Heidelberg, June 4th, 1999

Dear Sir,

we are organizing a workshop on biomechanics and want to reach all people
that may be interested. If you are, we would very much appreciate your
participation. In any case, we would be glad if you could forward this
announcement to other persons that may be interested but are not on our
mailing list. We apologize for possible redundant mails.

If you are interested please send us a short respons. You will then
receive the second announcement including more details about the practical
organization of the workshop.

With best regards,
the organizers


First circular announcement:

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* BIOMECHANICS MEETS ROBOTICS *
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* Modelling and Simulation of Motion *
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* November 8-11, 1999 *
* IWR, Heidelberg, Germany *
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The Graduate Program of the Interdisciplinary Center of Scientific
Computing (IWR) will hold a workshop on "Modelling and Simulation of
Motion".

Enormous progress has been made in the last years in the research of
"motion" of all types of robots and biological systems. The technical
improvements have been tremendous and new theoretical and practical
insights and tools have been developed. For example, there are now several
walking machines, very natural simulations of walking human beings and a
better understanding of motioncontrol in animals.

Most of these advances have been due to a close collaboration between
biosciences (including orthopaedics, surgery, and biology), exact sciences
(such as applied mathematics and biophysics), and engeneering techniques
(robotics, informatics, artificial intelligence).

These issues should be discussed and presented at an interdisciplinary
level to serve as a source of new ideas and methods.

The workshop intends to give a panoramic view on "motion". The "real
motion" of biological systems and robots, as well as the theoretical
analysis or simulation of models of these systems.

The program will include plenary talks, progress reports and poster
presentations relating to new developments in the field of orthopaedics,
robotics and biomechanics. The topics will range over (and will not be
restricted to):

- The motion of human beings : models of human motion, models of the leg,
arm, shoulder etc., simulation of accidents, motion of handicapped people,
pathology and therapy of motion, sports

- The motion of animals : movement patterns of insects, neuronal controls,
simulations

- The motion of robots : contruction of walking robots, models of robots,
control problems, design of dynamically stable systems

- Theoretical constructions : simulation and optimization of walking and
jumping models

- Computer animation : animation of virtual humans and animals

Scientific Committee:
Chairman: Prof. Dr. Hans Georg Bock
Co-chairman: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Willi Jaeger
Dr. Vincent Brems, Dr. Flavius Guias, Katja Mombaur,
Thorsten Stossmeister, Michael Winkler

Invited speakers:
Dr. Karsten Berns (Karlsruhe - Germany)
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Daunicht (Duesseldorf - Germany)
Prof. Dr. Toshio Fukuda (Nagoya - Japan)
Prof. Dr. Hanns Ruder (Tuebingen - Germany)
Prof. Dr. Nadia Magnenat Thalmann (Geneve - Switzerland)

Deadlines:
for scientific contributions: July 31, 1999
for subscription: September 1, 1999

Registration Fee:
80 DEM (till September 1, 1999)
120 DEM (later)

Student Support:

A limited number of eligible students will be able to receive some
financial assistance, payable at the conference. Applicants should include
a written request for support along with their registration forms.
Requests must be received no later than July 31 to be guaranteed
consideration. The applicant must be an author on an accepted abstract
submission and must supply a copy of some document confirming his/her
student status to be eligible. No more than one student author will be
supported per abstract.

For more information, please visit our web-page:

http://www.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de/gk/Workshop/

or contact us directly:

BioMech@IWR.Uni-Heidelberg.de

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