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Designing for resilience in the Pearl River Delta

The Pearl River Delta is becoming increasingly densely populated, but is extremely sensitive to flooding. This is a recipe for trouble. Dutch and American strategies could help more resilient design schemes to be achieved, as Dai Wei observes in his doctoral research.

DEWIS Virtual Coffee (07)

DEWIS Virtual Coffee (07) 15 September 2022 16:00 till 17:00 | Add to my calendar Come and join us Thursday 15th of September from 16.00-17.00 hrs in an online inspiring conversation to discuss and reflect together about your role as woman in the academic environment. The DEWIS women’s network of scientists has the goal of inspiring, creating awareness and empowering the women of TU Delft to grow and flourish in their academic careers. In a still male-dominant environment we aim to create awareness regarding gender inequality and imbalances; throughout monthly gatherings we want to empower your voices and discuss ideas on how together we can create an inclusive and safe environment for all of us. What will we talk about? In this upcoming event we have invited Margot Gerritsen, professor emerita at Stanford University and co-founder and executive director of the Women in Data Science (WiDS) Worldwide, faculty director of WiDS@Stanford, and co-host of the WiDS podcast. WiDS elevates women in data science all over the world. We will focus on personal branding and the importance of creating relationships and networks to advance in your career. During this conversation we would like to give you space to share your own experiences and discuss the dilemmas women are currently facing in academia. Join the ZOOM Meeting https://tudelft.zoom.us/j/94235776332

LED: sustainable, but above all maintenance-friendly

LED: sustainable, but above all maintenance-friendly In ten years' time all outside lighting will be LED LED uses less energy, the bulbs last for longer and even the fittings have a longer lifespan. Within a decade, all external lighting on campus will be LED. This is expected to make a big difference in terms of maintenance. The Kluyverpark in the southern part of the campus is the first location in which LED lighting is being used, in the lamp posts and ground spotlights. That started in 2015. The project was immediately used as a pilot to see which fittings are suitable. In the process attention was also paid to the electrotechnical aspects, in other words the electricity cables, voltages and the network load. The latter, in particular, caused a number of teething problems. For example, LED lighting uses more power when switched on and consequently causes a higher peak load on the power network, thereby activating the security mechanism in the power supply cabinets. The solution was to reduce the number of LED light fittings and lower the inrush current in the power supply cabinet. Solving the puzzle provided input for the further technical development required for the introduction of LED lighting across the rest of the campus. After the pilot had been completed a schedule of requirements was drawn up, as well as a technical manual showing how the LED lights had to be installed, up to the power cable. This paved the way for the broad use of LED lighting on the campus and it is now being used in lampposts at an increasing number of locations. Advantages of LED Conventional lights have to be replaced after two to five years. In theory, a LED light source should last as long as the fitting, around 20 to 25 years. A lamppost lasts for around 40 to 50 years. The expectation is that the lamp and the light fitting will only have to be replaced once during the lamppost's lifespan. A further benefit of LED lighting is the possibility of controlling it remotely using software, for example to monitor electricity consumption, to make it easy to increase or decrease brightness, or to change the colour of the lighting. Consequently LED not only saves energy, but also offers a social and sustainable solution in the form of a safer environment. Normally the campus is illuminated up to 5 lux but with LED there is enough capacity for 10 lux. As a result the light level can be adjusted as needed, for example in the case of events attended by a large number of visitors. In late 2018 dynamic dimming (dimming based on need) was introduced for the public lighting. LED ambition TU Delft's ambition is to replace all conventional lighting with LED lighting in the coming ten years. During any major reconstruction projects on campus everything will be converted. One example is the redevelopment of the public space in the Stevin Area behind the CEG faculty, where all the lampposts were converted to LED lighting. The expectation is that 75% of the conventional lighting can be replaced in three to four years. The rest will be replaced in the last six to seven years. LED CO2 reduction Replacing conventional lighting with LED will save 8,500 kg of CO2 on an annual basis. Over a decade, that amounts to a planned CO2 reduction of 85,000 kg. Once everything is converted to LED, the result is expected to be a 41% reduction in energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

Moral luck in science and innovation: Martin Sand to start as Postdoc at VTI

This August, Martin Sand will start as a postdoctoral researcher at the department of Values, Technology and Innovation. His application for the LEaDing Fellows Postdocs Programme was recently approved.

