Active Community Members Research Articles

Environmental transcriptome analysis reveals physiological differences between biofilm and planktonic modes of life of the iron oxidizing bacteria Leptospirillum spp. in their natural microbial community

BackgroundExtreme acidic environments are characterized by their high metal content and lack of nutrients (oligotrophy). Macroscopic biofilms and filaments usually grow on the water-air interface or under the stream attached to solid substrates (streamers). In the Río Tinto (Spain), brown filaments develop under the water stream where the Gram-negative iron-oxidizing bacteria Leptospirillum spp. (L. ferrooxidans and L. ferriphilum) and Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans are abundant. These microorganisms play a critical role in bioleaching processes for industrial (biominery) and environmental applications (acid mine drainage, bioremediation). The aim of this study was to investigate the physiological differences between the free living (planktonic) and the sessile (biofilm associated) lifestyles of Leptospirillum spp. as part of its natural extremely acidophilic community.ResultsTotal RNA extracted from environmental samples was used to determine the composition of the metabolically active members of the microbial community and then to compare the biofilm and planktonic environmental transcriptomes by hybridizing to a genomic microarray of L. ferrooxidans. Genes up-regulated in the filamentous biofilm are involved in cellular functions related to biofilm formation and maintenance, such as: motility and quorum sensing (mqsR, cheAY, fliA, motAB), synthesis of cell wall structures (lnt, murA, murB), specific proteases (clpX/clpP), stress response chaperons (clpB, clpC, grpE-dnaKJ, groESL), etc. Additionally, genes involved in mixed acid fermentation (poxB, ackA) were up-regulated in the biofilm. This result, together with the presence of small organic acids like acetate and formate (1.36 mM and 0.06 mM respectively) in the acidic (pH 1.8) water stream, suggests that either L. ferrooxidans or other member of the microbial community are producing acetate in the acidophilic biofilm under microaerophilic conditions.ConclusionsOur results indicate that the acidophilic filaments are dynamic structures in which different mechanisms for biofilm formation/dispersion are operating. Specific transcriptomic fingerprints can be inferred for both planktonic and sessile cells, having the former a more active TCA cycle, while the mixed acid fermentation process dominate in the latter. The excretion of acetate may play a relevant ecological role as a source of electron donor for heterotrophic Fe3+ reducers like some Alphaproteobacteria, Acidobacterium spp. and Sulfobacillus spp., also present in the biofilm. Additionally, acetate may have a negative effect on bioleaching by inhibiting the growth of chemolithotrophic bacteria.

Understanding the experience of non contributory online participants (readers) in National College for School Leadership online communities

This study explored the range of participation taking place in the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) online communities and focussed on participants who defined themselves as not actively contributing to the online discussion. We called these non-contributory participants “readers” Whilst we recognised that an individual community member’s degree of participation might simply reflect their choice, we wanted to ensure that where fuller active participation was sought, there were no system or personal barriers to prevent it. A literature review with a dual focus was therefore made, the first element being factors in the online environment that might affect participation, and the second being personal motivation where we drew especially on dynamic motivation theory. A questionnaire was constructed based on this dual review. This had questions that generated both numerical and text based responses. After a pilot study, alterations in the questionnaire were made and the revised version was sent to 2,600 recently active community members. Over 750 replies were received yielding qualitative and quantitative data. Of these, 587 identified themselves as “readers” and only their responses were analysed for this paper. Analysis produced a very rich picture of motivational factors affecting participation in online communities. Benefits of various types of online interaction were put forward and suggestions about barriers to online interaction were made. This paper suggests that online participation may be seen as a continuum and that non contributory online participants (readers) are a far from homogeneous group ranging from those who experience technical and personal barriers to those who value and gain much from readership. Suggestions are made to assist readers who would like to take further scaffolded steps towards the role of contributor

Integrating local and technical knowledge to support soil salinity monitoring in the Amudarya river basin

The role of monitoring is changing due to the increasing awareness of complexity and uncertainty in environmental resources management. Monitoring systems are required to support critical reflection about the effectiveness of actions toward the achievement of management objectives. To this aim, monitoring should be based on a strong integrated and multi-scale approach. Monitoring costs could be prohibitive if the monitoring is only based on traditional scientific methods of measurements. To deal with these issues, the design of an innovative monitoring system should be based on the integration between different sources of knowledge and information. In this work the usability of local knowledge to support environmental monitoring is investigated. A multi-step participatory monitoring design process has been implemented aiming to design a program for soil salinity monitoring in the lower Amudarya river basin in Uzbekistan. Although there is an increasing awareness of the importance of stakeholders being involved in decision processes, the current socio-cultural and institutional context is not favourable to the participatory approach. The choice of method to be implemented in this work was influenced by such conditions. The analysis of the lessons learned from the experiences gained in this project revealed some important clues concerning the development of a locally-based monitoring program. These lessons can be subdivided according to three fundamental issues: the long term involvement of local community members in monitoring activities, the acceptance of locally-based monitoring systems by decision makers, and the reliability of monitoring information.

