CF99 Frequently Asked Questions

Can I still register for CF99?

Yes, please complete the registration form and bring it to the conference.

Will there be conference proceedings or a book?

The proceedings will come out after the conference. Each registered CF99 attendee will receive a copy during summer 1999.
If you cannot attend the conference, but are interested in receiving a copy of the book, please check back later at this web site for information.

What printed material will I get at the conference?

The booklet of abstracts gives all the abstracts and e-mail of the corresponding author. A hardcopy will be handed out in the registration package. If you are also registered for the tutorials, you will also receive the handouts and papers for the tutorials (about 400 page book).

Who is going to be at the conference?

The list of attendees lists the people who preregistered.

Will there be exhibitors or vendors?

There are no commercial exhibitors or vendors at CF99. This reflects the scientific emphasis of this conference. However, even without a formal setting, substantial contacts have been made at the previous conferences, often in response to the presentations and posters of participants that provide excellent possibilities to explore areas of mutual interest.

When is the conference?

The conference will take place on January 7-8 (Thursday and Friday). On January 7, CF99 begins at 9am with Gifford Fong's talk and ends late in the evening with the poster session (lunch and dinner are served) On January 8, the first session starts again at 9am, with Paul Glasserman's talk, and ends after David Shaw's talk around 5:30pm.
Tutorials are on January 6, starting at 8:30 am, and ending at 6:00pm.

Where will the conference be held?

CF99 will be held in the Schimmel Auditorium of New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business. The Auditorium is on the lower level ("UC level") of Stern's Tisch Building (40 West Fourth Street). This building is between Warren Weaver Hall (Courant Institute) and the Henry Kaufman Management Education Center (44 West Fourth Street).

How do I get there from within Manhattan?

Probably best by subway. From the West side, take the A,C, or E line (Blue) or the B, D ,F, or Q (Orange) to West 4th Street.  Turn onto West 4th going east until you reach Stern, which will be on your right side after you pass Washington Square Park.
From the East side, take the 6 line (Green) to Astor Place.  Turn onto Astor going west towards Broadway.  Turn left onto Broadway and proceed South until you intersect with West 4th Street.  Turn right onto West 4th, Stern will be about two blocks ahead on the left side of the street.

What about travel and hotel?

The conference, organized by the Stern School of Business, unfortunately cannot act as a travel agent. Attendees need to make their own arrangements. Airline travel tends to be particularly inexpensive at this time of the year, e.g., typically $99 to Europe (one-way, e.g., on Virgin to London).
For accommodation, we did negotiate discounts with some hotels starting at $45 per night (dormitory style). It is important that you make your reservations early since it can become difficult to find hotel rooms in New York.

Will I be able to read my e-mail during the conference?

During the conference, CF99 attendees will have access to the computer labs at Stern, allowing them to telnet, read e-mail and surf the web. The computer lab UC-70 is on the same level as the conference (the UC level) and the opening hours are 9am to 8pm during the winter. More detailed information is included in the registration package given out on site.

Information about CF99 Talks

If you are giving a talk at CF99, please note the following:


• Powerpoint97 and an html browser are installed on the console computer - if presenters like to bring a floppy they can run the presentation from the computer in the auditorium.
• Presenters can bring their own IBM compatible PC laptop and hook it up to the projection device (and test the hookup after 8am and during breaks each day).
• There is NO hookup for MACs.
• There is NO slide projector - presenters are encouraged to make overhead transparencies instead of slides.
• Every presenter should bring overhead transparencies as a backup - if everything else fails, there will still be two working overhead projectors.

Information about CF99 Posters

• When is, and what is the poster session?

1.) The poster session will be from 5:00pm - 11:30pm on Thursday, January 7th.
2.) There will be a poster preview during lunch on Thursday.
3.) Posters may be put up at the beginning of the day on Thursday, and can remain up during the entire conference (through Friday afternoon).
4.) A buffet dinner and drinks will be served in an area near the poster space.

Poster sessions are common in many of the sciences. They are a large session where many papers are presented in parallel. AT CF99, the poster session takes place in the lobby right in front of the auditorium. Each presenter gets a cardboard 40 inches wide times 60 inches high. Important: the room only allows the posters to be arranged in portrait mode, i.e., the vertical dimension is larger than the horizontal dimension. On this white large cardboard, the presentation can be attached with adhesive tape. The posters are displayed along the walls, and during some fraction of the official poster session, presenters are asked to stand near their poster. (Odd numbered posters will have their authors at the poster from 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm, , and even-numbered posters from 7:00 pm - 8:30 pm.) The audience then wanders around the room visiting posters, and discussing work with the authors.

• What Is a poster?

A poster is very different from a paper or a talk, and so different techniques need to be used in its preparation. In particular, a poster is not a conference paper, and simply taping a paper to a poster board usually makes a very poor poster. A poster itself is a visual presentation comprising whatever the contributor wishes to display on the poster board. Usually, a poster is made up entirely of sheets of paper taped to the board, but there is no reason why other visual aids should not be used--be creative!

The purpose of a poster is to outline a piece of work in a form that is easily assimilated and stimulates interest and discussion. The ultimate aim is a fruitful exchange of ideas between the presenter and the people reading the poster, but you should not be disappointed if readers do not stop to chat. A properly prepared poster will at least have given useful information and food for thought.

• A poster tells a story
  

In preparing a poster, simplicity is the key. A typical reader may spend only a few minutes looking at the poster, so there should be a minimum of clutter and a maximum of pithy, informative statements and attractive, enlightening graphics. A poster should tell a story. As always in a scientific presentation, the broad outline includes a statement of the problem, a description of the method of attack, a presentation of results, and then a summary of the work. But within that format, there is much scope for ingenuity. A question-and-answer format, for example, may be appropriate for part of the poster.

A poster should not contain a lot of details. The presenter can always communicate the fine points to interested participants. In particular, it is not a good idea to present proofs, except in brief outline, unless the proofs are the focus of the presentation. Keep in mind that the poster will be one of many in the exhibition area: You need to make sure that it will capture and hold the reader's attention.

• Designing your poster

Suggestions on the physical design of a poster range from the obvious to the not so obvious. First, as we mentioned earlier, it is definitely unacceptable to post a copy of a paper! A poster is usually formed from separate sheets of letter paper or larger sizes can also be very effective.

Whatever the size of the sheets, the typeface chosen should be considerably larger than standard. Because not all readers will have perfect eyesight, and because the crowd of readers around a popular poster may be several people deep, the type should be easily readable by a person standing a few feet away. In particular, the title of the poster and the author's name should be large and prominent. If it is not convenient to print directly at the desired typesize, pages can be magnified on a photocopier.

Consider the possibility of arranging the poster to represent  some feature of the problem, such as a particular sparsity structure of a matrix. If there is any doubt about the order in which the sheets should be read, guide the reader by numbering the sheets clearly or linking them with arrows. Think carefully about the use of the poster board. One extreme is to spread the sheets out to make full use of the board taking care to position them at a height at which they can be read by both the short and the tall.

Once the session starts, stand near the poster but not in a position that obscures it from view. Be prepared to answer the questions that a good poster will inevitably generate. But keep in mind the advice of one expert: "A presenting author at a poster session should behave like a waiter in a first-class restaurant, who is there when needed but does not aggravate the guests by interrupting conversation every ten minutes to inquire whether they are enjoying the food.

These guidelines for poster design are based on Hammarling and Higham, SIAM.

Responsible for this page: Andreas Weigend. Any feedback is welcome.
URL: http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~andreas/CF99