biaxial.html

The next Meeting of the Southampton-Pavia Royal Society Project on Biaxial Liquid Crystals will take place in Pavia at the Department of Mathematics from Thursday, 14th April, through Friday, 15th April 2005 with the following programme:

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Thursday, 14th April
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10:00	Marco L. Bernardi	Welcome speech
10:15	Geoffrey R. Luckhurst	Where are we with the discovery and design of biaxial nematics?
11:15		Coffee break
11:30	Epifanio G. Virga	Symmetry and stability in a quadrupolar model for biaxial nematics
12:00	Silvano Romano	Can uniaxial models produce biaxial order? (figures)
13:00		Catered Lunch
15:30	Giovanni De Matteis	Bifurcation analysis of a mildly repulsive model for biaxial phases
16:00	Ken Thomas	Molecular field and Landau theories for biaxial systems
16:30	Andre M. Sonnet	Continuum theory for biaxial nematics described by two order tensors

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Friday, 15th April
Morning
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The accommodation in Pavia of all participants will be arranged by the Department of Mathematics under the supervision of Dr. Bisi fulvio.bisi@unipv.it, to whom all logistic queries should be addressed. If possible, all participants will be accommodated in Excelsior Hotel, which is located in the large square in front of the FS (Railway) Station of Pavia.

The meeting is to be held in IMATI main Conference Room, in a building next to the Department of Mathematics, University of Pavia; the area can be easily reached from the station by bus (line 3 or 3/; tickets can be bought at the kiosk in the middle of the square. More detailed information on how to reach the department can be obtained by following this link, where some other useful links to online train timetable can be found.

Pavia can be easily reached by train from Milan; a private bus line connects Milan Linate Airport to the Railway Station of Pavia (http://www.sgea.it/tratte_linate.htm); other private buses connect the airport to Milan Central Railway Station. Linate airport is also served by a city bus (line 73; http://www.atm-mi.it/eng/oraper/forari.htm), going downtown, where the underground network can be used. From Malpensa Airport, a bus service allows reaching Milan Central Railway Station; unfortunately, the direct bus connection from Malpensa to Pavia has been temporarily cancelled; a train connects Malpensa Airport to Milan Cadorna Railway Station (http://www.ferrovienord.it/webmxp/ing/index.html), where the underground lines 1 (red) and 2 (green) can be reached; the latter line connects Cadorna to Central Station, and also to Famagosta bus station, from where a private bus connection to Pavia (arrival very close to Railway station) can be found (line 102 and 111; see here detailed timetable: http://www.sila.it/orari_pdf.php?azienda=2).

Programme