A journey through the pre-Budapest-2013 k0 Users Workshops

Frans De Corte

Received: 25 October 2013

� Akademiai Kiado, Budapest, Hungary 2013

Abstract A short survey is given of the five meetings

preceding the 6th International k0 Users Workshop that was

held from 22 to 27 September in Budapest/Hungary. These

predecessors were the Workshops in: Gent/Belgium

(1992), Ljubljana/Slovenia (1996), Bruges/Belgium

(2001), Funchal-Madeira/Portugal (2005) and Belo Hori-

zonte/Brazil (2009).

Keywords k0 Users Workshops � Budapest/

Hungary � Gent/Belgium � Ljubljana/Slovenia �Bruges/Belgium �Madeira/Portugal � Belo Horizonte/

Brazil

Introduction

After the launch of the NAA k0 method in the 1970s,

jointly by Andras Simonits and Frans De Corte at the

nuclear-analytical laboratories of the KFKI-Budapest and

the INW-Gent, it was experienced in the 1980s that the

development of the k0 standardization protocol was not just

enabling to publish more or less regularly a technical or

survey paper in a journal or to report occasionally on its

progress in a lecture presented at an international confer-

ence. Indeed, it was remarkable that in 1989 it asked no

special effort to completely fill volume 133/No. 1 of the

Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry with

four k0-related articles [1], and that in 1991 at the 8th

Modern Trends in Activation Analysis (Vienna, Austria) it

was decided by professor Grass and his co-organizers to

implement a ‘‘Special Session k0’’ with a total of eleven

presentations [2]. In addition to this, the conspiracy-like

concurrence of suggestive comments made around this

period by a few colleagues completed the ripening of the

idea to organize in Gent a dedicated International k0 Users

Workshop.

From Gent/Belgium (1992) to Belo Horizonte/Brazil

(2009)

The consecutive k0 Users Workshops and their main fea-

tures were:

1. The ‘‘International k0 Users Workshop, Gent/Belgium,

1992’’, organized by the Institute for Nuclear Sci-

ences—‘‘INW’’—of the Ghent University (Chairman:

Frans De Corte; Honorary Chairman: Julien Hoste).

Note that this Workshop was officially not labeled

‘‘1st’’, in view of the hesitation as to whether it would

have a successor—which obviously was a pessimistic

assessment, since it turned out to be the start of a true

series. The Gent-meeting took 3 days, including � day

excursion. A novelty as compared to already existing

NAA conferences was the introduction of sessions

with live demonstrations of software (e.g. ‘‘Kayzero/

Solcoi’’ by DSM Research), which were made possible

by the installation of a VAXstation and an IBM

compatible PC both connected with a data-videosys-

tem for projection on a large screen. This turned out to

be quite successful, and it led Gerhard Erdtmann (KFA

Julich) to state in his concluding remarks: ‘‘Finally I

Presented at the 6th International k0 Users Workshop, Budapest/

Hungary, 22–27 September 2013.

F. De Corte (&)

(ex) Scientific Research Foundation, Flanders and Ghent

University, 9921 Vinderhoute, Belgium

e-mail: fransmans@skynet.be

123

J Radioanal Nucl Chem

DOI 10.1007/s10967-013-2838-7

understand the meaning of a Workshop’’. A new

application that was presented (theoretically—for the

time being) concerned the introduction of the k0

method in PGAA. The Proceedings of the Workshop,

containing 35 papers, were published internally by the

INW, Gent [3].

2. The ‘‘2nd International k0 Users Workshop, Ljubljana/

Slovenia, 1996’’, organized by the Jozef Stefan

Institute—‘‘IJS’’ (Chairman: Borut Smodis).

The organization of this meeting, 4 years after the

former one, corroborated the interest in a dedicated k0

Workshop, and was in fact crucial for the continued

existence of the k0 Users Workshop as a series. Here

too, the meeting took 3 days, including � day

excursion. In the sessions ‘‘Applications’’ and ‘‘Imple-

mentation’’, it was convincingly shown that k0 NAA

was on its way to maturity and international dissem-

ination. As a continuation of the theoretical consider-

ations presented in the Gent-Workshop, one can note

that now the first lectures were presented on the

practice and the nuclear data of k0 standardized PGAA.

An interesting event was the founding of a standing k0

International Scientific Committee—‘‘k0 ISC’’—

(Chairman: Frans De Corte). The Proceedings of the

Workshop, containing 42 papers, were published

internally (though bearing an ISBN number) by the

IJS, Ljubljana [4].

3. The ‘‘3rd International k0 Users Workshop, Bruges/

Belgium, 2001’’, organized jointly by the Belgian

Nuclear Research Centre—‘‘SCK-CEN’’, Mol/Bel-

gium—and the Institute for Reference Materials and

Measurements – ‘‘IRMM’’, Geel/Belgium of the

European Commission (Chairmen: Stefaan Pomme

and Piotr Robouch; Honorary Chairman: Frans De

Corte).

