For information about the 2nd European Conference on Microfluidics (Microfluidics 2010): http://www.microfluidics2010.eu/

The Microfluidics 2008 Conference (MicroFlu’08) can be considered as the International version of the Microfluidics French Conference held in Toulouse for three editions from 2002 to 2006. The aim of this conference is to strengthen the links inside the European scientific community in this young discipline and to promote exchanges between European Universities and Industrial Companies engaged in this field. Microfluidics finds now applications in every industrial sector, as well as in numerous media covered fields like biology, medicine, chemical and process engineering, transports, environmental sciences, microelectronics and so on. The aim of this Conference is to promote and foster European cooperation in the field of Microfluidics by bringing together scientists and engineers working in this strongly multi-disciplinary area. The Conference invites submission of abstracts describing original works on the listed topics for oral or poster presentations. The papers have to contain information on research rationale, methodology, results and major conclusions. Applied papers from Industries engaged in Microfluidics especially addressed to draw strong scientific needs are welcomed.

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The topics of this conference will include the following sessions (other topics related to Microfluidics are welcome):

1) Gas Microflows   (Co-chairs Dimitris Valougeorgis & Yonghao Zhang)
2) Liquid Microflows (Co-chairs Juergen Brandner & Michel Favre-Marinet)
3) Two-Phase Flows in Microsystems  (Co-chairs Gian Piero Celata & Olivier Lebaigue)
4) Microflows in Bioengineering and Biofluidics (Co-chairs David Newport & Dimos Poulikakos)
5) Microfabrication Techniques for Microfluidic Systems (Co-chairs Anne-Marie Gué & Norbert Kockmann)
6) Lab on a Chip and Miniaturized Chemistry (Co-chairs Nicole Pamme & Petra Schwille)
7) Electrokinetic Microflows (Co-chairs Carolyn Ren & Sedat Tardu)
8) Microdroplets management (Co-chairs Yves Fouillet & Marco Marengo)
9) Fluidic Microactuators and Micromixing (Co-chairs Janko Auerswald & Ibrahim Hassan)
10) Microflow Visualisation and Measurements (Co-chairs Lucien Baldas & Ralph Lindken)

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MicroPIV Special Session

Following the PivNet Workshop on MicroPIV and Applications in Microsystems held at TU Delft, the Netherlands, in 2005, a special session on "Microflow Visualisation and Measurement" (Chairs: Profs. Lindken and Baldas) is organised.

The special session on "Microflow Visualisation and Measurement" will present state of the art on Micro Particle Image Velocimetry (MicroPIV), LIF, flow visualisation, and related techniques at micron scale. Emphasis will be given to the development and application of MicroPIV in microsystems. Another topic of the session will be the measurement of scalars such as concentration, temperature and pH-value.

The session will also provide a platform to discuss the current status of flow measurements at micro- and nanoscale.

Themes related to the development of the PIV technique and associated image analysis methods at micro- and nanoscale:

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Exhibitors

Companies interested in an exhibition stand will find all information in the Guide for Exhibitors.

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Review Process and Associated Journals

Submitted abstracts will be reviewed by the scientific committee, mainly for checking adequation with the topics of the conference.

Full-length submitted papers will be peer reviewed by at least 2 referees.

All the accepted papers will be published in the CD-ROM Conference Proceedings, and after the conference a selection of the best papers will be proposed by the scientific committee for publication in international journals:

Only full-length papers accepted for the CD-ROM Conference Proceedings will be presented at the Conference.

Based on the comments of the referees, the accepted papers will be presented either in an oral session or in a poster session introduced by short oral presentations. This choice will be done by the scientific committee for a good balance of the sessions; the required scientific quality will be the same for oral and poster sessions.

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Publication Schedule

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Abstracts (between 500 and 1000 words) should be submitted online before May 20, 2008. They should only contain text, and provide detailed information on the objectives of the study, the methodology, the main results and major conclusions.

Abstract submission is now closed.

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Draft paper submission

Once you have been informed that your abstract is accepted, you can prepare your full-length draft paper, following the appropriate paper-template provided in a Word or LaTex:

The deadline for Draft Paper submission has been extended to August 15, 2008.

The maximum number of pages of your draft paper is 10.