Supply chain partnerships: stay focused on the future

Supply chain partnerships is a recipe for better and cheaper construction, but it demands a healthy dose of mutual trust. And that is where things often go wrong, concludes Jelle Koolwijk in his PhD research. When personal relations become strained, his advice is to stay focused on the long-term interests.

Until the 18th century, apartments weren’t flats

Apartment living is now commonplace, but just a few centuries ago it was the characteristic feature of European court architecture. As PhD researcher Robert Gorny has studied, the architecture of apartments revealed something about the resident's status. In his thesis, he has written a genealogy of the apartment.

Urban leftover spaces benefit from an open-ended design

Urban leftover spaces, without a clear sign of function and value can bring great benefits for the city, complementing to formal urban spaces. As “urban interstices”, their unique potential lies in an indeterminacy that opens to spontaneous social-ecological processes, observes Sitong Luo in her doctoral research. Residents have little control over planned urban public spaces, while that is very different in residual areas. This indeterminacy also lets us reconsider the role of design.

Every hour a picture of the beach

Six days of storms in a row in the Netherlands, something that never happened before until last February. The number of storms is increasing and wind gusts are getting stronger. In combination with the rising sea level, this calls for innovative ways to protect our country from flooding.

Delft | Day 3

Delft | Day 3 On Wednesday 20th of July, the students had the chance to get to know the city of Rotterdam. The tour started from the Central Station and aimed to introduce them to the iconic architecture of the city, its building innovations and sustainability aspects. The portuguese team experienced the dutch culture in the maximum and they mastered their skills of cycling under the rain! Photos by: Nadia Antoniadis, Leonardo Ramires, Andy van den Dobbelsteen & Jorge Marum Rotterdam Centraal Markthal Kijk-Kubus Our Domain - Roof Top Depot Dakpark - Green Roof Van Nelle Fabriek Cycling Experience

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What trees teach us about sustainable production of materials

Trees are excellent teachers when it comes to making materials for load-bearing structures with as little resources and energy as possible. One of their secrets? When a tree grows, the direction of the wood grain adapts itself to fit the load that part of the tree is going to bear.

Exhale Sluitingsweek: A week of free events to say goodbye to Exhale and cosy up for Winter

De allerlaatste Exhale Week vindt plaats van 25 november tot 1 december en staat volledig in het teken van afscheid nemen van Exhale en het omarmen van de winter.

TIL student Laura Drechsel wins Q-Park thesis award

TIL student Laura Drechsel wins the 2024 Q-Park Student Award with her thesis called: Stories of Aging and Access - Exploring capabilities and challenges of accessibility for urban elderly through microstories. Her award-winning thesis can be found here .

TU Delft jointly wins XPRIZE Rainforest drone competition in Brazil

TU Delft jointly wins in the XPRIZE Rainforest competition in the Amazon, Brazil Imagine using rapid and autonomous robot technology for research into the green and humid lungs of our planet; our global rainforests. Drones that autonomously deploy eDNA samplers and canopy rafts uncover the rich biodiversity of these complex ecosystems while revealing the effects of human activity on nature and climate change. On November 15, 2024, after five years of intensive research and competition, the ETHBiodivX team, which included TU Delft Aerospace researchers Salua Hamaza and Georg Strunck, achieved an outstanding milestone: winning the XPRIZE Rainforest Bonus Prize for outstanding effort in co-developing inclusive technology for nature conservation. The goal: create automated technology and methods to gain near real-time insights about biodiversity – providing necessary data that can inform conservation action and policy, support sustainable bioeconomies, and empower Indigenous Peoples and local communities who are the primary protectors and knowledge holders of the planet’s tropical rainforests. The ETHBiodivX team, made of experts in Robotics, eDNA, and Data Insights, is tackling the massive challenge of automating and streamlining the way we monitor ecosystems. Leading the Robotics division, a collaboration between TU Delft’s Prof. Salua Hamaza, ETH Zurich’s Prof. Stefano Mintchev and Aarhus University’s Profs. Claus Melvad and Toke Thomas Høye, is developing cutting-edge robotic solutions to gather ecology and biology data autonomously. “We faced the immense challenge of deploying robots in the wild -- and not just any outdoor environment but one of the most demanding and uncharted: the wet rainforests. This required extraordinary efforts to ensure robustness and reliability, pushing the boundaries of what the hardware could achieve for autonomous data collection of images, sounds, and eDNA, in the Amazon” says prof. Hamaza. “Ultimately, this technology will be available to Indigenous communities as a tool to better understand the forest's ongoing changes in biodiversity, which provide essential resources as food and shelter to the locals.” . . . .

