While modern wind turbines have become by far the largest rotating machines on Earth with further upscaling planned for the future, a renewed interest in small wind turbines (SWTs) is fostering energy transition and smart grid development. Small machines have traditionally not received the same level of aerodynamic refinement as their larger counterparts, resulting in lower efficiency, lower capacity factors, and therefore a higher cost of energy. In an effort to reduce this gap, research programs are developing worldwide. With this background, the scope of the present study is 2-fold. In the first part of this paper, an overview of the current status of the technology is presented in terms of technical maturity, diffusion, and cost. The second part of the study proposes five grand challenges that are thought to be key to fostering the development of small wind turbine technology in the near future, i.e. (1) improving energy conversion of modern SWTs through better design and control, especially in the case of turbulent wind; (2) better predicting long-term turbine performance with limited resource measurements and proving reliability; (3) improving the economic viability of small wind energy; (4) facilitating the contribution of SWTs to the energy demand and electrical system integration; (5) fostering engagement, social acceptance, and deployment for global distributed wind markets. To tackle these challenges, a series of unknowns and gaps are first identified and discussed. Based on them, improvement areas are suggested, for which 10 key enabling actions are finally proposed.
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In this pilot study, we investigated the feasibility of a home-based, remotely guided exercise intervention for patients with gliomas. The six-month intervention included three home-based exercise sessions per week at 60%–85% of maximum heart rate. Participants wore heart rate monitors connected to an online platform to record activities that were monitored weekly by the physiotherapist.
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Within the Flexnode Plus project the long-term degradation characteristics of a proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzer (5.5 kW, AC, 1 Nm3/h H2) and fuel cell (1.0 kW, DC, 0.9 Nm3/h) was experimentally tested. The electrolyzer unit was operated at various loads and pressures for approximately 750 hours in total, while the fuel cell was operated at a constant load of 1 Ω resistance for approximately 1120 hours in total. The efficiency of the hydrogen production in the electrolyzer and the electricity production in the fuel cell was expressed using the hourly average system efficiency and average cell efficiency. Inorder to predict the state of health and remaining lifetime of the electrolyzer cell and fuel cell, the decay of the cell voltage over time was monitored and the direct mapping from aging data method was used.The electrolyzer cell showed a stable cell voltage and cell efficiency in the studied time period, with an average cell voltage decay rate of 0.5 μV/h. The average cell voltage of the fuel cell dropped with a rate of 2 μV/h during the studied time period.
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Het lectoraat Juridische en Economische Vraagstukken binnen de Energietransitie draagt bij aan de overgang naar een duurzame samenleving gebaseerd op het gebruik van schone energiebronnen. Dat vraagt niet alleen om nieuwe technologieën, maar ook om juridische kaders en nieuwe verdienmodellen voor duurzame investeringen in de energiemarkt. Het lectoraat maakt deel uit van ENTRANCE – Centre of Expertise Energy van de Hanze. ENTRANCE – Centre of Expertise Energy draagt als lerende, praktijkgerichte kennisgemeenschap bij aan een robuuste, veerkrachtige en duurzame energievoorziening. Door middel van hoogstaand toegepast onderzoek en onderwijs stimuleren we duurzame innovaties in samenwerking met burgers, bedrijven, studenten, maatschappelijke organisaties en overheden