Flat for the Few, Steep for the Many

A discrepancy exists between the emphasis posed by practitioners on decentralized and non-hierarchical communication in Free Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) communities and empirical evidence of their hierarchical structure. To explain this paradox, it is hypothesized firstly that in FLOSS communities local sub-groups exist and are less hierarchical, more decentralized than the whole social network. Secondly, it is hypothesized that the bulk of communication exchanges taking place in the community happens inside local sub-groups formed by the most active community members. The recollection that practitioners have of FLOSS communities to which they participate would then be influenced by the position that they occupy inside those sub-groups. A measure of structural cohesion based on network node connectivity is proposed as an effective method to test whether FLOSS communication networks can be decomposed in nested hierarchies of progressively less centralized sub-groups. The recently introduced measure of weighted rich-club effect is adopted to test for the tendency of the most active community members to control communication by interacting more intensely with each other than with other members of the network. Results from a case study that are consistent with the hypotheses are presented and discussed.

Localizing climate change: stepping up local climate action

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the current literature and ideas on how local climate change action (both mitigation and adaptation) could be intensified.Design/methodology/approachA literature review of Australian and international academic journals and policy documents on the current views of effective local climate action was conducted. Additional data on Australian grassroots community activities was compiled from the internet, participant observation and secondary sources.FindingsThe paper argues that local climate action is important and three key aspects could provide effective avenues to step‐up local climate action. These three avenues are: increased attention to local adaptation; the linking of adaptation and mitigation efforts together and with other local ecological concerns; and greater engagement with active community members and grassroots community‐initiated climate change actions. These three key aspects could give climate change a local saliency and tangibility, spur more effective action, build community resilience and reduce vulnerability.Research limitations/implicationsResearch is in the explorative stages and, therefore, only tentative conclusions and possible future directions can be suggested.Practical implicationsThe avenues identified to scale‐up local action on climate change could be readily utilised by local governments and/or other interested groups.Originality/valueThe paper disseminates three compelling ways that climate action could be intensified at the local scale, and possibly create greater public engagement and avenues to innovative approaches to tackle climate change.

Monitoring the Bacterial Community Dynamics in a Petroleum Refinery Wastewater Membrane Bioreactor Fed with a High Phenolic Load

The phenolic compounds are a major contaminant class often found in industrial wastewaters and the biological treatment is an alternative tool commonly employed for their removal. In this sense, monitoring microbial community dynamics is crucial for a successful wastewater treatment. This work aimed to monitor the structure and activity of the bacterial community during the operation of a laboratory-scale continuous submerged membrane bioreactor (SMBR), using PCR and RT-PCR followed by Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE) and 16S rRNA libraries. Multivariate analyses carried out using DGGE profiles showed significant changes in the total and metabolically active dominant community members during the 4-week treatment period, explained mainly by phenol and ammonium input. Gene libraries were assembled using 16S rDNA and 16S rRNA PCR products from the fourth week of treatment. Sequencing and phylogenetic analyses of clones from 16S rDNA library revealed a high diversity of taxa for the total bacterial community, with predominance of Thauera genus (ca. 50%). On the other hand, a lower diversity was found for metabolically active bacteria, which were mostly represented by members of Betaproteobacteria (Thauera and Comamonas), suggesting that these groups have a relevant role in the phenol degradation during the final phase of the SMBR operation.

Stimulating community building using mobile 2.0 technology

Virtual or online content creation is no longer an external process done by software developers or professional new media players, but is more and more performed by ordinary people. In this paper, we focus on non-professional users to present how different categories of users get involved in the process of content sharing and creation within a city community. That only a few of them are interested in contributing to this community is nothing new in itself. Instead, we want to look at what is needed to encourage them to help us build up a virtual 'replica' of the city using an ad hoc application, i.e., the A4MC³-application. To support them in achieving this goal, this mobile city device must have some iterative elements (like tags, ratings, comments, etc., which are also known as social features) that stimulate users to become active members of that particular community. By exploring which of these interactive elements are most suitable on mobile devices, we hope to define a framework to support users in generating content in a user-friendly way.

