A Word from Our Technical Program Chairman, Scott Bentley, VideoRay, LLC:

Thanks for considering a proposal to speak at Underwater Intervention 2012. The Technical Program committee is looking forward to a full, innovative, and informative session on many different topics of interest to underwater technology professionals. We look forward to working with you so you can help us spread your experience and expertise to your colleagues.

We need to collect this information to evaluate your proposal. If your proposal is accepted, this information will be used to put it on an appropriate place on our agenda, and to publicize it to our attendees. These instructions are designed to make the process as efficient and painless as possible. However, if you have any questions or suggestions, please email presentation-info@underwaterintervention.com and we will respond to your email as soon as we can.

There is an online form you need to fill out on https://www.conference.com/eventmanager/abstractmanager/author_login.asp?customercode=Underwater&eventcode=CFI. However, BEFORE you fill this out you should decide on a title for your talk, compose an abstract, and compose your biographical information. All are very important, as they determine whether our attendees will decide to attend your session, or another session that might be scheduled at the same time in a different track.

The title needs to accurately and succinctly describe your talk. For example:

Retrieving Large Underwater Items Using a Small Micro-ROV

Does a pretty good job of describing that talk. However,

Tools for SubSea Success

Does not – it could accurately describe almost every presentation at Underwater intervention.

Composing an abstract is the most important part of your submission. It must be between 100 and 200 words, and describe and promote your talk to potential audiences. For example:

"Surveying is the science of making quantitative measurements in order to determine and document the spatial positions and geometric relationships of details of interest. There are several technologies which can be deployed to make underwater spatial measurements. These include GPS (at the surface), acoustic ranging systems, acoustic doppler velocity logs, tether positioning, and photogrammetry and dataset mensuration.

Micro-ROV provide significant accessibility advantages relative to their larger remotely operated brethren. Unlike free swimming untethered vehicles, high bandwidth zero latency data is available to the operator. The small size which affords micro-ROV many of their advantages constrains the data acquisition and positioning instrumentation payload size.

An overview of the various measurement technologies available for deployment on small platforms will be provided. A basic explanation of the physical measurements being made by each system will be given. The strengths and weakness of each technology, as well as the suitability of several commercially available systems on micro-ROV will be discussed."

This is 156 words, and pretty much describes what the speaker will be talking about. Another example:

"To keep pace with the constantly changing threats to national and international maritime critical infrastructure, we must be able to identify and understand the underwater hazardous device (UHD) terrorist threat. By learning to use remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs) effectively, law enforcement and first responders can rapidly assess and mitigate an UHD event without placing a diver in the water or unnecessarily tagging out a ship.

The mobile design of the course brings the solution to customer facilities or operational environments. Operators can use existing ROVs or have an ROV delivered with the training. A-T Solutions instructors present the most current terrorist tactics, UHD design, construction, and deployment techniques. The course introduces participants to ROV UHD searching, reconnaissance, identification, and marking. Training emphasizes tactics, techniques, and procedures for working around and under large-vessel hulls, piers, pipelines, gas and oil platforms, and bridges. The 5-day course consists of 1 day of classroom instruction and 4 days of practical application under realistic, field exercise scenarios."

This is 161 words. If you have a abstract done but would like help with “wordsmithing” it, simply submit what you have and your Track Chair will work with you.

The easiest way to construct your abstract is to use a word processing program like Microsoft Word. These will do the “word count” for you, and flag most spelling and grammar errors. When you have completed your abstract, you can copy the contents into your paste buffer and paste it into the form as unformatted text using “paste special.” Using the form to enter your abstract is possible, but not recommended.

When you have your abstract and title selected, open https://www.conference.com/eventmanager/abstractmanager/author_login.asp?customercode=Underwater&eventcode=CFI. There are several questions to answer and fields to fill in for your proposal.

Tracks: Select the one you feel is most appropriate for your presentation. If you are uncertain, choose “unsure” and the committee will assign your talk.

Sector: Choose those sector(s) of our industry for which your talk is most relevant. If most are relevant, choose “Many”
Presenter Type: Indicate here whether you are a member of the Marine Technology Society

Session Category: Choose the category that you feel would be best for your talk. Almost all presentations should fit into the standard 30 minute category, so please justify any requests for more time.

As soon as your presentation is assigned to a track, the Track Chair will contact you about the approval process and deadlines. You will need to submit your presentation or a paper in advance so it can be included in the conference proceedings, and you will need to register for and attend the conference to give your presentation. During the acceptance process, you will be able to edit your submission – to address deficiencies in the abstract, for example, or to change your topic selections.

If your presentation is approved we will need biographical information, and a picture. This will be used for promotional purposes. You will also need to sign and return the Author Agreement posted here..

Underwater Intervention will provide the following Presenter Compensation:

Complimentary Pass for the Entire Conference (you will need to register yourself through our system, URL to be provided later)

If you register in advance of the show opening, you may pick up your badge in the Speaker Lounge

Speaker Lounge - open all day during the conference

Complimentary Breakfast (in Speaker Lounge) each morning of the conference

Speaker Appreciation Gift

ALL Technical Presentation/Workshop Rooms will be furnished with the following Audio Visual Equipment only:

Projector, Screen, Podium and Microphone. 

Rooms will be set "classroom" style with a head table.