Report from ICMMI'09

Thursday
The registration to the conference started on the Thursday afternoon. Most of the attendants arrived just before dinner which took place outside the hotel on a viewing deck. Despite the fact that the evening was rather rainy and chilly, the atmosphere was warm and welcoming.

Fortunately, in the next days the weather was sunny and warm and the conference attendees could also enjoy a picturesque views of the mountains surrounding the conference center. During the conference breaks, most of them decided to go for a short walk around the neighborhood.

  

  

Friday
The conference was officially opened on the Friday morning by Prof. Stanisław Kozielski who welcomed all conference attendees. First session, In Memoriam Adam Mrózek, started with the presentation given by Dr. Krzysztof Cyran, who reminded all of the attendees of life and career of Prof. Adam Mrózek. The next speaker, Prof. Tadeusz Czachórski, presented scientific research and achievements of Prof. Adam Mrózek.

     

Then, Prof. Tadeusz Czachórski, the chair of the morning conference session, introduced first keynote speaker – Prof. Andrzej Skowron form University of Warsaw who presented the lecture entitled "Rough-Granular Computing in Human-Centric Information Processing". After the speech, the audience could listen to another invited lecture, delivered by Prof. Marek Kimmel from Rice University in Houston, about "Stochastic Effects in Signaling Pathways in Cells: Interaction between Visualization and Modeling".

  

After lunch, regular conference sessions began. First session was entitled A Computational Techniques in Biosciences and after a coffee break the conference attendees could listen to presentations about Rough-Fuzzy Investigations.

Polish In Memoriam Adam Mrózek session
On the Friday evening, very special conference event was held – Polish In Memoriam Adam Mrózek Session. The session program was open - everyone was invited to share with the audience their reminiscences about Prof. Adam Mrózek.

     

The honorary session chair and first speaker of this evening, Prof. Stefan Węgrzyn, introduced Prof. Adam Mrózek scientific career. Next speaker, Prof. Tadeusz Czachórski, presented the main research topics of Prof. Adam Mrózek, his professional interests and passions. Both professors emphasized the devotion of Prof. Adam Mrózek to the problems of blind people, which resulted in creation of the first multimedia library in Laski dedicated for visually impaired. The talk was followed by Prof. Stanisław Kozielski who remembered Prof. Adam Mrózek from the studies and first years of his work in Polish Academy of Science. Prof. Stanisław Kozielski reminisced their kayak trip on the Orzysz lake during one of the conferences. He remembered Prof. Adam Mrózek not only as a great scientist but also as a man who was sensitive to people suffering.

  

Another speaker, Prof. Andrzej Skowron, noticed that Prof. Adam Mrózek worked for the ordinary people and understood that the scientists should use their knowledge to help people in need. The last speaker of the evening session was Dr. Krzysztof Cyran who remembered Prof. Adam Mrózek not only as a supervisor of his Ph.D. thesis but also as a very close friend. After this talk, the official part of the Polish In Memoriam session was closed and the session attendees were invited for refreshments and encouraged to reminisce Prof. Adam Mrózek in more informal way.

  

Saturday
The second conference day started with the open letter from Prof. James Peters, who was supposed to be honorary chair of the conference and first keynote speaker of the Saturday morning session. Unfortunately he was not able to come due to some unexpected medical problems (during the conference, participants could sign a letter to Prof. James Peters wishing him speedy recovery).

  

The letter was read out by Dr. Krzysztof Cyran and was followed by a lecture of the third keynote speaker – Prof. Ryszard Tadeusiewicz from AGH University of Science and Technology talking about "Speech Man-Machine Communication". The session concluded with a discussion about human and machine interactions.

  

Following a coffee break, the next morning session entitled Human-Computer Interactions started. After lunch the conference continued in two parallel sessions. The conference participants could choose between presentations about Computer Vision, Image Analysis and Virtual Reality or Databases and Data Warehousing. Later in the afternoon two session were held, one of them devoted to Advances in Classification Methods and the other to Advances in Algorithmics.

  

Banquet
The conference banquet with folklore was held on the Saturday evening inside the hotel at the tavern "Karczma Na Kocierzu", where guests were welcomed by Beskid highlanders wearing traditional cloths.

At the beginning of the banquet, the Best Paper Prize was announced. Prof. Stanisław Kozielski handed the prize to Piotr Andruszkiewicz for the paper "Privacy Preserving Classification for Ordered Attributes". The Prize was sponsored by Wiley-Blackwell Publishers.

During the dinner the attendees enjoyed listening to the folk music and watching the folk dances; some of them could also learn basic steps of those dances. Later in the evening, as the sumptuous meal draw to a close, the banquet continued for those who wanted to share thoughts and discuss ideas in less formal way.

  

  

  

Sunday
Despite the late finish on Saturday night, the last conference day stared early in the morning with the two parallel sessions: one of them on Rough and Fuzzy Support and a second on Embeded System Application. After the coffee break the last conference sessions started: Pattern Recognition and Signal Processing and Decision Rule Inferrence and Representation.

As the last speaker finished his presentation, all attendees gathered in main conference room for the official closing of the conference. It was also a moment when the Best Presentation prizes were announced. The winners were Dariusz Mrozek for the presentation Energy Properties of Protein Structures in the Analysis of the Human RAB5A Cellular Activity and Agnieszka Tomaka and Agnieszka Pisulska-Otremba for the presentation Computer Vision Support for the Orthodontic Diagnosis.

Then, Prof. Stanisław Kozielski officially closed the conference. In a closing speech he thanked to all keynote speakers for their inspirational lectures and all conference attendees for making conference sessions exciting and fruitful events. He expressed his hope that in the future, next International Conference on Man-Machine Interactions will be held.

When the conference ended the attendees bid goodbye to Kocierz Pass, still enjoying the warm and sunny afternoon and magnificent views of the surrounding mountains.

Credits:
Text by Aleksandra Gruca
Photos by Bartłomiej Zieliński, Krzysztof Tokarz and Aleksandra Gruca