PrefacePapers Collected on the Occasion of the 34thCongress of Chemists of Latin Expression (XXXIVCHITEL)

Published online 18 August 2009 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).DOI 10.1002/qua.22370

The community of Theoretical Chemists of LatinExpression—acronymed as either CHITEL (for“Chimici Teorici di Espressione Latina” and “Chi-mistes Theoriciens d’Expression Latine”) or QUI-TEL (for “Quımicos Teoricos de Expresion Latina”and “Quımicos Teoricos de Expressao Latina”)—held its annual congress, the 34th of the series, inCetraro, Calabria, in Southern Italy from July 3 to 8,2008.

It was in Modena, Northern Italy, that this typeof event took place for the first time in 1969, and,while typically alternating each other year acrossthe two sides of the Atlantic Ocean, has from timeto time come back to Italy. The 2007 edition washeld in Havana, Cuba, and the special issue of thisjournal, prepared to celebrate that occasion, givesan extensive account of the history of this series ofevents [1].

A common setting for several of the editions ofthese congresses appears to have consisted of splen-did seashores: this is especially appreciated whenreference is made to those that have taken place inthe most recent years: Isla Margarita, Venezuela, in2005 (see [2]), Cotes de Carthage, Tunisia, in 2006(see [3]), and Havana, Cuba, in 2007 [1]. Such ma-rine sceneries have turned out to be both mostinspiring and pleasant. They were definitely appre-ciated both by accompanying persons and by par-ticipants needing relaxing after hard work, andvery appropriate too: indeed, a “lingua franca”, as avernacular communication vehicle made up of mix-ture of languages of Latin origin, was spoken

worldwide by merchants until the nineteenth cen-tury, and specifically by sailors aboard the shipsacross the seven seas, including those navigatingthe oceans lead by Christopher Columbus, AmerigoVespucci, and Vasco da Gama. Although use ofLatin as the canonical language of science and phi-losophy has seen a decline since a couple of centu-ries, still pidgin forms (jokingly referred to as Itag-nolo, Portunhol, etc.) are often spoken whenscientists meet. And those are the ways of expres-sion that oftentimes we end up using in these con-gresses, although—as typical of epochal changesthat have occurred in society and in science—theseintroductory notes, and all papers in this issue, arein (pidgin?) English, or variants of Spanglish any-way.

Calabria is located just in the middle of the Med-iterranean sea (literally, in the center of the center!),and has been referred to for centuries as MagnaGraecia or Greater Greece because of Greek Colo-nies established here since the sixth century B.C.Subsequently, many flourished as important cul-tural centers. At this crossroad, almost three mil-lennia ago, the Greek alphabet underwent its mod-ification leading to what most of the word is using,the Latin letters, into which even all languages em-ploying different scripts have transliteration rules.

The organizers from the Universita della Cala-bria were Sandro Chiodo, Tiziana Marino, NinoRusso (chairman), and Emilia Sicilia. More than140 participants enjoyed their efforts to set up anunforgettable event and the warm hospitality at

International Journal of Quantum Chemistry, Vol 110, 487–488 (2010)© 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

the Grand Hotel San Michele in Cetraro. Thelocation is not new as a host for the meeting ofquantum chemists: proceedings of a recent sym-posium on theoretical biophysics have appearedin this journal [4].

All the theoretical chemists that participated inthis congress have in common linguistic roots: theyeither live and work in countries whose languagesare of Latin origin (they came from Argentina, Bra-zil, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, It-aly, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Uruguay, Swit-zerland, Venezuela, etc.) or have a Latin languageas mother tongue, even though they are now oper-ating elsewhere (Denmark, South Africa, UnitedStates, etc). Participants from Algeria, Tunisia, andMorocco are fluent in French, which in the Maghrebis used in teaching and in the daily practice ofscience.

Members of the scientific committee were Vin-cenzo Aquilanti (Italy), Vincenzo Barone (Italy),Juan Andres Bort (Spain), Eduardo Castro (Argen-tina), Miguel Castro (Mexico), Renato Contreras(Chile), Andre Grand (France), Francesc Illas(Spain), Eric Perpete (Belgium), Claude Pauchan(France), Nino Russo (Italy,Chairman), BernardSilvi (France), Antonio J. C. Varandas (Portugal).

Plenary talks were given by C. Adamo (France),M. A. Chaer Nascimento (Brasil), H. Chermette(France), L. Coitino (Uruguay), L. A. Montero (Cuba),I. Moreira (Spain), V. Ortiz (USA), M. Parrinello (Swit-zerland), M. Ramos (Portugal), D. R. Salahub (Can-ada), F. Santoro (Italia), G. Scuseria (USA), M. To-

scano (Italy), J. Ugalde (Spain), D. P. Vercauteren(Belgium), T. Wieselowki (Switzerland).

Besides these, 47 oral papers were presented,and 30 posters were exhibited. The collection ofpapers collected in this issue are representative ofthe topics that were especially under focus in theCetraro days. Most areas of theoretical chemistrywere tackled, from the basic methodological ap-proaches of quantum mechanics for simple atomicand molecular systems to applications in moleculararchitectures of the increasing complexity that isrequired in the modeling of industrial, pharmaceu-tical, and biological environments.

At the end of this exciting event, the decisionwas taken that the next edition would take place inthe Colombian island of San Andres in September2009—another marine setting as a forum for pre-sentation and discussion of progress in their scienceby the theoretical chemists of Latin expression.

Nino RussoUniversita della Calabria, Italy

Vincenzo AquilantiUniversita di Perugia, Italy

References

1. Int J Quantum Chem 2008, 108, 1617.2. J Mol Struct Theochem 2006, 769, 1.3. J Mol Struct Theochem 2008, 853, 1.4. Int J Quantum Chem 2008, 108, 1873.

PREFACE

488 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF QUANTUM CHEMISTRY DOI 10.1002/qua VOL. 110, NO. 3