Designing meaningful audio for interactive applications such as video games or sonic user interfaces, presents designers with several challenges. One challenge is the fact that the perception of musical meaning involves cultural or learned aspects when it comes to tonality (Huron, 2006; Patel, 2008). For applied music and sound design, as cross-cultural phenomenon, this cultural specificity appears to be a significant disadvantage. Nevertheless, the history of interactive music in video games and sonic user interfaces illuminates many successful examples of meaningful musical icons in classic arcade games such as Pac-Man (1980), Donkey Kong (1981), Super Mario World (1990) and Pong (1972) and the user interface sounds of operating systems.
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This research concerning the experience and future of zoos was carried out from 2011-2012 and takes regional ideas concerning Zoo Emmen as well as global visions into account. The research focuses partly on Zoo Emmen, its present attractions and visitors while also comparing and contrasting visions on the future in relationship to other international zoos in the world. In this way, remarkable experiences and ideas will be identified and in the light of them, it can serve as inspiration for stakeholders of zoos at large. The main research subject is a look at the future zoos in view of: The Zoo Experience – an international experience benchmark; The Zoo of the Future – a Scenario Planning approach towards the future; The virtual zoo - zoo’s in the internet domain.
Over the last two decades, institutions for higher education such as universities and colleges have rapidly expanded and as a result have experienced profound changes in processes of research and organization. However, the rapid expansion and change has fuelled concerns about issues such as educators' technology professional development. Despite the educational value of emerging technologies in schools, the introduction has not yet enjoyed much success. Effective use of information and communication technologies requires a substantial change in pedagogical practice. Traditional training and learning approaches cannot cope with the rising demand on educators to make use of innovative technologies in their teaching. As a result, educational institutions as well as the public are more and more aware of the need for adequate technology professional development. The focus of this paper is to look at action research as a qualitative research methodology for studying technology professional development in HE in order to improve teaching and learning with ICTs at the tertiary level. The data discussed in this paper have been drawn from a cross institutional setting at Fontys University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands. The data were collected and analysed according to a qualitative approach.
Flying insects like dragonflies, flies, bumblebees are able to couple hovering ability with the ability for a quick transition to forward flight. Therefore, they inspire us to investigate the application of swarms of flapping-wing mini-drones in horticulture. The production and trading of agricultural/horticultural goods account for the 9% of the Dutch gross domestic product. A significant part of the horticultural products are grown in greenhouses whose extension is becoming larger year by year. Swarms of bio-inspired mini-drones can be used in applications such as monitoring and control: the analysis of the data collected enables the greenhouse growers to achieve the optimal conditions for the plants health and thus a high productivity. Moreover, the bio-inspired mini-drones can detect eventual pest onset at plant level that leads to a strong reduction of chemicals utilization and an improvement of the food quality. The realization of these mini-drones is a multidisciplinary challenge as it requires a cross-domain collaboration between biologists, entomologists and engineers with expertise in robotics, mechanics, aerodynamics, electronics, etc. Moreover a co-creation based collaboration will be established with all the stakeholders involved. With this approach we can integrate technical and social-economic aspects and facilitate the adoption of this new technology that will make the Dutch horticulture industry more resilient and sustainable.
Dutch society faces major future challenges putting populations’ health and wellbeing at risk. An ageing population, increase of chronic diseases, multimorbidity and loneliness lead to more complex healthcare demands and needs and costs are increasing rapidly. Urban areas like Amsterdam have to meet specific challenges of a growing and super divers population often with a migration background. The bachelor programs and the relating research groups of social work and occupational therapy at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences innovate their curricula and practice-oriented research by multidisciplinary and cross-domain approaches. Their Centres of Expertise foster interprofessional research and educational innovation on the topics of healthy ageing, participation, daily occupations, positive health, proximity, community connectedness and urban innovation in a social context. By focusing on senior citizens’ lives and by organizing care in peoples own living environment. Together with their networks, this project aims to develop an innovative health promotion program and contribute to the government missions to promote a healthy and inclusive society. Collaboration with stakeholders in practice based on their urgent needs has priority in the context of increasing responsibilities of local governments and communities. Moreover, the government has recently defined social base as being the combination of citizen initiatives, volunteer organizations , caregivers support, professional organizations and support of vulnerable groups. Kraktie Foundations is a community based ethno-cultural organization in south east Amsterdam that seeks to research and expand their informal services to connect with and build with professional care organizations. Their aim coincides with this project proposal: promoting health and wellbeing of senior citizens by combining intervention, participatory research and educational perspectives from social work, occupational therapy and hidden voluntary social work. With a boundary crossing innovation of participatory health research, education and Kraktie’s work in the community we co-create, change and innovate towards sustainable interventions with impact.
The number of tourists in Zeeland is high, which influences the livability and quality of life in the region. There are also increasing concerns about health and well-being in this area. Zeeland aims to be a vital region, where a vital Leisure, Tourism, Hospitality (LTH) sector is in balance with society and the environment. The practical problem revolves around the realisation of the social legitimation of the impact of tourism on its environment. This PD-trajectory overall ambition is to contribute to the social legitimation of LTH by strengthening crossovers between the LTH sector and the health sector. The objective of this PD-trajectory is to support LTH entrepreneurs in a way that their initiatives contribute to the health of the local residents. To accomplish this task, entrepreneurs in the LTH industry have a need for practical tools and guidelines that assist them in contributing to these societal challenges. So far, there are no concrete tools or other support products available in the region for LTH entrepreneurs to base their actions (in quadruple helix context) on in order to achieve crossovers and positive impact on health. How this process works and what is required for this is important to gain insight into so that this co-creation process can serve as an example for other initiatives in the LTH sector. Therefore, this process will be monitored and evaluated so that lessons can be learned. Ultimately, a decision support tool will be developed from this effort which other entrepreneurs can use to develop and organize their initiatives in a quadruple helix context with the aim of health benefits for the resident. This will help to establish a cross-domain approach and work in co-creation on regional positive impact of LTH in line with the future vision for Zeeland.
