Issue 32 – May 2008 Philips Research technology magazine
Password Paving the way for truly personalized cancer treatment
One size does not fit all The art of atmosphere creation goes mainstream
An ambient revolution Can cities be green? As urban areas rapidly grow, sustainable living takes on new meaning
An ambient revolution The ‘art’ of creating an atmosphere to enhance emotions may be a centuries-old concept, but it’s just now entering our everyday lives.
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Cover photo: Energy-efficient LEDs illuminate De Begijnenhof, an office building in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Lighting designer: Wibeke Pollé, Philips Lighting. Architect: Van de Ven Franken Onstenk.
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Password May 2008
Contents 4 One size does not fit all
As the number of cancer deaths continues to rise, new advancements in biomarker research may lead to earlier diagnosis and more personalized treatment for patients.
10 Best of both worlds
4
New targeted biopsy techniques for prostate cancer may help doctors detect cancer at an earlier stage – when treatment is most effective.
12 & 22 Did you know...
Interesting facts and figures at your fingertips.
18 Bright times ahead
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As the basis for creating ambient atmospheres, LEDs are intriguing. But they are also attracting attention for an entirely different reason: energy efficiency.
24 Can cities be green?
This year, for the first time ever, more people will live in cities than outside them. It’s clear that global sustainability increasingly begins in the city.
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by Brandy Vaughan Images: Philips
One size does not fit all Cancer. It’s the second leading cause of death in the developed world and accounts for one out of every four deaths. Every year the number of cases – and the number of deaths – rises. But new advancements in medical research for personalized treatment and early diagnosis are paving the way to a brighter future.
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Even hearing the word ‘cancer’ is enough to make most people shiver. And for good reason. It’s the cause of 13% of all deaths worldwide. In developed countries, the statistics are even bleaker: 25% of all deaths are from the disease. Even as new healthcare discoveries are made at an astonishing rate, the World Health Organization predicts that deaths from cancer will continue to grow, with an estimated nine million people dying from cancer in 2015 rising to 11.4 million in 2030.
Best chance A patient’s best chance for survival is early diagnosis and personalized treatment – both of which are closer to being achieved with recent advancements in biomarker research, in combination with advanced imaging methods*, for disease detection and treatment planning.
treatment, lessening their chances for survival. Also, there are certain cancers that don’t allow for biopsies, such as brain cancer. In these cases, doctors need a better way to accurately determine the presence of cancer non-invasively, via an imaging procedure or through a blood or urine test.
Challenges ahead Once cancer is diagnosed, things become even more complicated. Often the biggest difficulties occur after diagnosis as doctors and patients struggle to determine the best way forward. With current technology, it’s nearly impossible to predict how aggressive a patient’s cancer is and what treatment is best.
Currently, there are a number of challenges doctors encounter when diagnosing and treating cancer. The care cycle begins when a doctor suspects a patient might have the disease – usually because of abnormal test results or a suspicious area found during an exam – and orders further tests or possibly a biopsy.
“Most often, we can identify which stage a patient’s cancer is at but it’s nearly impossible to determine how quickly the disease will progress,” notes David Neal, Urological Surgeon and Professor of Surgical Oncology at the University of Cambridge. “For example, some patients with stage two prostate cancer never progress and die of something completely unrelated, potentially many years after diagnosis. However, other patients at the same stage might progress rapidly and die from prostate cancer within a relatively short time.”
However, if a tumor is small or in a hard-to-access location, biopsies can be difficult and there is a risk of a false negative. This would increase the time before the patient receives
The top three treatments for cancer – chemotherapy, surgery and radiation – have been around for many years but none offer a perfect fix for everyone. In the same way
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that no two patients are identical, no two tumors are identical on a physiological and molecular level. This leads to great variations in how patients respond to treatments, even with similar types and stages of cancer. Advancements in imaging techniques currently under development can support doctors in making the right choices for treatment by unraveling the physiological make-up of the tumor – such as detailing the blood vessels inside the tumor and identifying so-called hypoxic regions that are more resistant to therapy.
Not enough information Thus, clinical guidelines prescribe somewhat of a one-sizefits-all approach because doctors do not have the means to tailor treatment options to a patient’s individual genomic profile. Instead, doctors are forced to base treatment
More
From lab to patient
As a valuable way to realize early diagnosis
of researchers to find new biomarkers
is working with Cambridge University,
and personalized treatment, biomarker
for a range of deadly cancers. Initially, the
one of ten clinics involved in the UK-wide
research is gaining momentum thanks
team is focusing on prostate cancer, with
ProTect study, which compares prostate
to the recent finalization of the human
hopes to move into bladder, breast and
cancer treatments with the hope of
genome sequence. Before the sequence
ovarian cancer in the future.
determining the best options for patients.
was deciphered, information linking
6
6
Tens of thousands of patients are enrolled
disease and genetics was rather limited.