Your draft must be submitted as a PDF file (A4 page format) with your paper number in the filename (e.g. MICROFLU2008-342.pdf),

For submitting your draft paper, please click here.

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Registration

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Proceedings

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Programme

The final programme is now available.

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Information for presenting authors

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Attractions / Bologna Excursions

For reservation of the excursions and detailed information: http://www.adriacongrex.it/microfluidics-excursions/ .

Price: € 9 per person. Price refers to a minimum of 15 participants and includes English language guide and VAT.

Price: € 40 per person Price refers to a minimum of 15 participants and includes English language guide, Borsa Room and Aposa Torrent entrance, VAT.

Price: € 11 per person. Price refers to a minimum of 15 participants and includes English guide assistant, VAT.

Price: € 25 per person. Price refers to a minimum of 15 participants and includes English guide assistant, VAT.

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Travel Information

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Hotels

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Conference Co-Chairs

Scientific Committee

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Location

Faculty of Engineering - Bologna (location on this map)

The Faculty of Engineering of Bologna will host the Conference. The School of Engineering offers students a wide range of academic degree courses, featuring innovative elements. The Faculty of Engineering grew out of the School of Applications for Engineers founded within the University of Bologna in 1877. The first location  of the School was the former Monastery of San Giovanni dei Celestini near the main city’s square, Piazza Maggiore, later closed. The current Faculty location was designed by architect Giuseppe Vaccaro and was inaugurated in 1935.

The Faculty fosters a cultural dimension which is extremely important today and which is characterized by a sound scientific foundation and by a strong vocation for technological applications. It encourages a project-oriented and systemic culture that operates on the basis of specific objectives and well-defined hypotheses, selecting the technical instruments in terms of  the objectives. The teaching provision is broad-ranging  and well-structured: with 15 undergraduate degree courses, 10 postgraduate degree courses and one European postgraduate degree course, it covers the Industrial, Information Technology, Environmental, Civil and Architectural-Building areas. The conference will be held in the new site of the School of Engineering in the Conference Rooms TA1-TA4.

An exhibition on Microfluidics products and applications is planned during the Conference. Companies, Institutes and Universities from all over the world are encouraged to participate and present their products. The Program of the Conference will leave free time to visit the stands.

