International Union of Crystallography Eighteenth General Assembly and International Congress of Crystallography Glasgow, UK, 4–13 August 1999

1. Introduction and Opening Ceremony

By invitation of the British Crystallographic Association, on behalf of the Royal Society, the Eighteenth General Assembly and International Congress of Crystallography were held at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, Glasgow, UK, 4–13 August 1999.

The meetings were attended by over 2,620 participants.

The General Assembly and Congress were opened on the evening of 4 August at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre. The welcoming address by Professor C. GILMORE was followed by an opening address by Professor E. N. BAKER, President of the IUCr. Sir AARON KLUG welcomed delegates on behalf of the Royal Society. The Ewald Prize was accepted by Professor M. VIJAYAN on behalf of Professor G. N. RAMACHANDRAN who was unable to travel to Glasgow. Professor VIJAYAN presented the Ewald Address. There then followed a musical entertainment of traditional Scottish music and dance and a slide show. The evening ended with a Welcoming Reception.

2. Eighteenth International Congress

2.1. Scientific programme

32 Keynote Lectures, 96 Microsymposia and 8 Open Commission Meetings were held during the morning and late afternoon sessions. The early afternoon sessions were reserved for poster sessions. There was one evening session (the J. Monteath-Robertson Symposium) and five Workshops. The abstracts in the published book of Collected Abstracts were prepared from electronic submissions and for the first time were also provided on a CD ROM. The CD ROM was also distributed as a Supplement to Acta Crystallographica, Volume A55, dated 1 September 1999.

2.2. Exhibitions

A commercial exhibition comprising 43 companies, booksellers and software demonstrations was organized. Computer terminals to enable e-mail access for all attendees were provided.

2.3. Social events

In addition to the Opening Reception, evening entertainments included a Delegate Reception, a Student Delegate Mixer, a Grand Ceilidh and a Closing Ceremony and Farewell Fling. A variety of excursions were also arranged.

3. Minutes of the Eighteenth General Assembly

These Minutes have been prepared by M. H. Dacombe, Executive Secretary, under the authority of S. Larsen, General Secretary and Treasurer of the IUCr and Secretary of the General Assembly.

3.1. Introduction and list of delegates

Sessions of the General Assembly were held on the evenings of Thursday 5 August, Friday 6 August and Monday 9 August. It was not found necessary to meet on Wednesday 11 August, as originally planned. The following attendance list gives the names of official delegates appointed by the Adhering Bodies and the alternates who substituted at one or more sessions. Dates of attendance are given in parentheses for those who were not present at every session. The names are listed by the countries to which the respective Adhering Bodies belong, and the number of votes of the Adhering Body is given in parentheses after the name of the country. The names of the Chairs of the delegations are given in bold where they are known; those of alternates are marked by an asterisk. There were no delegates from Bulgaria, Serbia or Ukraine.

Argentina (1): G. Punte

Australia (3): J. M. Guss, M. A. Spackman, J. W. White

Austria (1): A. Preisinger

Belgium (2): G. H. Evrard, L. Van Meervelt

Brazil (3): A. F. Craievich, Y. P. Mascarenhas, I. Torriani

Canada (3): F. Brisse, L. T. J. Delbaere, S. Fortier

Chile (1): J. Garin (5 and 9 August)

China, People's Republic (4): X. Jin, Z. Rao, T. Wang, Z. Zhang

China, The Academy of Sciences Located in Taipei (2): K.-H. Lii, S.-M. Peng

Croatia (1): S. Popović

Czech/Slovak Republics (1): R. Kuzel

Denmark (1): R. Feidenhans'l

Egypt (1): A. A. Ramadan

Finland (1): T. L. P. Paakkari

France (4): B. Capelle, C. Lecomte, D. Louër, D. Moras

Germany (4): F. Frey, G. Heger, U. Heinemann, P. Paufler

Hungary (1): A. Kálmán

India (2): J. K. Dattagupta, K. Lal

Israel (1): M. Harel

Italy (3): G. Ferraris, G. Filippini, D. Viterbo

Japan (4): Y. Fujii, Y. Noda, Y. Ohashi, H. Toraya

Korea (1): S. J. Chung

Mexico (1): R. R. Mijangos* (9 August), A. Reyes (5 and 6 August)

The Netherlands (2): B. W. Dijkstra (5 and 6 August), D. Feil, R. Olthof-Hazekamp* (9 August)

