In cognitive science, creative ideas are defined as original and feasible solutions in response to problems. A common proposal is that creative ideas are generated across dedicated cognitive pathways. Only after creative ideas have emerged, they can be enacted to solve the problem. We present an alternative viewpoint, based upon the dynamic systems approach to perception and action, that creative solutions emerge in the act rather than before. Creative actions, thus, are as much a product of individual constraints as they are of the task and environment constraints. Accordingly, we understand creative motor actions as functional movement patterns that are new to the individual and/or group and adapted to satisfy the constraints on the motor problem at hand. We argue that creative motor actions are promoted by practice interventions that promote exploration by manipulating constraints. Exploration enhances variability of functional movement patterns in terms of either coordination or control solutions. At both levels, creative motor actions can emerge from finding new and degenerate adaptive motor solutions. Generally speaking, we anticipate that in most cases, when exposed to variation in constraints, people are not looking for creative motor actions, but discover them while doing an effort to satisfy constraints. For future research, this paper achieves two important aspects: it delineates how adaptive (movement) variability is at the heart of (motor) creativity, and it sets out methodologies toward stimulating adaptive variability.
Purpose: The net height in tennis (0.91 m) is approximately 50% of a professional tennis player’s height. Children are also expected to play with this net height, even though it is approximately 70% of the average 10-year-old’s height. This study examined the immediate effect of lowering net height on the performance characteristics of skilled junior tennis players aged 10 years and younger. Method: Sixteen players were matched in 8 pairs of even tennis ability and same sex. Each pair played 25-min singles matches in 4 conditions that varied in net height (0.91 m, 0.78 m, 0.65 m, and 0.52 m). Match-play characteristics were analyzed via video replay. Results: Results showed that lowering the net height to 0.65 m and 0.52 m led to players adopting a more attacking style of play, as evidenced by a significant increase in the number of winners without a commensurate increase in errors and more shots struck inside the baseline. Lower nets also led to a greater percentage of successful first serves. The lowest net (0.52 m), however, reduced rally length significantly and therefore decreased hitting opportunities. Conclusion: These results offer support for equipment scaling to enhance match-play performance for skilled junior tennis players. We propose that current net height recommendations for junior tennis should be revised.
In bilingual streams in the Netherlands, school subjects are taught in an additional language so that pupils learn both subject content and the target language by using language meaningfully. Teachers of English in bilingual streams (TEBs) are often expected to collaborate with subject teacher colleagues (STs). In addition, they teach separate language lessons. This provides TEBs with specific challenges. This article reports on a focus group (FG) study exploring the extent to which the ideals of stakeholders in bilingual schools in the Netherlands reflect the literature on this topic, using a frame of reference developed for this purpose (Dale, Oostdam, & Verspoor, 2017). Five FGs were held with TEBs and STs from Dutch schools in the network for bilingual education and with members of the network’s quality assurance panels. Each FG consisted of between three and six participants with a similar role in bilingual education; audit panel chairpersons, audit panel secretaries and STs and TEBs from different schools. Participants were asked to discuss what an ideal English teacher would do in English lessons and in cooperation with subject colleagues. Data consists of five transcripts of the FG discussions. On the basis of inductive and deductive analyses (using MaxQDA), the ideals of stakeholders are positioned in the framework to explore to what extent different types of stakeholders have complementary or conflicting views. The findings suggest that stakeholders need to develop more shared understandings and a shared language to allow TEBs to realise their ambitions.
Single-Use Plastics (SUPs) are at the centre of European Union Agenda aiming at reducing the plastic soup with the EU Directive 2019/904. SUPs reduction is pivotal also in the Dutch Government Agenda for the transition to a Circular Economy by 2050. Worldwide the data on SUPs use and disposal are impressive: humans use around 1.2 million plastic bottles per minute; approximately 91% of plastic is not recycled (www.earthday.org/fact-sheet-single-use-plastics/). While centralised processes of waste collection, disposal, and recycling strive to cope with such intense use of SUPs, the opportunities and constraints of establishing a networked grid of facilities enacting processes of SUPs collection and recycling with the active involvement of local community has remained unexplored. The hospitality sector is characterised by a widespread capillary network of small hospitality firms nested in neighbourhoods and rural communities. Our research group works with small hospitality firms, different stakeholders, and other research groups to prompt the transition of the hospitality sector towards a Circular Economy embracing not only the environmental and economic dimensions but also the social dimension. Hence, this project explores the knowledge and network needed to build an innovative pilot allowing to close the plastic loop within a hospitality facility by combining a 3D printing process with social inclusiveness. This will mean generating key technical and legal knowledge as well as a network of strategic experts and stakeholders to be involved in an innovative pilot setting a 3D printing process in a hospitality facility and establishing an active involvement of the local community. Such active involvement of the local inhabitants will be explored as SUPs collectors and end-users of upcycled plastics items realised with the 3D printer, as well as through opportunities of vocational training and job opportunities for citizens distant from the job market.
