The 2013 Joint UffC, EFTF and PFM Symposium was held at the Prague Congress Centre, Prague, Czech Republic on 21—25 July 2013 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the society. The following three large Symposia were joined together:
We were particularly pleased that the joint symposia were able to host the European Frequency and Time Forum (EFTF) as well as the Piezoresponse Force Microscopy (PFM) workshop. It was the 6th in the series of successful joint meetings between the EFTF and IFCS and the 3rd joint meeting between the ISAF and PFM. The conference was highly successful in all accounts. Over 300 society volunteers helped to put together outstanding technical and social programs for the 2013 Joint UFFC, EFTF, and PFM Symposium.
The technical program and all information related to the joint conference were offered in the Advanced Program Book (PDF, 8.5 MB). For the first time, participants were able to download the technical program and information on the sessions and speakers on their smartphones.
The attendance for the conference was as follows: 1,232 regular participants, 567 students, 85 exhibitors, and 149 guests for the total of 2,033. Attendees represented 49 countries; the four highest attendees were from the United States, France, Japan, and Germany, respectively. About 50 percent of participants registered for the IUS while the other half registered for the ISAF–PFM and the IFCS–EFTF. The summary of the conference registrations are shown below:
A series of short courses were organized by the Short Course Committee—Roman Maev, David Cann, and Jeremy Everard—and offered on Sunday before the start of the technical sessions. The IUS, ISAF–PFM, and EFTF–IFCS offered 24, 12, and 16 tutorial sessions, respectively. A total of 299 registered for short courses, of whom 133 were regular participants and 166 were students.
TPC co-chairs—Stanislav Emelianov, Susan Trolier–McKinstry, Dragan Damjanovic, Andrei Kholkin, Gaetano Mileti, and Warren Walls—put together 4 plenary, 144 oral, and 10 poster sessions during four days. Each day there were 12 parallel oral sessions. There were 6 plenary speakers, 77 invited talks, 1,625 contributed talks, of which 734 were oral and 891 were poster presentations. Also, 48 Student Paper Competetion finalists presented their posters on Monday. The SPC Awards were presented by the general chair of the conference to the winners at the student luncheon on Thursday.
Publication co-chairs—Stanislav Kamba (committee chair), Jafar Saniie, and Aaron Patridge—diligently reviewed 560 IUS, 98 ISAF–PFM, and 268 IFCS–EFTF manuscripts for conference proceedings. DVD containing all proceedings was distributed to participants in early November 2013 within the timeframe required by the IEEE Publication Department.
Five Platinum Patrons—National Institute of Standard and Technology, Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Shoei Chemical, Ultrasonix, and Verasonics—financially sponsored the UFFC joint symposia. The exhibits co-chairs—Sue Kingston, David Cann, and Sue Kingston—were able to successfully bring a total of 48 exhibits and 86 exhibitors to the conference. All industry demonstrated their state of the art products during the first three days of the conference.
The social activities of the conference were a huge success. All participants joined in the conference reception on Monday at the Prague Congress Centre. The Conference Banquet took place on Wednesday evening. Participants were divided into four groups based on their registration preferences. Three groups of about 750 in total took a three-hour boat trip and over 900 participants attended a gala dinner at the Zofin Palace. Both events included live band entertainment and fine food with wine and beer served during dinner. The conference also provided buffet lunch and a.m./p.m. refreshments every day.