Dear folks,

with the advent of portable computers which became so-called laptops, they even went further to become tablet PC and computer pads using the touch screens. We can see or more exacly foresee that these computers will evolve in very interesting tools to improve interactivity during presentations. 

Here is the problem:

During presentations, at the moment, in class, you have to turn your back on people in order to write on the board all these questions and comments. It takes a long time to draw those sketches. So people started to show some presentations but all information was shown and students did not have to take any notes. They just had to wait until the teacher gave them the presentations. Then, why bother coming to class ? Students never had to make the necessary effort to concentrate and write down notes during class. This means poorer learning. 

The real effective approach there would be to come with a complete written presentation (the lecturer's powerpoint) printed on paper with all comments. This would not be given to students. Then, the presentation on the computer would be a stripped down one where only the images and tables are shown. Then, the lecturer would simply annotate these during class using the touch screen.

The advantages would be that :

1- the lecturer never never shows his back to the students. He can keep constant eye contact with them. 

2- Students have to take notes by themselves and revise them later with the stripped down powerpoints. 

3- These limited presentations, given to students, force them to complete them with their class notes and also with reading through the textbooks or on-line information. 

What is needed now: 

I am a looking for a portable computer (laptop, tablet, etc) with a touch screen, which allows me to make interactive presentations based on skeleton powerpoints. These powerpoints include only the images, tables, etc. 

This means that it should be connectable to a projector through a VGA connector.

This also means that I need some link allowing to transfer the powerpoint files made with Libre Office or Open Office. 

We are very glad to announce that The III. International Conference on
Nuclear and Renewable Energy Resources (www.nurer.org) will take place on
the 20-23rd May 2012 in Istanbul, Turkey.

This event - on the nuclear and renewable energy resources aims to discuss
save, carbon-free energy production mechanisms. We believe that these two
distinct energy types, namely nuclear and renewables should be considered
together for secure and safe energy solutions to fulfill the growing demands
of energy. With this international conference we wish to obtain a complete
media from scientists to the technical company representatives for the seek
of innovative energy solutions.

We wish that universities, research institutions and industries will
contribute to this meeting and the outcomes will play an important role to
understand the advanced studies on the future energy perspectives. Another
point is to earn the awareness of political bodies in order to figure out
the future attempts on renewables. This third conference will be a technical
forum for the participants from different countries, institutions and energy
sectors.


The conference objectives include many field and topics in a broad
spectrum.There exist a number of keynote speakers who are authorities in the
field of energy.

We also emphasize that the papers submitted to the conference will be peer
reviewed and a CD-Proceedings with all the accepted papers will be
distributed to the participants. Selected papers will be published by a
SCI-covered journal

- Energy Conversion and Management (ECM)

as a special issue. The detailed information and the recent improvements on
the conference can be followed by the conference web site www.nurer.org .

By the name of the organization committee, we would like to invite everyone
who is interested in the concepts of energy, the researchers, scientists and
academicians for their contributions. For all questions please write to
mesahin@gazi.edu.tr .
with best regards,

Prof. Dr. H. Mehmet ŞAHİN
Chairman to NuRER 2012 Istanbul TURKEY
Conference Web-site: www.nurer.org
Gazi University Technology Faculty Energy Systems Engineering Teknikokullar
Ankara TURKEY
E-mail: mesahin@gazi.edu.tr

==================================================
LAST CALL FOR PAPERS

Second  International Conference on Belief functions

Compiègne, France, 9-11 May 2012

http://www.hds.utc.fr/belief2012

*** Submission deadline 16 December 2011 is coming soon! ****

==================================================

The theory of belief functions, also referred to as evidence theory or Dempster-Shafer theory, was first introduced by Arthur P. Dempster in the context of statistical inference, and was later developed by Glenn Shafer as a general framework for modeling epistemic uncertainty. These early contributions have been the starting points of many important developments, including the Transferable Belief Model and the Theory of Hints. The theory of belief functions is now well established as a general framework for reasoning with uncertainty, and has well understood connections to other frameworks such as probability, possibility and imprecise probability theories.

The biennial BELIEF conferences are dedicated to the confrontation of ideas, the reporting of recent achievements and the presentation of the wide range of applications of this theory. This conference series was started in Brest, France, in 2010. The second edition will be held in Compiègne, France, on 9-11 May, 2012. Compiègne is located in the Picardy region, 75 km north of Paris and at 40mn from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.

TOPICS OF INTEREST
This conference will provide opportunities to exchange ideas and present new results on the theory of belief functions and related areas such as random sets and possibility theory. Original contributions are solicited on theoretical aspects (including decision making, combination rules, continuous belief functions, independence and graphical models, statistical estimation, etc.), as well as on applications in various areas including, but not limited to data fusion, pattern recognition, clustering, tracking, data mining, signal and image processing, medical diagnosis, business decision, uncertainty in numerical models, etc.

INVITED SPEAKERS
- Prof. Hung. T. Nguyen, New Mexico State University, USA : "On belief functions and random sets"
- Prof. Prakash P. Shenoy, University of Kansas, USA : "Probabilistic semantics for belief functions in the Dempster-Shafer theory"

PUBLICATION
All accepted papers will be published by Springer-Verlag in a volume of the series "Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing" (indexed in ISI Proceedings, DBLP. Ulrich's, EI-Compendex, SCOPUS, Zentralblatt Math, MetaPress, Springerlink). Authors of selected papers from the BELIEF 2012 conference will be invited to submit an extended version of their papers for possible inclusion in a special issue of the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning.

PAPER SUBMISSION
Full papers (8 pages) are due by 16 December, 2011. All accepted papers will be presented either in single-track oral sessions, or in poster sessions.

IMPORTANT DATES
Paper submission: 16 December, 2011
Notification of acceptance: 20 January, 2012 Final paper submission: 15 February, 2012




-------------
Prof. Thierry DENOEUX
Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Approximate Reasoning http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijar
Universite de Technologie de Compiegne
U.M.R. C.N.R.S. 6599 Heudiasyc
Centre de Recherches de Royallieu
B.P. 20529
F-60205 Compiegne Cedex
France
http://www.hds.utc.fr/~tdenoeux