Participating Research Groups

Preface 1 Sonderforschungsbereich Nexus is a Center of Excellence that has been established at Universität Stuttgart in January 2003. This interdisciplinary research center, which is funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), currently involves more than 30 researchers from various fields, including computer science, electrical engineering , civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and philosophy. This annual report summarizes the major activities and research results of the center's second year. In 2004, we could base our work on an (almost) fully operational research infrastructure , which let us focus on our research projects. Due to interdisciplinary research we have got interesting insights into various aspects of context-aware computing, including context management as well as context-aware communication, presentation, and security. Again, the center's research activities led to a number of publications in highly ranked conferences and journals. The center's members also organized two scientific events on subjects related to Nexus. In October, the expert workshop " Die Welt als ausgefaltetes Gehirn " was organized jointly with the Alcatel-SEL-Stiftung Kommunikationsforschung. Experts from the fields of psychology, philosophy, and computer science discussed the psychological implications of context-aware computing. Also in October, members of the center organized a GI/ITG workshop on " System Software for Pervasive Computing ". We continued working on our prototype systems, which could be demonstrated to a broad audience at various events. We were invited to present the Nexus prototype to the attendees of the IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing (PerCom), held in Orlando, Florida. In August, we demonstrated Nexus at the so-called NanoCamp, an event organized by the TV station 3-SAT. We also contributed a Nexus demonstration to the Intergeo fair in Stuttgart in October. Last but not least, the Center of Excellence participated in the so-called Wissenschaftssommer with an exhibition, where Nexus applications could be shown to the public during one week in September. From these presentations we received feedback and stimulations for our future work, which by far make up for the numerous hours of work put into preparing these events. Finally, we would like to thank our collaboration partners, whose expertise and help supported our research considerably. However, the substantial progress made during the last year would never have been possible without the enthusiasm, creativity , and the hard work by all of our research and non-research staff members. Every reproduction – even in extracts – only with the written consent of the publisher.