10 22 January 2015 | year 57 People | 21 See for more news www.cursor.tue.nl/en And how are things in Berkeley? Biweekly magazine of the Eindhoven University of Technology For the latest news: www.cursor.tue.nl/en and follow @TUeCursor_news on Setbacks don’t shake morale ice church team 19 January - Frozen tools, unhinged anchors, thaw, and snow storms: the builders of the ice church in Juuka, Finland had it all. They were dealt another blow this weekend, when a gust of wind destroyed more than half of the highest tower and severely damaged the inside balloon. But the team has got itself together again and continues with seemingly inexhaustible optimism. They keep on working on building the highest tower, but probably won’t be able to finish it before the deadline. and tuecursor on New bus route to connect TU/e and central train station 16 January - The ‘gates’ to the NS train station and TU/e campus are a mere ten-minute walk apart. Still, starting next month, students and staff can take a bus to travel to and from TU/e. The bus 104 makes its route four times an hour during peak hours (7-9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m.) and has four stops on campus : Laplace Square (Laplace building), Lismortel (teacher training building), Rondom East (Differ building), and Rondom South (Flux building). The corner Hoofdgebouw/ Auditorium won’t get a stop because of Hoofdgebouw renovations. More and more TU/e students go abroad for their studies to follow courses, internships or a doctorate path. What is it like to find your way in a new country? Students tell their stories. Hi everyone! The past semester I have been studying at the University of California in Berkeley, and it was, in one word, awesome! The university is inspiring, California is laid back and nice and warm, the road trips were fun, my fellow students were open and helpful, and most importantly: my housemates were fantastic! During my stay in Berkeley I stayed at the International House (iHouse). The reason I’m pointing this out is because my housemates turned out to be the most fun aspect of my exchange. Everyone I’ve met in the iHouse was special in some way (well, almost everyone). Whether it was a passion, an achievement, or an ambition that characterized their stories, I made some of my best memories with my housemates during one of the many lunches and dinners, just speaking with them. In addition, the iHouse was convenient to meet up with likeminded people and organize all kinds of road trips. Everyone in the iHouse was approachable. Lastly, the iHouse was also just very convenient, because let’s be honest, during your exchange you don’t want to think about cooking and other domestic chores too much. If you are considering Berkeley and would like to have an unforgettable experience during your exchange, then I strongly recommend you stay in the iHouse, despite some apparent downsides (rent, especially). I can tell you a lot more about everything I’ve done in Berkeley and my trip from the west coast to the east coast after that. Should you be interested in an exchange to Berkeley and would you like to know more about it, feel free to contact me anytime. New year’s eve in San Francisco. Tom is first on the left at the bottom row. To studemn van Nord t e ManaIgnnovatino,n ement All the best! Heart Foundati packaging medon supports icines in gel 15 January - The Du tch Heart Fo Would you also like to write an article about your time abroad? Please send an email to [email protected]. undation (‘Hartst in research by TU ichting’) is investi /e, the Hubrecht In ng 1.5 million euro stitute and UMC Ut new method to im s recht into the deve prove the delivery lopment of a and retention of me to improve the effe di cines in the heart. ctiveness of repair The aim is of the heart musc adverse side‑effects le after a heart at . This research is led tack without by dr. Patricia Dank and dr. Eva van Ro ers (Biomedical En oij (Hubrecht Insti gineering) tute Utrecht). Tube for diploma new alumni gift Read more stories online: www.cursor.tue.nl/en Life after TU/e 14 January - A sleek tube for your diploma, inspired by the eye-catching red slash in the TU/e logo: it’s the new gift to alumni, which the university will give out starting this week. A little under fifty Built Environment graduates were the first to receive the souvenir last Tuesday. The new gift will replace the well-known baby blue fleece scarf graduates received until only recently. New signage on campus almost completed 13 January - Nearly all bicycle signs have been put up and most buildings now have posts indicating the building name and its residents. Eight new signs with maps will be erected on campus shortly, as well as large ANWB posts, and visitors will find directions at parking lots. It’s safe to say the new signage on campus is well underway, and all signs are expected to be put up by the end of March. Clmn What do you do at your current job? I advise the senior management on (re)financing needs focusing on capital markets products, from senior unsecured to secured debt, including structured debt product s such as asset securitizations and covered bonds. With over eight years of experience in banking, quantitative modeling and research, project management and consulting, I have been providing