Quality of life
in the study – providing a good basis for
Now researchers are using this complex
One of the biggest challenges in biomarker
biomarker discovery and validation.
code to find biomarkers that detect
research is gaining access to a large base
cancer even before symptoms show up
of cancer patient data and tissue samples
The Philips Research biomarker team
– great news for patients as treatment is
to analyze – a necessity for determining
is not only trying to find biomarkers
most effective early in the disease.
which biomarkers play a role in cancer. To
that signal prostate cancer but also the
overcome this, Philips Research teams up
progression of the disease. The team
Philips Research has taken on the
with different clinical labs. For prostate
benefits from the 10-15 year patient
biomarker challenge by dedicating a team
cancer biomarker research, the team
follow up in the ProTect study, which
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decisions on the location, size and type of tumor, the stage of the disease and the general state of the patient. But current research suggests that only 20-30% of cancer patients respond favorably to first-line treatment – and with current capabilities, it can take weeks or even months to determine response. And since almost all cancer treatments have side effects – some quite serious – it takes an unnecessary toll on patients that don’t respond to the treatment. It can be a waste of time as well as a waste of healthcare funds that could go towards better cancer-care solutions.
Back to biology Ideally, doctors could test patients beforehand to predict which treatment would work best for each individual based on his or her biological profile (known as patient stratification) – thus reducing the time it takes for proper
treatment and saving the patient from side effects of unsuccessful treatments. This is where biomarkers, or biological ‘markers’, come in. A biomarker is a molecular indicator of disease, disease progression, risk of disease and/ or potential response to a therapeutic treatment. Once a biomarker has been identified and verified, it can be used to diagnose disease or disease risk as well as tailor treatments for the disease in an individual patient – the ultimate goal of personalized treatment. As Neal points out, doctors face quite a challenge when determining the best treatment approach. “Right now, we are limited in what we know about the specific characteristics of each patient’s cancer, particularly in prostate cancer, which is what I deal with. It makes treatment difficult because patients may require treatments of different aggressiveness
says. “These patients may never even
how certain patients progress. This makes
Different profile, same treatment
it easier to pinpoint suspect biomarkers
David Neal, Urological Surgeon at
technologies, there’s no good way to
and how they respond to different
the University of Cambridge, points
determine who’s who, so the majority
treatments, an element that could
out another benefit: “If we find better
of patients are sent through the same
potentially lead to more personalized
diagnostic biomarkers to identify men at
aggressive treatment.”
treatments for prostate cancer.
risk of aggressive cancer, we can avoid the
provides a long-time period to monitor
If this happens, it could save patients with
experience symptoms but, with current
potential risks of biopsy in those with a
It’s not always quick or easy but the team is
low-risk cancer.”
working hard to bring biomarkers from the
a slow-progressing disease – that may
lab into the patient care environment. But
not even show symptoms in their lifetime
Project leader Ralf Hoffmann further
Hoffmann is determined: “If we can help
– from undergoing overly-aggressive
explains, “Doctors are finding more small
identify biomarkers that better define what
treatment regimens that often harm quality
cancers but many of these patients have
will work for patients, it could be a huge
of life due to side effects, such as loss of
a low risk of dying from prostate cancer
improvement in the quality of their lives –
bladder control and erectile dysfunction.
because it can progress very slowly,” he
something that should not be taken lightly.”
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– some require surgery while others may be managed more conservatively. But with limited information, we cannot decipher which category patients fall under.” He adds, “If we had a way to determine a patient’s disease profile through biomarker measurement, this could revolutionize the way we treat cancer patients. We could treat patients based on what works best for their specific profile instead of a one-size-fits-all approach. We could personalize treatment as well as dramatically improve survival rate and a patient’s quality of life.”
Better definition A well-known example of a biomarker is the prostate specific antigen (PSA) protein. Discovered in the early 1970s, it has been used to screen for prostate cancer for nearly three decades. But one of the main issues is that PSA, like other current biomarkers for different cancers, is not very disease specific. Not only does it give no guarantee that prostate cancer is actually present, it does not indicate the aggressiveness or other specific characteristics of the disease, if found. “We need better defined biomarkers that not only accurately detect the cancer if it’s there but also give us more insight into how the cancer will progress and what the best treatment options are,” says Neal. Fortunately, researchers have taken note and new discoveries are being made virtually every day. Recent developments in microarray technologies for DNA, RNA and proteins, along with the completion of the human genome sequence, have allowed even greater strides in biomarker research. Now thousands of patient samples can be processed in the same amount of time it took to process just one sample in the past.