Moving the Closet

You simply cannot miss it, it is big and magenta: the Pink Closet . On 12 November 2024 the Pink Closet will head to the Main Hall of the TU Delft Library for the first time! The Pink Closet will take its place at the Nook, where it will feature as part of the Studium Generale programme on loneliness. More information on events that coincide with and incorporate the Pink Closet at TU Delft Library will soon be available on the website of Studium Generale .

Green ammonia remains a challenge, but researchers make significant progress

The production of ammonia, essential for fertiliser production, is responsible for almost 1.5% of global carbon emissions. This needs to be greener, which is why researchers have been looking for sustainable alternatives for years.

"Measuring brain activity through the skull with ultrasound opens new doors"

PhD Candidate Rick Waasdorp is looking for ways to correct the distortion caused by the skull when using Ultrasound technology. ‘’My goal is to develop an adaptive method for skull corrections that automatically measures the skull of new patients.’’

NWO funding for flexible power demand in electrically driven industry

NWO is funding two projects to explore ways to make the power demand of industry more flexible, allowing it to better align with future energy supplies. One of these projects, “DEFLAME,” is led by Machteld van den Broek from TU Delft.

Students Amos Yusuf, Mick Dam & Bas Brouwer winners of Mekel Prize 2024

Master students Amos Yusuf, from the ME faculty (Mick Dam, from the EEMCS faculty and graduate Bas Brouwer have won the Mekel Prize 2024 for the best extra scientific activity at TU Delft: the development of an initiative that brings master students into the classroom teaching sciences to the younger generations. The prize was ceremonially awarded by prof Tim van den Hagen on 13 November after the Van Hasselt Lecture at the Prinsenhof, Delft. They received a statue of Professor Jan Mekel and 1.500,- to spend on their project. Insights into climate change are being openly doubted. Funding for important educational efforts and research are being withdrawn. Short clips – so called “reels” – on Youtube and TikTok threaten to simplify complex political and social problems. AI fakes befuddle what is true and what is not. The voices of science that contribute to those discussion with modesty, careful argument and scepticism, are drowned in noise. This poses a threat for universities like TU Delft, who strive to increase student numbers, who benefit from diverse student populations and aim to pass on their knowledge and scientific virtues to the next generation. It is, therefore, alarming that student enrolments to Bachelor and Master Programs at TU Delft have declined in the past year. Students in front of the class The project is aimed to make the sciences more appealing to the next generation. They have identified the problem that students tend miss out on the opportunity of entering a higher education trajectory in the Beta sciences – because they have a wrong picture of such education. In their mind, they depict it as boring and dry. In his pilot lecture at the Stanislas VMBO in Delft, Amos Yusuf has successfully challenged this image. He shared his enthusiasm for the field of robotics and presented himself as a positive role model to the pupils. And in return the excitement of the high school students is palpable in the videos and pictures from the day. The spark of science fills their eyes. Bas Brouwer Mick Dam are the founders of NUVO – the platform that facilitates the engagement of Master Students in high school education in Delft Their efforts offer TU Delft Master Students a valuable learning moment: By sharing insights from their fields with pupils at high school in an educational setting, our students can find identify their own misunderstandings of their subject, learn to speak in front of non-scientific audiences and peak into education as a work field they themselves might not have considered. An extraordinary commitment According to the Mekel jury, the project scored well on all the criteria (risk mitigation, inclusiveness, transparency and societal relevance). However, it was the extraordinary commitment of Amos who was fully immersed during his Master Project and the efforts of Brouwer and Dam that brought together teaching and research which is integral to academic culture that made the project stand out. About the Mekel Prize The Mekel Prize will be awarded to the most socially responsible research project or extra-scientific activity (e.g. founding of an NGO or organization, an initiative or realization of an event or other impactful project) by an employee or group of employees of TU Delft – projects that showcase in an outstanding fashion that they have been committed from the beginning to relevant moral and societal values and have been aware of and tried to mitigate as much as possible in innovative ways the risks involved in their research. The award recognizes such efforts and wants to encourage the responsible development of science and technology at TU Delft in the future. For furthermore information About the project: https://www.de-nuvo.nl/video-robotica-pilot/ About the Mekel Prize: https://www.tudelft.nl/en/tpm/our-faculty/departments/values-technology-and-innovation/sections/ethics-philosophy-of-technology/mekel-prize