qualitative insights and quantitative solutions of complex matters in treasury funding and risk management. How did you obtain your current position? After having taken a research-oriented route at TU/e, I wanted to work with real applied problems. In 2006, right after having graduated from university, I was offered a very interesting opportunity at Rabobank as quantitative risk analyst. Gaining experien ce there, I moved to the world of private banking after several years. Now I’m Risk Manage r at Van Lanschot Bankiers where I have a key role in the development of sophisticated internal credit risk models. More news on www.cursor.tue.nl/en Why did you choose to go to TU/e? Having graduated from Belarus State University with honors and having obtained quite many offers for a research position from different universities worldwide, includin g TU/e, I was puzzled what to choose. In 2003, a European Commission report ranked TU/e at third place among all European research universities. That ranking brought me here, but also the onsite interview at Eurandom that sparked a major interest in the subject matter. Churches and social responsibility in The Netherlands It was a sunny day in Amsterdam and I was doing some sightseeing with an Italian girlfriend. Walking past churches she would invariably ask about the names, after which saint they were called, etc. Passing near the Moses and Aaron Church I ventured to say that it was not used as a church anymore, but nowadays served for various cultural or social events. As I recalled from my own experience in my student years in Amsterdam, it also served as a meeting place for the local tax office. My friend (who by the way was wearing a big cross as a necklace) was really surprised and upset by my story, as I should have known. How on earth would we in Holland dare to use churches for another purpose than worshipping the Lord? The rest of the stroll through the streets of Amsterdam was dedicated to avoiding churches and this controversial topic… Isolated incident? Not in The Netherlands, for example the commotion in nearby Veldhoven these days: 5 of 6 churches will soon be closed. On a more positive note, a picture I got from a colleague shows a modern church in Weert recently transformed into a skating rink (what about the Name: Iryna Snihir Place of Birth: Minsk, Belarus Date of Birth: October 18, 1980 At TU/e: S eptember 2003 - November 2006, Research Assistant at Eurandom / Master program Industrial and Applied Mathematics Current position: Treasury Funding Management professional at Van Lanscho t Bankiers summers…?). Why do the Dutch do that? There are several reasons. Land is expensive, so each square meter is fully used in urban planning and an abandoned church (fewer and fewer churchgoers nowadays) costs money and will soon serve another purpose. Dutch pragmatism and a no non-sense approach to life: if a church is empty, rebuild it into a place for socially responsible activities, or in some cases a… mosque. Culturally speaking, it is not seen as an offense to give the house of the Lord another use. For the (economic) rationale behind this, see above. The (very) Catholic city of Maastricht has an impressive list of churches of which many are not in use as such any more. Many are now university buildings and the best known example is the Dominican church (Dominicanenkerk) which is a fancy bookshop these days. Old campuses often include ancient monasteries, convents or chapels. Take our own TU/e. If it were older, it would probably have a nice historical chapel, most likely not in use as such any longer. So what would it be now? A reception hall, a bookshop, student housing or even better… our own campus supermarket? Problem solved in Flux! Vi advisor in ncent Merk, ternationa l commun ity What happens to international students after they graduate from TU/e? Do they go job hunting in the Netherlands, pack their bags and explore the world, or return to their home countries? International TU/e graduates talk about their lives after TU/e. How do you reflect on your time at TU/e? It was a great time. Coming from the parents’ house, I was so lucky to find myself in a very warm place, and that warmth was definitely coming from my colleagu es’ and new friends’ attitudes, hospitality, and their willingness to help, workwise and persona lly. I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisors, William Rey, Evgeny Verbitsk iy, Peter Notten, Laurie Davies and Alessandro Di Bucchianico. It was also in that period I learned how to handle the Dutch’ straightforward style of communicating; I took criticism when it was necessary, and at the same time I was strongly encouraged by the people around me. I have benefited hugely from the ability of my supervisors to come up with (and solve) new and challenging problems. It’s something I’ve taken with me and use in my professional life today. But I’d like to refer to Dr Seuss: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened”. What advice would you give current students? The experience and the words of Winston Churchill, who said: “Succes s is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts”. 