The current assignment of vocational programs in higher education is to educate future evidence-based professionals. Often is presumed that a substantial connection between research and teaching is needed to be able to provide the right context and content to achieve this aim with students (Healey & Jenkins, 2015). As an effect in the Dutch institutes for higher professional education there is an increased attention for the connection between research and teaching as a carrier to develop these knowledge related competences. But what does it mean for an institute of higher vocational education to actively strategize towards integrating research and teaching in all bachelor and master programs for 45.000 students, while still standing in the tradition of being teaching-only? This paper presents the three phases of a large scale institutional change in Amsterdam UAS, including a systematic analysis of ‘research’ in the profiles of all 70 vocational bachelor programs.
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City authorities want to know how to match the charging infrastructures for electric vehicles with the demand. Using camera recognition algorithms from artificial intelligence we investigated the behavior of taxis at a charging stations and a taxi stand.
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Fashion design has rapidly become a digital process where textiles are simulated as soft, conformable materials on a digital body. The embodied experience and physical interaction with the textile have been replaced by screen-based media, resulting in a gap in understanding between physical and digital textile material. Consequently, understanding digitized textile properties and characteristics has become challenging for practitioners. This research investigates fashion designers’ implicit understanding when selecting textiles, specifically how interactions with physical textiles influence design considerations. Twenty digital fashion designers interacted with ten physical textile materials via tangible and scientific drape measurements, reflecting upon their design considerations. In digital environments, a tangible understanding of material properties is vital, and scientific drape measurements add significant understanding to digital design. The research advances our understanding of integrating digital tools in textile and soft material practices, where a postphenomenological approach is employed to help formulate the design considerations in selecting materials.
Vacation travel is an essential ingredient in quality of life. However, the contriubtion of vacations to quality of life could be improved in two ways: by optimizing the decisions people make when planning and undertaking their vacations, and by travel industry testing and implementing––based on evidence––innovative experience products which touch customers' emotions. Secondary analysis of two longitudinal panel datasets will address the impact of people's decisions in planning and undertaking their vacations, on their quality of life. Field experiments in cooperation with travel industry partners will address the effects of innovative experience products, such as apps designed to help vacationers meet fellow travelers, or personalized memory books designed to help people relive their vacations after return home. Experience data in these field experiments will be collected using technology of the Breda University of Applied Sciences' Experience Measurement Lab, a unique facility for measuring emotions continuously from research participants' body and mind. Thus, the project will contribute to general understanding of quality of life, will feed valuable knowledge about experience design, measurement, and implementation to the Dutch travel industry, and will support the Breda University of Applied Sciences' key research theme of Designing, Measuring, and Managing Experiences. Inspiring examples from the project will reinforce research methods courses in the academic Bachelor of Science in Tourism, the HBO Master in Tourism Destination Management, and the academic Master of Science in Leisure Studies. Wearable emotion measurement from the field experiment will be a cornerstone of the fourth-year HBO-bachelor module Business Intelligence, where students will conduct their own research projects on experience measurement using consumer wearables, based on knowledge from this postdoc project. Finally, a number of methodological and content questions within the project will serve as suitable thesis assignments for graduation students in the above educational tracks.
Brandweermensen lopen het meeste gevaar als ze onder tijdsdruk een gebouw moeten verkennen, of een brand moeten blussen terwijl de situatie nog niet goed kan worden overzien. Omvallende muren, instortende plafonds of gewoon gestruikeld over door de rook onzichtbare brokstukken leiden tot vermijdbare letsels of zelfs slachtoffers. Met name de inzet bij branden in stedelijke parkeergarages onder woontorens vormen een enorm risico. Het inzetten van onbemande, op afstand bestuurbare voertuigen voor verkenning en bluswerk is een oplossing die binnen de brandweer breed wordt gedragen. De brandweer moet deze innovatieve technologie echter zien te omarmen. Zij werken nu vanuit hun intuïtie en weten direct hoe te acteren op basis van wat zij waarnemen. Praktijkgericht onderzoek heeft echter uitgewezen dat scepsis over de inzet van blusplatforms bij incidenten plaats heeft gemaakt voor zeker vertrouwen. Een blusplatform, voorzien van juiste sensoren kan de Officier van Dienst (OVD) ondersteunen bij het nemen van een beslissing om al dan niet tot een ‘aanval’ over te gaan. Praktijktesten hebben echter laten zien dat de huidige blusplatforms nog niet optimaal functioneren om als volwaardig ‘teamlid’ te kunnen worden ingezet. Dit heeft enerzijds met technologische ontwikkelingen (sensoren en communicatieverbindingen) te maken, maar anderzijds moet de informatievoorziening (human-machine interfacing) naar de brandweer beter worden afgestemd. In dit project gaan Saxion, het instituut fysieke veiligheid, de universiteit Twente, het bedrijfsleven en vijf veiligheidsregio’s onderzoeken hoe en wanneer innovatieve blusplatforms op een intuïtieve manier kunnen worden ingezet door training én (kleine) productaanpassing zodat deze een volwaardig onderdeel kunnen zijn van het brandweerkorps. Een blusplatform kan letselschade en slachtoffers voorkomen, mits goed ingezet en vertrouwd door de mensen die daarvan afhankelijk zijn. Het vak van brandweer, als beroeps of vrijwilliger, is een van de gevaarlijkste die er is. Laten we er samen voor zorgen dat het iets veiliger kan worden.
