Veranderingen in de zorgsector volgen elkaar in rap tempo op. De zorgorganisatie Axion-Continu, gevestigd in de regio Utrecht, bouwt letterlijk en figuurlijk aan een nieuwe vorm van huisvesting. Bij de nieuwbouw en renovatie van woonzorgcentrum De Wartburg komen verschillende woonvormen samen. Een gesprek met Lex Roseboom, Raad van Bestuur en Huub Albreghs, Manager Facilitair Bedrijf en Bouw over woonzorg en welzijn anno 2012.
Brain & Technology is about the relationship between mind and technology, so about brain and lifelong learning, and therefore about the extended mind. More generally, humanity uses technology to outsource brain processes (mind) to smart devices, just as we partially outsource our digestion to cooking and skin protection to clothing. So the boundary between body and environment is by no means fixed, partly thanks to technology. A kind of weird way to say it, you could say that Brain & Technology is about border traffic, and about border possibilities and problems.
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Background Eating behaviour of older adults is influenced by a complex interaction of determinants. Understanding the determinants of a specific target group is important when developing targeted health-promoting strategies. The aim of this study was to explore interpersonal determinants of eating behaviours in older adults living independently in a specific neighbourhood in the Netherlands. Methods In the neighbourhood of interest, populated by relatively many older adults, fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with independently living older adults (aged 76.9 ± 6.4y). Interviews were complemented with observations among the target group: three occasions of grocery shopping and three collective eating occasions in the neighbourhood. A thematic approach was used to analyse the qualitative data. Results When we asked the older adults unprompted why they eat what they eat, the influence of interpersonal determinants did not appear directly; respondents rather mentioned individual (e.g. habits) and environmental factors (e.g. food accessibility). Key findings regarding interpersonal factors were: 1) Behaviours are shaped by someone’s context; 2) Living alone influences (determinants of) eating behaviour via multiple ways; 3) There is a salient norm that people do not interfere with others’ eating behaviour; 4) Older adults make limited use of social support (both formal and informal) for grocery shopping and cooking, except for organised eating activities in the neighbourhood. In this particular neighbourhood, many facilities (e.g. shops at walking distance) are present, and events (e.g. dinners) are organised with and for the target group, which likely impact (determinants of) their behaviours. Conclusions The study showed that older adults do not directly think of interpersonal factors influencing their eating behaviour, but rather of individual or environmental factors. However, multiple interpersonal factors did appear in the interviews and observations. Moreover, neighbourhood-specific factors seem to play a role, which underlines the need to understand the specific (social) setting when developing and implementing intervention programmes. Insights from this study can assist in developing health-promoting strategies for older adults, taking into account the context of the specific neighbourhood.
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Surface Active Agents, or surfactants, are chemicals which provide a surface (interface) activity when dispersed in liquids. They have different purposes, can be used as herbicides, anti-foaming agents, adhesives, cleaning agents and softeners. For cleaning purposes, their function is to alter (decrease) liquid surface tension. In this function they are ubiquitous in both industrial processes (cleaning of production equipment, storage vats, packaging lines, and cooking units either during the manufacturing process) and domestic applications. ProtoNeat proposes an alternative way to decrease water surface tension without adding chemicals (surfactants). This can be done by charging the water (producing protonically charged water) [2], i.e. positive and negative Bjerrum-defect like charges [3, 4]. This phenomenon was experimentally observed by Fuchs et al [5] in anolyte and catholyte when doing high voltage electrolysis of highly pure water during the so-called ‘floating water bridge’ experiment. The work done by the authors, when working with this “bridge”, showed that, in case of positive excess charge, the hydronium ions migrate to the surface [8] thereby significantly lowering the surface tension [9,10]. However, for how long this effect can be maintained and how effective it is to produce such water is still unknown. ProtoNeat wants to tackle these two questions and investigate whether a continuous production of protonically charged water as an environmentally friendly and sustainable cleaning agent is possible.
The objective of Sustainable Solid Biofuel project is to contribute to a zero-waste and low-carbon emission production of charcoal by evaluating the feasibility and energy efficiency of three different conversion technologies. According to the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2015 3 billion (more than a third of the global population) use solid biomass as wood, charcoal, or animal waste for cooking and heating1. Charcoal is one of the most widely used of the solid biofuels. In current charcoal production processes the gas stream from pyrolysis are mostly directly released to the environment which wastes energy and causes serious environmental pollution. However, the production of charcoal can be improved to be practiced on a sustainable basis by careful selection of wood or alternative biomass source as wood waste or agricultural residues and further focusing on harvesting strategy and production techniques. In the conversion process it is necessary to increase the energy efficiency while reducing emissions. Further sustainability can be increased by processing the smoke that is exhausted from the kiln, that correspond to roughly one third of the whole biomass. Within the volatile components in the smoke there are chemicals which can be used, for example, as industrial cleaners or wood preservatives and thus one of the environmental drawbacks of charcoal production can be eliminated and turned into another product input. Brazil is the world's largest charcoal producer2 consequently the state of the art of the recearch in this field can be found in Brazil. In this Sustainable Solid Biofuels project one of the leading universities of Brazil, the Universidade Federal de Viçosa (UFV) is joining forces with Avans University of Applied Sciences and two Dutch SMEs Privium B.V. and Charcotec B.V. to carry out the evaluation of the improvements that can be achieved in the energy efficiency.
"Taste Europe on the Go!" is a cross-sectoral international project in which we include two universities of applied sciences from the Netherlands and Finland into the successful project of vocational business college and restaurant service college partners from Finland, Italy and Spain.The project aims at learning about entrepreneurship in an international context through setting up pop-up restaurants in the participating countries. Every six months, one of the participating countries welcomes other participants to host a pop-up restaurant together. In December 2019 it was BUas' turn. A total of 50 international students and staff members from different countries united their entrepreneurial and cooking skills to serve international dishes at the Belcrum Wintermarket (Breda) of 2019.Vocational education needs pedagogical innovations to increase student motivation to complete studies, graduate on time and gain lifelong learning skills so that their capability to get employed with up-to-date knowledge and skills be better. In this project we focus on learning entrepreneurial skills using an eLearning platform and strengthening key competences in Vocational Education Training (VET) curricula by learning entrepreneurship in new way.PartnersPerho Liiketalousopisto (Finland), Mercuria Kauppiaitten Kauppaoppilaitos (Finland), Col legi Badalonés (Spain), Istituto di Istruzione Superiore “De Amicis” (Italy), Estudis d’Hoteleria i Turisme CETT (Spain), IPSAR “Luigi Carnacina” (Italy), Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences (Finland) and Breda University of Applied Sciences
