IMPORTANT

If you are not able to present your talk for any reason, you are kindly requested to contact the organising office immediately and to notify them of any change of presenter or withdrawal.

SPEAKING TIME

The chairpersons of your session will be strict in allowing no more than the time allotted to your paper. Remember to allow some time for the changeover of speakers and chairperson's introduction, and for questions and discussion.

Please rehearse your talk to make sure it will fit comfortably into the available time.

Please note that, as a rule, presenters can show a (final) slide with all acknowledgements, however, in view of the short time available, names cannot be read to the audience.

COMMERCIAL DISCLOSURE FORM

Due to EACCME regulations, authors are requested to disclose possible conflicts of interest on the first slide. An example slide can be found here.

A conflict of interest is any situation in which a speaker or immediate family members have interests, and those may cause a conflict with the current presentation. Conflicts of interest do not preclude the delivery of the talk, but should be explicitly declared. These may include financial interests (eg. owning stocks of a related company, having received honoraria, consultancy fees), research interests (research support by grants or otherwise), organisational interests and gifts.

If you have nothing to disclose, please state “I have no commercial disclosure” instead of the table.

PROJECTION AND TECHNICAL SETTING

PowerPoint is the only communication tool available in all session halls.

1. Speakers are kindly asked to observe that only computers provided by the congress may be used for showing your presentations. All PowerPoint presentations must be handed in at the preview centre.
    
2. All presentations are loaded into a PowerPoint handling system that will store and distribute your presentation to the session hall in time for your session.
    
3. All PowerPoint presentations should be handed in at least 2 hours before the session starts. The opening hours of the preview room (Room 27) are as follows:
   Wednesday, October 10:          15.00 - 19.30 hrs
   Thursday, October 11:              08.00 - 17.30 hrs
   Friday, October 12:                   07.30 - 18.15 hrs
   Saturday, October 13:              07.30 - 18.30 hrs
   Sunday, October 14:                 08.15 - 13.15 hrs
    
4. Please check your presentation carefully on the preview room computer assigned by the staff before the final sign off.
    
5. The professional staff of the preview centre will load your presentation into the system so that it will be available on the computer in your session hall when you come to speak.
    
6. If you are doing more than one speech during the congress, you may upload all your presentations at the same time and they will be sent to their corresponding session halls at the time of your sessions. 
    
7. The PowerPoint handling and distribution system is optimized for MS PowerPoint (last version) and “*.pdf” (Adobe Acrobat)-files. The uploading of  “DVD-Movies” is not supported.
    
8. The supported data media are: CD, DVD (as Data-storage-medium) and USB-Memory Key. You may want to carry a second key/CD as a back-up in case there is any insoluble technical problem.
   All needed files (including the movie files!) - have to be saved on the data media.
   Presentations can also be taken off speakers notebooks at the Preview centre.
   
   
9. The fonts that are used in the presentations should be "Latin-based fonts“. If the speaker needs special fonts, they should be stored as "embedded fonts“ with the presentation (File -> save as "name of presentation“ and under "tools“ ->save options mark the checkbox "embed True type fonts“ and select "embed all characters“).
   
   
10. When using mathematical symbols please use these which are available under Latin fonts (unicode or DOS: Western Europe). These can be shown without any problems in Office 2007. 
     
11. As format for embedded movies “MPEG2 - movies” are preferred (but can also be *.avi, *.wmv ). If Codecs are used, the Code package DIVx in the current version, which can be found under  www.divx.com, should be chosen.
     
12. Presentations should be saved as "*.ppt“, “*.pptx” (= PowerPoint) or "*.pps“,*.ppsx“ (=PowerPoint Slideshow) - file and movies as separate files on the data media.
     
13. The computers and projectors will be set up and optimised for 1920 x 1080 resolution (ratio 16 : 9).

These guidelines should be seen as a matter of improving the effectiveness of the preview system and in consequence also the speakers comfort.

General hints and tips

Like all of us, you will have sat through many conference talks, some good and some bad. We have all been to talks which failed to communicate their message because the speaker spoke impossibly fast, perhaps in a very indistinct way, or flashed through large numbers of slides so crammed with detail that nobody could follow them. So please:

Make yourself known to the chairpersons and/or the room assistant in your session room before the beginning of the session

Remember that the vast majority of the audience are not native English speakers - speak clearly (whether or not English is your native tongue) and not too fast

Plan an average of no more than 1 slide per minute, in most cases

Keep your Powerpoints simple. In text slides, use no more than seven lines per slide, with ample space between the lines, and no more than seven words per line in suitably large lettering

Leave sufficient space between the text and the edge of the slide/screen. Some data projectors may not display the very border of the slide/presentation.