Editorial: A New Editor in Chief and the State of the Journal

Time for change ... Alas, my term of office from January 2006 to December 2009 as the Editor in Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering has ended. It has been a great honor to serve and I have very much enjoyed it. It provided me with an interesting overview of the field and an opportunity to make contact with the many researchers and practitioners who contribute to TSE. Despite the onerous responsibility—and it is hard work—I shall miss it. It is my great pleasure to introduce the new Editor in Chief, Professor Bashar Nuseibeh, who takes over from 1 January 2010. Bashar is a professor in computing at the Open University in the United Kingdom and Chief Scientist at Lero—the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre. He is a gifted researcher with an extensive portfolio of major research contributions. Bashar is a very active member of the software engineering community and a loyal supporter of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, having served as an associate editor on the Editorial Board for the last four years. The journal is in excellent hands, and I am delighted that Bashar agreed to undertake this responsibility. State of the journal During my term of office, I have endeavored to attract more submissions, to improve the quality of the published papers, to widen their relevance and appeal, and to strengthen the archival nature of the journal. I am pleased to report that the journal is in a very healthy state, and the excellent reputation of TSE has continued to strengthen, in terms of both submissions and citations/impact. There has been a steady increase in submissions, starting from 302 papers in 2006, 356 in 2007, 412 in 2008, and finally 418 in 2009. This annual increase in submissions reflects an encouraging interest by authors in the selection of TSE as their journal of choice for publication. As a complement to the submissions figures, those for impact and citations reflect the growing reputation of TSE among readers as a good source of relevant results. Thomson reports that citations have risen dramatically from 3,165 in 2005, 3,203 in 2006, and 3,672 in 2007 to the latest figure of 5,449 for 2008. Impact factor is a measure of the frequency with which the “average article” in a journal has been cited in a particular year. The results for TSE impact have similarly risen from 1.967 in 2005, 2.132 in 2006, and 2.105 in 2007 to the latest figure of 3.569 for 2008. Thanks to the hard work and expertise of our Associate Editors and reviewers, the reviewing process remains efficient yet rigorous. The current acceptance rate for the journal is around 12 percent. The average time from submission to first decision is around three and half months, from submission to final decision is about seven and half months, from acceptance to electronic publication (Rapid Posting) just over a month, and from submission to paper publication is around 14 months. For a particular paper, the time from submission to a decision varies because of many factors, including the length of the manuscript, the workload of the editors involved, and the workloads of the various reviewers. Editorial Board On behalf of the software engineering community, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all of the Associate Editors who served as members of the Board during my term of office. The Editorial Board is the foundation upon which TSE is built. Board membership is both an honor and a duty. Despite many other commitments, these colleagues of international repute voluntarily give of their time and effort, taking responsibility for selecting reviewers, overseeing the reviewing process, and making the final recommendations regarding acceptability. They are instrumental in maintaining the reputation of the IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering as a first-class journal. I am very grateful for their unstinting support and expert advice; it has been a privilege to work with them. Like me, a number of Associate Editors reached the end of their terms of office in December 2009: my sincere thanks to Jo Atlee, Shing-Chi Cheung, Rance Cleaveland, Prem Devanbu, Susanna Donatelli, Matt Dwyer, Wolfgang Emmerich, Mark Harman, Audris Mockus, Hausi Muller, Bashar Nuseibeh, Wilhelm Schaefer, Neeraj Suri, Dick Taylor, Sebastian Uchitel, and AlexWolf.

Disclosing the Ethnographic Self

Disclosing the Ethnographic Self

Trust factors influencing virtual community members: A study of transaction communities

Virtual community is a valuable business medium for web vendors in terms of disseminating information and retaining customers. This research investigates the underlying driving forces that cultivate both the trust and returning behavior of virtual community members. In particular, this research examines the influence of shared values, satisfaction with previous interactions, and website privacy policies on the trust of 381 active virtual community members. The findings suggest that the shared values of virtual community members have a positive impact on both trust and relationship commitment. Second, satisfaction with previous interactions not only increases the level of trust in virtual community members, but also enhances relationship commitment and member stickiness. Third, website privacy policies enhance the level of trust significantly. Finally, trust shows a positive and significant effect on both the stickiness and the commitment of virtual community members.