The ENHANCE Diversity Seed Fund

Are you a student at TU Delft or another ENHANCE university with a passion for promoting diversity and inclusion? The ENHANCE Diversity Seed Fund is your chance to turn that passion into action. ENHANCE provides funding to support innovative, student-led projects that address key challenges related to inclusion and diversity within our academic communities. Key Details: Funding Available: Up to 1500 Euros per project in the 1st round! Eligibility: Students from ENHANCE member universities. Staff can also join student-led initiatives. Application Deadline: 8 January 2025. More information: Join the online Information Event on the 26 November 2024 16:00-17:00 CET on Zoom . More information: enhanceuniversity.eu/diversity/diversityseedfund/

New catheter technology promises safer and more efficient treatment of blood vessels

Each year, more than 200 million catheters are used worldwide to treat vascular diseases, including heart disease and artery stenosis. When navigating into blood vessels, friction between the catheter and the vessel wall can cause major complications. With a new innovative catheter technology, Mostafa Atalla and colleagues can change the friction from having grip to completely slippery with the flick of a switch. Their design improves the safety and efficiency of endovascular procedures. The findings have been published in IEEE. Catheter with variable friction The prototype of the new catheter features advanced friction control modules to precisely control the friction between the catheter and the vessel wall. The friction is modulated via ultrasonic vibrations, which overpressure the thin fluid layer. This innovative variable friction technology makes it possible to switch between low friction for smooth navigation through the vessel and high friction for optimal stability during the procedure. In a proof-of-concept, Atalla and his team show that the prototype significantly reduces friction, averaging 60% on rigid surfaces and 11% on soft surfaces. Experiments on animal aortic tissue confirm the promising results of this technology and its potential for medical applications. Fully assembled catheters The researchers tested the prototype during friction experiments on different tissue types. They are also investigating how the technology can be applied to other procedures, such as bowel interventions. More information Publicatie DOI : 10.1109/TMRB.2024.3464672 Toward Variable-Friction Catheters Using Ultrasonic Lubrication | IEEE Journals & Magazine | IEEE Xplore Mostafa Atalla: m.a.a.atalla@tudelft.nl Aimee Sakes: a.sakes@tudelft.nl Michaël Wiertlewski: m.wiertlewski@tudelft.nl Would you like to know more and/or attend a demonstration of the prototype please contact me: Fien Bosman, press officer Health TU Delft: f.j.bosman@tudelft.nl/ 0624953733

Design and imagination as essential tools during the climate crisis

In Nature Partner Journals, ten researchers advocate the use of imagination in tackling the climate crisis. They focus specifically on urbanising river deltas, which are of great social and economic importance and highly vulnerable to climate change. "We scientists should not merely outline doomsday scenarios," says Professor Chris Zevenbergen. "Create a vision for people to believe in and work towards.”

