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.
Airports and surrounding airspaces are limited in terms of capacity and represent the major bottleneck in the air traffic management system. This paper proposes a two level model to tackle the integrated optimization problem of arrival, departure, and surface operations. The macroscopic level considers the terminal airspace management for arrivals and departures and airport capacity management, while the microscopic level optimizes surface operations and departure runway scheduling. An adapted simulated annealing heuristic combined with a time decomposition approach is proposed to solve the corresponding problem. Computational experiments performed on real-world case studies of Paris Charles De-Gaulle airport, show the benefits of this integrated approach.
The use of games as interventions in the domain of health care is of-ten paired with evaluating the effects in randomized clinical trials. The iterative design and development process of games usually also involves an evaluation phase, aimed at identifying improvements for subsequent iterations. Since game design theory and theories from associated fields provide no unified framework for designing successful interventions, interpreting evaluation results and for-mulating improvements is complicated. This case study explores an approach of monitoring design decisions and corresponding theories throughout the design and development cycle, allowing evaluation results to be attributed to design decisions. Such an approach may allow the game design and development pro-cess to iterate the game more efficiently towards use in practice.3rd European Conference on Gaming and Playful Interaction in Health Care.
In this proposal, a consortium of knowledge institutes (wo, hbo) and industry aims to carry out the chemical re/upcycling of polyamides and polyurethanes by means of an ammonolysis, a depolymerisation reaction using ammonia (NH3). The products obtained are then purified from impurities and by-products, and in the case of polyurethanes, the amines obtained are reused for resynthesis of the polymer. In the depolymerisation of polyamides, the purified amides are converted to the corresponding amines by (in situ) hydrogenation or a Hofmann rearrangement, thereby forming new sources of amine. Alternatively, the amides are hydrolysed toward the corresponding carboxylic acids and reused in the repolymerisation towards polyamides. The above cycles are particularly suitable for end-of-life plastic streams from sorting installations that are not suitable for mechanical/chemical recycling. Any loss of material is compensated for by synthesis of amines from (mixtures of) end-of-life plastics and biomass (organic waste streams) and from end-of-life polyesters (ammonolysis). The ammonia required for depolymerisation can be synthesised from green hydrogen (Haber-Bosch process).By closing carbon cycles (high carbon efficiency) and supplementing the amines needed for the chain from biomass and end-of-life plastics, a significant CO2 saving is achieved as well as reduction in material input and waste. The research will focus on a number of specific industrially relevant cases/chains and will result in economically, ecologically (including safety) and socially acceptable routes for recycling polyamides and polyurethanes. Commercialisation of the results obtained are foreseen by the companies involved (a.o. Teijin and Covestro). Furthermore, as our project will result in a wide variety of new and drop-in (di)amines from sustainable sources, it will increase the attractiveness to use these sustainable monomers for currently prepared and new polyamides and polyurethanes. Also other market applications (pharma, fine chemicals, coatings, electronics, etc.) are foreseen for the sustainable amines synthesized within our proposition.
Intelligent technology in automotive has a disrupting impact on the way modern automobiles are being developed. New technology not only has brought complexity to already existing information in the car (digitization of driver instruments) but also brings new external information to the driver on how to optimize the driving style amongst others from the perspective of communicating with infrastructures (Vehicle to Infrastructure communication (V2I)). The amount of information that a driver has to process in modern vehicles is increasing rapidly due to the introduction of multiple displays and new external information sources. An information overload lies awaiting, yet current Human Machine Interface (HMI) designs and the corresponding legal frameworks lag behind. Currently, many initiatives (Pratijkproef Amsterdam, Concorda) are being developed with respect to V2I, amongst others with Rijkswaterstaat, North Holland and Brabant. In these initiatives, SME’s, like V-Tron, focus on the development of specific V2I hardware. Yet in the field of HMI’s these SME’s need universities (HAN University of Applied Science, Rhine Waal University of Applied Science) and industrial designers (Yellow Chess) to help them with design guidelines and concept HMI’s. We propose to develop first guidelines on possible new human-machine interfaces. Additionally, we will show the advantages of HMI’s that go further than current legal requirements. Therefore, this research will focus on design guidelines averting the information overload. We show two HMI’s that combine regular driver information with V2I information of a Green Light Optimized Speed Advise (GLOSA) use case. The HMI’s will be evaluated on a high level (focus groups and a small simulator study). The KIEM results in two publications. In a plenary meeting with experts, the guidelines and the limitations of current legal requirements will be discussed. The KIEM will lead to a new consortium to extend the research.
The integration of renewable energy resources, controllable devices and energy storage into electricity distribution grids requires Decentralized Energy Management to ensure a stable distribution process. This demands the full integration of information and communication technology into the control of distribution grids. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) is used to communicate measurements and commands between individual components and the control server. In the future this control is especially needed at medium voltage and probably also at the low voltage. This leads to an increased connectivity and thereby makes the system more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. According to the research agenda NCSRA III, the energy domain is becoming a prime target for cyber-attacks, e.g., abusing control protocol vulnerabilities. Detection of such attacks in SCADA networks is challenging when only relying on existing network Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs). Although these systems were designed specifically for SCADA, they do not necessarily detect malicious control commands sent in legitimate format. However, analyzing each command in the context of the physical system has the potential to reveal certain inconsistencies. We propose to use dedicated intrusion detection mechanisms, which are fundamentally different from existing techniques used in the Internet. Up to now distribution grids are monitored and controlled centrally, whereby measurements are taken at field stations and send to the control room, which then issues commands back to actuators. In future smart grids, communication with and remote control of field stations is required. Attackers, who gain access to the corresponding communication links to substations can intercept and even exchange commands, which would not be detected by central security mechanisms. We argue that centralized SCADA systems should be enhanced by a distributed intrusion-detection approach to meet the new security challenges. Recently, as a first step a process-aware monitoring approach has been proposed as an additional layer that can be applied directly at Remote Terminal Units (RTUs). However, this allows purely local consistency checks. Instead, we propose a distributed and integrated approach for process-aware monitoring, which includes knowledge about the grid topology and measurements from neighboring RTUs to detect malicious incoming commands. The proposed approach requires a near real-time model of the relevant physical process, direct and secure communication between adjacent RTUs, and synchronized sensor measurements in trustable real-time, labeled with accurate global time-stamps. We investigate, to which extend the grid topology can be integrated into the IDS, while maintaining near real-time performance. Based on topology information and efficient solving of power flow equation we aim to detect e.g. non-consistent voltage drops or the occurrence of over/under-voltage and -current. By this, centrally requested switching commands and transformer tap change commands can be checked on consistency and safety based on the current state of the physical system. The developed concepts are not only relevant to increase the security of the distribution grids but are also crucial to deal with future developments like e.g. the safe integration of microgrids in the distribution networks or the operation of decentralized heat or biogas networks.
