This article provides a nano (hyperlocal) view of climate change mitigation by viewing regenerative organizing through the eyes (as well as bodies and senses, etc.) of the households engaged in community-based energy projects. By showing what humans make up for in the largely absent relationship between nature and technology in these projects, we envision an incremental extension of the literature on community-based energy. The radically different contribution we aim to make is a tripartite imbrication that brings in natural agency alongside the human and the technical but specifies precisely how nano (smaller than micro) embodied practices afford mis- and realignments. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086026619886841 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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For long flights, the cruise is the longest phase and where the largest amount of fuel is consumed. An in-cruise optimization method has been implemented to calculate the optimal trajectory that reduces the flight cost. A three-dimensional grid has been created, coupling lateral navigation and vertical navigation profiles. With a dynamic analysis of the wind, the aircraft can perform a horizontal deviation or change altitudes via step climbs to reduce fuel consumption. As the number of waypoints and possible step climbs is increased, the number of flight trajectories increases exponentially; thus, a genetic algorithm has been implemented to reduce the total number of calculated trajectories compared to an exhaustive search. The aircraft’s model has been obtained from a performance database, which is currently used in the commercial flight management system studied in this paper. A 5% average flight cost reduction has been obtained.
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A decade ago many gushed at the possibilities of 3D printers and other DIY tech. Today makers are increasingly shaking off their initial blind enthusiasm to numerically control everything, rediscovering an interest in sociocultural histories and futures and waking up to the environmental and economic implications of digital machines that transform materials. An accumulation of critique has collectively registered that no tool, service, or software is good, bad, or neutral—or even free for that matter. We’ve arrived at a crossroads, where a reflective pause coincides with new critical initiatives emerging across disciplines.What was making? What is making? What could making become? And what about unmaking? The Critical Makers Reader features an array of practitioners and scholars who address these questions. Together, they tackle issues of technological making and its intersections with (un)learning, art and design, institutionalization, social critique, community organizing, collaboration, activism, urban regeneration, social inequality, and the environmental crisis.
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The Hospitality, Tourism, Innovation & Technology Experts Network (HTIT-EN) is a pivotal initiative aimed at unlocking societal impact potential. The Dutch hospitality and tourism sector, which employs over half a million individuals and annually hosts more than 40 million guests, ranks as the Netherlands’ 8th largest economic sector. However, this sector faces numerous challenges, including the uncertain impact of emerging technologies and issues such as unethical behavior, workforce attrition, and staff shortages, which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The advent of emerging technologies like service robots, immersive experiences, and artificial intelligence has brought the sector to a critical juncture. These innovations pose significant disruptions, challenging the traditional concept of hospitality and questioning the positive societal impact in terms of ethical considerations, inclusivity, affordability, and data privacy.Strategically positioned to address these challenges, HTIT-EN focuses on leveraging emerging technologies to create impactful scenarios and shape the future of hospitality and tourism. Our motivation stems from the sector’s societal importance and its continuous influence on our daily lives. By harnessing technology and innovation, we aim to tackle industry-specific issues and extend the positive societal impact to related human-centered service industries.The overarching mission of HTIT-EN is to empower the Dutch Hospitality and Tourism sector to serve as a driving force for technology-enabled societal impact. The primary objective is to align research activities and promote collaboration. Key objectives include bringing together leading professors specializing in technology-driven impact within the hospitality and tourism sector, initiating research projects in line with a shared research agenda and in collaboration with local and international industry partners, and collaboratively developing expertise in emerging technologies that empower the role of hospitality and tourism as catalysts for societal impact. This endeavor contributes to the development and acceleration of the Knowledge and Innovation Agenda (KIA) ‘Key technologies’ & ‘Digitalization’. The aim is to foster an excellent reputation for Dutch hospitality and tourism as a global leader in technology-driven societal impact.We have strong support from CELTH, the Centre of Expertise within the domain of leisure, tourism and hospitality for the overall ambitions of the research project.Societal issueThe HTIT-EN project bridges societal importance and cross-cutting issues in the tourism and hospitality sectors. It’s fueled by the ambition to leverage emerging technologies to tackle industry-specific challenges, including knowledge and skills gaps, labor shortages and replacements, and evolving consumer expectations.Benefit to societyThe platform brings together professors and researchers from MBO, HBO and WO knowledge institutes as well as diverse set of professional partners to stimulate collaboration, align research lines and establish joint a joint research agenda on how technology-driven impact may become a catalyst within hospitality and tourism.
Groenvermogen is een nationaal groeifonds programma dat de waardeketen van waterstof wil ontwikkelen. In WP3 wordt er in een consortium gekeken naar toepassingen van waterstof. The direct use of hydrogen in various sectors shares common challenges and needs to accelerate its deployment and reduce its costs. Firstly, there is a need for extensive research and development to: - Maximize energy efficiency with minimal pollutant emissions; - Maximize robustness by meeting dynamic performance requirements (especially linked to mobility and local integrated energy systems with intermittent renewable energy generation or energy demand); - Enable a gradual fuel transition and therefore focus on fuel-flexible technologies; - Shorten time-to market of green hydrogen technology - Maximize the life time of energy conversion technologies; - Reduce investment costs.
Client: European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) The European Institute of Innovation & Technology, a body of the European Union founded to increase European sustainable growth and competitiveness, has set up a number of Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KIC). One of these Communities is on climate change (Climate-KIC). In 2013, Climate-KIC in the Netherlands approved funding for the IMPACT project (IMPlementation & Adoption of Carbon footprint in Tourism travel packages). This ‘pathfinder’ project aimed to assess the viability of and market for a comprehensive carbon calculator. Such a calculator would enable enterprises in the wider travel industry to determine the carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause for climate change, of tourism products and include ‘carbon management’ in their overall policy and strategy. It is generally expected the cost for fuel and carbon will significantly rise in the near en medium future. The calculator will not only cover flights, but also other transport modes, local tourism activities and accommodations. When this pathfinder project finds interest for carbon management within the sector, we aim to start a much larger follow-up project that will deliver the calculator and tools. The IMPACT project was coordinated by the research institute Alterra Wagenigen UR, the Netherlands. Partners were: - Schiphol Airport Group, Amsterdam, The Netherlands- Technical University Berlin, Germany- TEC Conseil, Marseille, France- TUI Netherlands, Rijswijk, The Netherlands- NHTV Breda University for Applied Sciences, The NetherlandsThe project ran from September 2013 to February 2014.
