This leaflet showcases a design framework for buildingcommunity resilience in urban neighbourhoods. Atits core, the framework challenges designers andother professionals to not only consider resilience inhuman communities, but also in other-than-humancommunities, including plants and animals. Theframework proposes a set of five concepts that helpbridging these two perspectives; each concept describesan important condition for community resilience toemerge for both humans and non-humans.
In this study, we examined the effects of a defender contesting jump shots on performance and gaze behaviors of basketball players taking jump shots. Thirteen skilled youth basketball players performed 48 shots from about 5 m from the basket; 24 uncontested and 24 contested. The participants wore mobile eye tracking glasses to measure their gaze behavior. As expected, an approaching defender trying to contest the shot led to significant changes in movement execution and gaze behavior including shorter shot execution time, longer jump time, longer ball flight time, later final fixation onset, and longer fixation on the defender. Overall, no effects were found for shooting accuracy. However, the effects on shot accuracy were not similar for all participants: six participants showed worse performance and six participants showed better performance in the contested compared to the uncontested condition. These changes in performance were accompanied by differences in gaze behavior. The participants with worse performance showed shorter absolute and relative final fixation duration and a tendency for an earlier final fixation offset in the contested condition compared to the uncontested condition, whereas gaze behavior of the participants with better performance for contested shots was relatively unaffected. The results confirm that a defender contesting the shot is a relevant constraint for basketball shooting suggesting that representative training designs should also include contested shots, and more generally other constraints that are representative of the actual performance setting such as time or mental pressure.
This paper presents five design prototypes for cool urban water environments developed in the 'Really cooling water bodies in cities' (REALCOOL) project. The REALCOOL prototypes address an urgent need: urban water bodies, such as ponds or canals, are often assumed to cool down their surroundings during days with heat stress, whereas recent research shows that this is not always the case and that urban water bodies may actually have warming effects too. There are, however, indications that shading, vaporising water, and proper ventilation can keep water bodies and their surroundings cooler. Yet, it is necessary to explore how these strategies can be optimally combined and how the resulting design guidelines can be communicated to design professionals. The REALCOOL prototypes communicate the spatial layout and biometeorological effects of such combinations and assist design decisions dealing with urban water environments. The micrometeorological simulations with Envimet showed that the prototypes led to local reductions on daytime PET from 1 °C to 7 °C, upon introducing shade. Water mist and fountains were also cooling solutions. The important role of ventilation was confirmed. The paper discusses and concludes about the use of the prototypes as tools for urban design practice.
In the last decade, the automotive industry has seen significant advancements in technology (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles) that presents the opportunity to improve traffic safety, efficiency, and comfort. However, the lack of drivers’ knowledge (such as risks, benefits, capabilities, limitations, and components) and confusion (i.e., multiple systems that have similar but not identical functions with different names) concerning the vehicle technology still prevails and thus, limiting the safety potential. The usual sources (such as the owner’s manual, instructions from a sales representative, online forums, and post-purchase training) do not provide adequate and sustainable knowledge to drivers concerning ADAS. Additionally, existing driving training and examinations focus mainly on unassisted driving and are practically unchanged for 30 years. Therefore, where and how drivers should obtain the necessary skills and knowledge for safely and effectively using ADAS? The proposed KIEM project AMIGO aims to create a training framework for learner drivers by combining classroom, online/virtual, and on-the-road training modules for imparting adequate knowledge and skills (such as risk assessment, handling in safety-critical and take-over transitions, and self-evaluation). AMIGO will also develop an assessment procedure to evaluate the impact of ADAS training on drivers’ skills and knowledge by defining key performance indicators (KPIs) using in-vehicle data, eye-tracking data, and subjective measures. For practical reasons, AMIGO will focus on either lane-keeping assistance (LKA) or adaptive cruise control (ACC) for framework development and testing, depending on the system availability. The insights obtained from this project will serve as a foundation for a subsequent research project, which will expand the AMIGO framework to other ADAS systems (e.g., mandatory ADAS systems in new cars from 2020 onwards) and specific driver target groups, such as the elderly and novice.
The textile and clothing sector belongs to the world’s biggest economic activities. Producing textiles is highly energy-, water- and chemical-intensive and consequently the textile industry has a strong impact on environment and is regarded as the second greatest polluter of clean water. The European textile industry has taken significant steps taken in developing sustainable manufacturing processes and materials for example in water treatment and the development of biobased and recycled fibres. However, the large amount of harmful and toxic chemicals necessary, especially the synthetic colourants, i.e. the pigments and dyes used to colour the textile fibres and fabrics remains a serious concern. The limited range of alternative natural colourants that is available often fail the desired intensity and light stability and also are not provided at the affordable cost . The industrial partners and the branch organisations Modint and Contactgroep Textiel are actively searching for sustainable alternatives and have approached Avans to assist in the development of the colourants which led to the project Beauti-Fully Biobased Fibres project proposal. The objective of the Beauti-Fully Biobased Fibres project is to develop sustainable, renewable colourants with improved light fastness and colour intensity for colouration of (biobased) man-made textile fibres Avans University of Applied Science, Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Wageningen University & Research, Maastricht University and representatives from the textile industry will actively collaborate in the project. Specific approaches have been identified which build on knowledge developed by the knowledge partners in earlier projects. These will now be used for designing sustainable, renewable colourants with the improved quality aspects of light fastness and intensity as required in the textile industry. The selected approaches include refining natural extracts, encapsulation and novel chemical modification of nano-particle surfaces with chromophores.
The project Decolonising Education: from Teachers to Leading Learners (DETeLL) aims to develop a multi-site approach for interventions towards inclusion and decolonisation in order to change the hierarchical nature of higher education in the Netherlands. DETeLL identifies the model of the ‘traditional teacher’ as embodying the structural exclusions and discriminations built into the classroom and proposes the figure of a ‘Leading Learner’ as a first step towards a radical change in the educational system. In collaboration with the education departments in the Theatre and Dance Academy at ArtEZ, the post-doc will build up a research and teaching programme that engages with students and teachers in the faculty to create a prototype of an inclusive and diverse educational practice. RELEVANCE: Education should be the critical space in which changes occur in order to shape best possible futures. In DETeLL’s acceptation, decolonisation refers to a complete change in the way of thinking and behaving. It does not refer only to the urgency of dealing with historical colonial legacies embedded in society, but also to the subversion of the deeply oppressive colonial culture that (also unconsciously) regulates public and private living, whether this is related to gender, race, class or sexuality issues. RESULTS: 1) Create a theory and practice-based scientific base-line of decolonisation and art education; 2) Provide a definition of ‘Artist educator as Leading Learner’ following a practice- based methodology of intervention; 3) Design and Pilot a new teaching programme for theatre education at ArtEZ to be then upscaled to all educational departments in a follow-up project); 4) Produce a strong interdisciplinary and international output plan: 3 academic publications, 2 conferences, 4 expert group workshops. NETWORK: ArtEZ; University of Amsterdam (UvA); Ghent University; UCHRI; Hildesheim University; Cape Town University. The partners will serve as steering committee through planned expert group meetings.