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This helps researchers dramatically speed up the analysis process. As a result, there’s now an even greater emphasis on biomarkers which, ideally, will result in new advances that can help doctors diagnose cancer at an earlier stage and minimize the hit-or-miss treatment approach.
Fine-tuning treatment With that in mind, another promising use for biomarkers is in assessing which treatments would be most effective by pinpointing biomarkers in responders that non-responders lack. “There are many different chemotherapy drugs used to treat cancer but patient response varies,” explains Ralf Hoffmann, who heads a biomarker-discovery program at Philips Research. “If doctors could test the drugs on cancer cells before actually starting treatment, they’d have a much better idea of what would work.” Better biomarkers would allow doctors to fine-tune treatment based on the genomic profile of the patient’s tumor. And because personalized treatment is tailored to a patient’s individual biology, it has the potential to be far more effective than current approaches to disease management. Although most proposed biomarkers are still undergoing clinical tests, researchers are making headway. One example involves a biomarker, found by researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, that can help predict whether prostate cancer has spread to other areas in the body. Another recent discovery comes from the UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center (USA) where researchers identified several biomarkers that could potentially predict which patients will respond to a popular but toxic combination chemotherapy regimen used to treat lung cancer. Meanwhile researchers at the MD Anderson Cancer Center (USA) may have found a way to improve breast cancer
patient response to preoperative chemotherapy treatments by up to 40%, using molecular analysis to match patients’ genetic profiles to a regimen they may respond to best.
The earlier, the better A more personalized approach is not only about diagnosing disease and giving patients the best treatment at the right time but also evaluating a person’s predisposition towards a disease – another promising area of biomarker research. The earlier cancer is caught, the better the patient’s chances of survival. With this in mind, researchers are trying to locate specific biomarkers that are precursors to cancer in patients even before the disease develops. This could help determine a patient’s risk of developing cancer, as well as the type and aggressiveness of the cancer, so treatment could begin earlier when it’s most effective. Elias Zerhouni, Director of the National Institutes of Health (USA) sees this as the future of cancer treatment: “This unique period offers the unprecedented opportunity to identify individuals at risk of disease based on precise molecular knowledge, and the chance to intervene and preempt disease before it strikes.”
This new era of personalized treatment and earlier diagnosis has brought great opportunities to enhance patient knowledge and improve patient care. “What has become clear is that cancer is a complex disease in terms of underlying molecular biology, including response to therapy,” notes Gerrit Meijer, Professor of Pathology and head of the Tumor Profiling Group at VU University Medical Center in the Netherlands. “Translating this knowledge into molecular diagnostics will provide important tools to address clinical needs in cancer and decrease cancer deaths.”
Closer to reality New discoveries are bringing the dream of truly personalized treatment closer to reality. Finding a way to prevent cancer is the ultimate goal – but also one that may be nearly impossible to achieve. Until then, early diagnosis and personalized treatment are the best options. Zerhouni sums it up nicely: “In 20 years, we’re going to have what I call the ‘three-Ps’ medicine: predictive, personalized and preemptive. That’s my vision and this is where science is headed.” For the 20,000 people worldwide dying from cancer each day, this vision can’t come soon enough.
Ahead of the disease A good example of this in action is the genetic biomarker blood test that identifies women with BRCA gene mutations, which have a strong link to the development of breast cancer. According to National Cancer Institute (USA) estimates, women with an altered BRCA-1 or BRCA-2 gene are three to seven times more likely to develop breast cancer during their lifetime, and usually at a younger age, than women without these alterations. When women test positive for this gene mutation, they can then be watched more closely and cancer can potentially be caught at a very early stage, greatly increasing their chances for survival.
*The next issue of Password will feature an in-depth report on advancements in imaging techniques.
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by Brandy Vaughan Images: Philips
Best of both worlds Prostate cancer affects one in every six men in the Western world at some point in their lives. And even though it struck more than 218,000 men last year in the USA alone, it remains one of the most treatable cancers if caught early. Although an elevated prostate specific antigen (PSA) biomarker test and an abnormal digital rectal exam can indicate the possibility of prostate cancer, the only test that can fully confirm its presence is a needle biopsy, which removes small tissue samples from the prostate for examination. But success hinges on the biopsy needle extracting samples directly from the tumor site – not always easy given today’s limited imaging technology.