22 | Zoom in 22 January 2015 Zoom in | 23 See for more news www.cursor.tue.nl/en Open access: a curse or a blessing? Text | Tom Jeltes Illustration | Marc Weikamp The reasoning seems watertight: results obtained through research financed by public funds should be freely accessible to the taxpayer. So down with high-priced subscriptions for scientific journals: open access is the future. Make that the near future, if it is up to the Dutch authorities. Is the Netherlands making a glorious comeback as a model country, or are we shooting ourselves in the foot? Cursor lists the facts and has made a tour along the departments so as to sound out the scientists. For a while it seemed as if employees of Dutch universities would from this year on no longer have access to thousands of journals published by Elsevier, including reputable titles such as The Lancet and Cell. After all, early in November the negotiations were discontinued between Elsevier and the VSNU about the subscriptions of the university libraries. According to the VSNU the publisher was ‘not responding in any way whatsoever to the necessary change [concerning open access]’. Only by mid-December were negotiations with Elsevier gradually resumed again, after which it was decided to allow the old contract to run on in 2015. In the meantime the VSNU did succeed in concluding an agreement with Springer, another major scientific publisher. This agreement implies that ‘articles written by authors corresponding with a VSNU or NFU institution (the teaching hospitals, ed.) will be published in open access without any costs for the author’. This will apply only, by the way, to Springer’s hybrid journals whereas the authors will have to keep paying for the journals that are already fully open access. For the time being the slowly progressing negotiations between the universities and the publishers do not have any tangible results for researchers and students. It remains to be seen whether it will stay like that. It cannot be excluded that Elsevier will refuse to budge and put up with the (temporary) loss of the Dutch clients – after all, Open access-symposium On Tuesday March 10 TU/e will host a symposium about the theme of open access, organized by the Information Expertise Center (IEC). The program features workshops as well as a debate with NWO chairman Jos Engelen, university professor Anthonie Meijers and representatives of publisher Springer, journal PLOS ONE and the science trade union VAWO. www.tue.nl/openaccess Open access: green and gold Open access publication is possible in roughly two ways: gold and green. In the gold variant the author pays the publisher an amount to make an article available without any subscription fees involved. Some journals - like PLOS ONE and Nature Communications - are fully open access, whereas others use a hybrid model in which it is determined per article whether it is freely accessible. The publication costs may be bought off in one go by the VSNU, for instance, as part of Big Deals with the publishers. In the green option authors get permission to put the final author’s version (peer reviewed, but not laid out by the publisher) on-line themselves in a public database, for instance in the Repository of TU/e. However, less than fifty percent of the publishers will allow this. The rest forbid publication of the final author’s version, or impose an embargo period that may run up to as many as four years. While scientists from poor countries can now partly circumvent the high subscription costs by directly approaching the authors of articles that are relevant to them, a world in which everybody has to pay to publish appears to be less favorable for science in developing countries. One possible solution might be to exempt researchers from poor countries from these costs. On the initiative of the World Health Organization there are already special arrangements in place for developing countries under the denominator HINARI. Scientists from the more than one hundred HINARI countries can already publish for free in journals including Nature Communications. the global market share of Dutch science is merely some two percent. On the other hand it was reported earlier this month by NRC that the universities have a ready-made plan for an overall boycott of Elsevier, with everything that entails for the medical science division in the Netherlands. Regardless of the consequences of failed negotiations with publishers, the plans prepared by NWO may result in scientists active in our country no longer being allowed to publish in the journals they prefer. Nature Publishing Group, for instance, has a six-month embargo period for all Nature titles before the final author’s version of an article published by it may be released. The exception is formed by Nature Communications, which is now fully open access. The downside is that it costs no less than 3,700 euro to publish an article in this journal. “The Netherlands should not overplay its hand” The Netherlands is playing high, says Paul De Bra, professor of Information systems at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. “Open access is a magnificent principle in and of itself, but you should not overplay your hand. The Netherlands often tends to exaggerate its importance a bit.” The NWO plans may make the Netherlands less attractive to PhD candidates and postdoc researchers, the computer scientist thinks. “If you can’t publish in