IGS2009 Summary

Hans-Leo Teulings

IGS Website Manager (2007-2017)
Experienced and written by Klio Semoglou and Argyro Zikouli.

162 researchers ... 21 countries ... Australia, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guadeloupe, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Tunisia, United Kingdom and USA.

Day 1
Everybody was there to celebrate the 14th Biennial Conference of the International Graphonomics Society that was held between the 13th and 16th September 2009 in the Université de Bourgogne, in Dijon. Participants from all over the world, old and new acquaintances traveling with all means of transportation arrived at the University’s hall for the opening ceremony. One absence could not have gone unnoticed! Dr Hans-Leo Teulings visited the conference’s opening ceremony via Skype!

Once again the conference provided us was with an ideal combination of science, pleasure and socialization. The organizing committee with Professor Annie Vinter, as the leading hostess, and Professor Jean-Luc Velay welcomed us with sophisticated French delights, wine, champagne and of course kir and kir royal (the most popular French cocktails made with a measure of crème de cassis (blackcurrant liquor) topped up with white wine or champagne (according to Wikipedia). The IGS conference had officially begun!

Day 2
On Monday morning everybody was there; in a place where science meets practice and researchers present their latest findings on the first day of the conference. An excellent speech - welcome from the President of the Society, Angello Marcelli initiated the conference. The first key note speaker was Katrin Franke, who focused on a computational approach to forensic sciences. The following sessions entitled ‘Signature analysis and authentification’, ‘Parkinson’s Disease, Movement Disorders and Handwriting analysis’ consisted of a series of interesting presentations. The first day of the conference closed with an inspired talk from Professor Vince Connelly from Oxford Brookes University, about Language and Writing Development and how language problems can constrain the development of writing in children.

After the large dose of scientific knowledge, the evening was combined with wine ‘dégustation’ with six exquisite bottles of French wine (three Bourgogne Blanc, a Saint romain “clos des ducs” 2005, a Chassagne- montrachet 1er cru “Champgains” 2006 and a Corton-charlemagne grand cru 2006, and three Bourgogne Rouge a ‘Chambolle–musigny 1er cru ‘Les Noirots’ 2006, a Rucjotte – chambertin grand cru 2007 and a Ladrix 2007) accompanied by a selection of cheese and more bites.

Day 3
With little time at our disposal for sleeping, since Dijon is a town with extraordinary beauty and fabulous night life, on Tuesday morning we were at the conference at 9 o’clock sharp to attend another keynote speech from Professor Alim-Louis Benabid about high frequency stimulation of the brain: Current Results and Future Applications; an excellent presentation about new techniques of inhibition brain structures and recording cortical activities. The sessions of that day of the conference included topics of ‘Language and Handwriting production’, ‘Forensics and Handwriting variability’, ‘Development of Handwriting and drawing’, ‘Handwriting recognition and signature verification’ and some poster presentations together with the coffee breaks. Now, it’s time to comment breaks which provided an excellent opportunity for coffee, French delicious patisserie, and scientific brainstorming (borrowing each others ideas for the next conference).

Although the conference program included a vast amount of scientific information, the anticipation of the visit to the French winery kept us going. The official conference dinner was held at Château de Gilly, former residence of the Cistercian Monks, which is located two minutes from the famous village of Vougeot at the heart of the finest wine ("Grand Cru") producing area in Burgundy, between Dijon and Beaune. Indeed it was an amazing experience to visit the beautiful château, surrounded by the great wines of Burgundy, on a rainy afternoon. After we had admired the 14th and 16th Century character and dining room with its magnificent vaulted ceiling, Annie Vinter, the president of the organizing committee raised the crystal wine glass just before the delicious duck was served, to thank her colleagues and the participants of the conference for their attendance and scientific contribution. We should not forget to mention that during the gala dinner Emmanuelle Sciacca was awarded the Best Student Paper Award for Forensic Application (and it came truly unexpected to her, since she had not been
notified in advance).

Day 4
The final day; after another interesting key note speech by Jean-François Demonet about ‘Brain and Handwriting’ and four more sessions, ‘Drawing and handwriting: Movement disorders’, ‘Handwriting: Perception and Production’, ‘Neuroscience Historical Document’ and ‘Processing Identification and Generation’, sadly enough, the conference was coming to the end. Borrowing professor’s Demonet closing of his presentation “Verba Volant. Scripta manent, even using Messenger or Twitter”, we would like to thank the organizing committee for an excellent conference and the president of the IGS, Angello Marcelli who kindly asked us to write our impressions of the conference.

À votre santé! Chin chin! Cheers! Prost! Stin ijia sas (στην υγειά σας, in greek)
See you all in a couple of years in Mexico !
 
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