by Christoph Sulzbachner, Jürgen Kogler, Wilfried Kubinger and Erwin Schoitsch

Conventional stereo vision systems and algorithms require very high processing power and are costly. For the many applications where moving objects (either source or target, or both) are the main goal to be detected, a new kind of bio-inspired analogue sensor that provides only event-triggered information, so-called silicon retina sensors, are providing a very fast and cost-efficient alternative.

by Peter Demian and Panos Balatsoukas

Engineers often seek to explore context in order to judge the relevance of a retrieved piece of information. The ‘Finding needles in (hierarchical) haystacks’ project, based in the Department of Civil and Building Engineering at Loughborough University, is examining new methods of information representation that will support exploration and understanding of context in hierarchical repositories of construction management projects.

by John R. Walsh

In November 2005, the Irish government presented its ‘Transport 21’ plan for the future of transport infrastructure in Ireland. The largest prospective capital investment to date in Ireland and occurring under the auspices of the National Development Plan, the work was anticipated to occur over the period 2006 to 2015.

Energy-Optimized Electrical Systems for Land Transport Using Batteries and Supercapacitors: TRANS-SUPERCAP

by Paul Borza, Ana Maria Puscas and Marius Carp

The ‘TRANS-SUPERCAP’ project plans to optimize the energy use, operation, reliability and availability of locomotives and automobiles by redesigning the electric starting systems of the internal combustion engine. This is done using combinations of batteries and ‘stacked’-type supercapacitors provided by new nanotechnology.

SensorWeb-Based Prototype for Air Quality Reporting Systems

by Katharina Schleidt and Denis Havlik

Two European research projects, SANY (Sensors Anywhere) and the Austrian INSPIRE CAFE prototype are currently testing the usability of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) suite for CAFE (Clean Air For Europe) and INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community), by developing a prototype air quality reporting system in accordance with the CAFE directive. Unlike the Web Feature Service, which excels at geographic features, the SWE services and encodings help to model the world from a sensor-centric view, with each observed value being associated with a geographic and temporal position, as well as the unit of measurement, data quality value, and process description.

by Preben Holst Mogensen and Marlene Nybro Thomsen

Overview@aGlance is the name of a collaborative overview system that integrates a number of technologies to provide overview and support collaboration between emergency response teams at large events such as music festivals.