{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.03458957150232318, 'fraction_numerical': 0.014455343314403717, 'mean_word_length': 5.872340425531915, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
European Conference on Liquid Crystals

The European Conference on Liquid Crystals (ECLC2013) held in the medieval city of Rhodes (Greece), from 22 to 27 September 2013 was organised by the University of Patras and the National Centre for Scientific Research ‘Demokritos’, with Demetri J. Photinos as chair, George Nounessis as co-chair, Constantinos Paleos as honorary chair and Alexandros Vanakaras as scientific secretary. The Conference was the twelfth in the series of the European Liquid Crystal Conferences. These biennial conferences continue the tradition of providing an international forum to enhance the exchange of scientific ideas and technological advances in the field of liquid crystals and their applications (Figure 1). The Conference was attended by almost 210 participants from most European countries, USA, Japan and Brazil. The contributions were arranged in 10 major areas: new materials: molecular design, synthesis, characterisation; liquid crystalline (LC) phases: structural studies, physical properties; lyotropic LCs; colloidal LCs; LC polymers and elastomers; LC surface and confinement phenomena; nanostructures; composites; biological LC systems; LC theory, simulations and modeling; electro-optic, optoelectronic and photonic applications of LCs; defects, patterns and hydrodynamics. Three special thematic sessions (Plasmonics and LC composites, the Nx phase, biaxial nematics) constituting research areas, in which much of the collaborative European LC research effort and funding was focused over the last 3–4 years, were also nicely organised and attracted a considerable number of presentations. The final programme included 6 plenary sessions, 25 invited talks, 70 oral presentations and 120 posters. The plenary invited lectures were given by Georg Mehl (University of Hull, UK), Tommaso Bellini (Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy), Noel Clark (University of Colorado, USA), Ralf Stannarius