Connecting to the Future:Using Serious games and Scenario development for Responsible Design

Design is a medium that allows for storytelling, at the same time design can be inspired, informed, or improved by stories. In Design Education, past year’s efforts have been made to let the content speak more vividly to the students. We introduce the Future Scenario Development Play and Design methodology as a process for Research through Design. Based on the Future Scenario Development Design methodology (Eggink & Albert de la Bruheze, 2015), this scenario development approach aims at exploring futures that are more than just a few years ahead of us. We expanded the method with a serious game and a general conceptual design phase. The scenario of a plausible future, broken into three-time horizons (5, 15, and 30 years), provides the requirements, opportunities, and constraints for the design. The serious game SES (Scenario Exploration System) (Bontoux & Bengtsson, 2016) provides a safe sandbox for the students to explore two contrasting future scenarios of their own making. Through this half-day experiential exploration students empathise with relevant stakeholders by taking up their role. This approach allows the students to stumble upon the intricacies of their scenarios and set their own creative constraints for the conceptual design phase to follow.With a case study, based on the results of an Industrial Design Engineering Master course concerning the design of the “Future of Food”, we will show how this Design of the Future methodology is able to explain the present and future interplay between society, culture and technology. We will dive deeper into how the experiences from the game sessions influenced the design phase and eventually the design concepts presented by the students.From the results of the case study, we can conclude that our proposed method provides the students with an effective arsenal of tools to use in their design process while offering them a well-rounded experience through which to envision, empathise with, design and create for the future

‘Do women know how to drive?’ A research on how theatre pedagogy contributes to dealing with gender stereotypes

Σκοπός της έρευνας είναι η διερεύνηση της επίδρασης ενός θεατροπαιδαγωγικού προγράμματος στη διαχείριση των στερεοτυπικών αντιλήψεων για το φύλο και στην καλλιέργεια μιας κουλτούρας συνεργασίας και επικοινωνίας μεταξύ των μελών μιας ομάδας παιδιών Στ’ τάξης δημοτικού σχολείου. Αναγνωρίζοντας την αξία του θεάτρου ως παιχνιδιού και ως τόπου ελεύθερης και δημιουργικής έκφρασης, επιδιώξαμε να φωτίσουμε μέσω ποιοτικών και ποσοτικών εργαλείων τις αντιλήψεις των μαθητών της ομάδας μας για το φύλο, τις υποσυνείδητες σκέψεις και προκαταλήψεις τους, τα συναισθήματα και τους φόβους τους. Η ανάλυση του κοινωνιομετρικού τεστ και η θεματική ανάλυση των δεδομένων από τις ομαδικές συνεντεύξεις με τους μαθητές, τις αναφορές του κριτικού φίλου και των αναστοχαστικών ημερολογίων των ερευνητών έδειξε σαφείς μετακινήσεις στις στερεοτυπικές αντιλήψεις των μαθητών για το φύλο και μια διεύρυνση των κοινωνικών δικτύων μεταξύ κοριτσιών και αγοριών στην ομάδα μας. Οι θεατροπαιδαγωγικές πρακτικές του προγράμματός μας εξασφάλισαν στους μαθητές της ομάδας μας ένα ασφαλές, ελεύθερο και δημιουργικό κλίμα θεματοποίησης, πολυαισθητηριακής έκφρασης και διαπραγμάτευσης των προσωπικών αναπαραστάσεων, αξιών, στάσεων και στερεοτύπων τους για τα φύλα. This research aims at investigating the effects of a drama/theater-in-education program on dealing with gender stereotypes; it also aims at creating or improving a culture of cooperation and communication among 6th grade pupils of a Greek primary school. On the premise that drama/theater promotes play, free and creative expression, we attempted to bring out the pupils’ perceptions, subconscious thoughts, prejudices, emotions and fears regarding gender, through both qualitative and quantitative tools. The sociometric test analysis, the subject analysis of the data gathered by the student group interviews, the critical friend’s comments and the researchers’ reflective journals indicate a shift in the pupils’ stereotypical perceptions on gender as well as a broadening of the social networks between boys and girls. The educational drama/theater practices of our program provided the students with a safe, free and creative environment that enabled them to talk about, negotiate and express with all senses their personal representations, values, views and gender stereotypes.

The overriding influence of hedonism in driving consumer happiness

The experience recommendation prescribes a disadvantage to material purchases, suggesting that spending on experiential rather than material purchases makes people happier. This study challenges this idea by examining the hedonic/utilitarian nature of purchases. The results of a qualitative study and four experiments (one preregistered) show that the happiness advantage of experiential (vs. material) purchases is contingent on pronounced hedonic properties. Our results indicate that hedonism asymmetries override the distinction between purchase type, such that there is no happiness advantage in buying experiences over material objects when purchases are equally (non)hedonic. Importantly, we find that hedonism is more instrumental for material purchases and that hedonic materials are equally effective as experiential purchases, altogether, and even outperform utilitarian experiences in eliciting happiness. Our findings encourage consumers to focus on the properties, rather than the type, of purchases to increase purchase-related happiness. Our results further suggest that marketers of material goods, in particular, can considerably increase customer value by using design components, product features, and brand imagery that leverage hedonic qualities.publishersversionpublishe

Combining exsolution and infiltration for redox, low temperature CH4 conversion to syngas

