A practical approach to product design for future worlds using scenario-development

The focus of consumer product design is shifting from primarily offering functionality, towards\ud experience and emotion driven product characteristics [1]. At the same time the functioning of\ud products is more and more defined in its social context. Product designers can play a major role in\ud developing our future social context, as long as they are aware of the responsibility towards users,\ud society and environment. In the master ‘Design & Styling’ of the Industrial Design Engineering\ud program of the University of Twente, we created a course “Create the Future”, addressing both these\ud future- and society oriented aspects of design. In this paper we describe the course structure and the\ud associated teaching methods, give examples of student results and discuss the points of interest and\ud application possibilities. In the 2008 edition the students explored the future of food. First the students\ud created a future context by investigating, building and visualizing multiple scenarios. Subsequently\ud they designed a future product concept within these scenario contexts. It showed that the structure of\ud this course was particularly suitable for designing products for the not so near future, i.e. 15-20 years\ud ahead. Especially scenario development proved to be a good instrument for the students to be able to\ud create a tangible context for designing future products and services

Xylose metabolism in the fungus Rhizopus oryzae : effect of growth and respiration on l (+)-lactic acid production

The fungus Rhizopus oryzae converts both glucose and xylose under aerobic conditions into chirally pure l(+)-lactic acid with by-products such as xylitol, glycerol, ethanol, carbon dioxide and fungal biomass. In this paper, we demonstrate that the production of lactic acid by R. oryzae CBS 112.07 only occurs under growing conditions. Deprivation of nutrients such as nitrogen, essential for fungal biomass formation, resulted in a cessation of lactic acid production. Complete xylose utilisation required a significantly lower C/N ratio (61/1) compared to glucose (201/1), caused by higher fungal biomass yields that were obtained with xylose as substrate. Decreasing the oxygen transfer rate resulted in decline of xylose consumption rates, whereas the conversion of glucose by R. oryzae was less affected. Both results were linked to the fact that R. oryzae CBS 112.07 utilises xylose via the two-step reduction/oxidation route. The consequences of these effects for R. oryzae as a potential lactic acid producer are discussed

Selective Derivatization Reagents for the Determination of Oxidative Stress Biomarkers by Liquid Chromatography? Mass Spectrometry

Irth, H. [Promotor]Niessen, W.M.A. [Promotor]Lingeman, H. [Copromotor]Wijtmans, M. [Copromotor

Where's my robot? Integrating human technology relations in the design curriculum

In today’s society, and in almost every forecast for the future, technology development plays a major role. From theories in Science & Technology Studies we learn that the development of new technology cannot be meaningful unless there are users that successfully adapt the products and services to their own lives. As a result, it is important that designers learn to explore the interrelationships between engineering and behavioural, cultural and social issues. Within our Industrial Design Engineering curriculum we therefore emphasise the influence of technology on human behaviour and vice-versa. Although every specific product and context demands for a specific relation, we have experienced that there is common ground in the developments of these relationships that makes our education work. At a higher level of abstraction, the human side of the relation stays merely the same, because human bodies and human needs and emotions do not develop fast. It is only the technology side of the relation that develops and therefore changes the relationship. Thus, by starting from the human side of the relationship, the technology side can be consciously developed and shaped. A carefully designed series of courses in Design Aesthetics, Philosophy of Technology, Cognitive Ergonomics and Usability develops the students ability to analyse the human needs and characteristics, to understand the impact of technology, and provides the skills to shape the desired relationships. And although we do not design robots, our experience with Industrial Design Engineering is that human technology relations are apparent within all sorts of design challenge

Design History Education in the Netherlands:the Historic, the Cultural, and the Methodical

Design history Education in the Netherlands has been taught from different perspectives during the last decades. Each perspective resulting in a different view on Design History and subsequently also with different outcomes and contributions to design education and design practice. In short, these perspectives can be characterized by the keywords ‘historic’, ‘cultural’, and ‘methodical’