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Effectiveness of a combined lifestyle intervention using dietary counselling and resistance exercise in obese older adults with type 2 diabetes (the PROBE study)

Calibrated measurements of the EMF enhancement in the downlink of a 6G distributed antenna array testbed

With this contribution, the results of the measurement campaign performed with a synchronously distributed antenna array testbed operating at the center frequency of 3.686 GHz are presented. For the first time, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the electric field distribution induced by coherent downlink transmission was experimentally assessed in the proximity of the target receiver using a calibrated electromagnetic field probe. This allowed to quantify the actual observed electric field gain and the shape of the electric field enhancement region around the target received. It was found that 16 transmitting antenna elements enhance the root-mean-square electric field level by about a factor of two, in a 2.5λ neighborhood of the target receiver. In addition, a possible disruption of the propagation environment due to the probe movement was assessed through the real-time channel state information feedback.

Future probing

Digital technologies permeate and transform organisational practices. As a society, we need means to explore the uncharted terrain that lies ahead and the desirability and consequences of possible courses of action to move forward. We investigate a design approach, called ‘future probing’, to envision and critically analyse possible futures around digital technologies. We first reconstruct our journey and describe related insights on the process, content and context level. Reflecting on the journey, we then extract a key insight revolving around the challenge for participants to link back from exploring the future to their present practice. In a first attempt at theorizing these difficulties, we see future probing as a practice that opens up adaptive space (Uhl-Bien & Arena, 2017) in which people from different backgrounds engage in dialogue about possible futures of digital technologies. We found that adaptive processes, like semi structuring, temporary decentralisation, and collaboration (Uhl-Bien & Arena, 2018) were supported by the future probing practices and seemed to create space for employees to engage in exploration. There was still a lack of compelling acts of brokering and network cohesion (Uhl-Bien & Arena, 2018). This may indicate why linking back to daily practice is challenging. We assume that organising for adaptability requires a deliberate act of connecting far future explorations with present action, and propose that besides explorative skills, ‘adaptive anticipating’ action is needed to make the connection and that linking back through near future experiments might be a way to achieve this.

The value of waste

This paper argues that a first step in finding a sustainable solution for the pressing global issue of ‘waste’, is to consider waste a value attribution rather than a material condition. Doing so means a shift in focus from finding more efficient ways to ‘clean up the mess’ to changing the way in which value is attributed to things. The paper looks at a selection of recent literature on value systems to identify useful concepts and theory for a value-based solution to waste. Furthermore, art and design are proposed to explore and probe suchpotential solutions.

The Hackable City. Cahier #2

Cahier #2 describes a series of design probes that explored cooperative area development in the Amsterdam brownfield redevelopment site of Buiksloterham. These probes were tailored to investigate specific aspects of ‘hackable citymaking’: collaborative practices between different stakeholders, where new media technologies are employed to open up urban institutions and infrastructures to systemic change, in the public interest.

Pragmatic research tactics for starting IT engineers

Peer reviewed research paper SEFI Engineering Education congress 2018 Within higher engineering education, students have to learn to close knowledge gaps that arise in professional assignments, such as capstone projects. These knowledge gaps can be closed through simple inquiry, but can also require more rigorous research. Since professionals work under tight constraints, they face constant trade-offs between quality, risk and efficiency to find answers that are acceptable. This means engineers use pragmatic research tactics that aim for the highest chance to find answers that fit sufficiently to close knowledge gaps in order to solve the problem with optimal use of time and resources. The problem is that research and problem-solving literature richly supplies solid strategies suitable to plan the research in projects as a whole, but hardly supplies flexible tactics to search for information within a project. This paper reports pragmatic tactics that starting bachelor engineering professionals use to acquire sufficiently good answers to questions that arise in the context of their assignments. For this, we conducted semi-structured interviews among computer science engineers with three to five years of work experience. The study reveals three pragmatic tactics: concentric, iterative and probe-response. The ambition level of the project determines when questions are sufficiently answered, and we distinguish tree sufficiency levels: check for viable answer, boost critical demand and change the game. The aim of this research is to add a view that makes pragmatic research choices for novice engineers more open to discussion and realistic.