Future requirements for architecture and

The main themes for development of a sound IT architecture include (1) usability for intuitive and personalized interfaces as natural as possible to human behavior, (2) accessibility through various communication channels and devices, (3) performance for peak volumes, (4) scalability to future growth, (5) availability for access at any time and at any place as per the business needs, (6) reliability, (7) manageability for business continuity with minimal human intervention, (8) flexibility and adaptability to future business and technology changes, (9) adherence to security policies, (10) compliance to the statutory requirements for protection of privacy, and (11) viability for development and deployment in a reasonable time and at a reasonable cost with minimal risks, among others. 

One cannot fail to be amazed at the pace of development in the computer industry, where the ratio of performance-to-price has increased by an order of magnitude every five years or so. The workstations that are commonplace in many laboratories now offer a real alternative to centrally maintained supercomputers for molecular modelling calculations, especially as a workstation or even a personal computer can be dedicated to a single task, whereas the supercomputer has to be shared with many other users. Nevertheless, in the immediate future there will always be some calculations that require the power that only a supercomputer can offer. The speed of any computer system is ultimately constrained by the speed at which electrical signals can be transmitted. This means that there will come a time when no further enhancements can be made using machines with traditional single-processor serial architectures, and parallel computers will play an ever more important role. 

The overall goal of this book is to provide a general overview of microfluidic fuel cell and battery technology in support of future research, product development, and commerciahzation activities. The focus is on emerging microfluidic fuel cell and battery devices that utilize membraneless electrochemical flow cell architectures to produce electrical power. The scope is limited to membraneless cells, as the elimination of the membrane provides compatibility with planar microfabrication and micromachining methods that are well suited for production of low-cost miniaturized power sources. However, membraneless cells require innovative microfluidic engineering solutions, which will be addressed in this work. 

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