Special Issue: "State-of-the-Art Sensors Technology in Switzerland" - Sensors Journal
Managing Editor:
Mr. Matthias Burkhalter
MDPI Center Sensors Office
Matthaeusstrasse 11
CH-4057 Basel / Switzerland
Tel +41 61 683 7734, Fax +41 61 302 8918
E-mail: sensors@mdpi.org; http://www.mdpi.org/sensors
Supervisor of this special issue:
Prof. Dr. Peter Seitz
Vice President Nanomedicine, CSEM SA, Research Center for Nanomedicine
Schulstrasse 1, CH-7302 Landquart, Switzerland
Professor of Optoelectronics, Institute for Microtechnology
University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Tel. +41 81 330 0972, Fax +41 81 330 0971, Mob. +41 79 253 5750, Skype peter.seitz
E-mail: peter.seitz@unine.ch; http://www3.unine.ch/members/peter.seitz; http://www.csem.ch
Deadline for Paper submission: New 30 June 2008
Summary
The aim of this special issue is to provide a comprehensive view on the state-of-the-art sensors technology in Switzerland. Research articles are solicited which will provide a consolidated state-of-the-art in this area. The Special Issue will publish those full research, review and high rated manuscripts addressing the above topic.
Keywords
Biosensors, Chemical Sensors, Physical Sensors, Remote Sensing Sensors
Ruedi Stoop *, Tom Jasa, Yoko Uwate and Stefan Martignoli
Institute of Neuroinformatics University/ETH Zurich, Winterthurerstr. 190, 8057 Zurich Switzerland
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ruedi@ini.phys.ethz.ch.
Received: 5 December 2007 / Accepted: 13 December 2007 / Published: 14 December 2007
Full Research Paper: From Hearing to Listening: Design and Properties of an Actively Tunable Electronic Hearing Sensor
Sensors 2007, 7, 3287-3298 (PDF format, 1540 K)
Submitted Papers under Review
Title: "Reflectance modelling for real snow structures using a 1 beam tracing model"
Authors: D. Bänninger 1, C.S. Bourgeois 2, M. Matzl 3 and M. Schneebeli 3
1 Institute of Environmental Geosciences, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Basel, Bernoullistrasse 30, 4056 Basel, Switzerland (dominik.baenninger@unibas.ch).
2 Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zürich, Universitätstrasse 16, 8092 Zürich.
3 WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research, SLF , Flüelastrasse 11, Davos Dorf, Switzerland.
Abstract: It is important to understand reflective properties of snow, for example for remote sensing applications and for modelling of energy balances in snow packs. We developed a method to calculate the reflectance of real snow: First, we tomographed snow samples to acquire snow structure images (6 x 2 mm). Second, we calculated the sample reflectance by modelling the radiative transfer, using a beam tracing model. This model calculates the biconical reflectance (BR) derived from an arbitrary number of incident beams. The incident beams represent a diffuse light source. We applied our method to four different snow samples: Fresh snow, metamorphosed snow, depth hoar, and wet snow. The results show that (i) the calculated and measured reflectances agree well and (ii) the model produces different biconical reflectances for different snow types. The ratio of the structure to the wavelength is large. We estimated that the size parameter is larger than 50 in all cases we analysed. Specific surface area of the snow samples explains most of the difference in radiance, but not the different biconical reflectance distributions. The presented method overcomes the limitations of common radiative transfer models which use idealised grain shapes such as spheres, plates, needles and hexagonal particles. With this method we could improve our understanding for changes in biconical reflectance distribution associated with changes in specific surface area.
Planned Papers
Topic: "RSL's goniometer system FIGOS"
Author: Juerg Schopfer, University of Zurich, Dept. of Geography, Remote Sensing Laboratories, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich. Tel: +41 44 635 52 51, Fax: +41 44 635 68 46; E-mail: juerg.schopfer@geo.uzh.ch
Abstract: to be added soon
Title: "Bacterial biosensors for measuring availability of environmental pollutants"
Author: Robin Tecon and Jan Roelof van der Meer
University of Lausanne (UNIL), Department of Fundamental Microbiology, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Tel. +41 21 692 56 30, Fax +41 21 692 56 05
Abstract: Traditionally, pollution risk assessment is based on the measurement of a pollutant’s total concentration in a sample. The toxicity of a given pollutant in environment, however, is tightly linked to its bioavailability, which may differ significantly from the former. Physico-chemical and biological parameters thus strongly influence the pollutant’s fate in terms of leaching, sequestration and biodegradation. Bacterial biosensors, which are micro-organisms genetically engineered for environmental sensing, offer an interesting alternative to monitoring approaches based on conventional chemical analyses. They can sense, per definition, what is bioavailable, thereby providing useful information for risk assessment. At the present time, a wide variety of environmental pollutants can be targeted by biosensors. Although many of them are still confined to the lab, several bacterial biosensors already proved their utility in field assay, with detection limits comparable to chemical analysis. This review proposes an overview of the existing bacterial biosensors, with a specific focus on the concept of bioavailability.
Title: "Neuromorphic VLSI models of selective attention: from single chip sensors to multi-chip systems"
Author: Giacomo Indiveri, Institute of Neuroinformatics, UZH - ETH Zurich, Switzerland
web: http://www.ini.uzh.ch, e-mail: giacomo@ethz.ch, vox: +41-44-6353024, fax: +41-44-6353053
Abstract: Biological organisms perform complex selective attention operations continuously and effortlessly. These operations allow them to quickly determine the motor actions to take, in response to combinations of external stimuli and internal states; or to pay attention to subsets of sensory inputs, suppressing non salient ones; or to plan complex action sequences, serially choosing elementary behaviors among different alternatives. One of the main computational primitives used by nature to perform these selection operations is implemented by Winner-Take-All (WTA) networks. These networks are formed by arrays of coupled computational elements that selectively amplify the strongest input signals, while suppressing the remaining ones. Neuromorphic circuits are an optimal medium for constructing WTA networks and for implementing efficient hardware models of selective attention systems. In this paper we present an overview of selective attention systems based on neuromorphic WTA circuits ranging from single-chip vision sensors for selecting and tracking the position of salient features, to a multi-chip system that implements a saliency-map based model of selective attention.
Title: "Large band spectral sensing with miniaturized MEMS spectrometers"
Authors: Toralf SCHARF et al. will be from the IMT at the university of Neuchâtel and Arcoptix, a spin off of the same.
Topic: "SAW RFID tags"
Author: Viktor Plesski, GVR Trade SA, Chemin du Vignoble 31C, 2022 Bevaix Switzerland, Tel./FAX +41 32 846 3039, Mob. 0041 79 427 1945, Skype: victorplessky, Emails: victor.plessky@bluewin.ch; vplessky@mail.com; victor.plessky@gmail.com http://www.gvrtrade.com
Details: to be added soon
Submission
Sensors (http://www.mdpi.org/sensors/) is a highly rated journal with a 1.373 impact factor in 2006.
Sensors is indexed and abstracted very quickly by Chemical Abstracts, Analytical Abstracts, Science Citation Index Expanded, Chemistry Citation Index, Scopus and Google Scholar.
All papers should be submitted to sensors@mdpi.org with copy to the guest editors. To be published continuously until the deadline and papers will be listed together at the special websites.
Please visit the instructions for authors at http://www.mdpi.org/sensors/publguid.htm before submitting a paper. Open Access publication fees are 1050 CHF per paper. English correction fees (250 CHF) will be added in certain cases (1300 CHF per paper for those papers that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.).
MDPI - Matthias Burkhalter - 4 April 2008