Photo: MartinD, Wikicommons
The Dutch housing system has a good international reputation, but according to recently appointed professor Marja Elsinga (Housing Institutions and Governance at TPM), the system is in urgent need of an overhaul.
When professor Marja Elsinga studied housing ecology at Wageningen University, she focussed on the influence of the built environment on people. After graduating in 1989, she shifted her focus from ecology to economy, because it is no longer the architects who dominate the world of construction and housing. Financial institutions have taken their place. Elsinga (Technology, Policy and Management) argues: “Economic science dominates the analyses of the housing market.” Continued…
Posted in Articles, Delta.
Tagged with housing policy, Marja Elsinga.
By admin
– maart 3, 2011
No perfect match: wall of a church in Breda in original Belgian white stone (below) has been completed with much more sharp-edged Reffroy limestone. (Photo: Wido Quist)
Architects engaged in restoration projects should choose their materials more consciously, says Dr Wido Quist in his PhD thesis.
Many of the churches and cathedrals in south-western Netherlands were built with white Belgian sandy limestone, which was mainly imported during the 14th and 15th centuries. Nowadays, however, only the occasional lump of this limestone is found as a by-product of sand mining. Meanwhile, the old churches erode, their extended parts, like statues and tympana, especially so, and need to be repaired or replaced. But with what?
Sandstone cannot be used because of a law (Zandsteenbesluit, 1951) prohibiting the use of this stone, as it poses a health hazard to workers. Sandstone’s fine dust, created when the stone is being processed, is said to cause silicosis, or ‘dust lungs’. Continued…
Posted in Articles, Delta.
Tagged with architecture, limestone, restoration, sandy stone.
By admin
– februari 17, 2011
Heart with blockages in main artery and two branches, resulting in poor blood flow, as depicted as (rings of) white segments of the heart muscle (Image: Medical Delta)
Medical Delta researchers have developed a technology that combines anatomical and functional data from the heart into one image.
It can hardly be a coincidence that Medical Delta researchers presented their unique and possibly lifesaving views of the heart on Valentine’s Day. Lead author, Hortense Kirisli MSc (Erasmus MC and Leiden University MC), will present a paper in Orlando, Florida, containing images made with a prototype workstation that combines anatomical information from a CT-scan, with functional information from an MRI, in one interactive, three-dimensional image of the heart. Not only does the image show which coronary arteries have been clogged up and to what extent, but it also reveals how the perfusion of the heart muscle fed by those arteries has been affected. Continued…
Posted in Articles, Delta.
Tagged with cardiology, CT-scan, heart, MRI, PET-scan.
By admin
– februari 17, 2011
Nasa’s Kepler mission has discovered its first Earth-sized planet candidates, and the first candidates in a habitable zone, or so New Scientist and Nature magazines reported last week.
The findings are based on the results of observations by Nasa’s Kepler space telescope, conducted between 12 May and 17 September 2009. Kepler’s field of view, which covers approximately 1/400 of the sky, observes more than 156,000 stars virtually continuously. Based on Kepler’s data, Nasa scientists identified 1,235 planet candidates. Continued…
Posted in Articles, Delta.
Tagged with exoplanets, Kepler space telescope.
By admin
– februari 10, 2011
Beatrijs with 'reference person' - Photo: Tomas van Dijk
Boredom among pigs in overcrowded piggeries quickly leads to tail biting, fights and injuries. A toy for pigs, designed by Beatrijs Voorneman, may offer some distraction. “The pigs destroy everything.”
Originally, Beatrijs Voorneman (MSc) wanted to design children’s toys. Her thesis supervisor, Dr Pieter Desmet (Industrial Design Engineering), had another proposal. The Lifestock Research Centre at Wageningen University was looking for a distraction for pigs in the farming industry. “I’m not going to design for pigs,” was Voorneman’s initial reaction, regarding the offer as something of an insult. But on second thought, the idea didn’t’ seem so absurd. Piglets and children might be more alike than previously assumed. The design process would require her to delve into the foreign, and normally closed, world of the intensive farming industry in order to study the pigs’ behaviour. Voorneman could develop empathy for the animals, just as she would’ve done with children. In short, she rather courageously accepted the challenge. Continued…
Posted in Articles, Delta.
