275 research outputs found
Anammox: The cleaning creature that could not exist
No full textIn 1986 Gijs Kuenen discovered a microbe that his colleagues thought could not exist. Recently it was discovered that the creature is responsible for half the worlds marine nitrogen production. Farewell portrait of the discoverer. Gijs managed to put the Delft School of Microbiology back on the map again.Applied Science
Tools and techniques to promote reflexivity with the embodied AI community
No full textDesign AestheticsHuman Information Communication Desig
Tough Decisions? Supporting System Classification According to the AI Act
No full textThe AI Act represents a significant legislative effort by the European Union to govern the use of AI systems according to different risk-related classes, linking varying degrees of compliance obligations to the system's classification. However, it is often critiqued due to the lack of general public comprehension and effectiveness regarding the classification of AI systems to the corresponding risk classes. To mitigate those shortcomings, we propose a Decision-Tree-based framework aimed at increasing robustness, legal compliance and classification clarity with the Regulation. Quantitative evaluation shows that our framework is especially useful to individuals without a legal background, allowing them to improve considerably the accuracy and significantly reduce the time of case classification.Organisation & GovernanceInformation and Communication Technolog
Can I touch you online?: Reshaping Touch Communication: An Interdisciplinary Research Agenda.
No full textThis paper introduces art and research on disrupted, touch in networked environments in which realities merge. Aesthetic sensory disruption and haptic distribution are purposefully designed for reflection, in a new type of ‘dialogue space’. The effects of embodied cognition, with respect to trust and experience, are explored in Artistic Social Labs (ASLs) designed to this purpose. Two ASLs are described in this paper.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.System Engineerin
Analysing the effects of extreme precipitation for municipalities and waterboards: Do they need to connect their sewer and surface water models?
No full textThe world’s climate is changing. In the Netherlands one of the consequences is that water boards and municipalities are preparing for an increase in extreme precipitation. To evaluate the consequences in case of extreme precipitation all Dutch municipalities and water boards have to perform a stress test. In these stress tests the response of the water system is evaluated during extreme precipitation events which are much larger than the events used to design the water system. It is analysed which places are vulnerable to flooding and what risk (probability x potential damage) is involved. In the Netherlands the responsibility of different parts of the water system are with different government authorities. The municipality is responsible for the sewer system and the waterboard is responsible the surface water system. As a result both municipalities and waterboards often perform separate climate stress tests. Most of the time the municipality will not take the surface water into account or does it in a very simplified manner, for the waterboards this is vice versa. However, these systems do influence and hinder each other. This may result in an underestimation of the actual flooding, and corresponding damage. The aim of this research is to investigate to what extent the urban drainage system and the rural surface water system influence each other during extreme precipitation. In this research the case study area of Schijndel with the surrounding catchment area of the Schijndelse loop is analysed. The research must clarify if flooding caused by extreme precipitation is underestimated if the urban drainage system and the rural surface water system of Schijndel are analysed separately instead of combined. For this research a hydrodynamic model of the area is constructed in the hydrodynamic software package Infoworks ICM. The hydrodynamic model was used to investigate the difference between a coupled and separate model setup. The results show that the modelled flood locations correspond to known flood reports, but also that the difficult to determine infiltration rate, grid size and surface roughness significantly influence the model response. Nonetheless, the hydrodynamic model can be used to compare the response for short precipitation events between a coupled and separate sewer surface water model. The results show that flooding is underestimated if the sewer system and the surface water system are put to the test separately instead of combined. However, the differences are location and event specific and occur mainly just upstream and downstream of the combined sewer overflow locations in the study area. Here, the results show an increase in flood depth, flood duration, flood extent and the amount of houses flooded when the system is modelled coupled instead of separate. For future stress test studies it is recommended to schematize both the urban sewer system and surface water system together in one model, as this gives a better representation of the flow dynamics which occur in reality.Water Managemen
Assessing the Longitudinal Handling Qualities of the Flying-V by Pilot Evaluation
No full textThe handling qualities of an aircraft are an important aspect in aircraft design, especially for novel configurations. The Flying V is a flying wing passenger aircraft designed to transport about 300 passengers. The handling qualities of such a new configuration aircraft are to be investigated before the aircraft can continue in its design process. The first step is to investigate the longitudinal handling qualities of the Flying V in cruise conditions. The handling qualities are heavily affected by the geometry of the aircraft, which has no tail and has a shorter arm to the elevons for the pitch control. These two main differences do not affect the pitch angle control negatively, which is the focus of conventional handling qualities evaluations, but have a strong effect on the flight path angle. This effect is a non-minimum phase response due to the large change in lift needed to generate the pitching moment. To test this flight path angle behaviour, a new evaluation of the handling qualities is implemented which uses flight path angle tracking.Two control allocations were created: one where both inboard and outboard elevons deflect in the same direction, and one where the change in lift the elevons generate is countered by deploying the inboard and outboard elevons in opposite directions. The longitudinal handling qualities in cruise conditions were investigated by pilot opinion in a moving base simulator. Three experiments were conducted: a traditional pitch experiment, the novel flight path angle experiment, and the latter experiment using the second control allocation. The pilots indicated the pitch attitude control to be Level 1 handling qualities, while the normal control allocation flight path experiment was Level 2. The new control allocation improved the performance of the pilots during the experiment, but the lowered control authority was too much for most pilots to rate it at Level 1.Flying VAerospace Engineerin
