A late summer trip to middle Europe
Disclaimer: Since I have only indirect information about the AIChE Annual Meeting it is quite possible, that the views stated may be somewhat coulered.
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the CHISA 2006 congress in Prague in the Czech Republic. CHISA is an annual gathering of people involved in chemical and biochemical engineering and related disciplines. This years event was the 17th.
Saturday afternoon we headed south from our home in Slangerup in our VW Lupo 3L TDI. While I don't quite get the advertised milage, I am pretty happy with a average of 26.9 km/liter over the last 11 months. Around Berlin we started to look for a place to sleep, discovered Etap
hotels, the Accor groups new budget hotel chain. For just 32 € you get a room with a dobble bed, and for an additional 5 € you get breakfast the next morning. Accompanying persons are 8 € each for the first two - after than you are looking at additional rooms. Our room has a double bed with a bung above it, a sink with mirror in one corner, a triangular shelf and a TV in another corner, a shower and toilet in a third corner, and the door in the last corner.
The next day we stopped for lunch at a gasthaus in Altenberg just before the border to the Czech Republic. The service was excellent, and when the waiter discovered, that our German was not that great an English language menu was available. We also stopped there on the way back, but unfortunately the waitress lied to us about the availability of an English langauge menu, and we continue to have a very nice lunch at Riedelmuhle, a few miles further towards Dresden.
Even before getting to CHISA I could not help being impressed by the conference web-site. After you have registrered on the web-site everything is electronic: Registration for the conference, Booking of accomodation - a prioritized list, Booking of services - i.e. lunches and social events, submitting a paper, reviewing a paper, changing personal data and reviewing invoices. This has to be one of the best conference web-sites in the world!
CHISA in Prague features more than 10 parallel sessions over all four days. So compared to the AIChE Annual Meeting this is a rather small event. I was attending CHISA mainly due to a special European forum on teaching process safety to chemical engineers arranged by the EFCE Working Party on Loss Prevention, who triannual loss prevention symposium takes places next year in Edinburgh. The forum featured 10 presenations relating to teaching process safety, and followed right on the heel of a Monday morning session on teaching chemical engineering.
Most of Tuesday I listened to presentation in the Symposium on Safety in Chemical Industry. It was quickly clear, that this was not the place to present process safety results. I found a presentation about the treatment of Seveso II facilities in the Wallone region of Belgium to be the best of the day. I also discovered one of the drawbacks of large multisession conference that day: 3 of the symposiums 11 papers was cancelled or the authors decided not to attend.
Tuesdays experience was repeated the next two days as I attended the Symposium on process intensification and miniaturisation, the Symposium on environmental engineering, the Sumposium on progress in chemical technology and biotechnology and a session on mixing. Many times the number people listening to a presentation was less than twenty. Maybe they did not deserve a higher attendance.
After 4 hectic days in Prague we headed north around noon on Thursday after fascinating experience with a multisession conference, that is the only major annual event for chemical engineering on this side of the Atlantic as far as I know.
Disclaimer: Since I have only indirect information about the AIChE Annual Meeting it is quite possible, that the views stated may be somewhat coulered.
Last week I had the pleasure of attending the CHISA 2006 congress in Prague in the Czech Republic. CHISA is an annual gathering of people involved in chemical and biochemical engineering and related disciplines. This years event was the 17th.
Saturday afternoon we headed south from our home in Slangerup in our VW Lupo 3L TDI. While I don't quite get the advertised milage, I am pretty happy with a average of 26.9 km/liter over the last 11 months. Around Berlin we started to look for a place to sleep, discovered Etap
hotels, the Accor groups new budget hotel chain. For just 32 € you get a room with a dobble bed, and for an additional 5 € you get breakfast the next morning. Accompanying persons are 8 € each for the first two - after than you are looking at additional rooms. Our room has a double bed with a bung above it, a sink with mirror in one corner, a triangular shelf and a TV in another corner, a shower and toilet in a third corner, and the door in the last corner.
The next day we stopped for lunch at a gasthaus in Altenberg just before the border to the Czech Republic. The service was excellent, and when the waiter discovered, that our German was not that great an English language menu was available. We also stopped there on the way back, but unfortunately the waitress lied to us about the availability of an English langauge menu, and we continue to have a very nice lunch at Riedelmuhle, a few miles further towards Dresden.
Even before getting to CHISA I could not help being impressed by the conference web-site. After you have registrered on the web-site everything is electronic: Registration for the conference, Booking of accomodation - a prioritized list, Booking of services - i.e. lunches and social events, submitting a paper, reviewing a paper, changing personal data and reviewing invoices. This has to be one of the best conference web-sites in the world!
CHISA in Prague features more than 10 parallel sessions over all four days. So compared to the AIChE Annual Meeting this is a rather small event. I was attending CHISA mainly due to a special European forum on teaching process safety to chemical engineers arranged by the EFCE Working Party on Loss Prevention, who triannual loss prevention symposium takes places next year in Edinburgh. The forum featured 10 presenations relating to teaching process safety, and followed right on the heel of a Monday morning session on teaching chemical engineering.
Most of Tuesday I listened to presentation in the Symposium on Safety in Chemical Industry. It was quickly clear, that this was not the place to present process safety results. I found a presentation about the treatment of Seveso II facilities in the Wallone region of Belgium to be the best of the day. I also discovered one of the drawbacks of large multisession conference that day: 3 of the symposiums 11 papers was cancelled or the authors decided not to attend.
Tuesdays experience was repeated the next two days as I attended the Symposium on process intensification and miniaturisation, the Symposium on environmental engineering, the Sumposium on progress in chemical technology and biotechnology and a session on mixing. Many times the number people listening to a presentation was less than twenty. Maybe they did not deserve a higher attendance.
After 4 hectic days in Prague we headed north around noon on Thursday after fascinating experience with a multisession conference, that is the only major annual event for chemical engineering on this side of the Atlantic as far as I know.
posted by Niels Jensen @ 8:22 AM
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