Report from ICMMI'11
The ICMMI2011 conference was organized in Szczyrk, a picturesque resort of the Beskids Mountains. This year, the conference gathered 45 attendees from 6 countries,allowing them to share their experience and knowledge on the whole spectrum of theory and practice of man-machine interactions. The presentations reflected 49 research papers authored by 95 scientists from 10 countries.
Thursday, October 6th, 2011
The conference started on the Thursday, in the afternoon. Unfortunately, during most of the days, the weather was rather typical “conference weather”, cloudy and rainy. Due to this, one of the conference gadgets – an umbrella – was especially appreciated by the guests :) Fortunately, the atmosphere during the conference was warm, friendly and creative, allowing for exchange of scientific ideas and forming new collaborations.
Majority of the attendees arrived just before lunch, after which the conference was officially opened by the conference Chair, prof. Stanisław Kozielski.
The conference sessions stared with a fascinating keynote lecture given by prof. Kevin Warwick, known for his Project Cyborg. The lecture was entitled The Future of Human-Machine Interaction: Implant Technology and all participants of the session were impressed by pioneering experiments described by prof. Warwick, which involved the neuro-surgical implantation into the median nerves of human nervous system.
After a coffee break, first conference session on Robot Control and Navigation Systems started.
In the evening, the conference participants were invited to the welcoming dinner served in Skalite Highlander Cottage. The chill of the October evening was warmed by lively conversation, folklore music and delicious local cuisine.
Friday, October 7th, 2011
The morning session started with a very interesting lecture given by prof. Ioannis Pitas. The keynote speech on Human Centered Interfaces for Assisted Living described interfaces specifications, research and implementations for systems that can improve home care of disabled persons or persons suffering from certain diseases.
The lecture was followed by regular conference sessions: Man-Machine Interfaces, Bio-Data Analysis and Mining, Data Management Systems and Sound, Text Processing, Design and Decision Support.
Photo Competition session
In the evening, all participants met on the special Photo Competition session. All attendees of the conference were invited to take part in the competition by submitting photos dedicated to the general conference theme: Man-Machine Interactions. During the session,over 50 photos were presented and the winner photos were nominated by the audience in the voting. The awarded photos were:
1st place – Michał Mikulski, for a photo Man wearing an exoskeleton arm.
2nd place - Bożena Wieczorek, for a photo Wired to the bone.
3rd place - Katarzyna Harężlak for a photo By bicycle to Heaven.
We congratulate all the winners and thank all the competitors for their interesting, amusing and sometimes thought-provoking photos.
After the formal part of the photo competition ended, many attendees stayed in the conference room, and spend the evening enjoying snacks, drinks and conversations.
Saturday, October 8th, 2011
The morning of the third conference day was dedicated to the two-part workshop on Content-based Image Retrieval given by Gerald Schaefer. The tutorial explained techniques, highlighted challenges to be overcome, and introduced some recent approaches that provide interesting and useful methods of working with image datasets. The first part of the tutorial provided introduction to the subject and the second part was focused on interesting research issues and new solutions.
When lunch was finished, the sunny weather encouraged guests to take a short walk outside.
After the break, two afternoon sessions on Clustering, Rough and Fuzzy Investigations and Pattern Recognition and Medical Applications were held. Before the banquet, the guest were given free time and some of them could relaxed in Skalite SPA center.
The banquet
The conference banquet was held on the Saturday evening inside the hotel, in the Skalite Night Club. The evening started with welcome speech by prof. Stanisław Kozielski who invited all attendees to the dinner. After the formal part was finished, the party continued till late at night for those who wanted to enjoy music, good food, new contacts and dance.
Sunday, October 9th, 2011
The last conference day was rainy and stared early in the morning with sessions dedicated to Algorithms and Optimisation and Prediction and Regression. After the last speaker finished his presentation, the Best Presentation awards were announced.
The 1st prize was awarded to Paweł Poryzała for a presentation: On Possibility of Stimulus Parameter Selection for SSVEP-Based Brain-Computer Interface.
The 2nd prize was given to Katarzyna Harężlak for a cycle of three presentations: Data Replication Methods in Distributed Sale Systems, Architecture of the Multiagent System for Replicated Data Management and Replicated Data Synchronization in the Agent System.
All good things come to an end, and it was time to close the conference. In the closing remarks, prof. Tadeusz Czachórski, who was a chair of the last session, thanked all keynote speakers for their inspirational lectures and all attendees for their active participation and fruitful discussions.
Credits:
Text by Aleksandra Gruca and Urszula Stańczyk
Photos by Aleksandra Gruca