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About Bologna

The city of Bologna preserves the traces of past civilisations and the character of medieval splendour. Avidly visited by the Romantic writers and celebrated for the arts and culinary excellence, Bologna is animated by a cosmopolitan culture that is enriched by the presence of the University. Beneath the cellars of many old Bolognese houses dating from the medieval period may be found the foundations of the Roman city, dating back to the second century BC. In some houses, the traces of even earlier habitations dating from the Iron Age may be discovered. In the sixth century BC, Bologna was one of the most important Etruscan cities of the Po valley area and was known as Felsina. In the fourth century BC, the city was invaded and occupied by the Boii Gauls and in the following century the Romans came to the city and changed its name to Bononia.
Under the Romans, Bologna was a flourishing and important city with twenty thousand inhabitants, many imposing buildings and a large theatre. It retained its prestige throughout the period of the Roman Empire although its decline echoed that of the Empire and its perimeter was gradually reduced. In the fifth century AD, during the time of the bishop, Saint Petronius, Bologna underwent a revival; a new era of importance and prosperity began in the eleventh century. Bologna reached the height of its prestige in the thirteenth century. In 1249, its militia defeated the emperor's army and captured King Enzo, son of Frederick II Hohenstaufen, holding him prisoner in the city until his death.
It was a century of social reforms: in 1256, Bologna was the first European city to abolish serfdom. At this time, the city walls were extended and Bologna became one of the ten most highly populated centres in Europe, its urban development equalling that of Paris.
However, in the fourteenth century after a series of unfortunate wars, civil strife and subjection to the pope, Bologna began to lose its full sovereignty. For more than two centuries, the control of the city passed between the Visconti, lords of Milan, the Church of Rome, republican governments and the more important families of the city, who waged battles with one another to obtain supremacy.
These family feuds produced a development in the architecture, the urban structure and the cultural life of the city. From the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, Bologna belonged to the Papal States, governed on the one hand, by a cardinal legate of the pope and, on the other, by the Senate of the city. During this period Bologna was host to several historic events, such as the coronation of Emperor Charles V, the concordat between Pope Leo X and King Francis I of France and various sessions of the Council of Trent.
With the arrival of Napoleon, Bologna became first the capital of the Cispadane Republic and then the second city, after Milan, of the Cisalpine Republic. The city played an active role in the struggles of the Risorgimento, and in 1859 became part of the new Italian state. Bologna's economic importance dates from the eleventh century when the city became one of the major economic centres of Europe not only due to the foundation of the University, but also because of the development of its cloth industry. Bologna boasted one of the most advanced systems of water supply in the world, and, exploiting this source of energy, the city specialized in the art of silk-weaving from the fifteenth century onwards. Bolognese silk mills represented the height of European technology until the eighteenth century.
It was in the seventeenth century that Bologna became famous for the production of many types of food, such as the famous sausage. During the nineteenth century, the city serviced an area where the economy was based essentially on agriculture. The eighth centenary celebrations of 1888 served also as an attempt to revive the city's economy by linking it more directly to the University. Although it suffered heavy bombing during World War II, Bologna is today a rich and important industrial and commercial nucleus. The 380,000 inhabitants live at the most important motorway and railway junction in the country; the historical centre (which, after Venice, has remained the most intact of all the Italian cities) is surrounded by modern buildings, centres for trade fairs and conferences and new residential areas.
Bologna is unusual for the consistency of the urban structure within its medieval walls, which were built in the fourteenth century. This urban structure is still intact and dominates, even visually, the single architectural works of art. In Florence and in Rome, the individual buildings are more important than the layout of the cities, whereas in Bologna the reverse is true. Here, even the most beautiful Renaissance and Baroque palaces are part of the medieval city plan, which extends like the spokes of a wheel from the heart of the city (marked by the two leaning towers, Asinelli and Garisenda).
Bologna has no squares built to give prominence to imposing façades. The uninterrupted roads and 35 kilometres of colonnades, which characterize the city, do not allow its palaces to be isolated. A masterpiece such as Palazzo Bevilacqua, with its magnificent diamond-faceted façade, or the palaces of the senatorial nobility (Fantuzzi, Albergati, Montanari) are suddenly found standing at the edge of the road, and large doorways open up dramatically revealing spectacular interiors, magnificent courtyards and wide staircases.
It is not entirely by chance that the Bibiena came from this city and after their triumph in Bologna joined, as famous scenic designers, the eighteenth century European courts.

The fourteenth and seventeenth centuries are the golden years of Bolognese art. It is due to the works of art carried out in those periods that Bologna became one of the cities included in the Grand Tour which all the Romantic artists and writers, from Fuseli and Goethe to Stendhal, undertook from the north towards Rome. The first great achievement in the figurative arts was the result of the cosmopolitan culture which the environment of the University of Bologna had advanced.
The Gothic religious monuments, the churches and convents of San Francesco and San Domenico, with the tombs of the glossators, are the outward sign of the privileged relationship the city had with northern Italy. This northern influence also stimulated a development in painting and in manuscript illumination in the fourteenth century in opposition to the style imposed by Giotto and the Florentine School.
In the seventeenth century, too, the pictures by the Carracci, Guido Reni and Guercino are anti-Baroque, in contrast to the dominant style of Rome. This laid the foundations for the cult of Classicism and of Raphael, which ensured the fame of the Bolognese painting school in France and in England. The development of the Studium had a considerable effect on the urban structure, encouraging a series of initiatives which added some splendid features to the University nucleus. Among these were the students' colleges (for instance the famous Spanish College founded in 1367), the seat of the Studium requested by Pope Pius IV (now the Palazzo dell'Archiginnasio, where the magnificent, seventeenth-century Teatro Anatomico is to be found), Cardinal Poggi's Palace (where the Studium was transferred during the time of Napoleon), and the Observatory tower, which was constructed in 1712 as a symbol of the new scientific culture. However, we should also remember the medieval towers, the complex of five churches called Santo Stefano and the imposing basilica of San Petronio, which dominates the main square of the city, where the medieval and Renaissance Town Hall is also to be seen. Despite the demolition carried out in the nineteenth century and the destruction caused during the last world war, the urban structure of Bologna has maintained both its integrity and its charm.