Communal Service Delivery

Firm-hosted virtual peer-to-peer problem solving (P3) communities offer a low-cost, credible, and effective means of delivering education and ongoing assistance services to customers of complex, frequently evolving products. Building upon the social constructivist view on learning and drawing from literature on the firm-customer relationship in services marketing, we distinguish between functional and social benefits received by P3 community participants and study the central role of learning in influencing these benefit perceptions. The proposed model is tested on data gathered from 2,299 active members of a P3 community hosted by a global online auction firm, and the framework’s generalizability is demonstrated using a sample of 204 members of a global business-to-business (B2B) software firm’s P3 community. Based on the results, specific recommendations are provided to marketers interested in implementing service support programs via customer communities, and future research opportunities are explored.

Multivariable Value Densification Modeling Using GIS

AbstractA team of researchers comprised of architects, urbanists, planners and civil engineers from Lawrence Technological University and the University of Detroit Mercy developed a value densification tool used primarily to evaluate density of resources and physical features within Southwest Detroit, Michigan. This community is a diverse and vibrant neighborhood that is currently transforming socially, physically and economically. This project – the Value Densification Community Mapping Project (VDCmp) – was developed to explore how aspects of the post‐industrial city can be understood, communicated and leveraged in service of equity and sustainability and to use technology to reveal data about the city in order to convince community, political and economic leadership to embrace a broader interpretation of value. Building on an asset‐based, community empowerment planning model, the research team is collaborating to create a unique “free‐ware” GIS incorporating and merging components of Google Earth, Sketch Up and ERSI ArcGIS to model physical and social density and value in three dimensions. The resultant digital interface empowers the community through asset identification and creation of an accessible tool to assist in envisioning its environmental, social and economic future. The VDCmp digital interface is unique in that it models “social exchanges” in three dimensions and allows the user to overlay social and infrastructure layers with physical density. With funding from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the VDCmp and research team is engaging nonprofit groups in Southwest Detroit to determine how they can best utilize data and mapping in planning, design, development and evaluative tools. The focus of this work has been on creating a comprehensive tool that can support community design and development policy decisions. Community members have become active partners in evolving the digital interface as a tool for strategic planning at the agency/organization, coalition, city and regional levels. The active community members have either provided to the research team the self‐generated data found to be significant to them (the stakeholders) or requested certain publicly available data sets to be incorporated in the interface. Significant geoprocessing using ArcGIS was used on these data sets (of various formats) in order to pre‐process and evaluate the data for accuracy and quality assurance. These data were then exported to keyhole markup language (kml) or keyhole markup zip (kmz) files and the visualization of these data were developed in Google Earth, which included significant polygon and polyline extrusion (used to display multivariable attributes for single features). Sketch Up models were also used to display density of historic sites, green infrastructure, parking and other features. The team will also incorporate three dimensional network diagrams in GIS to display the interactions and relationships that residential households have with religious, cultural and commercial assets, among others. These techniques have allowed the community groups to visually identify over‐ or under‐served resources, conflicting planning objectives, environmental health impacts, or areas of social inequality, with an end‐goal of developing a dynamic, unified development and preservation strategy for the community. The VDCmp has evolved from a pilot project to an ever expanding collaborative initiative featuring multiple institutions, clients, stakeholders and geographies. The VDCmp has a tripartite nature. It is at once a Research Initiative; a Tool; and a Community Process, each requiring very different approaches to collaboration, deliverables and dissemination. Now developed, this framework may be replicated in other Detroit neighborhoods or across the region or country to further advance the concepts of Value Densification mapping.

Response-to-Intervention: SLPs as Linchpins in Secondary Schools

Response-to-Intervention: SLPs as Linchpins in Secondary Schools

Virtual communities: A marketing perspective

Increasingly, consumers interact through the Internet to share their knowledge, experiences, and opinions. Consequently, ‘word-of-mouse’ has become a significant market force that influences consumer decision-making. On the basis of extensive quantitative and qualitative research, the authors sketch how consumers make use of virtual communities as social and information networks, and how this affects their decision-making processes. We present three studies that address (i) determinants and effects of virtual community influence on the consumer decision process; (ii) virtual community participation patterns; and (iii) discussion practices of the most active community members. Key implications for managers, marketers, and market researchers are discussed.

