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Guest Lecture by prof. Edouard Bugnion: Dark clouds and transparent clouds

Guest Lecture by prof. Edouard Bugnion: Dark clouds and transparent clouds 24 November 2021 12:42 - By: Webredactie “The digital era of today is defined by the dominance of the mobile+cloud mode of operation. The front-end is limited to the Google-Apple duopoly, which determines what you are allowed to do and see with your phone. The backends are slightly more competitive, with offerings from a handful of content delivery networks and megawatt- sized datacenter operators offering advanced services on a global scale alongside a shrinking set of enterprise-owned private clouds. The front-end and backend are inherently connected and interdependent. As a case study, I will discuss how digital contact tracing leveraged the mobile+cloud model, together with the lessons learned from that experience, and the controlling influence of the mobile+cloud era. I will discuss some of the reasons behind this dominance, and some of the implications and challenges for consumers, enterprises and government organisations that need to manage overall risks by trading off technological risks, operational risks, and legal security. I will conclude with some early research directions aimed at adding transparency-by-design into systems and applications.” About prof. Edouard Bugnion Prof. Edouard Bugnion joined EPFL in 2012, with a teaching and research focus on datacenter systems. His areas of interest include operating systems, datacenter infrastructure (systems and networking), and computer architecture. Before joining EPFL, Edouard spent 18 years in the US, at Stanford (MS ’96, PhD ’12) and co-founded two startups: as VMware’s original CTO and at Nuova Systems (acquired by Cisco), where he became the VP/CTO of Cisco’s Server, Access, and Virtualization Technology Group. Prof. Bugnion is an ACM Fellow and a member of the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences (SATW). He received the ACM Systems Award in 2009 in recognition for VMware, a 2008 ACM SIGOPS Hall of Fame Award for his paper on “Disco”, and Best Paper Awards from SOSP, OSDI and Eurosys. Bugnion serves on the Swiss National Scientific COVID-19 Task Force as the lead expert for digital technologies and is an independent Director of Logitech, of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and of InnoSuisse (the Swiss Innovation Agency). For whom? Everyone interested! Open to the public. When? Thursday December 2nd, 13:45-15:30 Where? TBA. Streamed via BBB in all cases; if the situation allows, also on-campus (hybrid). Updates will be posted in the BBB room: see www.bit.ly/GuestLectureTPM030A Questions? Contact Thijmen van Gend at t.n.vangend@tudelft.nl This guest lecture is part of the 2nd-year MSc course 'TPM030A Introduction to Cloud as Infrastructure: The Effects of the Business of Computing on Practice' and the Project on Programmable Infrastructures.

TU Delft again improves its position in QS Rankings

For the fourth consecutive year, TU Delft has risen in the QS World University Rankings. TU Delft is now ranked 86th (95th in 2013) in the worldwide university rankings. In the subcategory of 'Engineering & Technology' TU Delft ranks 16th (15th in 2013) and takes the 79th position in 'Natural Sciences' (not included in 2013). Compared to the other Dutch universities, TU Delft ranks 4th overall (5th in 2013) and achieves prime position in the subcategories 'Engineering & Technology' and 'Natural Science'. Six indicators The QS World University Rankings cover 850 universities all over the world. The universities are ranked using six indicators: academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, citations per academic staff member, international students and international staff. Reputation and citations TU Delft always performs well in terms of its academic reputation, the University's reputation among employees of alumni, and the number of international staff. The increase this year is the result of an improved score for academic citations, the international origin of staff and the University's reputation among employees of alumni. Its reputation among academics has also shown a slight increase. Compliment President of the Executive Board Dirk Jan van den Berg is delighted with the result: “The rankings demonstrate that academics across the world have a positive view about our academics. Our alumni are also highly appreciated in the labour market, as the employer reputation shows. This is a great compliment to our academics and students, who are the source of these publications and this reputation.” Van den Berg also made the following comment: “Every year there are various rankings that analyse universities in a number of different ways. This means that the result of different rankings can vary and changes in their working methods can cause movements.” Dutch universities Six of the thirteen Dutch universities are included in the world's top 100. Dirk Jan van den Berg: “It is good to see Dutch universities perform well. These rankings inspire us to continue to improve on our performance. There is every reason for the Netherlands to continue to invest in universities, to be able to maintain our strong position in the future." Additional information .

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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

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

A key solution to grid congestion

On behalf of the TU Delft PowerWeb Institute, researchers Kenneth Brunninx and Simon Tindemans are handing over a Position Paper to the Dutch Parliament on 14 November 2024, with a possible solution to the major grid capacity problems that are increasingly cropping up in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is unlikely to meet the 2030 climate targets, and one of the reasons for this is that large industry cannot switch to electricity fast enough, partly because of increasingly frequent problems around grid capacity and grid congestion. In all likelihood, those problems will actually increase this decade before they can decrease, the researchers argue. The solution offered by the TU Delft PowerWeb Institute researchers is the ‘flexible backstop’. With a flexible backstop, the current capacity of the power grid can be used more efficiently without sacrificing safety or reliability. A flexible backstop is a safety mechanism that automatically and quickly reduces the amount of electricity that an electric unit can draw from the grid (an electric charging station or a heat pump) or deliver (a PV installation). It is a small device connected or built into an electrical unit, such as a charging station or heat pump, that ‘communicates’ with the distribution network operator. In case of extreme stress on the network, the network operator sends a signal to the device to limit the amount of power. Germany recently introduced a similar system with electric charging stations. The backstop would be activated only in periods of acute congestion problems and could help prevent the last resort measure, which is cutting off electricity to users. ‘Upgrading the electricity network remains essential, but in practice it will take years. So there is a need for short-term solutions that can be integrated into long-term planning. We, the members of the TU Delft PowerWeb Institute, call on the government, network operators and regulator to explore the flexible backstop as an additional grid security measure,’ they said. The entire Paper can be read here . Kenneth Brunninx Associate Professor at the Faculty of Engineering, Governance and Management, where he uses quantitative models to evaluate energy policy and market design with the aim of reducing CO2 emissions. Simon Tindemans is Associate Professor in the Intelligent Electrical Power Grids group at Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science. His research interests include uncertainty and risk management for power grids. TU Delft PowerWeb Institute is a community of researchers who are investigating how to make renewable energy systems reliable, future proof and accessible to everyone.