5. Technical Visits and Ladies Programs
Two technical visits (after the conference) and two ladies program (during the conference) were served by the Executive Committee.
Technical visit 1: MEGA-FLOAT (1.000m × 120m Raft)
Technical visit 2: MAGLEV (Magnetic Levitation System)
Ladies Program 1 : Edo (former Tokyo of shogun age) Museum and Asakusa Hike.
Ladies Program 2: Kamakura (old city of another shogun age) Hike.
All of them got the participants over 20 persons.
6. Exhibition
The exhibition sponsored by 27 companied and organizations (including two universities) was provided at the same venue. 29 booths were prepared. Coffee service corner in front of the exhibition hall was reportedly always gaily filled by the participants for Symposium and Exhibition.
7. Essay
Following are the essays from abroad, which were prepared in response to a request from the secretariat.
Prof. Nikolaos P. Kyrtatos
This was a very good conference and certainly worth the trip to Tokyo.
The organizers must be commended on their excellent work for this Symposium which allowed the whole event to move along faultlessly.
The various sessions, the timing, audiovisual support, session chairing, were very well orchestrated and also the peripheral support provided to the delegates was impeccable. Finally, the published documentation was of high quality.
One comment is on the dilemma between the number of parallel sessions and the resulting total length of the Symposium.
Personally, I would have preferred fewer parallel sessions, so that I could attend some more presentations of papers of interest.
In the conference banquet I enjoyed the opportunity to savour traditional drinking and eating, in the true sense of the ancient Greek word "SYMPOSlUM". (gathering where drink and food is offered to participants) and also to take back home as a memento a traditional sake drinking cup, to compound the good memories of Tokyo in autumn.
Mr. Robert W. Allen
As a practising Marine Engineer for the last 30 years I find the ISME Symposium a venue that is both technically stimulating on the range of subjects covered and, socially gratifying being a meeting place of like minded professionals with a common aim of furthering the knowledge in the industry.
In particular I make a point of attending some of the less well attended sessions as often they represent some of the more fundamental aspects of research being conducted. In these sessions many of the presentations are given by the students or researchers from Japanese companies/universities/institutions and this is an indication of the importance of the profession in Japan.