Exsolution of surface and bulk nanoparticles in perovskites has been recently employed in chemical looping methane partial oxidation because of the emergent materials’ properties such as oxygen capacity, redox stability, durability, coke resistance and enhanced activity. Here we attempt to further lower the temperature of methane conversion by complementing exsolution with infiltration. We prepare an endo/exo-particle system using exsolution and infiltrate it with minimal amount of Rh (0.1 wt%) in order to functionalize the surface and induce low temperature activity. We achieve a temperature decrease by almost 220 °C and an increase of the activity up to 40%. We also show that the initial microstructure of the perovskite plays a key role in controlling nanoparticle anchorage and carbon deposition. Our results demonstrate that microstructure tuning and surface functionalization are important aspects to consider when designing materials for redox cycling applications

Dissection of the genetic background of childhood onset progressive myoclonic epilepsies

The progressive myoclonic epilepsies (PMEs) are a clinically and etiologically heterogeneous group of symptomatic epilepsies characterized by myoclonus, tonic-clonic seizures, psychomotor regression and ataxia. Different disorders have been classified as PMEs. Of these, the group of neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses (NCLs) comprise an entity that has onset in childhood, being the most common cause of neurodegeneration in children. The primary aim of this thesis was to dissect the molecular genetic background of patients with childhood onset PME by studying candidate genes and attempting to identify novel PME-associated genes. Another specific aim was to study the primary protein properties of the most recently identified member of the NCL-causing proteins, MFSD8. To dissect the genetic background of a cohort of Turkish patients with childhood onset PME, a screen of the NCL-associated genes PPT1, TPP1, CLN3, CLN5, CLN6, MFSD8, CLN8 and CTSD was performed. Altogether 49 novel mutations were identified, which together with 56 mutations found by collaborators raised the total number of known NCL mutations to 364. Fourteen of the novel mutations affect the recently identified MFSD8 gene, which had originally been identified in a subset of mainly Turkish patients as the underlying cause of CLN7 disease. To investigate the distribution of MFSD8 defects, a total of 211 patients of different ethnic origins were evaluated for mutations in the gene. Altogether 45 patients from nine different countries were provided with a CLN7 molecular diagnosis, denoting the wide geographical occurrence of MFSD8 defects. The mutations are private with only one having been established by a founder-effect in the Roma population from the former Czechoslovakia. All mutations identified except one are associated with the typical clinical picture of variant late-infantile NCL. To address the trafficking properties of MFSD8, lysosomal targeting of the protein was confirmed in both neuronal and non-neuronal cells. The major determinant for this lysosomal sorting was identified to be an N-terminal dileucine based signal (9-EQEPLL-14), recognized by heterotetrameric AP-1 adaptor proteins, suggesting that MFSD8 takes the direct trafficking pathway en route to the lysosomes. Expression studies revealed the neurons as the primary cell-type and the hippocampus and cerebellar granular cell layer as the predominant regions in which MFSD8 is expressed. To identify novel genes associated with childhood onset PME, a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genomewide scan was performed in three small families and 18 sporadic patients followed by homozygosity mapping to determine the candidate loci. One of the families and a sporadic patient were positive for mutations in PLA2G6, a gene that had previously been shown to cause infantile neuroaxonal dystrophy. Application of next-generation sequencing of candidate regions in the remaining two families led to identification of a homozygous missense mutation in USP19 for the first and TXNDC6 for the second family. Analysis of the 18 sporadic cases mapped the best candidate interval in a 1.5 Mb region on chromosome 7q21. Screening of the positional candidate KCTD7 revealed six mutations in seven unrelated families. All patients with mutations in KCTD7 were reported to have early onset PME, rapid disease progression leading to dementia and no pathologic hallmarks. The identification of KCTD7 mutations in nine patients and the clinical delineation of their phenotype establish KCTD7 as a gene for early onset PME. The findings presented in this thesis denote MFSD8 and KCTD7 as genes commonly associated with childhood onset symptomatic epilepsy. The disease-associated role of TXNDC6 awaits verification through identification of additional mutations in patients with similar phenotypes. Completion of the genetic spectrum underlying childhood onset PMEs and understanding of the gene products functions will comprise important steps towards understanding the underlying pathogenetic mechanisms, and will possibly shed light on the general processes of neurodegeneration and nervous system regulation, facilitating the diagnosis, classification and possibly treatment of the affected cases.Ei saatavill

Stimulation of Suicidal Erythrocyte Death by PRIMA-1

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Smart Application for Every Car (SAEC). (AR Mobile Application)

Technology is continuously evolving at an exponential rate. Fast technological advances are being made, especially in the field of smart phones, that facilitate the conduct of our daily activities in many areas such as driving. The ever-increasing number of vehicles on roads increases the likelihood of traffic accidents, resulting in higher number of deaths and serious injuries to drivers, passengers, and pedestrians. Among the main causes of road accidents are over speeding, unsafe lane jumping, and failure to keep a safe distance between vehicles, to name a few. In an attempt to contribute to the improvement of road traffic safety, we have developed an Augmented Reality-based Smart Vehicle Driver Assistance application. The application is designed to enhance vehicle driver\u27s safety, in particular, but is also considered to lead to incremental improvement of safety of road traffic. The application can run on both Android and iOS platforms and incorporates several beneficial features required by a vehicle driver such as monitoring of vehicle speed, warning the driver in case of lane deviation, detection of road signs, and to alert the driver if the vehicle is not being driven at a safe distance from the vehicle in front. In addition to providing information to improve safe driving, the application also helps the vehicle driver save parking location of the vehicle in order to efficiently identify the parking location when retrieving the vehicle. This feature is very useful at large and unfamiliar parking areas, such as at airports or one-off large public gatherings, especially in inclement weather. The application also includes other useful functions such as the payment of parking fees, storage of information regarding vehicle maintenance, and keeping the vehicle legal document up to date. The application uses the stored information to display reminders of the appropriate action that needs to be taken before it becomes overdue