Dutch secondary school pupils seldom speak the foreign language in class, citing anxiety as a primary factor (Haijma, 2013). Implementing improvisational drama techniques (IDTs), however, could help ameliorate this situation by generating positive affective reactions, such as confidence and joy, and in turn stimulate pupils to speak. The concept IDT in this study contains two key elements. Firstly, participants take on roles in fictitious situations. Secondly, the activities must elicit spontaneous speech as to offer language learners opportunities to practice real-life communication, which is central to the goal of this research. The question driving this study was: What types of IDTs induce positive affective reactions among pupils and, as such, have the potential to stimulate spoken interaction in FL classrooms? The study yielded 77 IDTs associated with positive affective reactions through a literature review and an analysis of student teacher reflections on their IDT use in their English classrooms. This combined evidence lends credence to the conception that it could be the essence of improvisational drama that generates positive reactions, rather than the type of activity—the essence being an invitation to enter a fictional world, combined with the improvisational element that readies learners for spontaneous interactions.
Kahramanmaraş Earthquake Sequence of 6th of February is the deadliest earthquake that happened in Turkey in the era of instrumental seismology, claiming more than 55 thousand lives and leaving torn down cities and towns behind. More than 450 km long lateral strike-slip fault ruptured during these catastrophic earthquakes. As a result, more than 38 thousand buildings collapsed causing life losses. Considering that the large share of the Turkish building stock consists of RC buildings, the vulnerable RC building stock is the main responsible for this picture. Deficiencies of the Turkish RC building stock are well known since they manifested themselves several times in the past earthquakes. However, considering the improvements in the seismic codes and the seismic hazard maps achieved in the last two decades, the widespread collapse of buildings constructed after year 2000 was rather unexpected. Some of the observed structural damage patterns are similar to those observed also in the pre-2000 buildings in recent earthquakes, however, some other types of damages, such as out-of-plane bending and shear failures or shear-friction capacity failure of RC walls, brittle fracture and bond-slip failure of reinforcement, tension failure of beams and slabs are usually not witnessed. This paper presents a carefully selected set of examples comparing the pre-2000 and post-2000 building damages and collapses, also referring to a detailed summary and comparison of the code developments in Turkey.
Exposure data available to developers of earthquake loss models are often very crudely aggregated spatially, and in such cases very considerable effort can be required to refine the geographical resolution of the building stock inventory. The influence of the geographical resolution of the exposure data for the Sea of Marmara region in Turkey is explored using several different levels of spatial aggregation to estimate the losses due to a single earthquake scenario. The results show that the total damage over an urban area, expressed as a mean damage ratio (MDR), is rather insensitive to the spatial resolution of the exposure data if a sufficiently large number of ground-motion simulations are used. However, the variability of the MDR estimates does reduce as the spatial resolution becomes higher, reducing the number of simulations required, although there appears to be a law of diminishing returns in going to very high exposure data resolution. This is largely due to the inherent and irreducible spatial variability of ground motion, which suggests that if only mean MDR estimates are needed, the effort required to refine the spatial definition of exposure data is not justified.
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“Empowering learners to create a sustainable future” This is the mission of Centre of Expertise Mission-Zero at The Hague University of Applied Sciences (THUAS). The postdoc candidate will expand the existing knowledge on biomimicry, which she teaches and researches, as a strategy to fulfil the mission of Mission-Zero. We know when tackling a design challenge, teams have difficulties sifting through the mass of information they encounter. The candidate aims to recognize the value of systematic biomimicry, leading the way towards the ecosystems services we need tomorrow (Pedersen Zari, 2017). Globally, biomimicry demonstrates strategies contributing to solving global challenges such as Urban Heat Islands (UHI) and human interferences, rethinking how climate and circular challenges are approached. Examples like Eastgate building (Pearce, 2016) have demonstrated successes in the field. While biomimicry offers guidelines and methodology, there is insufficient research on complex problem solving that systems-thinking requires. Our research question: Which factors are needed to help (novice) professionals initiate systems-thinking methods as part of their strategy? A solution should enable them to approach challenges in a systems-thinking manner just like nature does, to regenerate and resume projects. Our focus lies with challenges in two industries with many unsustainable practices and where a sizeable impact is possible: the built environment (Circularity Gap, 2021) and fashion (Joung, 2014). Mission Zero has identified a high demand for Biomimicry in these industries. This critical approach: 1) studies existing biomimetic tools, testing and defining gaps; 2) identifies needs of educators and professionals during and after an inter-disciplinary minor at The Hague University; and, 3) translates findings into shareable best practices through publications of results. Findings will be implemented into tangible engaging tools for educational and professional settings. Knowledge will be inclusive and disseminated to large audiences by focusing on communication through social media and intervention conferences.