the right journals during that stage of your career, you can forget about the rest of your career. That is crippling.” De Bra thinks that change needs to be brought about by the international professional organi zations rather than by a national government. “In mathematics this has been done successfully. Mathematicians were fed up with certain publishers and set up an open access journal of their own to replace a commercial journal.” Without broad support from within the relevant field that is a hopeless enterprise: it stands to reason that new journals do not have an impact factor yet, so that publications in such journals initially tend to carry little weight. The Netherlands is not the only country where open access is promoted, for that matter. The British Wellcome Trust, an organization that mainly funds medical research, also requires research results to be made freely accessible. And recently this was also made mandatory for research financed with European funds. The big difference from the NWO plans is that the European Union agrees to an embargo period of six months - so that publications in Nature are not a problem. And this is necessary if you want to play along at the top level, agrees Henk Swagten, professor at Physics of Nanostructures. “Nature is an important player. Researchers in my field of expertise will not want to play in a lower league. And Nature publications in particular are scored by means of NWO funds, such as Vidi and Vici subsidies. The plans unfolded by NWO do worry me, then. Whereas the impact of Elsevier journals is generally smaller, the upside is that Elsevier also publishes conference contri butions. So life would indeed become awkward if we cannot publish in them anymore. By the way, we also put all our articles on arXiv.org, but they haven’t been refereed yet then.” Maaike Kroon is professor of Separation technology at TU/e and a member of De Jonge Akademie. From the perspective of chemical engineers she anticipates that the less reputable journals will get into trouble if they do not embrace open access. “The very best papers will still be submitted to the traditional top journals, such as Science, Nature and Angewandte Chemie (the most reputable chemistry journal, ed.), while more articles will be submitted to the lowerranking gold standard open access journals. Another problem is that renowned journals ask for high fees to publish open access and the relevant funding cannot be incorporated into research proposals.” “Having to pay to publish valuable knowledge feels odd” The consequence of the emphasis on open access is that new open access journals are shooting up like mushrooms, Ton Koonen has noticed. “Quantity exceeds quality”, thinks the professor of ElectroOptical Communications. “All those articles need to be reviewed, and you can see that finding reviewers is becoming more and more difficult. My own mailbox is bulging with requests to review articles. We ourselves publish mostly in journals of IEEE (the professional organization for electrical engineers, ed.). They are not open access, and you also pay per published page, but there is no profit motive involved.” The vice-dean of the Department of Electrical Engineering characterizes the situation as an impossible predicament. “Of course the taxpayer has a right to see the results. Still, I also get the impression that the system is being diluted due to all the new journals. And I’m afraid the balance will tip to the negative side. Besides, it feels odd that you have to pay to be allowed to publish valuable knowledge. It feels as if you are thrusting knowledge upon people.” “Open access is simply a commercial earnings model” Henny Romijn is Associate Professor of Technology and Development at the Department of IE&IS. The development economist talks about her personal experience with open access. regular journals. Every week I would receive mails; it was a bit too much for me. The idea among us at Innovation Sciences is that research is an activity for the late Friday afternoon - education is our main job. “So far I have published open access once. It concerned a project in which I was involved as advisor of AgentschapNL, which paid the publication fee of 1,000 euro for a special issue of the journal Sustainability. The subject was Jatropha, a desert plant of which it was then assumed it was possible to extract oil from the seeds in a commercially viable way. Which turned out not to be the case, by the way. Some time later I was approached again, for a new special issue. Apparently our contribution had met with appreciation, for now I could publish for free. I had a PhD candidate who had graduated with honors on the relevant subject (education in India). So I suggested she contribute a piece. She would do that solo, without the professor who had supervised her at the time, but the journal did not want that. This really made me rethink things; they just wanted a few good articles for their reputation - it’s a reasonably new journal. I find that sort of haggling objectionable. It should be first and foremost about the quality of the publication, irrespective of persons. That’s when you find out that open access is simply a commercial earnings model. For one, they constantly chase you to ask if you’ve already written a new version, whereas