Daitaro Ishikawaa and Hideyuki Shinzawab
aSchool of Science and Technology, Kwansei Gakuin University, Sanda, Hyogo, 669-1337 Japan. E-mail: [email protected]
bResearch Institute of Instrumentation Frontier, Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Nagoya, Aichi 463-8560, Japan
From 25 to 30 August, the Seventh International Conference of Advanced Vibrational Spectroscopy (ICAVS-7; general chair, Professor Y. Ozaki, Kwansei Gakuin University; programme chair, Professor T. Hasegawa, Kyoto University) was held in Kobe, Japan. ICAVS is a continuation of two previous conference series, the International Conference on Fourier Transform Spectroscopy (ICOFTS) and the International Symposium on Advanced Infrared Spectroscopy (AIRS). ICAVS is one of the world's leading vibrational spectroscopy conferences, attracting scientists from all disciplines of vibrational spectroscopy; mid-IR, Raman, NIR and terahertz. ICAVS-7 provides scientists and researchers with the opportunity to interact with specialists in other fields of vibrational spectroscopy and exchange ideas in order to advance the topic and improve its impact. In the 2013 conference, nearly 600 people attended from about 30 countries.
This conference invited Professor H.W. Siesler (University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany) and Dr K.A. Bakeev (B&W Tek Inc., USA) as plenary lecturers from the NIR field. Their lecture titles were "The Near-infrared Region: An Undervalued Wavelength Range of Vibrational Spectroscopy" and "The importance of Chemometrics for Process Analytical Technology", respectively. Their talks commanded an audience of nearly 200 people and they were asked quite a number of questions, reflecting the keen interest in this field.
At the banquet: (From left) Professor Hasegawa, Professor Itoh, Professor Tsenkova and Professor Siesler.
On 29 August, NIR and PAT (chemometrics involved) sessions were held. In the NIR session, Professor H.M. Heise (Near-Infrared Diffuse Reflection Spectroscopy of Skin with Different Probing Depths for Diabetes Screening), Professor C.W. Huck [Simultaneous Determination of Geographical Origin and Quality Characteristics of Agricultural Products from the Alpine Area Based on Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIR)], Professor S. Tsuchikawa (Application of NIR Spectroscopy to Wood Science and Technology—Recent Topics using Imaging and TOF Techniques) and Professor M. Takayanagi (Application of Near-Infrared Spectroscopy to Solution Chemistry) spoke. In the PAT session, Professor M. Otsuka (Real-Time Release Monitoring of Pharmaceutical Properties of Granules in Fluid-Bed Granulator by Near-Infrared Spectroscopy), Professor R.J. Romanach (NIR in Continuous Mixing: Transitioning from Monitoring to Control), Dr T. Okumura (Implementation of PAT in Manufacturing Drugs) and Dr S. Šašić (Investigation of Individual Pharmaceutical Granules by Global Illumination Near-Infrared Imaging and Raman Microscopy Coupled with Imaging-Based Particle Sizing) reported the latest research news as invited speakers. Even in other sessions, there were many talks on NIR; for example, Professor R. Tsenkova (NIR Analysis of Water in Cell and Tissue) gave her invited talk at the Bio-IR session.
At the banquet: (From left) Dr Bakeev, Dr Dukor, Professor Minami and Professor Griffiths.
Nearly 50 posters regarding NIR spectroscopy were presented not only in the NIR and PAT sections but also on topics including New Instrumentation, Foods, Polymers, Earth, Planetary and Environment Sciences, Microscopic and Imaging Analysis, and Theory sessions. It was clearly demonstrated that NIR spectroscopy plays very important roles in various fields. Of importance was the ability of the participants to compare NIR, mid-IR, Raman and terahertz in a particular field.
Winners of the NIR and PAT session poster awards, sponsored by IM Publications, were Professor T. Genkawa (University of Tsukuba, Japan) on "Band Assignment of Water and Liquid Oleic Acid Using an Online Near-Infrared/Mid-Infrared Dual-Region Spectrometer and Hetero 2DCOS" and Dr N. Kakuta (Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan) on "Simultaneous Imaging of Temperature and Water Volume Fraction of Aqueous Solutions Using Near-infrared Absorption Characteristics of Water". Dr D. Ishikawa was awarded the Springer Poster Award in the New Instrumentation session; his title was "Development of a Newly Developed High-Speed NIR Camera (Compovision) and its Potential in the Polymer Industrial Analysis". Throughout the conference, imaging, bioscience, nanoscience, terahertz and calculation (theory) collected large audiences. It has turned out that the field of NIR spectroscopy remains very active and remarkably vigorous. The pace of progress is rapid and not showing any signs of slowing down.
On the evening of the 29th, the conference banquet started with a Japanese traditional opening ceremony called "Kagami Wari". More than 230 people enjoyed the banquet during which two different types of Japa-nese dances were presented. And last but not at least, we thank the conference sponsors for their great contributions to ICAVS-7.
