In the time since the second edition of The ACS Style Guide was published, the rapid growth of electronic communication has dramatically changed the scientific, technical, and medical (STM) publication world. This dynamic mode of dissemination is enabling scientists, engineers, and medicalpractitioners all over the world to obtain and transmit information quickly and easily. An essential constant in this changing environment is the requirement that information remain accurate, clear, unambiguous, and ethically sound.This extensive revision of The ACS Style Guide thoroughly examines electronic tools now available to assist STM writers in preparing manuscripts and communicating with publishers. Valuable updates include discussions of markup languages, citation of electronic sources, online submission ofmanuscripts, and preparation of figures, tables, and structures. In keeping current with the changing environment, this edition also contains references to many resources on the internet.With this wealth of new information, The ACS Style Guide's Third Edition continues its long tradition of providing invaluable insight on ethics in scientific communication, the editorial process, copyright, conventions in chemistry, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and writing style for any STMauthor, reviewer, or editor. The Third Edition is the definitive source for all information needed to write, review, submit, and edit scholarly and scientific manuscripts.

The Sixth International Conference on Miniaturized Chemical and Biochemical Analysis Systems, known as IlTAS2002, will be fully dedicated to the latest scientific and technological developments in the field of miniaturized devices and systems for realizing not only chemical and biochemical analysis but also synthesis. The first IlTAS meeting was held in Enschede in 1994 with approximately 160 participants, bringing together the scientists with background in analytical and biochemistry with those with Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) in one workshop. We are grateful to Piet Bergveld and Albert van den Berg of MESA Research Institute of the University of Twente for their great efforts to arrange this exciting first meeting. The policy of the meeting was succeeded by late Prof. Dr. Michael Widmer in the second meeting, IlTAS'96 held in Basel with 275 participants. The first two meetings were held as informal workshops. From the third workshop, IlTAS'98 (420 participants) held in Banff, the workshop had become a worldwide conference. Participants continued to increase in IlTAS2000 (about 500 participants) held in Enschede and IlTAS2001 (about 700 participants) held in Monterey. The number of submitted papers also dramatically increased in this period from 130 in 1998, 230 in 2000 to nearly 400 in 2001. From 2001, IlTAS became an annual symposium. The steering committee meeting held in Monterey, confirmed the policy of former IlTAS that quality rather than quantity would be the key-point and that the parallel-session format throughout the 3.