Cross-Re-Tour supports European tourism SME while implementing digital and circular economy innovations. The three year project promotes uptake and replication by tourism SMEs of tools and solutions developed in other sectors, to mainstream green and circular tourism business operations.At the start of the project existing knowledge-gaps of tourism SMEs will be researched through online dialogues. This will be followed by a market scan, an overview of existing state of the art solutions to digital and green constraints in other economic sectors, which may be applied to tourism SME business operations: water, energy, food, plastic, transport and furniture /equipment. The scan identifies best practices from other sectors related to nudging of clients towards sustainable behaviour and nudging of staff on how to best engage with new tourism market segments.The next stage of the project relates to two design processes: an online diagnostic tool that allows for measuring and assessing (160) SME’s potential to adapt existing solutions in digital and green challenges, developed in other economic sectors. Next to this, a knowledge hub, addresses knowledge constraints and proposes solutions, business advisory services, training activities to SMEs participating. The hub acts as a matchmaker, bringing together 160 tourism SMEs searching for solutions, with suppliers of existing solutions developed in other sectors. The next key activity is a cross-domain open innovation programme, that will provide 80 tourism SMEs with financial support (up to EUR 30K). Examples of partnerships could be: a hotel and a supplier of refurbished matrasses for hospitals; a restaurant and a supplier of food rejected by supermarkets, a dance event organiser and a supplier of refurbished water bottles operating in the cruise industry, etc.The 80 cross-domain partnerships will be supported through the knowledge hub and their business innovation advisors. The goal is to develop a variety of innovative partnerships to assure that examples in all operational levels of tourism SMEs.The innovation projects shall be presented during a show-and-share event, combined with an investors’ pitch. The diagnostic tool, market scan, knowledge hub, as well as the show and share offer excellent opportunities to communicate results and possible impact of open innovation processes to a wider international audience of destination stakeholders and non-tourism partners. Societal issueSupporting the implementation of digital and circular economy solutions in tourism SMEs is key for its transition towards sustainable low-impact industry and society. Benefit for societySolutions are already developed in other sectors but the cross-over towards tourism is not happening. The project bridges this gap.
Over the past decade, the trend in both the public sector and industry has been to outsource ICT to the cloud. While cost savings are often used as a rationale for outsourcing, another argument that is frequently used is that the cloud improves security. The reasoning behind this is twofold. First, cloud service providers are typically thought to have skilled staff trained in good security practices. Second, cloud providers often have a vastly distributed, highly connected network infrastructure, making them more resilient in the face of outages and denial-of-service attacks. Yet many examples of cloud outages, often due to attacks, call into question whether outsourcing to the cloud does improve security. In this project our goal therefore is to answer two questions: 1) did the cloud make use more secure?and 2) can we provide specific security guidance to support cloud outsourcing strategies? We will approach these questions in a multi-disciplinary fashion from a technical angle and from a business and management perspective. On the technical side, the project will focus on providing comprehensive insight into the attack surface at the network level of cloud providers and their users. We will use a measurement-based approach, leveraging large scale datasets about the Internet, both our own data (e.g. OpenINTEL, a large- scale dataset of active DNS measurements) and datasets from our long-term collaborators, such as CAIDA in the US (BGPStream, Network Telescope) and Saarland University in Germany (AmpPot). We will use this data to study the network infrastructure outside and within cloud environments to structurally map vulnerabilities to attacks as well as to identify security anti-patterns, where the way cloud services are managed or used introduce a weak point that attackers can target. From a business point of view, we will investigate outsourcing strategies for both the cloud providers and their customers. For guaranteeing 100% availability, cloud service providers have to maintain additional capacity at all times. They also need to forecast capacity requirements continuously for financially profitable decisions. If the forecast is lower than the capacity needed, then the cloud is not able to deliver 100% availability in case of an attack. Conversely, if the forecast is substantially higher, the cloud service provider might not be able to make desired profits. We therefore propose to assess the risk profiles of cloud providers (how likely it is a cloud provider is under attack at a given time given the nature of its customers) using available attack data to improve the provider resilience to future attacks. From the costumer perspective, we will investigate how we can support cloud outsourcing by taking into consideration business and technical constraints. Decision to choose a cloud service provider is typically based on multiple criteria depending upon the company’s needs (security and operational). We will develop decision support systems that will help in mapping companies’ needs to cloud service providers’ offers.