No guarantees The current standard is to perform the biopsy using two-dimensional (2D) ultrasound imaging because it’s cost-effective and shows the biopsy needle in real time. But since ultrasound displays only a general outline of the prostate and not suspicious areas within it, tumors that are 10
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small or located in a difficult location are not easily sampled. The lack of accurate and thorough imaging tools mean the biopsy pulls random samples of prostate tissue with no guarantee that cancer will be found, even if present. Thus, doctors are turning to multiple-sample biopsies, such as sextant biopsies, in which they usually take 12 or more samples from different areas of the prostate to increase potential detection rates. The problem? This technique still does not ensure a cancerous sample and even sextant biopsies can result in false negative rates of 10-20%.
Better guidance Ideally, the biopsy would be image-guided to ensure that tissue is extracted directly from the tumor and not from surrounding tissue. To help realize this, Philips Research
has developed a new technique that superimposes pre-captured MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans onto 2D ultrasound images so doctors can see both the biopsy needle and potential tumors simultaneously. The new technique is currently under clinical evaluation in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center (NIHCC) based in the USA. The technology brings the best of both worlds (MRI and ultrasound) to prostate biopsies by providing a threedimensional view of the patient’s prostate. During the biopsy procedure, real-time 2D ultrasound images are fused with the corresponding MRI slice and the two images are displayed at the same time. Ultrasound-derived images depict the outline of the patient’s prostate and the biopsy needle, while MRI shows where the suspicious areas are located.
A good fit To achieve even greater accuracy, Philips Research has enhanced the technology to compensate for patient movement during the biopsy procedure. This is done by detecting movement of the prostate from the real-time 2D ultrasound images and automatically adjusting the alignment with the MRI scan to maintain a good fit.
The new imaging technique holds much potential in detecting prostate cancer earlier and reducing false negatives – which means patients can be treated at an early stage of the disease when treatment is more effective. Bradford Wood, head of the Interventional Radiology Research Lab at the NIHCC, notes, “Fusionguided prostate biopsy is an immensely powerful tool with real potential to alter the paradigm of prostate cancer care.”
More The fusion system relies on a technology
an MRI, and the live ultrasound images
called electromagnetic tracking, which
can be fused with the corresponding
works like a personal GPS system for the
MRI view.
human body. Miniaturized sensor coils are integrated into the biopsy needle,
If the patient moves during the procedure,
biopsy guide or ultrasound probe. The
proprietary image-based registration
system generates a weak electromagnetic
algorithms are activated to bring the real-
field and uses the induced signal from the
time ultrasound image back into alignment
sensor coils to determine the position and
with the MRI. The algorithm efficiently
orientation of the medical device in space.
searches for the best match between the
After a one-time calibration procedure
current ultrasound image and a baseline
Philips Research has developed a new technique
and a patient-specific registration, the
image at the beginning of the procedure,
that superimposes pre-captured MRI scans onto 2D
devices can be visualized in real-time
and then updates the MRI fusion display
ultrasound images for simultaneously visualization of
relative to a pre-acquired image, such as
accordingly.
the biopsy needle and the target lesions.
Password May 2008
Did you know... Real wealth “It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader.
Computer crazy Urbanization
More households in the USA own computers than dishwashers.
In 1800, only 3% of the world’s population lived in cities. By the 20th century’s close, 47% did.
Ageing well From 2000 until 2050, the number of people in the world aged 60 years and over is estimated to grow from 600 million to two billion. Most of the increase will occur in developing countries where the number will rise from 400 million (in 2000) to 1.7 billion (by 2050).
Cause for alarm The International Agency for Research on Cancer estimates that there will be 20-25 million cases of cancer and 13-16 million cancer deaths annually by the year 2030. 12
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Mobile world It’s estimated that half of the world’s population will own a mobile phone by the end of 2008.
Going green Sales of Philips’ ‘green’ product line hit €5.3 billion in 2007. The Philips Cineos Soundbar DVD Home Theater system, shown below, uses on average 73% less energy than competitor models.
Techno terms The term ‘technology’ is a combination of the Greek word techne (meaning ‘art’ or ‘craft’) and logos (meaning ‘word’ or ‘speech’). The word first appeared in English in the 17th century and originally meant ‘a discussion of the applied arts’.
ec n
T
h
Logos e
People power 1,321,851,888
Cancer costs The National Institutes of Health estimates the overall costs of cancer in the USA totaled $219.2 billion in 2007 alone.
48 China is the world’s most populous country with 1,321,851,888 inhabitants. The Pitcairn Islands is the least populated with only 48 people.
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by Susan Wild Images: Philips
An ambient revolution
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Even in antiquity, palace and temple builders knew how to combine architecture, light, music and even fragrances to deliver powerful emotional effects. This ‘art’ of creating an atmosphere may be a centuries-old concept but it’s just now entering our everyday lives.