Tagged with farming industry, industrial design, pigs.
By admin
– februari 10, 2011
When a pane dropped out of a glass bridge and crashed to the ground last week during a test, project leader Dr Fred Veer wasn’t much impressed. “The test was 90 percent successful.”
“Our insights into how to design with glass as a structural material have developed considerably over the last ten years,” says Dr Fred Veer (Architecture) two days after the fateful test. “Most people think that normal annealed glass cannot take tension, that you cannot drill holes in it and cannot put pressure on it. We now know it can all be done and we’ve shown it.” Continued…
Posted in Articles, Delta.
Tagged with architecture, construction, glass, test.
By admin
– februari 4, 2011
At the University of Groningen, Emeritus Professor Geert Boering has revived the tradition of professors sitting for painted portraits when they retire.
The Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad (19 January 2011) writes that the centuries-old tradition of professors donating their portraits had come to a sudden end in the revolutionary 1970s when equality became the new paradigm and portraits were regarded as elitist. Forty years later Professor Geert Boering tested the waters by donating his portrait to Groningen University. His example was swiftly followed by five colleagues. Continued…
Posted in Articles, Delta.
Tagged with painting, Professor, tradition.
By admin
– januari 27, 2011
The orange building at Covra is a temporary housing for the Dutch high level radioactive waste
A new European Union directive requires member states to devise plans for the long-term storage of radioactive waste. TU Delft wants to be involved in designing the Dutch solution.
The policy of most EU member states for long-term storage of high-level nuclear waste has so far mainly consisted of setting up intermediate storage facilities and postponing plans for definitive repositories. But after more than fifty years of nuclear energy in Europe, and with the prospect of growth in the sector, the European Commission has decided to put pressure on member states to come up with solutions for storage into infinity. With 7,000 cubic metres of high-level waste produced annually in Europe, interim storages cannot last forever. Continued…
Posted in Articles, Delta.
Tagged with geology, ITC, nuclear energy, nuclear waste, Russell Alexander, storage.
By admin
– januari 27, 2011
Tim Nai now orients towards logistics - Photo: Tomas van Dijk
Tweezers that can work ‘round the bend’ could make knee operations faster and safer. Recent graduate Tim Nai’s design of these tweezers won him the Wim van der Hoek Constructor’s Award.
Tim Nai graduated from the faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering in January of this year, after which he travelled to China to learn Mandarin Chinese (on top of the Cantonese that he had learnt at home). After China, Nai continued his travels through Asia. When he returned home to Holland, almost a year later, he was surprised when his thesis supervisor, Dr Just Herder, called, insisting that he should attend the annual conference of the Dutch Society for Precision Engineering, held earlier this month. At the conference, Nai was even more surprised when he was awarded the Wim van der Hoek Constructor’s Award for special achievement in the field of mechanical engineering. Continued…
Posted in Articles, Delta.
Tagged with biomechanics, constructeursprijs, innovation, orthopaedics, surgery, tool.
By admin
– december 16, 2010
A haptic robot copies the movements of your hand. Force feedback can make you feel what the robot is doing. A Swiss watchmaker follows the developments with interest.
“Haptic robots are used in cases where there is a separation between the actor and the object,” explains Pablo Estevez (MSc), a PhD student at the faculty of Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering, in his fast, staccato English. “This can be in handling nuclear stuff, in working in a hot oven, under water or when the scale factor doesn’t match. Or if you want to move very large or very tiny things.” This last application – to move “very tiny things” – is what the team, under the supervision of Professor Rob Munnig Schmidt, is working on. Estevez and fellow PhD-students Patrice Lambert (MSc) and Ilhan Polat (MSc) are developing a ‘Teleoperated Microassembly Device’. Continued…
Posted in Articles, Delta.
Tagged with Haptic feedback, robot.
By admin
– december 2, 2010
