WELCOME BY THE CO-CHAIRS

It is our pleasure to welcome you to the Third International Symposium on Radiative Transfer and to Antalya, a resort town with historical significance on the Mediterranean Coast of Turkey. This Symposium is a follow-up of the two previous meetings held in Kusadasi, Turkey in 1995 and 1997.

Radiation-III is a particularly special event as we honour Professors Raymond Viskanta, Mustafa Necati Özisik and Michel Lallemand for their significant contributions to the field of radiative transfer. We have learned so much from these three outstanding individuals over the years. It is simply fitting to honour them in such a learning atmosphere.

In addition, we are privileged to have Professor S.S. Penner here in Antalya as the Symposium Plenary Lecturer. As we all know, Professor Penner was the founder and the Editor of the Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer for over thirty years. The present Editor of the JQSRT, Professor Prasad Varanasi, who was a student of Professor Penner and was our special guest last time in Kusadasi, is also a participant to the Symposium and will be delivering one of the most timely papers in the field.

Over all, about 100 scientists from 20 countries will participate to Radiation-III. The program includes 64 contributed papers and 17 posters. The participants are among the most well known researchers in the field, including Professors J.R. Howell, M.F. Modest, Y. Kurosaki, J. Taine, J._F. Sacadura, M. Mansour, L. Dombrovski, S. Maruyama, K. Kudo, A. Charette, B.W. Webb, P. Coelho, A. Soufiani, P.-F. Hsu, S. Kumar, D. Lemonnier, K.G.T. Hollands, T.-H. Song, J.P. Gore, S.W. Baek, and many others. Sessions will be conducted on several topics including: advances in radiative transfer, radiative transfer models, transient radiative transfer problems, combined radiation transfer modes, radiation transfer in gas mixtures, particles and aggregates, radiation transfer in foams and particulate media, radiation transfer in material processing and in biomedical applications, inverse radiation problems, advanced diagnostics, radiation transfer in flames, burners and combustion systems, radiation transfer in atmosphere, radiation transfer applications.

The papers accepted to the Symposium were reviewed rigorously and on full manuscript basis by two or three experts. Most of the International Scientific Committee members who helped the review process are attending the meeting. In addition, several others who did not have any paper in the Program have volunteered their time and energy in review process, including R. Buckius, Y. Bayazitoglu, S. Burns, C. Grigoropuolos, M. Naraghi, P. Jones, D. Mackowski, S. Manickavasagam, K. Woodbury, K. Ball, J. Longtin, and U. Koylu. We are thankful to them for their help.

All the papers of the Symposium are put together in a CD-ROM which is distributed to the participants at the registration. A soft-bound paper copy of the CD-ROM is also available upon optional request. A set of lectures and contributed papers will be selected for post-conference publication in a special issue of the Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer. The editors of this special JQSRT issue are M.P. Mengüç, N. Selcuk, J.R. Howell, and J.-F. Sacadura. We would like to acknowledge the help and encouragement of Professor Varanasi, the Editor of the JQSRT and Ms. Dolors Alsina, Publishing Editor at Elsevier, in making this special issue a possibility.

Partial support for this Symposium came from the U.S. National Science Foundation, which funded a proposal (written by Brent W. Webb and M. Pinar Mengüç, students of R. Viskanta, and approved by the Program Director Stefan Thynell, a student of M.N. Ozisik) to provide mini travel grants for five young researchers and the students in the field of radiation transfer to attend Radiation-III. In addition, TUBITAK, Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey, has awarded a grant to the ICHMT to help the Turkish Students and Scholars to join us at the Symposium.

Last, but not least, we would like to extend our sincere thanks to Professor Faruk Arinç, the Secretary-General of ICHMT who has set the foundation upon which we constructed this Symposium. Without him and the ICHMT Staff, we could do nothing!

Again, Welcome to Radiation-III and to Antalya…