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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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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.” . . . .

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