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In de maanden juli-december 2016 is door het lectoraat OER van Fontys Hogeschool ICT een onderzoek uitgevoerd om de volgende vraag te kunnen beantwoorden: Wat leidt tot c.q. is nodig voor een brede adoptie van delen van open leermaterialen en online cursussen en hergebruiken van open leermaterialen en cursussen door docenten in het bekostigde hoger onderwijs in Nederland? Bij 4 universiteiten en 6 hogescholen zijn totaal 55 semi-gestructureerde interviews afgenomen met docenten, bestuurders en ondersteuners. Onderwerpen die tijdens de interviews aan bod kwamen betroffen ambities met onderwijs, beleid, opvattingen over openheid in het onderwijs, motieven voor delen en hergebruiken, ervaringen met delen en hergebruiken, hindernissen die werden ondervonden, noodzakelijke randvoorwaarden en invloeden die geïnterviewden vanuit hun omgeving ervaren. Analyse van de interviews gaf de volgende resultaten: 1. Praktijken van delen en hergebruiken zijn erg divers qua openheid. Lang niet altijd zijn gedeelde leermaterialen toegankelijk voor iedereen, vaak ontbreekt een open licentie en processen als copyright clearing vinden niet altijd plaats; 2. Delen en hergebruiken van leermaterialen (al dan niet volledig open) gebeurt veel. Hierbij wordt vooral het bereiken van een hogere kwaliteit campusonderwijs nagestreefd; 3. Feedback op gedeelde materialen is cruciaal voor de motivatie van docenten om structureel materialen te delen; 4. Structureel delen en hergebruik binnen een instelling heeft meer kans van slagen wanneer het gekoppeld wordt aan andere beleidsthema’s zoals internationalisatie of aan onderwijsinnovaties zoals invoeren van blended leren; 5. Bij een aantal instellingen is sprake van zich ontwikkelend beleid op het gebied van open delen en hergebruiken van leermaterialen; 6. Docenten zijn onvoldoende bekend met aanwezigheid danwel inhoud van beleid; 7. De autonomie van de docent in het bepalen om met delen en hergebruiken aan de slag te gaan wordt als cruciaal gezien en als zodanig herkend en erkend, zowel door bestuur als door docenten zelf; 8. Delen en hergebruiken moeten uiteindelijk ten goede komen aan de student of een positief effect hebben op de efficiency van het onderwijs. Of en hoe dat daadwerkelijk gerealiseerd moet worden, is vaak nog niet duidelijk; 9. Docenten geven aan dat stimulering in termen van geld, tijd en ondersteuning essentieel is voor hen om tot structureel gedrag van delen en hergebruiken te komen. Tevens moeten voor hen de antwoorden op de what’s in it for me vraag duidelijk zijn; 10. Publiceren van MOOC’s wordt ervaren als een versneller voor de adoptie van open delen van materialen en cursussen binnen een instelling; 11. Acceptatie van open delen en hergebruiken op instellingsniveau, zich uitend in beleid dat vertaald is naar concrete activiteiten en richtlijnen, beïnvloedt brede adoptie ervan door docenten positief. Op basis van deze resultaten zijn de volgende aanbevelingen geformuleerd om brede adoptie van open delen en hergebruiken te realiseren binnen een instelling: 1. Maak de meerwaarde van open delen en hergebruiken duidelijk aan docenten; 2. Zorg bij deze verandering van de beeldvorming rondom open delen en hergebruiken bij docenten voor ondersteuning vanuit de instelling: op ICT-gebied, juridische en onderwijskundige aspecten, facilitering in tijd, aanwezigheid van een veilige experimenteerruimte en een ondersteunende infrastructuur; 3. Formuleer op faculteits-, instituuts- en instellingsniveau beleid op het gebied van open delen en hergebruiken dat de activiteiten die onder aanbeveling 1 en 2 genoemd worden mogelijk maakt; 4. Koppel beleid inzake open delen en hergebruiken aan andere thema’s van onderwijsvernieuwing of aan thema’s als internationalisering.
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This article presents a novel and highly interactive process to generate natural language narratives based on our ongoing work on semiotic relations, providing four criteria for composing new narratives from existing stories. The wide applicability of this semiotic reconstruction process is suggested by a reputed literary scholar's deconstructive claim that new narratives can often be shown to be a tissue of previous narratives. Along, respectively, three semiotic axes – syntagmatic, paradigmatic, and meronymic – existing stories can yield new stories by the combination, imitation, or expansion of an iconic scene; lastly, a new story may emerge through reversal via an antithetic consideration, i.e., through the adoption of opposite values. Targeting casual users, we present a fully operational prototype with a simple and user-friendly interface that incorporates an AI agent, namely ChatGPT. The prototype, in a coauthor capacity, generates context-compatible sequences of events in storyboard format using backward-chaining abductive reasoning (employing Stable Diffusion to draw scene illustrations), conforming as much as possible to the user's authorial instructions. The extensive repertoire of book and movie summaries available to the AI agent obviates the need to manually supply laborious and error-prone context specifications. A user study was conducted to evaluate user experience and satisfaction with the generated narratives. The preliminary findings suggest that our approach has the potential to enhance story quality while offering a positive user experience.
