by Emanuel Lörtscher and Heike Riel

Scientists at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory have demonstrated how a single molecule can be switched between two distinct conductive states, which allows it to store data. As published in SMALL, these experiments show that certain types of molecules reveal intrinsic molecular functionalities that are comparable to devices used in today's semiconductor technology. This finding is a result coming from IBM's Research Labs' effort to explore and develop novel technologies for beyond the CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semi-conductor) era.

by Steffen Rothkugel, Matthias R. Brust and Adrian Andronache

The concept of self-organisation already exists in the realm of ad-hoc networks. The inherent limitations of pure ad-hoc networks can be overcome by introducing uplinks to the Internet backbone. Extending the principles of self-organisation by transparently including those additional network links is the focus of the HyWercs project. HyMN, in turn, is a system aimed at fostering user experience by employing these concepts in the domain of multimedia content distribution.

by Matteo Dellepiane and Marco Callieri

It is now possible to display very detailed colour information on big 3D models. Research at the Visual Computing Lab, ISTI-CNR, Pisa, Italy, aims at creating a mostly automatic, easy-to-use way of mapping colour on geometric data.

by Uwe Warner, Thomas Tamisier and Fernand Feltz

Now online and regularly accessed, the Sedo homepage is the entry point to a mine of useful information about citizens' lives in Luxembourg. Underneath, the site is powered by a customisable platform for maintaining huge banks of data. Ergonomic search methods quickly deliver mains trends or detailed figures. Advanced users and people without statistical training can perform their own calculations with the guarantee of clear and accurate results.

by Federico Biagini, Pasquale Pagano and Franco Zoppi

BELIEF aims at creating a platform where e-infrastructure providers and users can collaborate and exchange knowledge, thus bridging the gap separating the research infrastructure providers from the users. A key role is played by the BELIEF digital library, specifically designed to meet the needs of this community and to guarantee wide dissemination of its results.

by Martin Röösli and Harry Rudin

As we become more and more keen on cell phones there remains the open question of what effect these cell phones have on our health and well being. Some recent work in Switzerland sheds some light on these issues.

by Catherine Chronaki and Laurent Braak

The risk of epidemics and emerging or re-emerging diseases such as avian flu or chikungunya fever is rising. Luckily, these risks can be contained with prevention, early warning, and prompt management. In this context, current early warning and response systems, although well-developed in Europe, could benefit from satellite services.

by Jussi Varis

Planck is a European Space Agency - ESA mission to map the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) to an unprecedented sensitivity covering the whole sky. An accurate map of the CMB will allow the cosmologists to determine definitively the properties of our universe, like the age, the geometry, and the matter and energy composition. The Planck mission will be launched in 2008.

by Rob Halsall

Large scale scientific instrumentation systems for particle physics research at CERN are currently being deployed with many millions of sensor channels and Data Acquisition (DAQ) rates of the order of 100s of GByte/s. These systems, consisting of many racks of large format electronics modules, are typically implemented using custom digital logic in Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices. Installed in under ground caverns, closely coupled to massive detectors and networked to PC processing farms, these systems could be regarded as very large examples of embedded systems.

by Roland Kwitt

Anomaly detection should be an integral part of every computer security system, since it is the only way to tackle the problem of identifying novel and modified attacks. Our work focuses on machine-learning approaches for anomaly detection and tries to deal with the problems that come along with it.

by Emmanuel Frécon and Pär Hansson

Podcasting has taken the world by storm and become a mass phenomenon in less than a year. The core activities of podcast consumers, namely selecting broadcast sources and listening to portable media players, are solitary experiences. The Pondcaster project seeks to take podcasting a step further by encouraging group discovery and shared listening through a combination of interactive tabletop displays and personalised ambient listening stations.