Conference Reports

The International Work Conference on Bioinspired Intelligence (IWOBI) is an annual event that comprises both an international peer-reviewed scientific conference and a set of workshops and other activities in order to foster the research abilities and expertise of young researchers in the field of bioinspired intelligence. IWOBI 2018 has been characterized by a strong transdisciplinary component. The main conference themes were at the intersection between classical engineering disciplines and computer science, and the life and health sciences. This was motivated by the scientific environment that defines research that is being conducted in Costa Rica. Even though IWOBI is an international event, it was very important for the local organizing committee to focus on knowledge areas that were considered of special interest to Costa Rican researchers and to students looking to start their scientific careers. With such great expectations, IWOBI 2018 has been the first IWOBI conference in history to have parallel tracks. In addition to a regular track, a biocomputation and related techniques track was developed, as well as another one devoted to high-performance computing (HPC) systems applications for life and health sciences applications. Workshops were another important resource developed within IWOBI 2018. They were considered a very important tool in order to foster and train young researchers within the country and they are a very valuable chance to establish direct networking with elite researchers from different countries and research interests. IWOBI 2018 was the first IWOBI conference that implemented real and effective workshops. There were two workshops, one of them devoted to COPASI software and the other one focused on the use of the message passing interface (MPI) parallel programming library.
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The Bioinspired Materials conference 2018 was organized for the third time by a team of researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University. This international conference aims to bring together the scientific committee in the fields of biomimetic sensors, bioinspired materials, materials chemistry, three-dimensional (3D) printing, and tissue engineering. The 2018 edition was held at the John Dalton Building of Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK, and took place on the 10th of October 2018. There were over 60 national and international attendees, with the international attendees participating in a lab tour through the synthetic facilities and Fuel Cell Innovation Centre on the 9th of October. The three conference sessions encompassed a wide range of topics, varying from biomimetic sensors, hydrogels, and biofabrics and bioengineering.
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The NanoTech Poland is an annual international conference with a strong scientific agenda focused on nanotechnology in energy, environment, and biomedicine. The Nanotech Poland 2018 was held at the NanoBioMedical Centre and Department of Physics at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań from June 6th to June 9th. The aim of NanoTech Poland 2018 was to bring together the scientific community’s principal investigators, scientists, researchers, analysts, clinicians, policy makers, industry experts, and well-established and budding entrepreneurs to discuss the present and future perspectives in nanotechnology and nanoscience research and development. This year, the 1st Symposium on Polydopamine was held on June 6th. This forum was dedicated to the application of polydopamine and related catechol materials in a variety of research fields, both at the nano- and macroscale. The symposium gathered leading scientists from this important research field from top universities and institutions that have been involved in the research revolved around polydopamine. With over 200 national and international participants, NanoTech Poland 2018 and the 1st Symposium on Polydopamine provided a forum to present and discuss the latest scientific news from the field of nanotechnology with a strong interdisciplinary aspect and bioinspired materials.
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Living Light is a biennial conference focused on all aspects of light–matter interaction in biological organisms with a broad, interdisciplinary outlook. The 2018 edition was held at the Møller Centre in Cambridge, UK, from April 11th to April 14th, 2018. Living Light’s main goal is to bring together researchers from different backgrounds (e.g., biologists, physicists and engineers) in order to discuss the current state of the field and sparkle new collaborations and new interdisciplinary projects. With over 90 national and international attendees, the 2018 edition of the conference was strongly multidisciplinary: oral and poster presentations encompassed a wide range of topics ranging from the evolution and development of structural colors in living organisms and their genetic manipulation to the study of fossil photonic structures.
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