A fast growing percentage (currently 75% ) of the EU population lives in urban areas, using 70% of available energy resources. In the global competition for talent, growth and investments, quality of city life and the attractiveness of cities as environments for learning, innovation, doing business and job creation, are now the key parameters for success. Therefore cities need to provide solutions to significantly increase their overall energy and resource efficiency through actions addressing the building stock, energy systems, mobility, and air quality.The European Energy Union of 2015 aims to ensure secure, affordable and climate-friendly energy for EU citizens and businesses among others, by bringing new technologies and renewed infrastructure to cut household bills, create jobs and boost growth, for achieving a sustainable, low carbon and environmentally friendly economy, putting Europe at the forefront of renewable energy production and winning the fight against global warming.However, the retail market is not functioning properly. Many household consumers have too little choices of energy suppliers and too little control over their energy costs. An unacceptably high percentage of European households cannot afford to pay their energy bills. Energy infrastructure is ageing and is not adjusted to the increased production from renewables. As a consequence there is still a need to attract investments, with the current market design and national policies not setting the right incentives and providing insufficient predictability for potential investors. With an increasing share of renewable energy sources in the coming decades, the generation of electricity/energy will change drastically from present-day centralized production by gigawatt fossil-fueled plants towards decentralized generation, in cities mostly by local household and district level RES (e.g PV, wind turbines) systems operating in the level of micro-grids. With the intermittent nature of renewable energy, grid stress is a challenge. Therefore there is a need for more flexibility in the energy system. Technology can be of great help in linking resource efficiency and flexibility in energy supply and demand with innovative, inclusive and more efficient services for citizens and businesses. To realize the European targets for further growth of renewable energy in the energy market, and to exploit both on a European and global level the expected technological opportunities in a sustainable manner, city planners, administrators, universities, entrepreneurs, citizens, and all other relevant stakeholders, need to work together and be the key moving wheel of future EU cities development.Our SolutionIn the light of such a transiting environment, the need for strategies that help cities to smartly integrate technological solutions becomes more and more apparent. Given this condition and the fact that cities can act as large-scale demonstrators of integrated solutions, and want to contribute to the socially inclusive energy and mobility transition, IRIS offers an excellent opportunity to demonstrate and replicate the cities’ great potential. For more information see the HKU Smart Citieswebsite or check out the EU-website.
Globally, we face the urgent task of the transition to a climate neutral and circular society. Biobased materials are regenerative and add considerably less to the carbon stock in the atmosphere. Therefore they get high priority in several missions of the KIA theme “Energy transition and Sustainability”. In recent years significant progress has been made in biobased materials technology. In the “Circular Biobased Delta” region the Universities of Applied Sciences have grown into strong research partners in this field. However, successful business cases are few and society reacts only hesitantly. Accelerating the transition to biobased materials asks for a strategic move to a truly interdisciplinary collaboration. In response, in the Living Ecosystem programme, technological, economic and societal researchers from the three Universities of Applied Sciences (HZ, RUAS, Avans) join to form a core group. Together they will align and extend their research in shared topics such as biobased ingredients, circular building, and bioplastics. Around these topics, cross-sectoral communities within the existing regional ecosystem will be organised, connected and called upon to articulate interdisciplinary research projects and valorise the outcomes. The partners have different levels of achievement together forming a strong research group. They will share their experiences to collectively improve the volume, impact and quality of their research. In doing so they aim to become leaders within their separate disciplines and collectively evolve into an (inter)nationally recognised top-rank research community. The core group of researchers is assisted by a strong consortium, whose members represent the different topics and functions in the ecosystem. The consortium will advise the core group in defining and valorising their research. The regional ecosystem already hosts many “field labs”. The programme aims to create focus in their utilisation for an impactful programme of development, education and communication activities.
