With much success, WSEAS closed the conferences of 2003 celebrating in the sea resort of Astir Palace   in the nice suburb of Athens, Vouliagmeni, the end of the 7th year of WSEAS and the beginning of the 8th. The year 2004 is the year of Olympic Games in Athens and for this reason the conference participants had the opportunity to enjoy also the festive atmosphere of Athens and admire the holidays in the Syntagma Square.
   The scientific level of the conference was high and the participation satisfactory taking into account the narrow subject of the meeting (mathematical methods).
Following the tradition, WSEAS cuts the New Year's cake (Saint Vassilios' Cake) in the morning of December 31 in the Aphrodite Hotel of Astir Palace.
   At the end of the morning's session, Prof. Bojkovic (senior member of WSEAS) gave a brief speech underlining the importance of the WSEAS conferences and strongly encouraging the young researchers to attend the meetings because of their big scientific importance and of the opportunity to publish their research in the WSEAS books and journals. Prof. Bojkovic (Belgrade University in Serbia) is well known Professor in the area of Telecommunications and Signal Processing and Fellow member of other scientific societies (outside WSEAS).
   In the previous night (December 30), a wonderful banquet with live orchester and folklore show took place in the cosmopolitan salon of the Hotel where almost all the participants of the conference participate in the dance and one of them also played a traditional greek musical instrument ("cretan lyra").


The Members of the organizing committee with the New Year's cake of WSEAS (Saint Vassilios' Cake)

The New Year's cake of WSEAS (Saint Vassilios' Cake)
 

Prof. Nikos Mastorakis (Greece) cutting the Saint Vassilios' Cake. In his right,
Prof. Damgov (Bulgaria) member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
 

Banquet - Greek Folklore Dances

Professor V. Damgov, Bulgarian Academy of Science
and Prof. Mastorakis (WSEAS President)

Prof. Hesham Nasif (Japan), Prof. K.Tsironi (Greece),
Prof. V. Damgov (all WSEAS Members)

From left: Prof. Mastorakis (Greece) and Prof. Kazakos (USA),
both in the Board of Directors of WSEAS.

From left: Prof. Kazakos (USA), Prof. Nasif (Japan) and Prof. Sabah (India)

Prof. Hinny P. H. Kong (Singapore) presenting his paper

Prof. Ralph W. Oberste-Vorth (USA), President of the 5th WSEAS
Conference on Applied Mathematics
 

Prof. Ziavras (USA) presenting his invited paper

Prof. I Pountourakis (Greece) presenting his papers

Prof. Roger W. Clark (USA) presenting his Plenary Lecture

Prof. Vladimir Damgov (Bulgaria) presenting his Plenary Lecture

Prof. Menelaos Karanasos  presenting his paper

The banquet was wonderful and all the participants danced in the rythms
of the greek traditional dances: Kalamatianos, Tsamikos and Pentozalis.

During the coffee-break