The SAX session (B6) was opened by the chairman with a review on “New Frontiers”, surveying selected, high-promise SAX applications in the three areas, synchrotron radiation, research or analytical laboratory routine, and chemical industry production control. In good contrast to this sometimes visionary or speculative outlook, the following talk by Wilfried Gille (Halle, Germany) presented an in-depth treatment of the particle chord-length distribution function and its potential in the interpretation of particle scattering. The co-chairman, Josef Plestil (Prague) presented an account of SANS studies on ‘onion-type’, three-layer block-copolymer micelles with high technological promise in the fields of controlled uptake/release or waste removal recovery, where theoretical predictions of pH/charge effects of PVP-coated micelle properties were impressively proven and quantified. Material technology, this time from the area of Ni-based superalloys, was also in the focus of the talk by Pavel Strunz (Prague), showing the amazing very-low-q potential of cold neutrons to studies on the microstructure of alloys. Returning to methodology, Milos Steinhart (Prague) gave a talk on a new design for moderate pressure studies (up to @ 3 kbar) on soft material (liquid crystal) phase transitions using synchrotron radiation, and pilot applications on phospholipid phase transitions. Finally, Svetlana Mokeeva (Petrozavodsk, Russia) presented a study on the long-standing problem of serum albumin solution structure and aggregation under the influence of salts, emphasizing this solution scattering approach in the face of protein crystallography.

P. Laggner, Chair