Inaugural address: machine optimisation key to more efficient logistics system

The processing and transport of materials can be made much more efficient, says TU Delft professor Dingena Schott in her inaugural address, ‘Advancing Transport and Processing: from Model to Impact’. She will deliver her address on 15 November. Her research focuses on the interaction between machines and materials, with a special emphasis on granular materials.

FAST University Fund invites all TU Delft students

FAST University Fund invites all TU Delft students to apply for the Ambitious Project Grant or the Event Grant of up to €15.000!

Education demonstration in Utrecht cancelled

Safety cannot be guaranteed In our post of 22 October , we announced that students and staff of TU Delft will have the opportunity to take part in protests against the cabinet's plans to cut higher education. Today it has been announced that the demonstration against the cuts to higher education and science on 14 November in Utrecht has been cancelled because the safety of the demonstrators cannot be guaranteed. Read the reaction of Universiteiten van Nederland to the cancellation of the education demonstration in Utrecht (Dutch only).

Young Investigator Award for Gabrielle Laloy-Borgna

Gabrielle has won the technical Young Investigator Award at Euroson 2024 (congress of the European Federation of Ultrasound Societies in Medicine and Biology) with her presentation entitled: “Ultrasound imaging in bones: tissue characterization, anatomical images
and blood flow measurements”.

Ilaria Orsi joined ImPhys as PhD student

Ilaria started her PhD program in the Renaud group about ultrasound imaging inside bones, contributing to the advancement of such non-invasive technique to characterize tissue composition and to quantify blood flow.

First prize for ZhenZhen Wu at the 2024 NWO Biophysics poster awards

ZhenZhen Wu's poster, “Absolute Voltage Imaging in Developing Zebrafish,” won first prize in the 2024 NWO Biophysics poster awards, competing against over 150 posters. The BioPM Poster Prizes are awarded to the best posters presented at the NWO Biophysics Conference, and the winners are selected by a jury. ZhenZhen Wu z.wu-3@tudelft.nl

Enrolment for new courses open on 13 November

The new courses will start from Monday 18 November. Enrolment for these starts from Wednesday 13 November at 08.00! In the second quarter, a new series of courses awaits you. You can find out more on the website. Maybe you already know that you want to attend your favourite course again or maybe you want to discover and try something new; it's all possible. The enrolment moment for the course depends on the day the course takes place. At 08:00 enrolments for Monday's courses open, at 10:00 for Tuesday's courses, at 12:00 for Wednesday's courses, at 14:00 for Thursday's courses and at 16:00 for courses on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Enrolments go fast Enrolment for our courses always runs fast, so don't wait too long or be surprised by a course where spots are still available! Enrolment closes Enrolment closes on Friday 22 November at 16.00.

Contributions of SPTL at the CVS Congress (21-22 November, Utrecht)

On November 21 and 22, the 51st edition of the CVS congress is held in the Railway museum in Utrecht. Members of the Smart Public Transport Lab contribute to the following sessions: Knus in de bus op dinsdag; zijn alle werkdagen nog wel hetzelfde? Thursday, November 21, 16:00-17:30 Julia Bickel, Maxim Meijers and Niels van Oort [abstract] Stedelijkheidsgraden in transportmodellen: Een analyse over de impact van de ruimtelijke omgeving op reisgedrag Thursday, November 21, 16:00-17:30 Janine Grauss, Justin Hogenberg and Niels van Oort [abstract] Van en naar het treinstation: Voorkeuren van reizigers voor gedeelde elektrische micromobiliteit Friday, November 22, 11:30-13:00 Nejc Geržinič, Mark van Hagen, Dorine Duives and Niels van Oort [ abstract ] Gamen maakt de toekomst – Serious gamen voor een optimale mobiliteitsmix Friday, November 22, 11:30-13:00 Tessa Leferink, Niels van Oort and Sander Lenferink [abstract] De verkenning van de potentie van fietsparkeren bij het ov: een casus in Den Haag Madeline Lai, Dorine Duives, Stefan Talen, Nejc Geržinič and Niels van Oort Friday, November 22, 14:00-15:30 [abstract]