An Efficient RNA Extraction Method for Estimating Gut Microbial Diversity by Polymerase Chain Reaction

An extraction method was developed to recover high-quality RNA from rumen digesta and mouse feces for phylogenetic analysis of metabolically active members of the gut microbial community. Four extraction methods were tested on different amounts of the same samples and compared for efficiency of recovery and purity of RNA. Trizol extraction after bead beating produced a higher quantity and quality of RNA than a similar method using phenol/chloroform. Dissociation solution produced a 1.5- to 2-fold increase in RNA recovery compared with phosphate-buffered saline during the dissociation of microorganisms from rumen digesta or fecal particles. The identity of metabolically active bacteria in the samples was analyzed by sequencing 87 amplicons produced using bacteria-specific 16S rDNA primers, with cDNA synthesized from the extracted RNA as the template. Amplicons representing the major phyla encountered in the rumen (Firmicutes, 43.7%; Proteobacteria, 28.7%; Bacteroidetes, 25.3%; Spirochea, 1.1%, and Synergistes, 1.1%) were recovered, showing that development of the RNA extraction method enables RNA-based analysis of metabolically active bacterial groups from the rumen and other environments. Interestingly, in rumen samples, about 30% of the sequenced random 16S rRNA amplicons were related to the Proteobacteria, providing the first evidence that this group may have greater importance in rumen metabolism than previously attributed by DNA-based analysis.

Communal Service Delivery: How Customers Benefit from Participation in Firm-Hosted Virtual P3 Communities

Firm-hosted virtual peer-to-peer problem solving (P3) communities offer a low-cost, credible, and effective means of delivering education and ongoing assistance services to customers of complex, frequently evolving products. Building upon the social constructivist view on learning and drawing from literature on the firm-customer relationship in services marketing, we distinguish between functional and social benefits received by P3 community participants and study the central role of learning in influencing these benefit perceptions. The proposed model is tested on data gathered from 2,299 active members of a P3 community hosted by a global online auction firm, and the framework’s generalizability is demonstrated using a sample of 204 members of a global B2B software firm’s P3 community. Based on the results, specific recommendations are provided to marketers interested in implementing service support programs via customer communities, and future research opportunities are explored.

Memorial Minute for Isaac Jacob Meyers

The Editors, Associate Editors, and Editorial Board of the American Jour nal of Philology and the Journals Division of the Johns Hopkins University Press were very saddened to learn of the tragic death of Isaac Meyers in a traffic accident in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on March 17, 2008. Isaac was hired in 2006 to help proofread the Latin and Greek for AIP on the recommendation of Kathleen Coleman, one of teachers at Harvard. He was singled out as being intelligent, reliable, a good philolo gist, and careful with the many details that bedevil the editors of journals. Isaac, from New York City, majored in Classics (Latin) as an undergradu ate at Yale, and then completed a Masters degree in Jewish Studies at St. Peter's College, Oxford, before entering the graduate program in Classical Philology at Harvard in Fall 2004. He was an outstanding student. He was particularly interested in issues of translation in Antiquity, and he was in the process of choosing a topic for dissertation. Isaac more than exceeded our expectations at AJP. He not only corrected the errors that inevitably creep into even the most carefully prepared manuscript, but he also cast eagle eye over the many other languages in the articles and noted infelicities of punctuation and style. His strictures, always written with a firm hand, served to make even the most sure-footed author blanch. He was remembered, as an article about him in the Harvard Crimson said, for his meticulous attention to detail and love of learning (Ahmed Mabruk, 3/18/2008). Isaac Meyers was someone who seemed older and wiser than years. He was, according to the Crimson, an active member of the Jewish community who is remembered by friends and family for kindness and sense of humor. His was a life snuffed out far too soon. We join with family, friends and colleagues in mourning passing. He will be greatly missed. Barbara K. Gold Outgoing Editor, American Journal of Philology

History of the Hungarian National Library

The library structure which still operates in Hungary today took shape in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The secular organizations of society at first organized their own collections together with the church libraries. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the rise of the urban bourgeoisie led to the establishment of numerous institutions not tied to the churches (clubs, educational societies, reading circles, and so on). The libraries of aristocrats (for example the library of Count József Teleki and his wife Kata Bethlen, the Festetics family, and the Ráday family) and scholars were the most important for the development of book collecting in Hungary. The idea of establishing the Hungarian national library emerged together with the intention to set up the national scholarly society, an academy of sciences. The collection is based on the library of Count Ferenc Széchényi donated for the establishment of a national library. It was first called Széchényi National Library, and operated within the frame of the National Museum up to 1949. Under the direction of the far-sighted minister of culture József Eötvös the library was made an important part of cultural policy, and its function expanded. Besides acquiring and preserving Hungarian-related documents great emphasis was placed on their scholarly processing and on research work. The National Széchényi Library became an independent institution in 1949 and occupied its present place in the Buda Castle Palace in 1985. The national library is an active member of the international library community, making great efforts to ensure its presence as an institution in international forums dealing with research on the history of books and libraries.