New Zealand (1): B. F. Anderson

Norway (1): B. Fjaertoft-Pedersen

Poland (1): A. Pietraszko

Portugal (1): M. A. Carrondo

Russia (4): N. A. Kiselev, M. V. Kovalchuk, V. I. Simonov, S. I. Zheludeva

Slovenia (1): J. V. Brencic* (5 August), I. Leban (6 and 9 August)

South Africa (2): L. R. Nassimbeni, G. J. Kruger

Spain (3): S. Gracia-Granda, C. Miravitlles, J. Rius

Sweden (2): I. Olovsson, R. Norrestam

Switzerland (2): G. Chapuis, H. Stoeckli-Evans

UK (5): F. H. Allen, P. Barnes, A. M. Glazer, S. J. Maginn, H. Muirhead

USA (5): A. Clearfield, W. L. Duax, J. L. Flippen-Anderson, M. L. Hackert, J. A. Kaduk

Venezuela (1): G. C. Diáz de Delgado (non-voting)

Present as members of the Executive Committee: E. N. Baker (President), R. Chidambaram (Vice-President), S. Larsen (General Secretary and Treasurer), P. Coppens (Immediate Past President), L. A. Aslanov, J. C. A. Boeyens, H. Fuess, M. Hart, H. Schenk and M. Tanaka (Ordinary Members). M. H. Dacombe was in attendance as Executive Secretary.

3.2. First Session, Thursday 5 August, 7:40 p.m.

(1) Introductory remarks by the President

Professor BAKER welcomed the delegates and observers. He recalled the sad loss of E. N. MASLEN who had died in 1997. He had been a driving force in the electronic development of the journals.

(2) Procedural matters

In order to verify the list of voting delegates, the President requested the General Secretary to read this list, and asked delegates to indicate their presence when their names were called. (This procedure was repeated at the beginning of each session of the General Assembly.)

Two delegates, one from Chile and one from Korea, were appointed to act as tellers when votes had to be counted during the Assembly.

(3) Approval of Agenda

The Agenda and Appendices to the Agenda had been distributed to Secretaries of National Committees in May 1999. The Agenda were approved.

(4) Amendments to Statutes and By-Laws affecting adherence to the Union

The President reported that there were no proposals.

(5) Applications for membership of the Union

The President reported that there were no applications.

(6) Changes in names of Adhering Bodies

The changes in names of the Adhering Bodies of The Netherlands [to the Dutch Association for Crystallography (NVK)] and the UK [to the British Crystallographic Association (BCA)] were accepted by the General Assembly.

(7) Approval of Minutes of Seventeenth General Assembly

The Minutes, which were contained in the published Report of the Seventeenth General Assembly and International Congress of Crystallography [Acta Cryst. (1997). A53, 692–748], were approved and two copies were signed by the President and the General Secretary, in accordance with By-Law 1.13. There were no matters arising from the Minutes.

(8) Amendments to Statutes and By-Laws not affecting adherence to the Union

In accordance with Statute 13.1, the amendments to the Statutes and By-Laws proposed by the Executive Committee had been sent to National Committees and Commissions in April 1999.

The proposed changes to make the Statutes and By-Laws non-gender-specific and to change the name of ICSU to International Council for Science were adopted without discussion. The revised Statutes and By-Laws are included as Annex II .

(9) Report of Executive Committee

The Report of the Executive Committee on the activities of the IUCr since the Seventeenth General Assembly had been submitted to the National Committees and the Commissions in May 1999, in accordance with Statute 6.8, and follows these Minutes as Annex I , Appendix A. The President selected some highlights from the Report and thanked the members of the Executive Committee for all their work. The Report was accepted without discussion.

(10) Financial Report

A Financial Report, covering the calendar years 1996, 1997 and 1998, had been prepared by the Treasurer and had been submitted to the National Committees and the Commissions in May 1999. The Report follows these Minutes as Annex I , Appendix B.

The Treasurer explained the history of the Finance Committee and described the present membership. In particular, she thanked the present and previous Conveners who played an important role in guiding the finances of the IUCr. She described the general trends over the past triennium. During this period, interest rates had decreased and the dollar and the pound had been strong against other currencies. The volatile markets had made investment decisions difficult. The total assets of the IUCr had increased by 32% over the triennium; if fluctuations in exchange rates were taken into account, the increase was 21% over the triennium. The Treasurer presented a plot showing the close correlation between the level of the assets (in CHF) and the exchange rates of the USD and GBP against the CHF. However, over the triennium there had been an operating deficit. In a recent report to the Executive Committee, the Convener of the Finance Committee had described the situation as `satisfactory but requiring vigilance'.

