a nice trip with lots of joking around and meeting new people.

The meeting itself consisted of lectures and some poster-sessions, but was in general quite boring. I brought my poster over my bachelor project, but it didn’t really fit in: Most of the other posters were centered around the use of neutrons and X-rays on crystals or biological systems, so a poster about neutron moderators was a bit out of focus..

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