Towards creativity stimulating design intervention for multidisciplinary innovation teams

The aim of our research is to stimulate cross disciplinary design collaboration to improve innovation processes in product and service design domain. We focus on the intersection of biotechnology and design as this field poses great challenges and opportunities for innovation, and it has received little attention in light of technological advancements of digital goods over the past decades. Experimental studies in the area expose challenging interactions, rising from lack of common vocabulary and preconceptions. Organisational management studies suggest that creativity is a prerequisite for innovation in group processes. As such, we are interested in enhancing collective creativity. Numerous studies investigate external creativity triggers, however only on individual level. Our review suggests that external triggers can be effective when the task is problem solving or styling, but ambiguous goals like innovation require stimulation of intrinsic triggers, such as group incidental learning and tacit knowledge. To explain this, we propose a hypothetical innovation approach, that draws attention to cognitive stimulation methods leading to creativity in multidisciplinary teams

Generative boundary objects as integral parts of framing in design and bioscience collaborations

Collaborations between design engineers and bioscientists offer novel opportunities that could help solving some of the biggest challenges organisations and societies are facing. Combining design and bioscience has the potential to create responsible and desirable products/services, however such ventures come with challenges rising from boundaries between practices. This research explores boundary objects as sources of framing in multidisciplinary collaborations. The results are based on a descriptive study with synthetic biologists and design engineers working on an innovation-driven task

The ideation compass: supporting interdisciplinary creative dialogues with real time visualization

This study presents the potential of live topic visualization in supporting creative dialogs during remote idea generation. We developed a novel Creativity Support Tool (CST) to explore the effects of the live topic visualization. The tool emphasizes the interdisciplinary knowledge background of participants. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and topic modeling, the tool provides users with a live visual mapping of the domains and topics being orally discussed. To understand the tool’s user perceived effects, we conducted evaluation sessions and interviews with participants (N = 10) from two different disciplinary backgrounds: design and bioscience. The findings show that live visualization of domains and topics supported self-reflection during individual and collaborative creativity and encouraged a balanced discussion, which can mitigate discipline-based fixation in ideation

Variation of Area-to-Mass-Ratio of HAMR Space Debris Objects

An unexpected space debris population has been detected in 2004 Schildknecht et al. (2003, 2004) with the unique properties of a very high area-to-mass ratio (HAMR) Schildknecht et al. (2005a). Ever since it has been tried to investigate the dynamical properties of those objects further. The orbits of those objects are heavily perturbed by the effect of direct radiation pressure. Unknown attitude motion complicates orbit prediction. The area-to-mass ratio of the objects seems to be not stable over time. Only sparse optical data is available for those objects in drift orbits. The current work uses optical observations of five HAMR objects, observed over several years and investigates the variation of their area-to-mass ratio and orbital parameters. A normalized orbit determination setup has been established and validated with two low and two of the high ratio objects, to ensure, that comparable orbits over longer time spans are determined even with sparse optical data.Comment: 10 pages, accepted Monthly Notices of Royal Astronomical Society, MN-11-1785-MJ.R1, The definitive version is available at www.blackwell-synergy.co

Prairie pothole marshes as traps for nitrogen and phosphorous in agricultural runoff

Water quality of drainage influents and the lone effluent at Eagle Lake marsh, Iowa, was studied for 4 years (1976-1979). Because of drought conditions, there was no effluent from the marsh in 1976, 1977, or 1978. In 1979, the marsh was effective at removing inorganic N, especially N03-N, from runoff water passing through. It had little impact on levels of inorganic-P, total-P, and Kjeldahl-N; it was a net exporter of soluble organic carbon

Treatment of waste from a confined hog feeding unit by using artificial marshes

A 1-year study has been completed to evaluate use nf artificial marshes as a teatment system for waste from confined hog feeding operatiuns, A 3 x 2 factor ial experimental design was employed to evaluate the performance of marshes planted with one of three emergent species (Sparganium eurycarpum Phragniites austi:alis, glauca)and receiving three different loadings of hog waste. Each treatment was replicated twice, For each marsh, a complete hydrological and nutrient (N, P) budget was deter­ mined. Data on COD and solids were also collected. The growth of the plants, particularly rates of vegetative reproduction, were also monitored regularly throughout the growing season to examine the effect of sludge accumulation on plant vigor. Because the odor associated with present animal waste handling systems has been a major problem, the most important feature of artificial marshes treating hog waste is that they seem not to have developed any odors during their first year of operation . Emergent plants have a system of inter­nal air spaces that allows oxygen from the leaves to diffuse into the rhizomes and roots, Enough oxygen seems to be diffusing out of the roots and into the accumulating sludge to prevent it from becoming completely anaerobic. During the summer of 1977, the marshes produced a superior effluent to that of an anaerobic lagoon. Up to 70% of the TVS and 50% nf the COD waa re­ moved by the marshes, largely through meuhanical filtration. Approximately 17% of the N and P was removed, mostly by uptake into the plants. Design criteria for these marshes and suggested modifications are pre­sented