Two aspects of materials, structural and thermodynamic, are both essential to understand the nature, because they are closely related. The structural studies employ various diffraction and microscopic methods to determine the position of atoms. They also employ various spectroscopic techniques to investigate the dynamical feature. The thermodynamic studies, on the other hand, can give us energetic information of any objects. The macroscopic or global view that we can obtain becomes crucial, particularly for the many-body systems. The structural and thermodynamic aspects are therefore inseparable from each other to understand materials.
This symposium offers the opportunity for those who are interested in both aspects of materials to come together, so that we can discuss about various issues. The first symposium was held at Osaka University in July, 2009 on the occasion of foundation of the "Research Center for Structural Thermodynamics". However, it was somewhat formal.
The ISST-2014 is an international symposium, which is also a satellite meeting of 50th Anniversary conference of Japanese Conference of Calorimetry and Thermal Analysis (JCCTA) in Osaka Univ. 28-30 Sept, and all the participants of JCCTA are invited to join. We will enjoy fruitful discussion in a relaxed atmosphere. Oral presentations by invited speakers and poster presentations are expected. The official language is English.

Prof. Syûzô Seki (Professor Emeritus at Osaka University) passed away on December 24, 2013. Many types of sophisticated calorimeters were developed by Prof. Syûzô Seki and his students, and used to study various physico-chemical problems including phase transitions, critical phenomena and molecular energetics. A milestone of the thermodynamic research was the discovery of glassy crystals and glassy liquid crystals as new-states of the aggregation of molecules. By virtue of these scientific achievements a new institute associated with the School of Science, the “Chemical Thermodynamics Laboratory” (present “Research Center for Structural Thermodynamics”) was founded in 1979. Further, he led the foundation of Japanese Conference of Calorimetry and Thermal Analysis (JCCTA) and the Japan Society of Calorimetry and Thermal Analysis (JSCTA). The ISST-2014 is held with a great compliment to him.