The main income of the IUCr came from membership subscriptions (19%), investments (40%), publications (38%) and miscellaneous (3%). The figures in parentheses are the net figures for 1998. The investment income was therefore important and helped keep price increases for the publications low. The investment portfolio was handled by Foreign & Colonial (57%) and Merrill Lynch (28%). The remaining 15% was held in UK Gilts. The performance of the various investments was regularly monitored by the Finance Committee and overall annual returns were running at about 10%.

The most important financial factors affecting the journals during the triennium had been the continuing decrease in subscriptions, the cost of Special Issues and the demand for online versions. To address these problems, a Promotions Officer had been appointed, guidelines for handling Special Issues had been developed and full SGML production had been implemented allowing the launch of Crystallography Journals Online at the present Congress. It was remarkable that this service had been developed in just five months following the discontinuation of the arrangement with Munksgaard/Healthgate. This was due to the exceptional work of the Chester editorial and R&D staff. She felt that the Chester staff were the greatest asset of the IUCr.

A. F. CRAIEVICH asked why the organizers of SAS99 had needed to contribute towards the cost of producing their Conference Proceedings as a Special Issue of Journal of Applied Crystallography. The Treasurer explained that Special Issues were expensive to produce and that the contribution of the organizers covered only part of this. Special Issues were subsidized by the IUCr.

K. LAL asked why the expenditure on administration had increased significantly over the triennium. The Treasurer replied that the main reason was that most of the administration expenses were in GBP, which had strengthened markedly against the CHF over the triennium.

The President commented that handling the IUCr's finances was an extremely difficult task and that The Treasurer and Convener of the Finance Committee had performed a great job in identifying true costs and placing the IUCr in a good position to evaluate new projects.

The General Assembly accepted the Financial Report with applause.

(11) Ewald Prize

Details of the Prize, awarded to Professor G. N. Ramachandran at the Opening Ceremony, and the citation are given in Annex I , Appendix C.

The Selection Committee was thanked for its work.

(12) Commission on Journals. Report by Chairs

The Report of the Commission on Journals had been distributed to the National Committees and the Commissions in May 1999 and is reprinted in Annex I , Appendix D. The President noted that S. R. HALL was retiring as Editor of Acta Crystallographica Section C and that A. M. GLAZER was retiring as Editor of Journal of Applied Crystallography. They were thanked with applause for all their work.

The Report was accepted by the General Assembly.

(13) Commission on International Tables. Report by Chair

The Report by the Chair of the Commission on International Tables had been distributed to the National Committees and the Commissions in May 1999 and is reprinted in Annex I , Appendix D.

The President highlighted progress with the new revisions and new volumes and the Report was accepted by the General Assembly.

(14) Committee on Electronic Publishing, Dissemination and Storage of Information

The Report of the Chair of the Committee on Electronic Publishing, Dissemination and Storage of Information had been distributed to the National Committees and the Commissions in May 1999 and is reprinted in Annex I , Appendix E.

The President commented that this was a small extremely active Committee that had a large impact on the provision of electronic products. The President thanked the Chair for his work.

(15) Committee for the Maintenance of the CIF Standard (COMCIFS)

The Report of the Chair of the Committee for the Maintenance of the CIF Standard (COMCIFS) had been distributed to the National Committees and the Commissions in May 1999 and is reprinted in Annex I , Appendix F.

The President commented that COMCIFS had been very busy during the triennium and that the activity of the working groups that had been set up would increase. Interaction with the crystallographic databases was important. The President thanked the Chair for his work.

(16) IUCr Newsletter

The Report of the Editor of the IUCr Newsletter had been distributed to the National Committees and the Commissions in May 1999 and is reprinted in Annex I , Appendix G.

The President commented that the IUCr Newsletter had been one of the great developments in recent years.

W. L. DUAX (the Editor of the Newsletter) invited the General Assembly to encourage crystallographers in countries that were at present under-represented in the Newsletter to submit contributions and to suggest additions to the mailing list.

The Editor was thanked with applause.