A Dialectic of Social Justice: Finding Synergy between Life and Work through Reflection and Dialogue

Educational administration scholars have long argued that reflective practice and meaningful critical dialogue are important aspects of thoughtful leadership. This article explores the efficacy and utility of these two activities in relation to learning about and enacting leadership for social justice. The article centers on the reflective narratives of two leadership-for-social-justice scholars. It considers how their discrete experiences and ongoing dialogue contributed to their development, and it reveals the complexities and deficiencies that they continue to reconcile. The article concludes with a discussion of the value of engaging in these activities. It is written with established and emerging scholars in mind, who are seeking to understand what social justice means and who are striving to situate themselves as active members of a scholarly community.

‘Recent Advances in Thermal Energy Storage Systems and Applications’ Dedicated to Professor Erich Hahne who turns 75!

For those of us who know Prof. Erich Hahne and his legendary vitality it may come as a surprise that he has celebrated his 75th birthday on 2nd February 2007. Over the years, he has made outstanding contributions to the field of solar thermal engineering and to heat transfer in general. Hence, this must be another proof that careful enjoyment of sunshine and continuous dedication to efficient heat transfer reduces the adverse effects of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in this case in the form of ageing. Erich Wilhelm Perikles Hahne was born on 2nd February 1932, in Athens/Greece. He subsequently grew up and studied in Munich/Germany, where he received his Diplom-Ingenieur degree in mechanical engineering from the Technical University of Munich in 1958. Subsequently, he worked for almost 15 years in the well-known Thermodynamics Institute initially headed by Prof. E. Schmidt and then by Prof. Grigull. In 1964, he was awarded the degree of Dr-Ing. Following a one-year NASA-funded research fellowship at CalTech in Pasadena, U.S.A., in 1973 Dr Hahne was appointed full professor and director of the Institute for Thermodynamics and Thermal Engineering (ITW) in the University of Stuttgart. Professor Hahne's research activities are mainly in the areas of solar thermal energy utilization, heat storage, phase change heat transfer and thermophysical properties. His pioneering work on central solar heating plants with seasonal storage, solar collectors and combi-systems and the foundation of the ITW Research & Testing Centre for Solar Systems have firmly established him on the forefront of solar research. To-date, he has authored and co-authored more than 350 journal and conference papers. Being a dedicated teacher he has taught a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses such as: technical thermodynamics, heat and mass transfer, heat exchanger design, optimized energy conversion and solar energy technology. His textbook ‘Technische Thermodynamik’ is now in its 3rd edition. Erich Hahne is well-known as a very active member of the international research community. Being one of the founding members of the International Centre for Heat and Mass Transfer (since 1968 as German representative, later as a member of the Scientific Council, and between 1978 and 1981 as chairman of the Executive Committee), he was the recipient of the 20th Anniversary ICHMT Award in 1988. Presently, he is the German delegate in the Assembly for the International Heat Transfer Conferences which he has served in many responsible positions. Professor Hahne is an editor or co-editor of important international journals, including the Journal of Solar Energy (since 1987) and the International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer (since 1966). Accepting and enjoying the internationality of his profession, Professor Hahne has hosted many visiting scientists from all over the world. As the University of Stuttgart liaison officer for Chinese universities, he visited this country several times and became an Honorary Professor at the Shanghai Institute of Mechanical Engineering in 1983. In his private life, Erich Hahne is a devoted husband, father and grandfather, and an accomplished sportsman (tennis and skiing). He also enjoys the theatre, dancing, and the pleasure and leisure of cruise ships. In April 2000, Prof. Hahne retired from his chair in the University of Stuttgart. However, not to anybody's surprise, his is not a restful retirement. He has maintained his office in the Institute for Thermodynamics and Thermal Engineering where he continues with many of his activities, including the supervision of doctoral students, the editorship of journals and the organization of conferences such as the recent International Heat Transfer Conferences. This special issue on ‘Recent Advances in Thermal Energy Storage Systems and Applications’ contains several papers from various key people in the area. It is my privilege to dedicate this special issue to Prof. Erich Hahne to acknowledge his accomplishments and significant contributions to the state-of-the-art of thermal energy storage systems and applications, as described in the following Technical Note. On behalf of his many students, colleagues and friends from all around the world, I wish him a very happy birthday and many more productive years.