Additional tourist information can be found in the official site of the tourist office of the city of Bologna:

http://iat.comune.bologna.it/IAT/IAT.nsf/HomePageE?openpage

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Short history of the University of Bologna

The University of Bologna was probably the first University in the western world. Its history is one of great thinkers in science and the humanities, making it an indispensable point of reference in the panorama of European culture. The institution that we today call the University began to take shape in Bologna at the end of the eleventh century, when masters of Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic began to devote themselves to the law. In the nineteenth century a committee of historians, led by Giosuè Carducci, attributed the birth of the University to the year 1088.
The first recorded scholars were Pepone and Irnerio, the latter of whom was defined by the former as "lucerna iuris". With the advice of four doctores thought to be their pupils, in 1158 Federico I promulgated the Constitutio Habita, in which the University was legally declared a place where research could develop independently from any other power.
In the 14th Century, so-called "artists" - scholars of Medicine, Philosophy, Arithmetic, Astronomy, Logic, Rhetoric, and Grammar - began to collaborate with the school of jurists. In 1364, the teaching of Theology was instituted.
Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, Guido Guinizelli, Cino da Pistoria, Cecco d'Ascoli, Re Enzo, Salimbene da Parma and Coluccio Salutati all studied in Bologna.
In the 15th Century Greek and Hebrew studies were instituted, and in the 16th Century those of "natural magic", that is, experimental science. The philosopher Pietro Pomponazzi upheld the study of the laws of nature against the traditionalist position of Theology and Philosophy. A representative figure of this period was Ulisse Aldrovandi, whose contribution ranged from pharmacopoeia to the study of animals, fossils, and marvels of nature which he collected and classified.
In the 16th Century Gaspare Tagliacozzi completed the first studies of plastic surgery. But the golden era of Bolognese Medicine coincided with the teachings of Marcello Malpighi in the 17th Century, employing the microscope for anatomical research.
The University's fame had spread throughout Europe and it was a destination for many illustrious guests. Famous scholars and students included Pico della Mirandola and Leon Battista Alberti, who devoted themselves to canonical law. Nicolò Copernico began his astronomical observations while studying pontifical law. Paracelso, Raimundo de Pegñafort, Albrecht Dürer, St. Carlo Borromeo, Torquato Tasso and Carlo Goldoni all spent time at the University.
With the Industrial Revolution in the 18th Century, the University promoted scientific and technological development. In this period came the studies of Luigi Galvani who, along with Alessandro Volta, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Cavendish, was one of the founders of modern electrotechnical studies.
Following the establishment of the United Italian State came a period of great prosperity in which the figures of Giovanni Capellini, Giosuè Carducci, Giovanni Pascoli, Augusto Righi, Federigo Enriques, Giacomo Ciamician, and Augusto Murri stand out.
In 1888 the eighth centennial of the University was celebrated, with a grand ceremony where all the universities of the world convened in Bologna to honour the mother of universities, representing their common roots and ideals of progress and tolerance. The ceremony became an international festival of studies.
The University maintained its central position on the scene of global culture until the period between the two wars, when other countries came to the forefront in teaching and research. Bologna has thus been called upon to forge relationships with institutions in the most advanced countries to modernise and expand its activity. Among the many challenges which it has met with success, Bologna committed itself to the European dimension which has now led to adoption of the new university system.

The Magna Charta
On 18 September 1988 in Bologna's main square (Piazza Maggiore), the Rectors of 430 universities signed the Magna Charta Universitatum Europaeum. The Magna Charta, which has since been signed by another 400 Rectors, affirmed the autonomy of the University, the essential link between teaching and research activities which transcend the limits imposed by "any geographical or political border". The signing took place as part of the ninth centennial of the University of Bologna, which was formally recognised as the Alma Mater of all universities.
On 19 June 1999 in the Aula Magna of the University of Bologna, 29 European Ministers of Higher Education signed the so-called Declaration of Bologna, which defines the "most relevant objectives for the creation of a European Area of higher education" and the promotion of this system in the world.
To meet these objectives European Union members must restructure their university systems by 2010, following the guidelines known as the Bologna Process.

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Invited lectures

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Photos from the Conference

You can see photos taken during the conference following the links below:

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Contact

For further information, please contact us.

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