Cover Picture: Closing the Gap Between Self‐Assembly and Microsystems Using Self‐Assembly,Transfer, and Integration of Particles (Adv. Mater. 20/2005)

The cover shows 100 μm diameter glass spheres covered by a grid of hexagonally packed polystyrene beads. Wolf and co‐workers placed the 500 nm diameter polystyrene beads onto the larger spheres using the self‐assembly, transfer, and integration (SATI) process that they report on p. 2438. The cover illustrates the capability of SATI to process uneven surfaces in addition to the planar substrates discussed in the article. The carrier that holds the smaller beads deforms during their transfer onto the larger spheres, so that on the larger spheres patterned “caps” are formed. Using this process, which is compatible with standard microfabrication techniques, a variety of particle assemblies can be achieved.     

Software release management for component‐based software

Software release management is the process through which software is made available to and obtained by its users. Until now, this process has been relatively straightforward. However, the emergence of component‐based software is complicating software release management. Increasingly, software is constructed via the assembly of pre‐existing, independently produced, and independently released components. Both developers and users of such software are affected by these complications. Developers need to accurately document the complex and changing dependencies among the components constituting the software. Users must be involved in locating, retrieving, and assembling components in order to appropriately bring the software into their particular environment. In this paper, we introduce the problem of release management for component‐based software and discuss SRM, a prototype software release management tool we have developed that supports both developers and users in the software release management process. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How many system architectures?

Developers often call an embedded system's hardware architecture a platform. The idea is that you select a hardware platform, then write software to fit onto it. Matters are, however, more complicated. The platform provides the computing resources required to run the embedded application, and the decisions about what hardware should go into the platform often depend on what sort of software you want to run. It is predicted that constant pressure on the cost and power consumption of embedded systems will continue to spawn a diversity of uniprocessor and multiprocessor platforms.     

Developing complex projects using XP with extensions

Using methodological extensions to adapt extreme programming (XP) for major projects offers a high security and reliability without limiting software development's advantages. The authors describe their use of XP extensions that focus on development's planning and controlling aspects, demonstrating that a suitably adapted agile development process is applicable to long-term, large-system projects.     

Strengthening a curated web of trust in a geographically distributed project

In this article the authors present a trust management scheme, derived from the horizontal and almost anarchic web of trust model, but following a curatorship step that allows it to become a centerpiece for authentication in Debian, one of the largest and longest lived free software projects and producer of the eponymous GNU/Linux software distribution. This is done by analyzing the experience gained through a large-scale key migration process that spanned five years and nearly 100% of the originally existing keys, carried out attempting to minimize loss of keyring connectivity and strength, while keeping up to date with the best current security practices.     

Supporting the design of data integration requirements during the development of data warehouses: a communication theory-based approach

Data warehouses (DW) form the backbone of data integration that is necessary for analytical applications, and play important roles in the information technology landscape of many industries. We introduce an approach for addressing the fundamental problem of semantic heterogeneity in the design of data integration requirements during DW development. In contrast to ontology-driven or schema-matching approaches, which propose the automatic resolution of differences ex-post, our approach addresses the core problem of data integration requirements: understanding and resolving different contextual meanings of data fields. We ground the approach firmly in communication theory and build on practices from agile software development. Besides providing relevant insights for the design of data integration requirements, our findings point to communication theory as a sound underlying foundation for a design theory of information systems development.     

Structured Raney Nickel Catalysts for Liquid‐Phase Hydrogenation

Structured catalysts consisting of metal sheets on which Raney nickel was deposited by the thermal spraying method were tested for the liquid‐phase hydrogenation of glucose to sorbitol and 2‐nitrotoluene to 2‐methylaniline, used as model reactions. Catalytic tests performed in a bench‐scale (1 L) reactor showed that the catalytic activity of Raney Ni sheets is significantly higher than the one of the pellets used for fixed‐bed applications, but lower than the activity of the powder catalyst used in slurry mode. The activity could be significantly improved when applying a two‐phase co‐current flow through a monolith. In this case, the activity was superior to the one obtained with the slurry catalyst. These results confirm the potential of Raney Ni monoliths as structured catalysts.     

Recycling von marinen Sekundärrohstoffen

As a waste product, oyster shells pose a major environmental pollution problem and the reuse of the material is becoming increasingly important. Since the comminution process in the recycling of secondary raw materials defines the properties of the material, oyster shells were grinded using a planetary ball mill and an impact mill and the fractions obtained were analyzed in terms of size and shape and compared with each other. A comminuted material from the impact mill was used for a series of wetting experiments, which helped to demonstrate the surface free energy of the material.