A service designer's guide to systemic design: Helping a Juvenile company transition towards a more sustainable future
No full textThis project tackled two research questions for separate clients. The first question was posed by Livework, a service design agency, which wanted to learn how systemic design principles can be applied in projects aimed at organisational sustainability transformations. The second client, Juvenile Company, a company that designs and manufactures strollers and other juvenile products, wanted to figure out what their relationship with customers and business partners should look like to reach their sustainability goals by 2035.Through a series of analyses and co-creative design activities, I discovered two key factors that might serve as an opportunity or barrier in Juvenile Company’s transition towards a more sustainable future: the relationship between parent and stroller in the current system and Juvenile Company’s culture of product innovation through design.Using context mapping, insight into the value exchanges between parent and stroller over time were captured. This led to identifying three distinct phases of value creation tied to a child’s developmental stages. It was found that the value implicitly delivered by the stroller over these developmental stages is the core value proposition of Juvenile Company.It was found that Juvenile Company’s current strategy of revenue growth through product innovation is at odds with its sustainability goals. To achieve its sustainability goals, Juvenile Company must rely on qualitative innovation, rather than quantitative, to drive revenue growth.Using the input from all research, a vision statement was formulated that describes the possibility space of Juvenile Company’s future innovation. “Juvenile Company empowers parents and their children to explore the world by providing value beyond products that adapts to parents’ changing needs without compromising the future needs of their children.”A design strategy concept was created to describe what a circular Juvenile Company will need to look like to be fully circular. The concept consists of four elements that build on one another. At the deepest layer sits a new mental model: a culture of innovation through qualitative value creation. To create qualitative value, on the next layer up we find a reframed version of the core value proposition discovered through the context mapping research. Juvenile Company focuses on developing value explicitly for the three developmental stages identified. To guide the development of this value, three core vision principles were developed: Value beyond products, Adapting to changing needs and Dependable guide. To further illustrate these vision principles, thirteen key propositions were designed that help shape what the relationship between parents and Juvenile Company could look like in the future.This strategy was conceptualised through two deliverables: a parent-Juvenile Company relationship journey map that describes how the key elements to the relationship interlink, and a children’s book that describes the story of how one family’s relationship with Juvenile Company develops over time.Through constant reflection over the course of this process, key insight was created into how Livework designers can implement systemic design principles in organisational sustainability transformation projects. A knowledge gap was identified, consisting of three layers that each describe a different type of knowledge Livework designers must acquire. Additionally, it was found that a major difficulty in applying systemic design principles will be adopting an ecosystemic design lens that focuses equally on human and non-human participants of a system. Further implications and opportunities were identified that might shape how Livework approaches design projects.Strategic Product Desig
BOKS: A Waste Free Insulative Packaging Concept to Transport Perishable Goods for Ecommerce
No full textThe Courier, Express and Parcel market (CEP) in the Netherlands causes 85.000 tons of single use packaging to be turned into waste on a yearly basis (Thuiswinkel.org & Kennis instituut duurzaam verpakken, 2020). This combined with an annual projected growth of 10% in online orders urges society to rethink ecommerce packaging (Topsector Logistiek, 2020). This graduation project is performed for Goodcase. The startup aims to accelerate the shift towards a sustainable diet by offering sustainable foods from Dutch startups directly to the customer. The goal of this project is to find the most sustainable way of transporting perishable goods for Goodcase. BOKS is the frontrunner in a new era of packaging in ecommerce. It is part of a system where material resources are circulating within a closed loop: the circular economy. This paradigm puts emphasis on designing out waste. Switching from single use to reusables fits in this philosophy. This switch is critical to sustainably deal with the resources our planet has to offer. Switching to BOKS prevents the creation of excessive waste and therefore decreases the environmental impact of insulative ecommerce packaging.BOKS is specifically designed to assist webshops transporting perishable goods directly to their customers. These foods need to stay under 5 °C during transport. The optimal configuration of BOKS is designed using a parametric thermodynamic model.The walls of BOKS are filled with a 25 mm organic hemp layer. The insulative principle of hemp is similar to wool; small air pockets in the material prevent heat from transferring through. Due to this insulation layer the products stay cooled consistently for up to 36 Hours. Within this timeframe two delivery moments can be achieved with a success rate of 99.9%. This is what makes BOKS the most reliable way of sending cooled perishable goods!BOKS is designed for contin-use, it should flow from stakeholder to stakeholder. A fast track life cycle analysis model is used to minimize its environmental impact. It could be reused up to 100 times and therefore saves up to 37.1 kg of single use packaging, insulation and buffer materials. The folding mechanism results in a 40% volume reduction which makes BOKS efficient in logistics and more manageable to handle for its users. The CO2 emissions per trip are 68.32% less compared to a single use cardboard box. This in combination with 40% recycled materials in the outer layer, BOKS is a sustainable contender for transporting perishable goods!BOKS flows from Goodcase Packaging to the webshop, where it is subsequently packed and delivered to the logistics party. They deliver it directly to the customer, who returns it at their local supermarket or drop-off point. From there on, the BOKSES are shipped back to Goodcase Packaging in bulk. At Goodcase Packaging they are cleaned and inspected before sending them out for their next loop!BOKS is designed with all aforementioned stakeholders in mind. It was found that a reward program is crucial to incentivise each stakeholder to keep passing BOKS on. This reward program aims to actively involve both the webshop and the customer.BOKS has been tested and proven to perform up to most of the requirements. However, further development is required to make the concept of BOKS ready to be used in the real environment.Integrated Product Desig
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