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Over the last few years, the term “smart cities” has gained traction in academic, industry, and policy debates about the deployment of new media technologies in urban settings. It is mostly used to describe and market technologies that make city infrastructures more efficient, and personalize the experience of the city. Here, we want to propose the notion of “ownership” as a lens to take an alternative look at the role of urban new media in the city. With the notion of ownership, we seek to investigate how digital media and culture allow citizens to engage with, organize around and act upon collective issues to engage in co-creating the socialfabric and built form of the city. Taking ownership as the point of departure, we wish to broaden the debate about the role of new media technologies in urban design from an infrastructural to a social point of view, or from “city management” to “city making”.
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Upcycling has been embraced by circular economy enthusiasts, policy-makers and collaborative initiatives across Europe. Early studies describe upcycling as a concept aimed at resource conservation by keeping products, components and materials at their highest potential value across consecutive product lifecycles, with zero-negative or even potential positive impact on the natural environment. Similarly, more recent literature on the circular economy views upcycling as a strategy to slow and close resource cycles through product life-extension approaches, such as reuse, repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing and repurpose. With growing environmental concerns, upcycling has become a re-emerging theme in literature and practice. Cities offer opportunities for an increasing number of upcycling initiatives, but little is known about what manifestations of upcycling occur specifically in urban areas or how these urban upcycling initiatives emerge. For example, so-called Urban Resource Centers seek to tackle challenges in urban solid waste management by encouraging entrepreneurs to create value from local waste streams. Therefore, our objective is to address this literature gap and explore manifestations of upcycling in a city context by means of qualitative research, following a case-study approach based on data collected from research archives and 17 preliminary interviews with entrepreneurs and experts in urban upcycling of furniture and interior design products. This study contributes to a structured overview of urban upcycling initiatives and the internal and external factors that drive entrepreneurial initiatives and development. Future work will build on this study to make urban upcycling initiatives more widespread and impactful to deliver on their environmental and social goals.
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Het zwaartepunt van de ingenieursopleiding is aan het verschuiven. De Utrechtse ingenieur zal zijn werk en toegevoegde waarde steeds meer vinden op het terrein van ontwerpen. Aan het ontwerpproces zelf worden steeds zwaardere eisen gesteld. Constructie en productie vinden in toenemende mate elders in de wereld plaats. Gelet op deze outsourcing zal de ontwerper ook in staat moeten zijn het maakproces op afstand te besturen, zowel wat betreft kwaliteit en geld als qua tijd. Ontwerpen kan vanuit verschillende perspectieven beschouwd worden: vanuit de conceptuele fase, de realisatiefase (verdere aanpassingen) of de gebruiksfase (upgrading, bediening et cetera). Bij onderzoeksinstellingen als TNO, maar ook bij vooraanstaande bedrijven als OCE, Philips en ASML zien we dat steeds meer sprake is van een integrale ontwerpaanpak. Het tijdperk van massaproductie evolueert naar een tijdperk van maatwerk, waarin de behoeften van de gebruiker centraal staan. De interactie tussen de technologie en de gebruiker zal een steeds belangrijker plaats in gaan nemen, en juist op dit vlak zal de Utrechtse ingenieur zich onderscheiden.
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In this study, the effect of strapping rowers to their sliding seat on performance during 75 m on-water starting trials was investigated. Well-trained rowers performed 75 m maximum-effort starts using an instrumented single scull equipped with a redesigned sliding seat system, both under normal conditions and while strapped to the sliding seat. Strapping rowers to their sliding seat resulted in a 0.45 s lead after 75 m, corresponding to an increase in average boat velocity of about 2.5%. Corresponding effect sizes were large. No significant changes were observed in general stroke cycle characteristics. No indications of additional boat heaving and pitching under strapped conditions were found. The increase in boat velocity is estimated to correspond to an increase in average mechanical power output during the start of on-water rowing between 5% and 10%, which is substantial but smaller than the 12% increase found in a previous study on ergometer starting. We conclude that, after a very short period of adaptation to the strapped condition, single-scull starting performance is substantially improved when the rower is strapped to the sliding seat.
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The day comes to an end. Tired of abiding to the rules of productivity you sit back, relax and prepare yourself for some hours of dolce fare niente on your social network of choice – you log into Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and are now ready to catch up with your friends, acquaintances, family et al. An advertisement for something vaguely familiar steals your attention. And then another one. You install AdBlock but still are bombarded with friendly requests to vote on some contest which requires you to like some company's page in order to proceed, or with delicious instafood from the fast food chain down your street. Oh wait, what is this? ‘23 surprising ways M&M's make your sex life better’? What fresh hell is this? Why do you find yourself unable to relax, exhausted from all the stimulus, feeling pushed from one hyperlink to the other as if a sudden gush of digital wind unearthed you from the comfort of your sofa?
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ABSTRACT Purpose: This short paper describes the dashboard design process for online hate speech monitoring for multiple languages and platforms. Methodology/approach: A case study approach was adopted in which the authors followed a research & development project for a multilingual and multiplatform online dashboard monitoring online hate speech. The case under study is the project for the European Observatory of Online Hate (EOOH). Results: We outline the process taken for design and prototype development for which a design thinking approach was followed, including multiple potential user groups of the dashboard. The paper presents this process's outcome and the dashboard's initial use. The identified issues, such as obfuscation of the context or identity of user accounts of social media posts limiting the dashboard's usability while providing a trade-off in privacy protection, may contribute to the discourse on privacy and data protection in (big data) social media analysis for practitioners. Research limitations/implications: The results are from a single case study. Still, they may be relevant for other online hate speech detection and monitoring projects involving big data analysis and human annotation. Practical implications: The study emphasises the need to involve diverse user groups and a multidisciplinary team in developing a dashboard for online hate speech. The context in which potential online hate is disseminated and the network of accounts distributing or interacting with that hate speech seems relevant for analysis by a part of the user groups of the dashboard. International Information Management Association
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