(17) IUCr/Oxford University Press Book Series

The Report of the Chair had been distributed to the National Committees and the Commissions in May 1999 and is reprinted in Annex I , Appendix H.

The President thanked the Chair for his work.

(18) Promotion Committee

The Report of the Chair had been distributed to the National Committees and the Commissions in May 1999 and is reprinted in Annex I , Appendix I.

The President took the opportunity to explain the background to the setting up of the Promotion Committee. Its first task had been to find an active Promotions Officer and A. J. Sharpe had been appointed in February 1998. There were now real opportunities to develop and market new products and he thanked the Chair and the Promotions Officer for the excellent headway that had been made in the short time since her appointment.

(19) Non-publishing Commissions. Reports by Chairs and review of activities

The reports of the Commissions on their activities since the Seventeenth General Assembly had been distributed to the National Committees and the Commissions in May 1999. The reports are reprinted in Annex I , Appendix D. The reports were taken as read, but the Chair of each Commission, or his or her alternate, was invited to say a few words about any further developments and to answer any questions.

D. VITERBO and D. FEIL commented that there should be more feedback to the General Assembly on the results of discussions between the Chairs of Commissions and the Executive Committee. The President noted that there was only a short time between the meetings with Chairs and the deadline for recommendations to the General Assembly. J. R. HELLIWELL commented that he found interaction between the Commission on Journals and the other Commissions to be good. P. COPPENS noted that the Executive Committee carefully considered the performance and usefulness of each Commission and whether it needed to be modified or discontinued. He agreed that more feedback would be useful and the Executive Committee would look at the most effective ways of conveying the results of the discussions of the Executive Committee with the Commissions to the delegates.

J. A. KADUK noted that the Denver X-ray Conference had clashed with the Glasgow Congress and hoped that this could be avoided in future. J. A. K. HOWARD commented that attempts to include the Denver Conference in the powder diffraction satellite, which was included in the main Glasgow Congress, had proved unsuccessful. H. FUESS noted that the Executive Committee would like to see greater interaction between the Commission on Powder Diffraction and the Denver Conference organizers.

The General Assembly accepted all the reports that had been received on the activities of the non-publishing Commissions.

(20) Committee on Crystallographic Databases

The President commented that the Executive Committee considered this to be an extremely important Committee. There had been many changes in the databases in recent years and the Committee contained representatives from these. This Committee would facilitate a greater integration of IUCr activities with the databases and enable the IUCr (representing both the providers of the data and the users of the databases) to have a greater role in their development.

Further discussion of this item was delayed until the next session when the Chair would be present [see Minute (25)].

(21) Sponsorship of meetings: Sub-committee on the Union Calendar

The Report of the Chair had been distributed to the National Committees and the Commissions in May 1999 and is reprinted in Annex I , Appendix J.

The Chair (H. SCHENK) and the members of the Committee were thanked with applause for their work.

The President then adjourned the session at 9:30 p.m.

3.3. Second Session, Friday 6 August 1999, 7:30 p.m.

Prior to the start of this session, the two Presidential nominees made short addresses to the delegates.

(22) Proposals for new Commissions

The President reported that there were no proposals to establish new Commissions.

(23) Review of existing Commissions

The President reported that the Executive Committee had considered the work of the Commissions and had no recommendations to modify or discontinue any of the Commissions.

(24) Determination of number of elected members of each Commission

In accordance with Statute 5.10(d), the Assembly had to determine the number of persons to be elected on the Commissions until the Nineteenth General Assembly; these numbers did not include Chairs, Co-editors or ex officio members.

The Executive Committee now proposed that the membership of the Commission on High Pressure be increased from eight to ten members.

The numbers of elected members approved by the General assembly (Chairs not included) are set out below:

1. Commission on Journals	0
2. Commission on International Tables	0
3. Commission on Aperiodic Crystals	8
4. Commission on Biological Macromolecules	8
5. Commission on Charge, Spin and Momentum Densities	9
6. Commission on Crystal Growth and Characterization of Materials	8
7. Commission on Crystallographic Computing	8
8. Commission on Crystallographic Nomenclature	0
9. Commission on Crystallographic Teaching	9
10. Commission on Electron Diffraction	7
11. Commission on High Pressure	10
12. Commission on Neutron Scattering	9
13. Commission on Powder Diffraction	9
14. Commission on Small-Angle Scattering	7
15. Commission on Structural Chemistry	9
16. Commission on Synchrotron Radiation	8
17. Commission on XAFS	7

(25) Committee on Crystallographic Databases (continued)

J. W. WHITE requested some background information about the way that the Protein Data Bank (PDB) was now working and what the default position would be if the situation should change. The Chair (H. BERMAN) replied that at present there was no fallback position but that the PDB did wish to have a strong relationship with the IUCr.

