About the Editors C. Gary Hughes, Jon D. Bender, and Gary A. Ruggles are affiliated with Synergistic Technologies, Inc. (STI), a company that creates, publishes, and distributes intellectual resource directories and electronic databases profiling key high-technology areas, including: microelectronics, biotechnology, environmental and waste management, and advanced engineered materials. The publications and databases from STI serve a wide range of communities, ... Read morefrom industry and government to academia. STI has served a key role in bringing a variety of commercially ready technologies to the market by assisting both faculty and/or industry in finding a potential user and/or developer through the brokering of the technology in question. Synergistic Technologies, Inc. is pleased to have assisted in creating this unique directory resource. Because it has been compiled by scientists to assist funding organizations and agencies in their strategic placement of research funds, the data herein is concise as well as specific to the industry. Too often, the "general information gatherers" assemble information that has little to do with key issues facing the technologist. In breaking this paradigm, STI has partnered with leading industry-related associations, consortia, and institutions to assure that its data are accurate, usable, and relevant. Show Less