this sometimes takes months with regular journals. I was sent the referee reports within three weeks, when this occasionally takes a year with There is also a proliferation of open access journals, to such a degree that the Information Expertise Center has drawn up a list that enables you to check whether they are bona fide journals that approach you. However, I get requests every day to publish in journals. A lot of them simply amount to spam. They even remind me of those fraudulent Nigerian e-mails that you often get. Open access gets to be promoted a lot, by our Executive Board and the IEC as well. This way of publishing has significant drawbacks also. For example, we publish regularly without any external funding. It would be a pity if a lack of money forced us to publish in a less reputed journal because it asks less money. In that respect the agreement with Springer, in which the university has agreed to an aggregate amount and researchers no longer need to pay per article, seems to be a better option. On the other hand, this would still restrict the choice to certain publishers. And that problem will only be solved if all publishers join in with this.” Nature of Science never more? If NWO carries through its intention to oblige researchers to publish open access directly, in the current situation this would mean that a sizeable portion of the top journals, including the most highly reputed titles Nature and Science, would become off limits for scientists with NWO subsidies. NWO is aware of the potential consequences of the proposed policy, the press office department of the scientific financier admits when asked. “That is an item for consideration for the entire scientific world. NWO will duly take it on board in the further elaboration of its tightened policy. Of course this will also be done in consultation with other parties involved, such as the universities and university libraries.” Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is responsible for a number of the most highly reputed journals with which the new NWO rules would clash. Communications manager Amy Bourke informs us that NPG wants to await the details of the Dutch plans before offering any comment. She does indicate that NPG has devoted a great deal of attention to open access over the past decade. “Of the almost one hundred titles under our guard, there are 64 with the option of gold open access, and Nature Communications is fully open access.” The embargo of six months for the other publications she calls “liberal”. Before long, by the way, scientists can simply and legally send on a link to their Nature article to interested outsiders, who can then - without a subscription - read the article on the site of the journal. 24 | Zoom in 22 January 2015 Zoom in | 25 See for more news www.cursor.tue.nl/en Focusing on the Now: TU/e’s mindfulness movement Text | Angela Daley Photo | Vincent van den Hoogen University life can be hectic. You’ve got projects due, exams to take, and deadlines, deadlines, and more deadlines. You’re worried about getting everything done and you’re worried about your future. And on top of it all, that smartphone in your pocket keeps dinging and pinging, tempting you to answer emails, return texts or check out your friends’ latest status updates. With so many things fighting for your attention, how can you cut through the cacophony in order to focus on the tasks at hand? The answer might be in learning to live your life more “mindfully” - a technique that increasing numbers of medical professionals, psychologists and mindfulness enthusiasts tout as a vital tool for maintaining physical and mental health. And the concept has found its way to TU/e’s campus. Anniek Mol is an assistant for the student community TINT and is currently following a second mindfulness course offered by this TU/e group. She says that simple changes, like giving daily chores her undivided attention, can positively influence the rest of her day: “I try to find one thing every day that I do with a mindful mindset. The last few months it has been making my bed every morning with full focus. I try not to think about anything else. I focus on how the fabrics feel, how the down covers move. I find that making the bed that way is a great way to start the day and the view of a fresh made bed is soothing.” go learn something and change my life.” After attending a mindfulness retreat in France, d’Achard says his life was profoundly transformed, “We’re so filled with stuff that comes from the outside and it’s so noisy and crowded with stuff that comes from others, that we can’t observe our own thoughts, feelings and emotions anymore. I learned to stop and come home to myself.” So what exactly does it mean to be “mindful”? In its simplest sense, mindfulness means to narrow your focus to your current activity without allowing other distractions to pull you away from the moment. Though it may sound like an easy thing to do, modern life makes the practice challenging. Jerome Wehrens is the owner of B-Mind Eindhoven, a local mindfulness training center, and explains that he often sees people in his practice who are struggling with information overload. “We have so much information that needs to be processed and our brains just aren’t equipped for that. Think about a