(26) Confirmation of date and place of Nineteenth General Assembly

The invitation from the Israel Crystallographic Society to hold the Nineteenth General Assembly in Jerusalem, Israel, 6–15 August 1999, which had been preliminarily accepted in 1996, was formally accepted.

(27) Reports of Representatives on Regional and Scientific Associates

In accordance with Statute 8.5, the reports of the Representatives on Regional and Scientific Associates had been circulated with the Agenda papers in May 1999. These reports are reprinted as Annex I , Appendix K. All the reports were accepted.

(28) Reports of Representatives on bodies not belonging to the Union

In accordance with Statute 8.5, the reports of the Representatives had been circulated with the Agenda papers in May 1999. These reports are reprinted as Annex I , Appendix L. The President noted that the link with the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI) had been particularly useful in connection with electronic publishing. All the reports were accepted.

(29) Preliminary consideration of date and place of Twentieth General Assembly

In accordance with By-Law 1.3, the General Assembly could give preliminary consideration to the place of the next but one General Assembly, namely the Twentieth General Assembly to be held in 2005. The President announced that invitations had been received from the Science Council of Japan and the Crystallographic Society of Japan to hold the Congress in Nagoya, Japan, and from the National Research Council and the Italian National Committee for Crystallography to hold the Congress in Florence, Italy. He reported that the Executive Committee had considered both applications and found them to be in order. G. FILIPPINI and C. MEALLI presented the formal invitation for Italy and Y. FUJII presented the formal invitation for Japan. A decision on which invitation to accept was delayed until the next session to give the delegates time to consider the choice [see Minute (34)].

(30) Determination of general policy and timetable for period to Nineteenth General Assembly

There was some discussion concerning the lengths of future Congresses. The President noted that at present the Congresses comprised an opening day, eight days of science and one excursion day (total ten days). To accommodate the sessions of the General Assembly, the minimum requirement would be one opening day and six days of science (total seven days). It would not be possible to make changes for the Jerusalem Congress as commitments had already been made by the organizers. S. FORTIER commented that many people could not commit themselves to attend a long conference and that there was a danger of the community breaking up. An alternative would be to have a shorter seven-day Congress but with more satellites and workshops at the beginning or end. A. M. GLAZER noted that this would mean more parallel sessions or the omission of certain topics. There could be more poster presentations and more keynote lectures. A. F. CRAIEVICH thought that the format for the Glasgow Congress was good but that it would be beneficial to have a larger area for posters so that they could be displayed longer. W. L. DUAX agreed that greater accessibility to posters was desirable and noted that the excursion day was popular but expensive for the organizers. The General Assembly approved a motion proposed by J. FLIPPEN-ANDERSON that the Twentieth Congress (and subsequent Congresses) should comprise an opening day and seven subsequent days (total eight days), with the format to be considered by the Executive Committee.

The President then adjourned the session at 9:55 p.m.

3.4. Third Session, Monday 9 August 1999, 7:40 p.m.

(31) Preliminary consideration of activities for period 2002–2005

There were no comments on this item.

(32) Budget estimates for period to Nineteenth General Assembly: determination of unit contribution

These budget estimates had been distributed with the Agenda papers and are printed as Annex I , Appendix M to these Minutes. The General Assembly accepted the budget estimates and approved the recommendation of the Executive Committee to continue the unit contribution unchanged, as CHF 1000, for the years 2000, 2001 and 2002.

(33) Confirmation of appointments of Editors of publications of the Union

In accordance with Statute 7.1, the initial appointments and the reappointments of the Editors of the publications of the IUCr were made by the Executive Committee and were subject to confirmation of the General Assembly.