Step into any luxury store or hotel. Take a trip to a theme park. In each case, you’ll be entering an atmosphere designed to make a specific impact on your senses and emotions. The term ‘experience economy’ dates back to Pine and Gilmore’s 1999 book of that name, but the concept of enhancing the ambience of a space – or ‘setting a scene’ – to create certain experiences is nothing new. Yet something of an ambient revolution is taking place, driven by current developments in LED (light emitting diode) lighting.
film, light and music. But remarkably, only now are we beginning to have the means to make such visions practical in real-world applications, says Toon Holtslag, a Senior Director at Philips Research.
Ambient revelations
Colorful perspectives
LED-based lighting opens the way to a revolution in atmosphere creation as light has such a profound emotional impact. Albert Boswijk of the European Centre for the Experience Economy explains: “Have you ever traveled on a train at night and been disturbed by the fluorescent lighting? The physical environment plays an important role in the overall experience of an individual. It can have a substantial effect on our emotional and physical well-being.”
According to Jill Entwhistle, member of the International Association of Lighting Designers and author of Designing with light: hotels, consumers have already discovered how effective current technologies can be in creating atmosphere and mood in a room.
In the theater, the impact of light has long been understood. Rob Bowen, professional lighting designer and chair of the Drama Department at the University of North Carolina, notes, “Certainly, there are psychological and physiological effects of lighting on humans, and certain colors of light have different symbolic relationships, usually based on culture.” Philips’ involvement in ambient atmospheres may not be quite as old as the concept, but it has been a pioneer in the field for many years. In 1958, its Le Corbusier-designed pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair showcased the world’s first ‘electronic-spatial’ environment integrating architecture,
Why? Partly because, for the first time, we have lighting technology that enables saturated colors and a vast array of dynamic effects. And partly because this ‘multi-modal’ atmosphere creation involves controlling various parameters at the same time – music, images and light sources.
“The next stage is the use of RGB color-changing LEDs, which allow consumers to become more creative and playful with lighting,” she says. “It will be interesting to what degree more sophisticated and integrated systems will take hold and how they will be used to adjust, for instance, color temperature rather than simply color. The awareness of the effect of different white color temperatures on health and well-being is increasing in the commercial environment and it seems inevitable that this will move through to the domestic sphere.” The success of products like Philips’ Living Colors LED lamp, Ambilight TV and amBX’s immersive experiences for gamers testify to growing consumer interest. And its Ambient Experience project demonstrates how integrated
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The user simply flips through a series of pictures until they find one that reflects the kind of atmosphere they want to create and the system automatically adjusts the room lighting to match. Imagine doing something similar to create a relaxing scene in your living room or garden – the possibilities could be endless. Although it addresses groups rather than individuals, currently retail lighting is very much at the forefront of scene setting with LED lighting. Consumers want a shopping ‘experience’ and product collections come and go with amazing rapidity. Consequently, retailers may change atmospheres in their store up to ten times a year as their collections and ‘scene’ ambitions evolve. LED installations make this feasible and cost-effective. They can also combine a consumer experience with product highlighting, using solutions such as Philips’ LED Reactive Spotlights or the Haloshelf. lighting, music and images can produce positive physiological effects on patients undergoing medical scans.
From objects to scenes “We are at the start of an exciting journey that begins with what’s happening in LEDs,” adds Holtslag. “Today, we set scenes using individual objects like lamps that create an effect at a certain position. The next stage is spaces – to create effects at the level of the whole room – and beyond that to create personalized spaces.” However, for these you not only need the infrastructure in terms of light sources and connections between them, but also the controls. Currently, an LED installation in a living room might have 20 lamps or more, each with numerous settings. Adjusting them successfully would be difficult for a professional lighting designer, for the rest of us, nearly impossible. Philips’ experience with TV controls suggests people cope best with a highly limited number of ‘pre-sets’ that they can then fine-tune. Thus as Richard van de Sluis, another Philips researcher, points out, intelligent systems that help people easily create the scenes they wish are likely to generate the biggest value in the future.
