Dipl. Eng., MSc G.S. Vergos

Dear friends and colleagues,

As we have already informed you with the first announcement, the "3^rd Meeting of the International Gravity and Geoid Commission" will be held in Thessaloniki, Greece, August 26 – 30, 2002. The meeting will be hosted by the Department of Geodesy and Surveying, School of Rural and Surveying Engineering of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and will take place in the School of Engineering of our University.

If you are interested in participating in the Symposium and have not yet sent us a "Preliminary Response Form" with the relevant information, you are kindly requested to do so by visiting the Web Site of the conference at http://der.topo.auth.gr/GG2002. In that case, please fill in the enclosed preliminary response form and send it back by mail, fax or e-mail either to Prof. I.N. Tziavos or Prof. A. Dermanis in order to speed up the organization arrangements.

• Deadline of abstracts submission May 15, 2002
• Notification of acceptance May 30, 2002
• Early registration Before July 31, 2002
• Late registration After July 31, 2002

• Airborne and terrestrial gravity instrumentation and methods
• Precise geoid determination
• Dedicated gravity satellite missions
• Satellite altimetry
• Numerical methods and integrated processing of heterogeneous data
• Vertical datum definition and unification
• Geodynamics and temporal gravity variations

The sessions will be fixed after May 15, 2002. The names of the conveners will be posted in the conference web site soon.

Authors should submit abstracts of their contributions no later than May 15, 2002. The acceptance of the submitted abstracts and their classification as oral or poster presentations will be decided by the Scientific Committee and the conveners of the respective sessions. Receipt of abstracts will be acknowledged within two weeks. Abstract should be sent as an e-mail attachment to one of the following addresses

tziavos@olimpia.topo.auth.gr, tziavos@eng.auth.gr, dermanis@topo.auth.gr

Please note that the submitted abstracts should conform to the indicated format (see the example at http://der.topo.auth.gr/GG2002) and send as an MS-WORD (*.doc) or ASCII-Text (*.txt) file, where * indicates the Last Name of the first author. Additionally, after the main body of the Abstract, the author/authors are kindly requested to indicate their session preference as well as the type of presentation (oral or poster). Abstracts received by May 15, 2002, will be included in a conference program book, to be distributed to the participants during the Symposium. The organizing committee cannot guarantee acceptance of abstracts and their inclusion in the aforementioned book if send after May 15, 2002. More details for abstract preparation are available at the conference Web Site http://der.topo.auth.gr/GG2002.

Peer-reviewed Proceedings are scheduled for publication. Detailed information for paper preparation and submission procedures are given in the conference Web Site. As a general guideline the paper format should comply with the IAG requirements, which can be found at http://der.topo.auth.gr/GG2002/TypeInstr-Short.pdf (short version of instructions with an attached sample paper) or http://der.topo.auth.gr/GG2002/TypeInstr-Long.pdf (long version of instructions). The absolute deadline for paper submission is Monday August 26, 2002. At that day the authors will be able to submit their manuscripts at the information desk of the conference, situated at the entrance of the venue hall. Authors should bring three (3) hardcopies of their manuscript and one (1) electronic version either in Adobe Acrobat (*.pdf) or Postscript (*.ps) format. The authors are also kindly requested to write down the manuscript information (Author name, Paper Title & Session) on the tag of the floppy disk, CD-Rom, etc. If it is more convenient, the authors can send the electronic version of their paper to the following address prior to the conference (tziavos@olimpia.topo.auth.gr). All manuscripts submitted for publication will be published in the conference proceedings after being reviewed and accepted. Papers received after August 26, 2002 will not be considered for publication in the reviewed proceedings. But, all manuscripts submitted by the end of the conference will be included in the un-reviewed proceedings, which will be published on the conference web site shortly after the end of the conference. More details for the Proceedings will be posted in the Web Site within the next months.

All participants are obliged to register. The registration fees are as follows:

Important Note: Although in the 1^st announcement we had fixed the registration fees in US$, we are obliged to use now the equivalent amounts in EUR (€) in order to facilitate the methods of payment.

All payments from foreign participants must be in EUR (€). Participants are kindly requested to send the registration fees either by:

• Bank transfer (swift code PIRBGRA1202) sent to the bank listed below,

Note: Please always indicate the participant’s name on the bank transfer.

or

• By credit card (only MASTER/VISA accepted).

In both cases please fill in the "Registration Form" given in the aforementioned web site of the conference and send it by FAX (after signing) to Prof. I.N. Tziavos (FAX Nr.: ++ 3031 0 995948).

With the city of Thessaloniki being one of the most picturesque and visited places in Greece, there is an abundance of accommodation offered ranging from L Class hotels to youth hostels. Since the selection and variety is great, the organizing committee, in an effort to assist the participants of the Gravity and Geoid 2002 conference, is cooperating with the AEROGRAMMI travel agency to provide a selection of available accommodation. In that way, lower than normal rates can be guaranteed for the participants of the conference. The contact information of the travel agency is as follows:

AEROGRAMMI Travel Agency

The fact that the organizing committee of the conference is cooperating with the aforementioned travel agency does not by any means imply that the participants have to select one of the offered choices and/or make their reservation through this agency. Each participant is free to select the type of accommodation that best serves her/his interests and expectations. To further assist the participants of the conference, we have included an indicative list of hotels in our Web Site ranging from L to C class. Of course this list is far from complete, so please feel free to explore the many choices offered. Thus the participants are kindly requested to contact either the aforementioned travel agency, if they will choose this way to arrange their accommodation, or directly their hotel of interest.

More details about deadlines, registration, abstract and paper guidelines and submission, accommodation, travel, etc., are available on the Web Site of the conference (http://der.topo.auth.gr/GG2002). This Web Site will be frequently updated within the next months so please make sure to visit it on a regular basis.

For further information all correspondence should be kindly directed to Prof. I.N. Tziavos or Prof. A. Dermanis (addresses given below).

Looking forward to welcoming you in Thessaloniki,

On behalf of the scientific and the organizing committee,

Ilias N. Tziavos