typical farmer in the Middle Ages. In his entire life, he was probably only confronted with the same amount of new information that we try to process in a single month. It’s just too much for us.” Hans d’Achard, a part-time lecturer in the Industrial Design Department, experienced this overload in his own life a few years ago: “I had a very, very rough time. I was physically and emotionally shook up and everything had gone wrong - socially, professionally, everything. I said, ‘I need a break’. I thought, I can go sit on a beach somewhere or I can Upon his return, d’Achard felt compelled to share his new-found knowledge with others. Now, he and life coach Elizabeth Fricker offer mindfulness training to students and young professionals through TINT. Fricker says embracing mindfulness techniques can be particularly useful for students: “One student’s comment really summed it up for me. He said, ‘My life is all about hurrying and worrying.’ They have all of these deadlines and they worry about whether they’re managing their lives properly. Mindfulness training can help them learn to stop hurrying through life.” “My life is all about hurrying and worrying” Though “mindfulness” has perhaps become an overused buzzworddu-jour, the idea itself is rooted in traditions that have existed for thousands of years. In 1st century Greece, philosopher Philo of Alexandria outlined “spiritual exercises” involving attention and concentration and by the 3rd century, other Greek philosophers were discussing meditative practices. Virtually every world religion elucidates ideas based on meditation and living mindfully - though, of course, often called by a different name. (For instance, the repetitiveness of praying the rosary in Catholicism is often considered to induce a meditative state.) Today’s mindfulness techniques are most directly connected to Eastern philosophies, particularly Buddhism, though modern practitioners tend to steer clear of any religious overtones. The pioneer of the mindfulness movement is American Jon KabatZinn, an MIT-trained scientist who founded the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at theUniversity of Massachusetts Medical School in 1979. Kabat-Zinn’s personal experiences as a student of Buddhist teachers and his practice of yoga spurred him to integrate these teachings with those of science. According Kabat-Zinn’s program, called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction or MBSR, people can learn to better cope with stress, anxiety, pain, and illness. Currently, there are 1,000 certified MBSR instructors practicing in over 30 countries. The basic tenets of Kabat-Zinn’s program (and most mindfulnessbased training courses) are as follows: •M indfulness meditation - sit quietly and focus on your natural breathing. This can include using a “mantra” - a word repeated silently. Allow your thoughts to come and go without judgment. •B ody sensations - notice what’s happening with your body - itches, tingles, aches - and let them pass. Take notice of each part of your body from head to toe. • Senses - notice sights, sound, smells, tastes, and touches without judgment. Let them pass. •E motions - notice your emotions and allow them to wash over you. Name these emotions for what they are: “joy,” “sadness,” “frustration.” Accept your emotions and allow them to pass. •U rge surfing - coping with cravings for addictive substances or behaviors. Notice how you feel when a craving enters your consciousness. Accept your urges and embrace the certain knowledge that the craving will eventually subside. Coping with the 21st Century In addition to TINT, other organizations on campus are recognizing the value of mindfulness training for both employees and students alike. Aafje De kuyper, head of the new professional development unit in the university’s Personnel Department, thinks teaching employees to live more mindfully could help them find a better work/life balance. “Within all kinds of work environments, employees experience more pressure and more stress. Training our staff in mindfulness techniques would embed a culture of wellbeing in the work environment, and reduce a later burden.” The department will soon offer the program ‘Mindful in your Work & Life’ which will be open to all personnel, support and scientific staff. In addition, the university’s sports center has also given training courses in mindfulness techniques. Not only are our work and personal lives busier than ever in this “always on,” hyper-connected world, but the demands of modern life also often force outside of our comfort zone. Students come from around the world to study at TU/e and many young professionals Dutch and foreign alike - find themselves relocating to other countries in order to pursue their career goals. Dimitrios Ikonomou was one such young professional who sought out the mindfulness training on campus during a year living and working in Eindhoven. He says learning to live his daily life more mindfully helped him deal with the challenges of living abroad. “Moving is high stress. You don’t know how to work the money. You don’t know how to speak the language. You can’t even find the grocery store. Mindfulness training forces you to stop and listen to yourself and it helps you understand why you’re upset or not focused.” Not