Simple control, big experience Philips has already proposed one approach in its Atmosphere Flipbook that lets retailers ‘paint’ with light. 16
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Emotional environments But what about personalized spaces? Will we soon be able to walk into rooms that generate not just experiences but emotions? Will our work environments energize us in the morning, relax us during breaks and create a calming environment when things get busy? It may sound fanciful, but many academic and business institutions are researching the possibilities of emotionsensing computers. And Philips was one of the prime movers in the concept of Ambient Intelligence: environments that are sensitive and responsive to our moods and needs. “Such things are on our roadmap, but personalization is a decade away or further,” says Holtslag. “For one thing, you need sensors that don’t require direct bodily contact. Also, today we can only measure whether a stimulus provokes emotional arousal but properly gauging emotions is a huge challenge. Plus, emotions can change quickly.” This said, Philips’ extensive research into human perception of light has given it insight into how people categorize lighting scenes. A relatively small number of words like ‘cosy’ or ‘lively’ can capture almost every permutation. The challenge is to relate these to physiological responses, then translate them into technical parameters – and in ways undetectable to the user.
With the Atmosphere Flipbook, implementing a change in atmosphere can be easy. It’s as simple as flipping through the pattern book.
Waking up to the smell of roses So if light, sound and music are firmly in the sights of today’s atmosphere creators, will that most evocative of sensual stimuli – smell – be next? It’s hard to say because smells are not easily confined to a limited space. “As yet, there is no technology that allows you to deliver a specific aroma to a few cubic centimeters and then quickly refresh that point – a whole new technology may be required,” says Holtslag.
Creating atmosphere through the ‘actions’ which make up the
atmosphere creation? One way to look at
second layer of the pyramid. An action
it is as a pyramid, consisting of three layers.
could involve focusing attention on a
At the base are the building blocks: the
particular object in the room to give
means to make it all happen. These include
it a three-dimensional appearance or
the rendering devices (the lamps, displays,
projecting a scene in an outside garden.
speakers and so on), the user interface, the interactivity, the connectivity and the
Finally, at the top of the pyramid comes the
algorithms. These algorithms perform
‘impact’. Here lies the distinction between
the key task of translating the description
experience and emotion. Setting a scene
of the desired atmosphere – which might
can create an experience, but evoking
be verbal or pictorial – into technical
emotion is a step beyond – hence, the
parameters such as the intensity of the
roadmap to atmosphere creation that
light sources and the sound levels.
takes us from lighting individual objects, to setting scenes in a certain space, to
These ‘means’ are largely invisible to
creating personalized environments that
users, as they experience the scene
sense our mood and react to it.
Impact Emotions
Mood enhancement
Experience Effects Illumination Actions
Light effects
Triggering event
and scenes
Projection of a
(audio and
scenery
video)
UI Devices
What are the necessary ingredients for
Perception
More
This last remark goes to the heart of many of the issues in atmosphere creation. However, with LED lighting set to profoundly change our experiences at home and in public spaces, together with Philips’ commitment to creating intuitively controlled environments, soon you may not have to visit a luxury hotel to experience the art of an ambient atmosphere – you can just flip the switch.
Highlighting 3D shaping Impression creation Means
Perception UI Devices
Building blocks
Architecture Rendering devices
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by Peter Harold Images: Philips, LjusDesign AB
Bright times ahead As the basis for creating ambient atmospheres, LEDs are intriguing. But they are also attracting attention for an entirely different reason: energy efficiency.
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The incandescent lightbulb revolutionized people’s lives when it was invented almost 130 years ago but is now being phased out in some countries. Why? Because it wastes energy, and with today’s anxiety about global warming, that’s no longer cool. The future is energyefficient lighting. Compact fluorescents do the job. But light emitting diodes (LEDs) make it fun. Incandescent lightbulbs work by passing an electric current through a very thin piece of wire (the filament), which then becomes white hot, emitting light but also a large amount of heat. Typically 95% of the energy is heat and only 5% light.
Turning down the heat LEDs on the other hand, work completely differently. They rely on the fact that when an electric current passes through semiconducting materials (similar to those used to make silicon chips) it generates so-called ‘electrons’ and ‘holes’ that move in opposite directions. Think of the electrons as fast-moving energetic billiard balls and the holes as the billiard table pockets and you won’t be far off. When an electron meets a hole it drops into it and loses its energy as a flash of light (just like a billiard ball loses its kinetic energy when it drops into a pocket). No heat is involved in this process, although getting the electrons and holes to move in the first place does generate a small amount. With this process, LEDs are therefore far more efficient at producing light than incandescents, which is good news for the environment. The energy saved with LEDs can be as much as 90%.
Increasing brightness Sounds like a good deal, right? Not so fast. What’s kept LEDs out of mainstream lighting applications for the past 40 years is the fact that they were not very bright – okay for displaying the numbers on a digital clock but nowhere near bright enough to light a room. However, in recent years this has rapidly changed. New manufacturing techniques and materials mean that LEDs can now compete head-on with compact fluorescent and halogen lamps in many instances, especially when less than ten watts of power is required (equivalent to a 60-watt conventional lightbulb).
