Special Symposia. Please find below, information about the EuroHaptics 2010 workshops and special symposia, which were held on July 7, 2010, prior to the conference. It is no longer possible to register for the workshops.

SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM / WORKSHOP 1
Time	9:00-13:00
Title	Communicative Functions of Haptic Feedback in Collaborative Settings.
Organiser	Eva-Lotta Sallnäs, Jonas Moll, and Jonas Forsslund
Speakers	call for papers (see description).
Short description	In this workshop, concrete examples will be presented and discussed in terms of how the touch modality can support communication and collaboration. Also, the technical challenges of distributed haptic feedback will be addressed. The target audience of the workshop is researchers and practitioners focusing on haptic feedback supporting people in settings where more than one user are involved. We invite other researchers and practitioners to share their research and experience from their different projects focussing specifically on the collaborative perspective. It might be that the collaborative aspects in your project have not yet been addressed. In that case, interesting collaborative aspects can be identified during the discussions in this workshop.
Full description	http://www.eurohaptics2010.org/w1.shtml

SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM / WORKSHOP 2
Time	9:00-16:00
Title	Haptic and Audio-Visual Stimuli: Enhancing Experiences and Interaction.
Organiser	Anton Nijholt (Human Media Interaction, University of Twente, The Netherlands), Esko Dijk, and Paul Lemmens (Philips Research Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
Speakers	call for papers (see description).
Confirmed Speakers	Antal Haans (Technical University Eindhoven), Esko Dijk (Philips Research), Valeria Occelli (University of Trento), Paul Lemmens (Philips Research), and Ewoud Kuyper (Sense-Company)
Short description	In this symposium we address the specific effects of combined (multi-sensory) stimuli. Topics that are addressed range from the effect of mutual timing in audio, video and haptic stimuli, to actuator technologies, to how to such “more than the sum of the elements” effects of multimodal stimuli are created in a user's perception. Guiding hypothesis is that an optimal user experience will be obtained by careful personalization and optimization (in an intelligent way) for the experience to be achieved taking into account human perception. The latter should be based on both general knowledge about human perception, and on (measured or inferred) knowledge about the individual user.
Website	http://hmi.ewi.utwente.nl/eh2010

SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM / WORKSHOP 3
Time	9:00-13:00
Title	Measuring and evaluating haptic devices and user interaction.
Organiser	Thorsten Kern
Speakers	Gunnar Jansson, Thorsten Kern, Ki-Uk Kyung, and Gerhard Weber.
Short description	Because of the very wide-ranging and varied nature of haptic devices, the part of the design process which deals with their validation and testing and, by implication, their compliance with standards and specifications is necessarily a complex area for consideration; probably an order of magnitude more complex than for visual displays. This workshop is organized by the members of the ISO standardization committee “Tactile and haptic interaction”. We invite the participants of this workshop to discuss in three small groups focusing on one topic (design process, hardware measures, user evaluation) to identify and name the major trends. The collected results will then be presented to all participants. The overall scope of the workshop is interactive, so we are looking forward to an intensive exchange of experience and visions.
Full description	http://eurohaptics2010.org/w3.shtml

SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM / WORKSHOP 4
Time	14:00-17:00
Title	Bioinspired tactile sensing. Developing a biomimetic sensor based on nanoscale force transducers to mimic the resolution, sensitivity and dynamics of spatial touch in the human finger.
Organisers	Alan Wing and Mike Adams
Speakers	A. Wing, M. Adams, J. Wessberg, T. Rodic, C. Osendorfer, M. Ward, and L. Beccai.
Short description	Biological tactile sensing is a key area of sensory processing in which the brain uses frequency and intensity coded neural signals from nanoscale receptors in the skin to determine the nature of environmental surfaces. This information is important for the perception through touch of surface features, for discriminating between surfaces in terms of their microgeometry (ie local shape and texture) and for the efficient control of grip, in which contact surface properties, together with forces normal to the surface, determine the tangential frictional forces that limit sliding of the digit. The workshop will take a multidisciplinary approach to tactile processing, introducing the techniques in non-specialist language and providing illustrative results in a series of short talks by specialists in each field.
Full description	Bioinspired tacile sensing description and program (.PDF-file)

SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM / WORKSHOP 5
Time	14:00-16:00
Title	System Identification of Neuromuscular, Visual and Vestibular feedback properties during haptic control.
Organisers	Frans van der Helm, David Abbink, and Herman Damveld
Speakers	Frans van der Helm, David Abbink, and Herman Damveld
Short description	Haptic feedback plays an important role during direct control of vehicles and airplanes, and in tele-operation. When vehicles and airplane have a steer-by-wire connection, the type of haptic feedback can be designed. In our tutorial we will present details about a control model incorporating neuromuscular properties, in combination with visual and vestibular properties. The neuromuscular feedback model comprises intrinsic stiffness and viscosity, as well as position, velocity and force reflexive feedback. We will present details about system identification tools to identify the separate contribution of these feedback pathways, and to quantitatively estimate the parameter values. Ultimately, this approach will allow to optimize the haptic interface.

SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM / WORKSHOP 6
Time	14:00-18:00
Title	Hidden Histories of Haptics
Organisers	Marieke Sonneveld and Maarten Wijntjes.
Speakers	Mark Paterson, Marieke Sonneveld, Vincent Hayward, and Robert Volcic.
Short description	One needs to know the history to understand the present. This workshop intends to share and discuss our scientific histories and increase the understanding about the fundamental scientific questions that drive the different disciplines involved in haptics. In this symposium four speakers from very different haptic domains (philosophy, design, engineering and psychophysics) will give a historical account of their field of research.
Full description	Hidden Histories of Haptics (.PDF-file)

SPECIAL SYMPOSIUM / WORKSHOP 7
Time	17:00-18:00
Title	Haptic Design in Architecture
Organisers	Stephanie Davidson and Georg Rafailidis
Speakers	Stephanie Davidson and Georg Rafailidis
Short description	We founded Touchy-Feely in 2006 as a platform for exploring haptic design in architecture. As a specialized branch of our architecture practice, Davidson Rafailidis, Touchy-Feely has a specific orientation toward haptic design, objects and spaces, investigating how the built environment can relate to us in an immediate, physical and corporeal way. In this workshop, we will present a selection of our architecturally oriented haptic design work. In addition to our realized projects and design research, our presentation will look at precedents of hapticity embodied in historic and vernacular architectures as well as a more general discussion about using the human body as a design tool in architecture. The format of the session is a verbal and visual presentation with select models and objects being available to see and touch.
Full description	http://eurohaptics2010.org/w7.shtml