ERCIM News 67

Image ercim news 67 cover page

October 2006
Special theme:
Embedded Intelligence

This issue in pdf
(76 pages; 10,7Mb)
R&D and Technology Transfer
Single Molecule Switch and Memory Element
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.

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HyMN: A Self-Organizing System for Interest-based Data Distribution in Mobile Hybrid Wireless Networ
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.
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Visualization of Colour Information on Highly Detailed 3D Models
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.
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Modular Access to Large Socio-Economic Databases - the Sedo Project in Luxembourg
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.
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BELIEF: Bringing Europe’s Electronic Infrastructures to Expanding Frontiers
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.
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Cell Phone Danger
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.
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SAFE: Satellites for Epidemiology and Health Early Warning
by Catherine Chronaki, ICS-FORTH 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.
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Planck Mission 70 GHz Receivers
by Jussi Varis, MilliLab-Millimetre Wave Laboratory of Finland
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.
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Data Acquisition in Scientific Applications
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.
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Network Anomaly Detection by Means of Machine Learning
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.
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From Solitary Podcasting to Ambient Pondcasting
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.
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