Taking real-life seriously : an approach to decomposing context beyond 'environment' in living labs

The maturity of Living Labs has grown and several researchers have tried to create a uniform definition of what Living Labs are by emphasizing the multi-method and real-life, contextual approach. Although researchers thus recognize the importance of context in Living Labs, they do not provide insights into how context can be taken into account. The real-life context predominantly focuses on the in-situ use of a product during field trials where users are observed in their everyday life. The contribution of this paper will be twofold. By means of a case study we will show how context can be evaluated in the front end of design, so Living Lab researchers are no longer dependent on the readiness level of a product, and we will show how field trials can be evaluated in a more structured way to cover all components of context. By using a framework to evaluate the impact of context on product use, Living Lab researchers can improve the overall effectiveness of data gathering and analysis methods in a Living Lab project

Bottom-up radio: creating a new media format using living lab research

This study resulted in the creation of a new media format for urban youth, adopting a living lab-approach, as current studies have shown that this group is currently not reached with the contemporary media offer. Living lab research is a state-of-the art methodology that aims at involving end-users in the innovation process over a longer time span, combining both quantitative and qualitative research techniques and tools. In a first phase, a panel of urban youngsters was created using an intake survey (N=290). These data were analyzed resulting in three distinct types of urban youngsters. In a second phase, a qualitative research trajectory was organized in order to refine the three profiles and get an insight in their media use, digital skills, media preferences and needs with regards to the current media offer. Research methods during this phase included diary studies, participatory observation during workshops and probe research. In a third phase, co-creation sessions were organized with youngsters from the urban panel in order to get feedback on a concept that was iteratively developed during the first two phases of the project. Results show that mobile devices and social media are important for these urban youngsters and that most of these youngsters have quite some creative skills. Radio seems to be a less popular medium, although they spend a significant amount of time listening to music. Further, results show that these youngsters are in need of a platform which stimulates community building and offers a space to express their creativity. A third requirement for the development of a new media format that would meet the needs of these youngers is a format that provides space for local elements and niche markets. This all resulted in the launch of Chase, an urban, crowdsourced radio station

Direct susceptibility testing by disk diffusion on clinical samples : a rapid and accurate tool for antibiotic stewardship

We compared the accuracy of direct susceptibility testing (DST) with conventional antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST), both using disk diffusion, on clinical samples. A total of 123 clinical samples (respiratory tract samples, urine, vaginal and abdominal abscess discharges, bile fluid and a haematoma punctate) were selected on various indications; direct inoculation on Mueller-Hinton agar and antibiotic paper disks were applied. In parallel, standard culture, identification and AST on the colonies grown overnight was executed. Both AST and DST were interpreted after identification of the isolates. The results from both AST and DST for 11 antibiotics tested on 97 samples with Gram-negative rods showed 93.4 % total agreement, 1.6 % minor discordances, 4.6 % major discordances and 0.4 % very major discordances. Analysing the discordant results, DST predominantly resulted in more resistant isolates than AST. This was mostly due to the presence of resistant mutants or an additional isolate. The remaining discordances were seen for isolates with inhibition zones close to the clinical breakpoint. For the 26 samples yielding staphylococci, a total agreement of 100 % was observed for the nine antibiotics tested. Overall, the highest percentage of discordant results occurred for the beta-lactam antibiotics amoxicillin-clavulanate (13.4 %) and cefuroxime (12.4 %). When used selectively and interpreted carefully, DST on clinical samples is potentially very useful in the management of critically ill patients, as the time to results is shortened by approximately 24 h. However, we recommend to communicate results with reservations and confirm by conventional AST

Identifying lead users in a living lab environment

This paper emphasizes the identification process of lead users within a living lab environment. Lead users are seen as important contributors to the living lab methodology since they express needs before the general market does. Additionally they generate ideas with a high level of novelty. Living Lab researchers have focused on the added value of involving these users in their research, but research on how to identify these lead users is still lacking. Therefore this paper will focus on the identification process of lead users by means of a Living Lab case study in the world of movie theaters

Pseudomonads and bacilli as important spoilage organisms in the dairy industry : a taxonomic study

Raw cow's milk is a product of high nutritional value but this automatically implies it is a medium highly suitable for growth of spoilage organisms that negatively affect milk quality and safety through production of proteolytic and lipolytic enzymes and toxins. Two major groups of spoilage bacteria are recognized, namely pseudomonads and bacilli. Identification of members of these groups is hampered by their confusing taxonomic situation. Both taxa historically grew as dumping grounds for aerobic Gram-positive spore-forming rods in the case of bacilli, and aerobic Gram-negative rods in the case of pseudomonads, resulting in two very large, heterogeneous groups. As a consequence, members of these groups were often poorly identified based on identification tools with insufficient resolution, and usually only two major species were recognized in the issue of milk spoilage, namely Bacillus cereus and Pseudomonas fluorescens. Nonetheless, several studies on the identity of bacterial milk flora indicated diversity was much bigger than originally thought, and the dairy product spoilage issue is clearly not a story of Bacillus cereus and Pseudomonas fluorescens alone. The main objectives of this study were two-fold. The first goal was to accurately map the diversity of bacterial milk flora through a polyphasic identification approach of milk isolates, with focus on bacilli and pseudomonads. Additionally, the spoilage potentials of these isolates were assessed. The second goal was an attempt to resolve the complex taxonomic situation at least for subgroups within the bacilli (the genus Geobacillus) and pseudomonads (the Pseudomonas fluorescens group)

Monitoring the purity of industrial starter cultures using MALDI-TOF MS

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