Another sign of bright times ahead is the new addition of high-power LEDs (produced by the Philips Lumileds line) in the headlights of the Audi R8 car – an application which many people considered almost impossible for LEDs just a few short years ago. LEDs may produce light efficiently, but they don’t naturally produce white light. They generate relatively pure colors – for example, vivid reds, greens, blues and oranges – depending on the type of semiconductor material used. “That’s why they’re fantastic for use in traffic lights,” says Wolfgang Budde, head of Solid State Lighting at Philips Research. “With LED traffic lights, you don’t have to produce white light and then block most of it out with a color filter, which saves a significant amount of extra energy.”
Stunning the senses But if white light is the goal, new advancements make it even easier for LEDs to produce it. Budde explains, “First, you take a high-efficiency blue LED and coat it with chemicals called phosphors, which convert some of the blue light into yellow light. This mixture of blue and yellow then appears to the eye as white light.” He adds, “It’s a similar principle to the one used in fluorescent lamps to make what is essentially an ultravioletdischarge lamp emit white light. It’s the technology of choice for low-cost, general-purpose LED lighting.” Philips’ new Lumileds product line has a patented coating process to control the phosphor thickness so that its white LEDs produce a highly consistent daylight-balanced spectrum that is comfortable on the eye. It’s even possible to set the color point to warm, neutral or cool white shades.
Imagine any color… What makes LEDs even more exciting is that by changing the relative intensity of them, you can create vir tually any color imaginable, swinging the color from one end of the spectrum to the other at will. That’s why highly efficient LED lighting is so attractive to architects and interior designers. “It’s not that you can’t make things interesting with conventional theatrical-style lighting,” explains Stefan Password May 2008
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Gemzell of LjusDesign AB, the company famous for creating moving images of the aurora borealis on the outside of Sweden’s 65-meter high Arctura tower. “It’s the fact that with LED lighting you can do it easily and energy-efficiently.”
Surface glows
Right to the point
Most of the LED-based lamps that you see on sale today are
LEDs also have the advantage of being small, which makes them excellent ‘point light sources’ (less than one square centimeter of LED can radiate the same amount of light as the 200 square centimeters of glass tubing needed in a 20-watt compact fluorescent). This makes it much easier to direct the light using a simple lens or reflector. And because there is vir tually no heat in the beam, the material used to make the lens or reflector doesn’t have to withstand high temperatures. Plastics are more than adequate. LED luminaires with fully integrated optics are therefore remarkably cool running and compact – small enough to put in places where you couldn’t even dream of putting a conventional lightbulb. The fact that they also have a typical lifetime that’s measured in tens of years also means those places don’t even have to be fully accessible.
Dynamic experiences The lack of heat in the beam means that you can even incorporate an LCD panel in front of the LEDs so that you can steer the beam – electronically controlled, no moving parts. It’s a technique that Philips Research has been working on to create dynamic new ‘ambient experiences’ for shops and leisure facilities and, ultimately, people’s homes.
based on ‘silicon chip’ technology that requires the LEDs to be manufactured in very expensive ‘clean’ rooms. However, a new generation of energy-efficient lighting based on OLED (organic light emitting diode) technology is about to hit the market.
Philips’ prototype of a colored OLED used for lighting applications.
While chip LEDs are the ideal solution for applications where you want directed light, such as spotlights, OLEDs promise the other extreme – entire walls that gently and evenly glow with light or even OLED-coated windows that illuminate rooms with simulated daylight when it gets dark. Like ordinary LEDs, OLEDs rely on the same electron/hole phenomenon that occurs in semiconductor materials, yet this time the semiconductor material is not a brittle crystalline inorganic
As Budde points out: “It’s the ability to independently control the brightness, color and ultimately the beam pattern of LED-based lamps, together with the ability to position them wherever you want, that gives LED lighting such an exciting future.”
material. It’s an organic substance that can be deposited onto surfaces, theoretically any size or shape, using vacuum-deposition techniques. One day, it may even be possible to produce OLED panels using a roll-to-roll printing process not unlike that used to produce wallpaper. Just image it – wallpapering your home with light. Initially, however, you’re going to find that OLED lighting panels are flat and rigid, encapsulated between thin layers of glass. Why? Because OLED materials are rapidly degraded by oxygen and water, which means the current technology needs something as impervious as glass to let the light out but prevent oxygen or
Left: LED lighting used to create moving images of the aurora borealis on the
water from getting in.
Arctura tower in Östersund, Sweden.
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Did you know... Lights on Lighting accounts for 19% of global electricity use.
