Nederlandse versie: Hoe staat het ervoor met de pioniersplekken die vanuit de Protestantse Kerk gestart zijn? Dit rapport geeft u een indruk. In deze tussenstand staan niet de cijfers centraal, maar zoomen we in op wat pionieren betekent in de concrete levens van mensen. We hebben onderzoek gedaan naar de sociale relaties en geloofsontwikkeling van bezoekers van pioniersplekken. Eerst zetten we op een rij waar nu pioniersplekken actief zijn, hoeveel mensen er betrokken zijn en waarom plekken soms ook weer stoppen. English version: What is the state of affairs of the pioneering spots that have been started by the Protestant Church? This report gives an impression. This state of affairs is not about the numbers. Instead we will focus on what pioneering means concretely in the lives of people. We have done research into social relations and religious development of visitors of pioneering spots. First, we list the pioneering spots which are active now, how many people are involved in them and why spots are sometimes discontinued.
MULTIFILE
The Netherlands has always played a pioneering role in livestock and arable farming innovations. There is currently a lot of interest in our country for 'climate-smart' solutions, with closed-loop agriculture being an excellent example.
MULTIFILE
Missiology has always been inspired by soteriology, that is, Christian views of salvation. However, little is known about the actual soteriological beliefs of missionary practitioners. This article is an explorative qualitative study of soteriological beliefs among Dutch Protestant ministers who work in pioneer settings (N=20) and established churches (N=40). Our research shows that, contrary to what might be expected, these two groups (termed ‘pioneers’ and ‘pastors’) are very much alike with regard to their soteriological beliefs. The majority are convinced of the uniqueness of Jesus, and the connection of salvation with God and/or Jesus – even if this salvation is often expressed in immanent terms. Only two differences have been found between pastors and pioneers. Pioneers experience more challenges in communicating the uniqueness of Christianity and they are more likely to have traditional views of ‘eternal lostness’.
Organ-on-a-chip technology holds great promise to revolutionize pharmaceutical drug discovery and development which nowadays is a tremendously expensive and inefficient process. It will enable faster, cheaper, physiologically relevant, and more reliable (standardized) assays for biomedical science and drug testing. In particular, it is anticipated that organ-on-a-chip technology can substantially replace animal drug testing with using the by far better models of true human cells. Despite this great potential and progress in the field, the technology still lacks standardized protocols and robust chip devices, which are absolutely needed for this technology to bring the abovementioned potential to fruition. Of particular interest is heart-on-a-chip for drug and cardiotoxicity screening. There is presently no preclinical test system predicting the most important features of cardiac safety accurately and cost-effectively. The main goal of this project is to fabricate standardized, robust generic heart-on-a-chip demonstrator devices that will be validated and further optimized to generate new physiologically relevant models to study cardiotoxicity in vitro. To achieve this goal various aspects will be considered, including (i) the search for alternative chip materials to replace PDMS, (ii) inner chip surface modification and treatment (chemistry and topology), (iii) achieving 2D/3D cardiomyocyte (long term) cell culture and cellular alignment within the chip device, (iv) the possibility of integrating in-line sensors in the devices and, finally, (v) the overall chip design. The achieved standardized heart-on-a-chip technology will be adopted by pharmaceutical industry. This proposed project offers a unique opportunity for the Netherlands, and Twente in particular, which has relevant expertise, potential, and future perspective in this field as it hosts world-leading companies pioneering various core aspects of the technology that are relevant for organs-on-chips, combined with two world-leading research institutes within the University of Twente.
The objective of this PD-pathway is pioneering an interdisciplinary composition practice in societal contexts, informed by the scientific field of psychology. Three immersive multi-medium, music-centered compositions involving music and choreography will be created within an existing interdisciplinary practice. The PD's contribution to knowledge lies in the (new) ways of merging music and choreography, the bridging of human psychology and the arts as well as its artistic research approach.
Een 3D-geprint huis. Toekomstmuziek? Als het aan bouwend Nederland ligt niet. Maar dan moet er wel geprint kunnen worden met beton en zo ver is het nog niet. Met dit project willen een groep ondernemende bedrijven uit de bouwketen het 3D-printen met beton in een versnelling brengen. Uit eerder onderzoek zijn vier belangrijke knelpunten benoemd, die we in dit samenwerkingsproject verder onderzoeken. • De snelheid waarmee beton normaal gesproken uithardt, beperkt de snelheid waarmee betonproducten gelaagd kunnen worden opgebouwd. • De aanmaak van grondstof vindt traditioneel batch-gewijs plaats, waardoor materiaaleigenschappen (zoals vloeigedrag) in de verwerkingsfase niet consistent en lastig te sturen zijn. • De resulterende mechanische eigenschappen van 3D geprinte betonproducten zijn dermate onbeheerst, dat constructieve aspecten (min of meer gegarandeerde sterkte-eigenschappen) niet betrouwbaar voorspeld of gegarandeerd kunnen worden. • Wapening en ondersteuningen (bijvoorbeeld met ‘support’ materiaal) zijn nog niet goed opgelost. Dit project rekent af met deze beperkingen en zet de deuren open om daadwerkelijk snel en reproduceerbaar betonconstructies te printen met grote vormvrijheid. Daardoor kunnen bedrijven creatiever construeren en kan materiaal worden bespaard. In dit project wordt intensief samengewerkt met mkb ondernemingen van meerdere ketenschakels in de bouw. Daarmee wordt praktijkkennis verweven in dit project, en zal dit tevens een voedingsbodem zijn voor doorwerking in de praktijk na afronding van dit project.
