263134 research outputs found
Sort by
Druppelmicrofluïdica: een toolkit voor de microbiële ecologie
No full textMicrobial communities are primary drivers of element cycles on a planetary level and are essential for the functioning of all ecosystems on earth and in many industrial processes. A microbial community is a complex network, consisting of several sub-populations, which can interact with each other by antagonistic or cooperative processes. However, in contrast to individual microorganisms for which we know a lot about gene expression, stress response, etc., the knowledge about the complex network that is formed by collaborating microorganisms remains unsatisfactory. In the present project, we will further develop the 'collaboromes' concept that was developed at the Center for Microbial Ecology and Technology. These collaboromes are synthetic ecosystems built from isolated strains existing of a core population with a dedicated ecological functionality and (non-redundant) satellite populations supporting the core populations, however not contributing directly to the targeted functionality. Collaboromes, with their intermediate complexity and high controllability, allow for the study and elucidation of interactions contributing to or inhibiting functionality of the synthetic ecosystem. Here, hydrogen-oxidising communities will be studied, the reason for this is twofold. Firstly, since the whole community is depending on hydrogen-oxidation, the core function is well-defined, making it a good target to study collaboromes. Secondly, from an applied point of view, the analysis and understanding of these synthetic communities can lead to the development of highly productive collaboromes that can valorise common industrial and agricultural waste components such as carbon dioxide and ammonium as high-quality protein. In order to guide the production of collaboromes and to gain deeper insight in microbial interactions, predictive modelling approaches will be used. In short, the goal of this project is to gain insight into the interactions occurring in hydrogen-oxidising bacterial communities and to apply this knowledge to create highly productive and efficient collaboromes that grow on hydrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and ammonia and produce high quality protein. Initial prospective co-culturing with a core species and a satellite species will be done to collect growth rate data and to group species according to their positive or negative interaction influence. Predictive models will be made, validated and subsequently used to predict productive higher-order collaboromes. This process of collaborome construction, modelling, prediction and validation will yield insights in the interaction between core and satellite species of these communities and will lead to new understandings in the ecology of microbial communities. As such it can also bring forth highly productive collaboromes finding use in life support systems or industrial reactors validating waste products as high-quality protein.status: Accepte
Development and validation of a novel patient-specific 3D-printed head and neck immobilization device for radiotherapy
No full textAccurate and reproducible immobilization is critical for effective radiotherapy in the head and neck region, but conventional thermoplastic masks are uncomfortable, labor-intensive and time-consuming to fabricate. A novel patient-specific 3D-printed immobilization device was developed using a digital CT-based workflow. The design targeted stable facial regions and was mechanically validated via simulations. Two nylon-based 3D-printed prototypes were preclinically evaluated on an anthropomorphic phantom, showing high dimensional accuracy, CT/MR compatibility, minimal target dose deviation (<2%), and submillimetric positional reproducibility. While the results demonstrate technical feasibility, clinical validations will be the next step to assess comfort, reproducibility, and workflow integration in radiotherapy.sponsorship: We would like to express our gratitude towards Jean-Francois Daisne, Rob De Haes, Jolien Claes, Dennis Konings, Jan Verstraete, An Nulens, Anneleen Goedgebeur, and Wout Piot for sharing their valuable insights and knowledge during the consultation sessions to define the design requirements, Marisol De Brabandere for proof reading, and Kevin Dotremont and Pieter Slagmolen for providing the 3D-printed devices. This work was supported by Kom Op Tegen Kanker. (Kom Op Tegen Kanker)status: Publishe
Het ervaren van emoties in de klas: de rol van medeleerlingen en leerkrachten in de dynamieken van academische emoties bij leerlingen
No full textThe emotions that students experience in school are highly important for their well-being, motivation and academic success (Camacho-Morles et al., 2021; Pekrun & Linnenbrink-Garcia, 2012). It is therefore imperative to understand how these emotions emerge, fluctuate, and spread in school. The present dissertation provides a comprehensive investigation into how secondary school students' academic emotions—enjoyment, enthusiasm, boredom, and frustration—are shaped by individual, situational, and social contextual factors. While emotions are dynamic state-like constructs that are constructed in interaction with one's social environment (Boiger & Mesquita, 2012; Pekrun, 2006; Scherer & Moors, 2019), research on academic emotions has mainly approached them as static individual traits and paid limited attention to the contribution of the social classroom environment to these emotions. This dissertation aimed to address these gaps in four empirical chapters by acknowledging the temporally dynamic, situated and socially embedded nature of academic emotions, and specifically focused on emotional transmission in the classroom.