This time the meeting took 4� days, including � day

excursion and 1 day technical visit to the laboratories

and facilities of IRMM and SCK. Among the numer-

ous topics dealt with, mention can be made of the

considerable expansion of k0-based PGAA, of the

presentation of an IUPAC k0 database, and of the

emphasis that was put on the quality management of k0

NAA. The latter was supported in a Special Session on

the development, preparation and characterization of

‘‘Synthetic Multi-Element Standards—SMELS’’. The

Proceedings of the Workshop, containing 39 papers,

were published in the Journal of Radioanalytical and

Nuclear Chemistry [5].

4. The ‘‘4th International k0 Users Workshop, Funchal-

Madeira/Portugal 2005’’, organized by the Technolog-

ical and Nuclear Institute ‘‘ITN’’, Sacavem/Portugal

(Chair: Maria do Carmo Freitas).

At the sessions of this meeting, which altogether took

3 days (including � day excursion), it was indisput-

ably demonstrated that k0 NAA grew from a mere

concept to a mature and fully operational method.

There should be no doubt as to the fact that one of the

eye-catchers of the Workshop was the presentation of

the much-discussed k0-IAEA optimized software. Also

especially relevant was the introduction of the finally

characterized SMELS materials for QC/QA of the k0

standardization of NAA when implemented in a

laboratory. The Proceedings of the 4th k0 Users

Workshop, containing 21 papers, were published in a

special volume of Nuclear Instruments and Methods in

Physics Research, Section A [6].

5. The ‘‘5th International k0 Users Workshop, Belo

Horizonte/Brazil, 2009’’, organized by the Nuclear

Technology Development Center/Brazilian Commis-

sion for Nuclear Energy ‘‘CDTN/CNEN’’ (Chair:

Maria Angela Menezes).

This meeting, the first k0 Users Workshop outside Europe,

took 4 days (including 1 day excursion). Two events are

especially noteworthy: (1) a change in the k0-ISC

chairmanship, which was turned over to Borut Smodis;

and (2) the launch of the ‘‘k0 Nuclear Data Committee’’

(Chair: Zsolt Revay)—a subcommittee of the k0-ISC-,

with the aim to create an international authoritative

system for coordination and management of a unique

recommended k0 NAA database. The Proceedings of the

Workshop, containing 24 papers, were again published in

a special volume of Nuclear Instruments and Methods in

Physics Research, Section A [7].

Epilogue

As a continuation of the former Workshops, the ‘‘6th

International k0 Users Workshop’’ was held in Budapest/

Hungary, 22–27 September 2013. It was co-organized by the

Hungarian Chemical Society, the Forschunsneutronenquelle

Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II) of the Technische Univer-

sitat Munchen, and the Center for Energy Research of the

Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The Chairman was Zsolt

Revay, and Andras Simonits was the Honorary Chair. At the

meeting of the k0-ISC, it was decided that the 7th Workshop

will be held in Montreal/Canada, 2017, organized by the

Ecole Polytechnique and chaired by Cornelia Chilian.

Clearly, the once single-event conceived Gent-Workshop

has found its niche as a four-yearly gathering of enthusiastic

members of the ‘‘k0 family’’.

Acknowledgments Thanks are due to CANBERRA and to the

Hungarian Chemical Society for their financial support enabling the

presentation of this lecture at the Budapest-2013 k0 Users

Workshop.

J Radioanal Nucl Chem

123

References

1. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 133 (1989)

2. Grass F (ed) Proceedings of the 8th international conference on

modern trends in activation analysis, Vienna, Austria 1991.

J Radioanal Nucl Chem 167–169 (1993)

3. De Corte F (1992) Proceedings of the International k0 Users

Workshop, 30 Sept–2 Oct 1992, Gent, Belgium, Institute for

Nuclear Sciences, University of Gent, Belgium

4. Smodis B (1997) Proceedings of the 2nd International k0 Users

Workshop, 30 Sept–3 Oct 1996, Ljubljana/Slovenia, Jozef Stefan

Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia, ISBN 86-80023-27-2

5. Pomme S, Robouch P, De Corte F (eds) Proceedings of the 3rd

International k0 Users Workshop, 23–28 Sept 2001, Bruges,

Belgium. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 257 (2003)

6. Freitas M C (ed) Proceedings of the 4th International k0 Users

Workshop, 11–14 Sept 2005, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal. Nucl

Instr Methods Phys Res Sect A 564 (2006)

7. Menezes M A (ed) Proceedings of the 5th International k0 Users

Workshop, 13–17 Sept 2009, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Nucl Instr

Methods Phys Res Sect A 622 (2010)

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