25th International Conference on
Very Large Databases
Edinburgh - Scotland - UK
7th - 10th September 1999

Presentation Instructions For Authors

The Organisers of VLDB'99 wish to make the conference as effective as possible for speakers and delegates and in preparation want

To provide you with information to help you prepare an effective presentation for the circumstances prevailing at the conference venue, and
To solicit information from you that will help us pre-arrange things so that the conference runs as smoothly as possible.

For the latter purpose, there is a form, which we would like you to complete and return by 1 July 1999.

Our primary aim is to enable you to communicate your ideas effectively and to help you enjoy your Edinburgh experience.

Auditoria and Equipment Provided as Standard

Presentations (except demonstrations) will take place in one of three auditoria in the EICC. The auditoria are Pentland with a capacity of 600, and Fintry and Sidlaw with a capacity of 300 each. The latter two may be rotated to provide the Pentland with a capacity of up to 1200 for plenary sessions.
The auditoria have raked theatre style seating and presentations will be given from a stage at the front of each auditorium. At the rear of the auditoria are technical support and control booths from where lighting, sound and projection facilities are controlled.

Each auditorium will be installed with a high specification PC on stage, which will be networked into the EICC server and the speaker preview room. The PCs will have a single processor Intel Pentium II 400MHz with 256MB RAM, running NT version 4. The PCs will be installed with PowerPoint version 7 (within Office 97), Netscape version 4.6 and Internet Explorer version 5.

The video/data projectors in each auditorium are high-resolution Barco data projectors fitted with long focal-length lenses to suit the auditoria. The Pentland auditorium will be equipped with a Barco 9300, while the Fintry and Sidlaw are equipped with Barco 6300s all with resolution of up to 1280x1024. The projectors support, as near as possible, true colour reproduction.

The stages in the auditoria will be equipped with one large screen and one video/data projector. Alternation between, for example, video and data projection or data and slide projection will be straightforward; however dual simultaneous projection will not be provided as standard.

Speaker Preview

To ensure a smooth delivery of the presentations and to minimise any disruption between speakers, presentation files can be loaded onto the EICC server for downloading onto the PC installed in each auditorium. Presentations must be given to the appropriate EICC technicians an adequate time before their session. A speaker preview room (Carrick 3) will be provided with a technician on hand throughout the day to help speakers check their presentations and to receive both digital and slide presentation media.

The preview room will be open from

17:00 - 19:00 on Monday the 6th

08:30 - 18:30 on Tuesday 7th - Thursday 10th

08:30 - 13:30 on Friday the 10th Sept..

Speakers will be expected to give the media containing their presentations to the EICC technician in Carrick 3 a minimum of one three-hour session prior to their talk.

The preview room will be supplied with a slide projector to preview 35 mm slides and a PC with PowerPoint version 7, Netscape version 4.6 and Internet Explorer version 5 for previewing digital presentations.

The EICC technicians will take responsibility for ensuring that the speaker's presentation is on the correct equipment in the correct auditorium at the correct time. Speakers will then arrive on stage at their given time and their presentations will be loaded automatically. Speakers will have full control of their presentation from the stage.

Presentations

Due to the size and layout of each auditorium the organisers would like to ensure that speakers deliver their presentations in a format suitable to the environment. OHP slides will not present well in any of the auditoria and therefore electronic data projection or 35mm slide projection is the preferred means of delivery. Speakers are reminded that images crowded with text, or graphs and diagrams that are over-loaded with too much data, will completely fail to communicate with a large audience.

Digital Media

On PC installed in auditoria and networked to speaker preview

Speakers should preview their slides in the speaker preview room using the facilities provided. When they are satisfied with the presentation they should give the file of the presentation to the EICC technicians who will send it electronically to the EICC server for delivery to the hard disk in the PC on the stage in the auditorium in which they will be presenting. The technicians will note the file name, speaker name, title of talk, auditorium and time of presentation. Speakers must ensure that the organisers are aware of any non-standard fonts used in the presentation to ensure that the presentation can be supported. (Any late change of schedule will be dealt with automatically by the technicians.) A list of fonts installed on the PCs in the auditoria can be found here - please check your presentation will be supported.

Speakers using PowerPoint for their presentations should save their file using the Pack & Go facility on the file menu within PowerPoint. They should check that the option to include all linked files and fonts is selected, this will ensure that any fonts used in the presentation will be available for use on the EICC machine. You can create the pack and go files directly onto a blank floppy or zip drive (preferred option) in which case the pack and go wizard will
ensure that all the relevant files are copied to that drive.
If you choose an existing directory on your computer as the destination for your files to be copied to it is advisable to create a new empty directory first to ensure that all the files generated by the wizard are copied onto the transfer medium you intend to use. (e.g. for ftp).
Typically the wizard will create a file called 'pngsetup.exe' which is necessary to unpack the presentation on our PC in addition to the packed presentation files.

The digital data representing a presentation can be given to the EICC technician, via a TCP/IP ethernet connection from a lap top, on a CD, on a floppy disk, on a Zip cartridge, via ftp, or via email. The EICC staff will use reasonable efforts to ensure that no other person accesses the data given to them and will destroy local copies after the presentation. The VLDB organisers, and the EICC staff, will accept no claim arising from the loss of, access to or corruption of, this data. Media given to the technicians can be recovered after it has been loaded in Carrick 3.

Personal Laptops

Speakers presenting from their own laptops must have their laptop connected into the switching mechanism provided on stage in the auditorium immediately prior to their session starting. A 15 pin high density D plug connection for PCs and 15 pin D plug connection for Macs will be supported. Speakers are requested to ensure that they have a suitable connector for their lap top. Lap tops may be setup in the auditorium 5 minutes after the end of the previous session and the stage should be clear 5 minutes prior to the start of the following session This gives 20 minutes, for possibly 3 speakers, to setup their lap tops, which will not be sufficient time to deal with problems.

Once the computer has been connected by the EICC technician the lap top must be left switched to an external screen. Speakers should be familiar with the key strokes to switch their lap top to external screen. Speakers should also arrange that their laptop does not go to sleep or switch to screen saving prior to or during their talks.

The organising committee will not be responsibile for ensuring a speaker's laptop will project correctly in the auditoria. Speakers will be responsible for ensuring that their equipment has the appropriate connectors for connection into the EICC facilities and is of an appropriate specification to project through the data projectors described above. There will be some provision for checking connection and switching in the speaker preview room.

35mm slides

It is recommended that 35mm slides are glass mounted to ensure that there is no heat damage to the slides from the high power projectors.
Speakers should preview their slides in the preview room. When they are happy that the slides are in the correct order and orientation they should give them to the EICC technician who will seal them and label the presentation with the speakers name, title of talk, auditorium and time of presentation. (Any late change of schedule will be dealt with automatically by the technicians) Speakers can reclaim their slides during the breaks or sessions following their presentation session from the EICC technician in the speaker preview room.

Video

Video projection can be accommodated, however the video playback machine will support only VHS PAL format - please ensure that any videos are in the correct format. No other format will be supported as standard.

OHP

Although OHP presentations are not recommended they can be facilitated with the aid of a Visualiser and projection through a data projector. This facility will not be provided as standard..