ready to jump into an entire mindfulness training course? Elizabeth Fricker says there are some simple things you can do to help deal with stress and find a better balance in your daily life: “Choose one thing a day to do mindfully. It can be eating your lunch with your full attention or brushing your teeth. Just make sure to give your full attention to the process. Also, try to take 10 minutes a day to just sit and do nothing and breathe. Breathing is really the bottom line. When you breathe, you connect to your body and mind.” TINT’s next mindfulness training session will be on 21 January, 2015 at 19:30. For more information, check out: http://tint-eindhoven.nl/ To subscribe for the Personnel Department’s ‘Mindful in your Work & Life’ course, follow the link on the university’s intranet. 26 | Research 22 January 2015 4 burning questions Audrey Champion | Mechanical Engineering Micromachining with laser pulses Research | 27 See for more news www.cursor.tue.nl/en Karel Wilsens | Chemical Engineering Developing renewable high-performance polymers 1 | cover 1 On the top and bottom of my cover you can see optical morphologies observed during the polymerization process of liquid crystalline polymers. During my PhD project, I have spent one year studying the liquid crystalline behavior of polymers and followed their polymerization process with optical microscopy. Since these polymerization processes generally exhibit cool textures, I decided that they would be a good candidate for my cover. ’s on f your o r e ov the c rtation? disse What 2 | parties The goal of my project is to develop new high-performance polymers which can be obtained from renewable feedstock. However, if I try to explain this on parties I generally get more questions than I am capable of answering. For this reason, I normally tell people that I try to develop new renewable fibers for application in bulletproof vests. I should note that this is the ultimate goal of my project, and it will likely take several more years until we actually have polymers that can perform this well. 3 | essential 2 To be honest, all colleagues, researchers and companies I have worked with over the last four years have been vital for my research. It might sound cliché, but you continuously develop yourself and improve your research thanks to all the fruitful discussions, meetings and conferences. Wh a peo t do y ou t ple a t par ell whe n t abo ut y they a ies our s rese k arch ? 4 | society benefit 1 | cover The cover shows a femtosecond laser beam focused inside a slab of glass (or, more specifically, fused silica). 3 2 | parties What person, technology, or device has been essential for your research? 4 es ow do H 3 | essential fit ne e b y iet soc k? r wor u o y from (edited by Tom Jeltes) Photos | Vincent van den Hoogen Using ultrashort laser pulses focused in transparent media (such as glass), we can modify the substrate to create three-dimensional structures locally. Because of a change in the properties of the exposed glass, these structures can subsequently be etched away using an acid. This way, we can create 3D microsystems with features down to the nanoscale. I studied the effect of various laser parameters (energy per pulse, spatial energy distribution, and polarization) on the micromachining. Of particular interest was the stress generated by volume variation of the exposed regions, since it plays an important role in terms of etching rate, and can lead to crack formation. It is possible to control the stress distribution around the patterns by tuning the laser parameters. I used several microscopic techniques to characterize the effect of the laser pulses. It was wonderful to have all this microscopic equipment available on campus. 4 | society benefit Femtosecond laser micromachining is a promising technique, especially because it can be used to create 3D microsystems combining optics, mechanics and microfluidics on the same glass substrate something that can’t be done with two-dimensional fabrication techniques like lithography. Laser micro machining is particularly suitable for creating various devices, such as sensors, or labs-on-a-chip. The focus of this project is the development of new renewable polymers. The production of such polymers should allow people to use materials that are less polluting and harmful for the environment, while their performance is comparable to commonly used alternatives. Björne Mollet | Biomedical Engineering Artificial membrane for kidney cells 1 | cover A kidney-shaped fractal built from separate building blocks, represents the endless ways in which non-covalent molecular building blocks can be combined into new functional materials, such as a biomaterial for a bioartificial kidney membrane. 2 | parties Current dialysis treatments still suffer from major shortcomings in providing a sustainable solution for kidney patients. A possible way to improve these treatments is to incorporate living kidney cells and benefit from the intrinsic capacity of these cells to fulfill vital tasks such as the purification of blood. To maintain cell viability and functionality outside the human body, an artificial environment is required which mimics these cells’ natural environment. The basement membrane on which these cells grow is very important. My research focused on the application of non-covalent, or supramolecular, building blocks to form a synthetic basement membrane. These building blocks, which could be regarded as molecular ‘Lego’, interact and assemble via reversible bonds. For example it allows the facile combination of building blocks to create and thus explore new biomaterials. Additionally, the manner of material construction is more alike natural materials. 