Chapter 1 established the dynamic and situational nature of academic emotions by using experience sampling, showing that students' emotions fluctuate as a function of temporal factors like day of the week and time of the day, and situational factors like teaching methods. Chapter 2 provided evidence for real-time crossover of enthusiasm from teachers, finding that student-specific and class perceptions of teacher enthusiasm, but not teacher self-reported enthusiasm, positively related to student enthusiasm over time. The crossover was stronger for students with closer relationships with their teacher, and these students also experienced higher overall enthusiasm in class. The strength of teacher-student crossover generalized across student ability levels. Chapter 3 demonstrated the real-time crossover of academic emotions from classmates, even when controlling for features of the shared learning environment. These crossover effects were more pronounced between same-sex classmates, particularly for negative emotions. Chapter 4 shifted to longer-term emotion transmission using social network analysis. It found that students' academic trait boredom increased over time to converge with higher boredom levels of their classroom friends, even after accounting for selection and structural network effects. Neither teacher-student relationship quality nor cognitive ability moderated this peer influence, although higher teacher-student relationship quality protected against increases in boredom throughout the school year.
Overall, the findings indicate that academic emotions are inherently relational and dynamic, emphasizing the critical role of both teachers and peers in shaping students' emotional lives in school. It concludes that fostering positive teacher-student relationships and positive emotional exchanges with teachers and peers are vital to enhancing students' emotional experiences and academic success.status: Publishe
(Dis)Continuing a Legacy: How Three Italian Women Architects Transformed the Knoll Look
No full textThe American-based furniture firm Knoll is known as an avant-garde enterprise established in 1938 by Hans Knoll. Not much later, Florence Schust joined the company and significantly defined what became known as the Knoll look of the 1950s. Today she is considered a key example of a highly talented woman architect who, according to her own recollections, was early on directed toward designing interiors because of her gender. Her pioneering contributions to the design profession continue to be underlined in historiography and rightfully so. However, this article shows that she was not the only woman architect who had a significant impact on the company’s image in the second half of the twentieth century. Through a case study on one of the company’s earliest subsidiaries—Knoll International Italy—three other women architects come to the fore: Lella Vignelli, Gae Aulenti, and Cini Boeri. Each contributed to the rebranding of Knoll’s identity from the late 1960s onward through exhibition and showroom design in the US and Europe. Taking a transnational perspective on Knoll’s company history enables us to assess to what extent these women architects continued or discontinued the legacy of Florence Knoll.status: Published onlin
Sensory Processing Sensitivity and Overstimulation in Daily Life: An Experience Sampling Method Study
No full textstatus: Publishe
Weakly constrained 4D-Var reconstruction of turbulence in the atmospheric boundary layer using large eddy simulation
No full textsponsorship: The authors acknowledge support from the KU Leuven research council, grant number C16/17/008, and from the project Be FORECAST, funded by the Energy Transition Funds of the Federal Public Service Economy of the Belgian Federal Government. (KU Leuven research council|C16/17/008, Energy Transition Funds of the Federal Public Service Economy of the Belgian Federal Government)status: Accepte
Evidence for the Keplerian orbit of a close companion around a giant star
No full textsponsorship: This paper uses the ALMA data ADS/JAO.ALMA2018.1.00659.L, 'ATOMIUM: ALMA tracing the origins of molecules forming dust in oxygen-rich M-type stars' and ADS/JAO.ALMA.2023.1.00091.S, 'Putting to test the first hypothesized ALMA detections of a close stellar/planetary companion orbiting an AGB star'. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada) and NSC and ASIAA (Taiwan), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, auI/NRAO and NAOJ. This paper makes use of the CASA data reduction package http://casa.nrao.edu (credit: International consortium of scientists based at the National Radio Astronomical Observatory (NRAO), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), the CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility (CSIRO/ATNF), and the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) under the guidance of NRAO). We thank the Data Reduction team at ESO for customizing the imaging pipeline. This paper makes use of the Cologne Database for Molecular Spectroscopy (CDMS; https://cdms.astro.uni-koeln.de/) and the spectral line catalogues of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL; https://spec.jpl.nasa); This work has made use of data from the European Space Agency (ESA) mission Gaia (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/gaia), processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC; https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia/dpac/consortium). Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. Computer resources have been provided by the KU Leuven C1 Excellence Grant BRAVE KAC/16/23/008, the VSC Flemish supercomputer, and STFC IRIS. The consortium thanks H. Van Winckel, G. Harper and P. Wallace for useful discussions. M.E. acknowledges funding from the FWO research grants G099720N and G0B3823N. L.D. acknowledges support from the KU Leuven C1 excellence grant BRAVE C16/23/009, KU Leuven Methusalem grant SOUL METH/24/012, and the FWO research grants G099720N and G0B3823N. Y.M., A.I.K., T.D. and Z.O. acknowledge that this research is supported in part by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. J.M. acknowledges support from the FWO research grant G099720N. T.D. is supported in part by the Australian Research Council through a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE230100183). S.M. acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon Europe programme (Synergy Grant agreement 101071505: 4D-STAR), from the CNES SOHO-GOLF and PLATO grants at CEA-DAp, and from PNPS (CNRS/INSU). While partially funded by the European Union, views and opinions expressed are however those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. R.S.'s contribution to the research described here was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA, and funded in part by NASA via ADAP award number 80NM0018F0610. M.V.d.S. acknowledges support from the Oort Fellowship at Leiden Observatory. T.C. acknowledges funding from the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO), grant 1166724N. F.D.C. is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO), grant 1253223N. I.E.M. acknowledges support from ANID/FONDECYT, grant 11240206. This work is funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR) project PEPPER (ANR-20-CE31-0002). P.K. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (project UniverScale, grant agreement 951549). C.L. acknowledges support from the KU Leuven C1 excellence grant BRAVE C16/23/009. T.M. acknowledges support from STFC grant number ST/T000198/1. J.P. acknowledges support for the UKRI STFC grant ST/T000287/1. Z.O. acknowledges this research was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship. D.J.P. acknowledges Australian Research Council funding via DP220103767. We also thank the Australia French Association for Research and Innovation (AFRAN) for financially supporting the 5th PHANTOM users workshop. L.S. is FNRS senior researcher. O.V. acknowledges funding from the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO), grant 1173025N. K.T.W. acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme (grant agreement number 883867, project EXWINGS). (Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013 Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship, ANID/FONDECYT, grant 11240206, KU Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)|C16/23/009, KU Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)|METH/24/012, EC | EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation H2020 | H2020 Priority Excellent Science | H2020 European Research Council (H2020 Excellent Science - European Research Council)|101071505, EC | EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation H2020 | H2020 Priority Excellent Science | H2020 European Research Council (H2020 Excellent Science - European Research Council)|951549, EC | EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation H2020 | H2020 Priority Excellent Science | H2020 European Research Council (H2020 Excellent Science - European Research Council)|883867, Australian Research Council funding via DP220103767, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Research Foundation Flanders)|G099720N, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Research Foundation Flanders)|G0B3823N, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Research Foundation Flanders)|1166724N, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Research Foundation Flanders)|1253223N, Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Research Foundation Flanders)|1173025N, RCUK | Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)|ST/T000198/1, RCUK | Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)|ST/T000287/1, Australian Research Council through a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DE230100183) Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013, the CNES SOHO-GOLF and PLATO grants at CEA-DAp, Oort Fellowship at Leiden Observatory, Fonds De La Recherche Scientifique - FNRS (Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research), Agence Nationale de la Recherche (French National Research Agency)|ANR-20-CE31-0002, Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR)|ANR-20-CE31-0002)status: Published onlin
Investigating the Influence of the Source-Sink Terms in a Two-Fluid Global Coronal Model
No full textContext. Global multi-fluid coronal models are crucial in enhancing our comprehension and prediction of space weather.
This study offers new insights into the impact of source and sink terms in a two-fluid model of the partially ionised solar
atmosphere and their implications for the dynamics of the solar corona, in the context of space-weather forecasting.
Aims. This study aims to extend the two-fluid global coronal model by incorporating source and sink terms that
represent empirical formulations of coronal heating and radiative and thermal conduction losses. The paper presents a
fresh perspective by comparing model performance with and without these terms in a two-fluid (ion-neutral) plasma
framework.
Methods. This paper employs the newly developed multi-fluid global coronal model, COCONUT-MF, based on the
COOLFluiD code. This code solves the equations separately for charged particles (ions + electrons) and the neutral
gas to describe the dynamics of a partially ionised plasma. The proposed model accounts for chemical (ionisation/
combination) and non-ideal (collisional) dynamics due to neutrals, as well as empirical heating terms, thermal
conduction, and radiative loss, which are incorporated into the energy equation.
Results. The paper discusses two steady-state solutions: one for a solar-minimum case (August 1, 2008) and one for a
solar-maximum case (March 9, 2016). We demonstrate the importance of accounting for source-sink terms in two-fluid
models to accurately describe the dynamics of the lower corona.
Conclusions. The obtained results underscore the necessity of incorporating source-sink terms in the accurate modelling
of the dynamics of the solar corona. Such terms lead to more structured temperature profiles and improved predictions
for space weather.sponsorship: EU H2020|955620, ERCEA|101141362, KU Leuven|C16/24/010, Fonds voor wetenschappelijk onderzoek|G0B5823N, FWO|G002523N, ESA Prodex|4000145223status: Accepte
