The online presence of organizations is long gone from being just a web page. Social media have enabled easy and inexpensive interaction between millions of individuals and communities. This has not gone unnoticed by cultural heritage institutes. The question is what all these social media activities bring. Even if an institute knows what it tries to achieve online, the metrics often consist of confusing accumulation of statistics, across several systems and reveal little about online user behaviour, engagement and satisfaction. In the research project Museum Compass a prototype of a social media monitor is developed, which will contain data of current and historic online activities on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare and Flickr of all registered Dutch museums. The first version of this monitor has been developed, and we believe that this is a good moment to discuss – mostly in a practical sense – our general approach and preliminary results.
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A prototype of an indoor monoblock heat pump was tested at multiple ambient temperatures, to determine heat output, COP and the impact of defrosting events. Component efficiencies and the ice accumulation process were analysed. Options to improve performance were suggested.
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The scope of technology has expanded towards areas such as sports and vitality, offering significant challenges for engineering designers. However, only little is known about the underlying design and engineering processes used within these fields. Therefore, this paper aims to get an indepth understanding of these type of processes. During a three-day design competition (Hackathon), three groups of engineers were challenged to develop experience-able prototypes in the field of sports and vitality. Their process was monitored based on the Reflective Transformative Design process (RTD-process) framework, describing the various activities part of the design process. Groups had to keep track of their activities, and six group reflection-sessions were held. Results show that all groups used an open and explorative approach, they frequently swapped between activities, making them able to reflect on their actions. While spending more time on envisioning and creating a clear vision seem to relate to the quality of the design concept.
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We will demonstrate a prototype exergame aimed at the serious domain of elderly fitness. The exergame incorporates straightforward means to gesture recognition, and utilises a Kinect camera to obtain 2.5D sensory data of the human user.
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An example for the development of a potential Minimum Data Set (MDS) within the Urban Vitality (UV) themes ‘Gezond ouder worden / Mensen in Beweging’. The goal is to ensure more uniform collection of outcome measures, based on FAIR principles (ref 1), and to facilitate reuse of data and analyses spanning multiple studies. This prototype MDS is based on The Older Persons and Informal Caregivers Survey Minimum DataSet (TOPICS-MDS) (ref 2), the project FAIR: geen woorden maar data (ref 3) in which we examined 14 UV-studies about ageing and frailty of elderly, and the set of common data elements for rare disease registration (ref 4).
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The Amsterdam Deysselbuurt, part of Nieuw-West, is undergoing major renovations and demolition/rebuild for the coming 10 years. Together with Rochdale, de Gemeente Amsterdam and other partners, the Robot Lab works on a case study to work towards (temporarily) urban structures, created from wood from the renovations, together with tenants. In Spring 2023, students and teachers from the Minor 'Robotic Production and Circular Materials' worked on the design and build of a first 'conversation piece'. This prototype construction was made from waste wood, harvested by wood industry partner Helwig during window replacements.
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XoSoft is a soft modular wearable assistive exoskeleton for peo- ple with mild to moderate gait impairments. It is currently being developed by a European Consortium (www.xosoft.eu) and aims to provide tailored and active lower limb support during ambu- lation. During development, user-centered design principles were followed in parallel with the aim of providing functional support during gait. A prototype was developed and was tested for practi- cability, usability, comfort and assistive function (summarized as basic functionality) with a potential end user. The prototype con- sisted of a garment, electromagnetic clutch-controlled elastic bands supporting knee- and hip flexion and a backpack containing the sensor and actuator control of the system. The participant had ex- perienced a stroke and presented with unilateral impairment of the lower and upper extremities. In testing, he donned and doffed the prototype independently as far as possible, and performed walk- ing trials with the system in both active (powered on) and pas- sive (powered off) modes. Afterwards, the participant rated the perceived pressure and various elements of usability. Results high- lighted aspects of the system for improvement during future phases of XoSoft development, and also identified useful aspects of proto- type design to be maintained. The basic functionality of XoSoft could be assumed as satisfactory given that it was the first version of a working prototype. The study highlights the benefits of this participatory evaluation design approach in assistive soft robotics development.
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In an aging population, the prevalence of people with dementia is increasing. Intelligent environments can offer a solution to support people in the early stages of dementia, who often experience problems with maintaining their day-night rhythm. The focus of this work is developing an Intelligent Environment for assisting these people with their daily structure while living independently at home. Three co-creation methods with several stakeholder groups were used to elicit requirements and develop a prototype of an Intelligent Environment. Participants were involved in sessions using Mind Maps (N=55), Idea Generation Cards (N=35), and in a multidisciplinary design team with representatives of eight organizations. The result of these sessions was a set of 10 requirements for the Intelligent Environment on the following topics: context-awareness, pattern recognition, adaptation, support, personalization, autonomy, modularity, dementia proof interaction, costs, data and privacy. Based on these requirements, several scenarios were developed to explicate such an environment for supporting people with early dementia. The design team translated the requirements to a real-life prototype of an Intelligent Environment integrated into a demonstration home. The prototype serves as a basis for further development of Intelligent Environments to enable people with dementia to live longer independently at home.
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Intelligent environments can offer support to people with early-stage dementia, who often experience problems with maintaining their circadian rhythm. The focus of this work is developing a prototype of an Intelligent Environment for assisting these people with their daily rhythm while living independently at home. Following the four phases of the Empathic Design Framework (Explore, Translate, Process, and Validate), the needs of people with dementia and their caregivers were incorporated into the design. In the exploration phase, a need assessment took place using focus groups (N=12), observations (N=10), and expert interviews (N=27). Then, to determine the requirements for a prototype of an intelligent environment, the second phase, Translate, used three co-creation sessions with different stakeholder groups. In these sessions, Mind Maps (N=55) and Idea Generation Cards (N=35) were used. These resulted in a set of 10 requirements on the following topics: context-awareness, pattern recognition, adaptation, support, personalization, autonomy, modularity, dementia proof interaction, costs, data, and privacy. Finally, in the third phase, the requirements were applied to a real-life prototype by a multidisciplinary design team of researchers, (E-Health) tech companies, designers, software engineers with representatives of eight organizations. The prototype serves as a basis for further development of Intelligent Environments to enable people with dementia to live longer independently at home.
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