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We present CaosDB, a Research Data Management System (RDMS) designed to ensure seamless integration of inhomogeneous data sources and repositories of legacy data in a FAIR way. Its primary purpose is the management of data from biomedical sciences, both from simulations and experiments during the complete research data lifecycle. An RDMS for this domain faces particular challenges: research data arise in huge amounts, from a wide variety of sources, and traverse a highly branched path of further processing. To be accepted by its users, an RDMS must be built around workflows of the scientists and practices and thus support changes in workflow and data structure. Nevertheless, it should encourage and support the development and observation of standards and furthermore facilitate the automation of data acquisition and processing with specialized software. The storage data model of an RDMS must reflect these complexities with appropriate semantics and ontologies while offering simple methods for finding, retrieving, and understanding relevant data. We show how CaosDB responds to these challenges and give an overview of its data model, the CaosDB Server and its easy-to-learn CaosDB Query Language. We briefly discuss the status of the implementation, how we currently use CaosDB, and how we plan to use and extend it.

In modern laboratories, software can drive the full experimental process from data acquisition to storage, processing, and analysis. The automation of laboratory data acquisition is an important consideration for every laboratory. When implementing a laboratory automation scheme, important parameters include its reliability, time to implement, adaptability, and compatibility with software used at other stages of experimentation. In this article, we present an open-source, flexible, and extensible Python package for Laboratory Automation, Control, and Experimentation (PLACE). The package uses modular organization and clear design principles; therefore, it can be easily customized or expanded to meet the needs of diverse laboratories. We discuss the organization of PLACE, data-handling considerations, and then present an example using PLACE for laser-ultrasound experiments. Finally, we demonstrate the seamless transition to post-processing and analysis with Python through the development of an analysis module for data produced by PLACE automation.

Flat 2D screens cannot display complex 3D structures without the usage of different slices of the 3D model. Volumetric displays like the "FELIX 3D-Displays" can solve the problem. They provide space-filling images and are characterized by "multi-viewer" and "all-round view" capabilities without requiring cumbersome goggles. In the past many scientists tried to develop similar 3D displays. Our paper includes an overview from 1912 up to today. During several years of investigations on swept volume displays within the "FELIX 3D-Projekt" we learned about some significant disadvantages of rotating screens, for example hidden zones. For this reason the FELIX-Team started investigations also in the area of static volume displays. Within three years of research on our 3D static volume display at a normal high school in Germany we were able to achieve considerable results despite minor funding resources within this non-commercial group. Core element of our setup is the display volume which consists of a cubic transparent material (crystal, glass, or polymers doped with special ions, mainly from the rare earth group or other fluorescent materials). We focused our investigations on one frequency, two step upconversion (OFTS-UC) and two frequency, two step upconversion (TFTSUC) with IR-Lasers as excitation source. Our main interest was both to find an appropriate material and an appropriate doping for the display volume. Early experiments were carried out with CaF2 and YLiF4 crystals doped with 0.5 mol% Er3+-ions which were excited in order to create a volumetric pixel (voxel). In addition to that the crystals are limited to a very small size which is the reason why we later investigated on heavy metal fluoride glasses which are easier to produce in large sizes. Currently we are using a ZBLAN glass belonging to the mentioned group and making it possible to increase both the display volume and the brightness of the images significantly. Although, our display is currently monochrome, it is possible to create an RGB-display. For the same reasons we started tests with polymers. We were able to achieve meaningful results which point out a new direction in the investigation on polymers. For the reasons described above, our new solid state device is one of modular design. The simplicity to change all components makes it possible to do experiments with different display volumes and lasers for every specific purpose of the display in a very effective way. The images can be drawn inside the display volume by acousto-optic, galvanometric or polygon mirror deflection units. We control our galvanometric deflection unit with a personal computer and a selfwritten software which makes it easier to handle the setup and makes interactivity possible. This setup makes it a powerful and flexible tool to keep track with the rapid technological progress of today and helped us to experience the disadvantages and the advantages of most of the possible deflection units in practice. These experiences are a main element in our paper and lead to some conclusions which will be of big importance in future display developments. Potential applications include imaging and computer aided design as well as scientific data visualization.