The Assembly unanimously confirmed the following appointments and reappointments for the period of three years:

Editor-in-Chief of Acta Crystallographica: J. R. Helliwell (UK)

Editor of Section A of Acta Crystallographica: A. Authier (France)

Editor of Section B of Acta Crystallographica: F. H. Allen (UK)

Editor of Section C of Acta Crystallographica: G. Ferguson (Canada)

Editor of Section D of Acta Crystallographica: J. P. Glusker (USA)

Editor of Journal of Applied Crystallography: G. Kostorz (Switzerland)

Editors of Journal of Synchrotron Radiation: S. S. Hasnain (UK), J. R. Helliwell (UK), H. Kamitsubo (Japan)

General Editor of International Tables and Editor of Volume A: Th. Hahn (Germany)

Editor of Volume B: U. Shmueli (Israel)

Editor of Volume C: E. Prince (USA)

Editor of Volume D: A. Authier (France)

Editors of Volume E: V. Kopsky (Czech Republic) and D. B. Litvin (USA)

Editors of Volume F: M. G. Rossmann (USA) and E. Arnold (USA)

Editors of Volume G: S. R. Hall (Australia) and B. McMahon (UK)

Editor of Volume A1: H. Wondratschek (Germany)

(34) Preliminary consideration of date and place of Twentieth General Assembly (continued)

The General Assembly gave preliminary acceptance to the invitation to hold the Twentieth General Assembly in 2005 in Italy.

(35) Election of Chairs and members of Commissions

The nominations made by the Executive Committee for the Chairs and members of Commissions, after consultation with the Commissions through their Chairs, had been notified to delegates.

Since no other nominations had been made by the delegates, the persons recommended by the Executive Committee were considered elected.

The current full memberships of all the Commissions, including the ex officio members, together with the addresses of the Chairs, are given as Annex III .

(36) Election of Representatives on bodies not belonging to the Union and on Regional and Scientific Associates

The nominations made by the Executive Committee for those Representatives to be elected by the General Assembly had been notified to delegates. As no other nominations were made, these persons were considered elected.

The names and addresses of the Representatives of the Union, including those appointed ex officio, are given in Annex III .

(37) Election of Officers of the Union

The nominations made by the Executive Committee for Officers of the Union had been included in the Agenda papers distributed in May 1999. H. Fuess (Germany) and H. Schenk (The Netherlands) were nominated for President, M. Tanaka (Japan) for Vice-President and S. Larsen (Denmark) for General Secretary and Treasurer. Six nominations were made for the four or five vacancies for Ordinary Members: J. C. A. Boeyens (South Africa), M. A. Carrondo (Portugal), W. L. Duax (USA), A. Fontaine (France), S. Fortier (Canada) and Z. Zhang (People's Republic of China). J. A. K. Howard (UK) was nominated by the delegates for a vacancy as Ordinary Member. Elections for the President, for three Ordinary Members for the normal six-year term and for one or two Ordinary Members for a three-year term were held by secret ballot. The following nominees were elected:

President

H. Schenk (The Netherlands)

Vice-President

M. Tanaka (Japan)

General Secretary and Treasurer

S. Larsen (Denmark)

Ordinary Members (six years)

M. A. Carrondo (Portugal)

W. L. Duax (USA)

Z. Zhang (People's Republic of China)

Ordinary Member (three years)

J. C. A. Boeyens (South Africa)

The President congratulated the new members of the Executive Committee and thanked those who would be retiring. The newly elected President thanked the retiring President for his efficient leadership.

(38) Any other business

As there was no other business and therefore no need for the final session of the General Assembly that had been scheduled for Wednesday 11 August, the President declared the Eighteenth General Assembly closed at 9:00 p.m.

4. Closing Ceremony, Friday 13 August 1999

The Closing Ceremony was held in the Barony Hall of Strathclyde University and immediately preceded the Farewell Fling.

J. A. K. HOWARD (Chair of the Programme Committee) and C. GILMORE (Chair of the Congress Organizing Committee) thanked all involved with making the Congress a success. Four IUCr Poster Prizes in Chemical Crystallography for Younger Scientists sponsored by the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre were presented. The Oxford Cryosystems Poster Prize and the 1999 Philips Prize of the British Crystallographic Association Physical Crystallography Group were also presented.

E. N. BAKER, the retiring President, said that this had been a wonderful Congress and thanked the organizers for their hard work. He was proud to come from a small country and yet have so many friends all over the world.

The new President, H. SCHENK, said that this had been a splendid Congress with a marvellous programme. He thanked the retiring President for three productive years and said that he was looking forward to the next three years. He then declared the Eighteenth General Assembly and Congress closed.