Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are considered as a promising solution for providing scalable, ubiquitous, reliable and cost-effective broadband access in rural environments.

Nektarios Tavernarakis was elected on Saturday, September 21, in the position of the Director of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, at the Foundation for Research and Technology, in Heraklion, Crete, Greece. Dr. Tavernarakis has been heading the Neurogenetics and Ageing laboratory of the Institute, and is an elected Excellence Professor of Molecular Systems Biology at the Medical School of the University of Crete.

Turn down the volume! Noise in everyday life is a significant and growing problem that, according to the World Health Organisation, is responsible for many healthy years of life lost [1]. And it is not just traffic,mobile devices or so-called personal music equipment that is responsible, but speech itself. Anyone unfortunate enough to spend much time at a public transport interchange or airport is assailed by loud, distorted and repetitive announcements. Keeping the volume high is the easy way to ensure that anyone listening gets the message, especially in noisy environments, but is it the smartest solution?

The paper entitled "Programming Smart Object Federations for Simulating and Implementing Ambient Intelligence Scenarios", presented by Ioannis Georgalis, PhD Candidate at the University of Crete and member of the HCI Laboratory of ICS-FORTH, received the Best Student Paper Award at the 3rd International Conference on Pervasive and Embedded Computing and Communications Systems (PECCS 2013, Barcelona, Spain 19-21 February 2013).