3 | essential Microscopy techniques have been most important during research. With scanning electron microscopy I visualized the morphology of the synthetic membranes and fluorescence microscopy allowed me to study the behavior of renal cells on these membranes. 4 | society benefit My research provides insight in both the possibilities and challenges regarding the application of supramolecular biomaterials, in the formation of synthetic basement membranes for renal epithelial cells specifically, and more generally as biomaterial for tissue engineering purposes for future clinical applications. - 21:00h, :00 mpus January, 19 2 2 y 90, TU/e ca a d .0 0 m Thurs ru o F eta om, M o Common R rel (Soft After-Bor Launch) is Thursday ro pizzas. It realize that in the u e 2 h it w els You g After-Borr ? Well Aftersing down. ft Launchin t TU Eindhoven is clo eer. Know the feeling and enjoy o S is S O M a b l om COS a ommon Ro e last Borre r stomach in evening. Thurs you drowned you e, drop by the TU/e Cht-out plans sorted inonly u , o ig h le sc n b re a se r il o u va th yo a t last few t e to o ds and g coming ohol is n Borrels are za, chat with your buf the Campus. FYI Alc iz o p rt a ro e u h e e a2 nment in th cosy enviro good company. d n a pizzas don’t TU/e and Eindhoven so you Cursor collects all events at , and nts eve ic athletic and academ have to. Symposiums, films, notify can You nl. ue. or.t urs w.c at ww to parties: you can find them all ail em an d sen website, please e us of new events through our her will ine gaz Ma sor Cur do so. [email protected] if you want to ing happenings. publish a selection of upcom 30 1 Monda y , Tuesd Wedne ay sday , 20:00 Januar - 21:50 y, h, filmho u TU/e c se De Zwarte ampus Doos, M 26 28 aps to the st ars 27 David contemCronenberg comed porary Holl’s latest film Juliann y of cruelty ywood, a m is a satire a neur e Moore sta, insecurity aacabre enseof toxic s otic failing mrs as Havan nd self-hat mble e tate of a career ovie star in a Segrand, . panic. perma Event nent Entranlanguage: E nglish ce fee: wit Studen ts 3,50 h Dutch sub tit euro / andere les n 7,50 euro 2 i, bruar e f 3 ag r, Dinsd 23:00 uu rkt 10, a 20:30 deman, M il De W ven an o ildem ms van Eindh r tea squiz uiz W d voo ne kenni q n b o v u a e P bquiz Algem en pu n. ndi de. Leuke5 persone uziekron e en bove p de o t p m o n 2 t oto- en goedko chrijve .45 uur. met f ezellige, d uit! Ins r vanaf 19 Een game avon uizmaste sdag een leerz d bij de q g en woen avon e dinsda Ieder vond!! o pp quiza 0 eur 0 , 3 : ten ekos Entre 3 Vrijdag , zaterdag jan zondag feb ruari, 20:00-2 uari en 3:00 uur, Gaslab, TU/e -campus D 31 oppio speelt : Heilig vuur Wees welkom waar weinig in een tijd waarin alles zullen wij u mruimte lijkt te zijn voor liesnel lijkt te gaan, Sluit uw ogen et open armen ontvange fde en bezinning, Open uw hart . Luister naar de kracht n. Wees welkom. ‘Kids on Fire’ om Hem binnen te laten!van de stilte. van Daphne de Bruijn. Naar de tekst van: Regie: Femke Spelers: Hes Veltman http://doppiter, Loek, Jeannette, Lind Entreekosteno.nl/doppio-speelt-kids- a en Gerben on : Standaard 8, - euro | Stude-fire/ nt 4,- euro 4 Monday , Tuesday and Wednesday February, 20:00-22:00h, filmhouse De Zwarte Doos, TU/e campus Interstellar Our time on earth is ending, so a team of explorers starring Matthew McConaughey make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage. Event language:English with Dutch subtitles Entrance fee:Students 3,50 euro / others 7,50 euro dhoven llman uur, Pu 0 0 : 3 2 00ari, 20: roms , Ein tdijk 47 s e V , l e hot , teksten k en de oor 25 euro ie z u m de k. V o en en voor e muzie Wij zorgende klassiek e-orkest, combm . d u n r P o r b v o a k e è v k f e l li e b n d n B e n a n e e g ag 60 m min gen est va Me Woensd vense blèrt, jij bent dme bainrtiatie van nmkeveaznin20-23 uudr.eEneinn de juiste stem o h d n i n co rd E n frisdrareng je stembavoor carnaval! Eerste t uit of je zachtdoefnh.aEen bijzotinsdebrieer, wijn ets er .B d m r ta a w n ie h p a ra kt n mb gg ie o e lic Het maagesmeerde ste ent en ook no ste tent van d it en een moo jij voor end entertainms in de gezellig nieke avond u spetter e voorzanger ari 2015. Een u keigoedren op 4 febru ms.nl meeblè blerpro ijn,fris e e .m w : ww incl. bier,w Woensdag februari, 20:15-22:30 kaarten uur, Info en osten: 25 euro k e Nat lab, Kastanjelaan 500, Eindhoven re t En 4 4 Filmquiz in Natlab Weet jij alles over films? Ben jij dieg regisseurs, maar ook inhoudelijke ene die alle namen, door muziek en fragmenten, correctvragen, allen ondersteund weet te beantwoorden? Wil je het winnende team van de vorig Of houd je vooral van een gezellige e editie verslaan? Wij vinden al deze redenen gegrondavond uit? en ga de uitdaging aan op 4 februari, dus kom ! Entreekosten: 3 euro per persoon
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