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With a market demand for low cost, easy to produce, flexible and portable applications in healthcare, energy, biomedical or electronics markets, large research programs are initiated to develop new technologies to provide this demand with new innovative ideas. One of these fast developing technologies is organic printed electronics. As the term printed electronics implies, functional materials are printed via, e.g. inkjet, flexo or gravure printing techniques, on to a substrate material. Applications are, among others, organic light emitting diodes (OLED), sensors and Lab-on-a-chip devices. For all these applications, in some way, the interaction of fluids with the substrate is of great importance. The most used substrate materials for these low-cost devices are (coated) paper or plastic. Plastic substrates have a relatively low surface energy which frequently leads to poor wetting and/or poor adhesion of the fluids on the substrates during printing and/ or post-processing. Plasma technology has had a long history in treating materials in order to improve wetting or promote adhesion. The µPlasma patterning tool described in this thesis combines a digital inkjet printing platform with an atmospheric dielectric barrier discharge plasma tool. Thus enabling selective and local plasma treatment, at atmospheric pressure, of substrates without the use of any masking materials. In this thesis, we show that dependent on the gas composition the substrate surface can either be functionalized, thus increasing its surface energy, or material can be deposited on the surface, lowering its surface energy. Through XPS and ATR-FTIR analysis of the treated (polymer) substrate surfaces, chemical modification of the surface structure was confirmed. The chemical modification and wetting properties of the treated substrates remained present for at least one month after storage. Localized changes in wettability through µPlasma patterning were obtained with a resolution of 300µm. Next to the control of wettability of an ink on a substrate in printed electronics is the interaction of ink droplets with themselves of importance. In printing applications, coalescence of droplets is standard practice as consecutive droplets are printed onto, or close to each other. Understanding the behaviour of these droplets upon coalescence is therefore important, especially when the ink droplets are of different composition and/or volume. For droplets of equal volume, it was found that dye transport across the coalescence bridge could be fully described by diffusion only. This is as expected, as due to the droplet symmetry on either side of the bridge, the convective flows towards the bridge are of equal size but opposite in direction. For droplets of unequal volume, the symmetry across the bridge is no longer present. Experimental analysis of these merging droplets show that in the early stages of coalescence a convective flow from the small to large droplet is present. Also, a smaller convective flow of shorter duration from the large into the small droplet was identified. The origin of this flow might be due to the presence of vortices along the interface of the bridge, due to the strong transverse flow to open the bridge. To conclude, three potential applications were showcased. In the first application we used µPlasma patterning to create hydrophilic patterns on hydrophobic dodecyl-trichlorosilane (DTS) covered glass. Capillaries for a Lab-on-a-chip device were successfully created by placing two µPlasma patterned glass slides on top of each other separated by scotch tape. In the second application we showcased the production of a RFID tag via inkjet printing. Functional RFID-tags on paper were created via inkjet printing of silver nanoparticle ink connected to an integrated circuit. The optimal operating frequency of the produced tags is in the range of 860-865 MHz, making them usable for the European market, although the small working range of 1 m needs further improvement. Lastly, we showed the production of a chemresistor based gas sensor. In house synthesised polyemeraldine salt (PANi) was coated by hand on top of inkjet printed silver electrodes. The sensor proved to be equally sensitive to ethanol and water vapour, reducing its selectivity in detecting changes in gas composition.
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Innovation is crucial for higher education to ensure high-quality curricula that address the changing needs of students, labor markets, and society as a whole. Substantial amounts of resources and enthusiasm are devoted to innovations, but often they do not yield the desired changes. This may be due to unworkable goals, too much complexity, and a lack of resources to institutionalize the innovation. In many cases, innovations end up being less sustainable than expected or hoped for. In the long term, the disappointing revenues of innovations hamper the ability of higher education to remain future proof. Against the background of this need to increase the success of educational innovations, our colleague Klaartje van Genugten has explored the literature on innovations to reveal mechanisms that contribute to the sustainability of innovations. Her findings are synthesized in this report. They are particularly meaningful for directors of education programs, curriculum committees, educational consultants, and policy makers, who are generally in charge of defining the scope and set up of innovations. Her report offers a comprehensive view and provides food for thought on how we can strive for future-proof and sustainable innovations. I therefore recommend reading this report.
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In this paper, we report on the initial results of an explorative study that aims to investigate the occurrence of cognitive biases when designers use generative AI in the ideation phase of a creative design process. When observing current AI models utilised as creative design tools, potential negative impacts on creativity can be identified, namely deepening already existing cognitive biases but also introducing new ones that might not have been present before. Within our study, we analysed the emergence of several cognitive biases and the possible appearance of a negative synergy when designers use generative AI tools in a creative ideation process. Additionally, we identified a new potential bias that emerges from interacting with AI tools, namely prompt bias.
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