Not to forget
Long life LEDs can last more than 11 years, even if used 12 hours per day. Philips MasterLED, shown above, has been designed to be fully compatible with existing lamp fittings.
Mega-morphosis
“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.” Albert Schweitzer, Franco-German philosopher and theologian.
The five most populated cities in the world today are Tokyo, Mexico City, New York City, São Paulo and Mumbai. In 2015, researchers expect the top five to be Tokyo, Mumbai, São Paulo, Dhaka and Delhi.
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Gene power The human genome has approximately three billion base pairs of DNA, which is stored on 24 distinct chromosomes containing an estimated 20,000-25,000 genes.
No attraction Eco TV Philips won the ‘Best in Show’ award for its energy-saving Eco TV, shown here, at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, USA.
9.000.000.000 Human growth
LED lights don’t attract most insects, which are mainly drawn to ultraviolet light and cannot see LED lighting.
Lights off Around 1.6 billion people in the world lack access to electricity.
The world’s population is expected to reach nine billion by 2050.
Facial aerobics Spontaneous laughter is a motor reflex produced by the coordinated contraction of 15 different facial muscles.
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by Brandy Vaughan Images: Philips, CD Bank
Can cities be green? According to the UN, in 2008, for the first time ever, more people will live in urban areas than outside them. And although cities take up less than 5% of the Earth’s surface, they use up to 75% of its resources. It’s becoming clear: green living begins in the city. In the super-sized era that we live in, many things seem to just get larger: cars, televisions, houses, energy bills. Cities are no exception. The UN predicts that today’s urban population of three billion will rise to nearly five billion by 2030, when three out every five people will live in cities. In fact, an estimated 60 million people move to urban areas every year.
Multiplying megacities The trend culminates in so-called ‘megacities’. When New York City became the world’s first megacity – a city with more than ten million people – around 1950, it was the beginning of an era. Tokyo soon followed. By 1975, there were five megacities. By 2004, that number had skyrocketed to 22, and experts predict the number will 24
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jump to at least 30 by 2015. Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was on target when he termed this century the ‘urban millennium’. So is the trend good or bad? Can cities cope with massive numbers of people? No one knows for sure. But with the world’s burgeoning population already putting a huge strain on the Earth’s limited resources, we’re close to, if not at the tipping point. And as the trend in urbanization shows no signs of stopping, it’s clear we need to think hard about how to make cities more livable and more sustainable. “The fate of our planet increasingly depends largely on the future of our urban regions,” says Marc Weiss, Chairman
Most populated urban regions (in 2005): 1. Tokyo, Japan, 35.2 million 2. Mexico City, Mexico, 19.4 million 3. New York City, United States, 18.7 million 4. Sao Paulo, Brazil, 18.3 million 5. Mumbai, India, 18.2 million
of Global Urban Development. “The majority of people in the world now live in urban areas. These places are at the heart of the world’s economy, development, technology and culture. But cities are also where the most resources and energy are consumed and the most pollution occurs.”
changes if the momentum is there. “Urban life is important for many reasons,” Weiss explains, “one of which is because it offers the ideal breeding ground for innovations that can help us live more sustainably – in urban and rural areas alike.”
Building prosperity
It’s a tall order but it seems cities, at least in the developed world, are beginning to wake up, literally, to the dangers of not finding more sustainable ways of living. One of the most dangerous – and most visible – issues cities face is air pollution.
It’s this sheer concentration of people that makes large cities incubators of huge growth and innovation. They drive development, technology and innovation. They harbor a wide spectrum of human knowledge and skills, creativity and culture. Cities also offer more healthcare and educational opportunities, while being magnets for trade and industry. Often, large cities are home to an overwhelming proportion of a country’s wealth. According to Weiss, the industrial and commercial activities in urban areas can account for 50-90% of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP). “Urban areas are the fundamental building blocks of prosperity,” he notes. Year on year, Paris accounts for nearly 30% of France’s national GDP, while housing only 18% of its population. Meanwhile, Mexico City generates 25-30% of Mexico’s total GDP. The Tokyo area, the largest urban area and metropolitan economy in the world, is choked with nearly 35 million people but remains the focal point of Japan’s economy simply because it houses two-thirds of the country’s major companies. The combination of being a hub of economic activity and creative energy means cities have the tools to make major
A breath of fresh air
Air pollution not only impacts climate change (through carbon emissions), it also kills. The UN estimates that polluted air causes the premature death of 400,000 Chinese each year, while 12.6% of the deaths in Jakarta are related to air pollution. And it’s going to get worse. In 1970, there were around 200 million cars in the world. By 2006, this number grew to over 850 million, which is expected to double by 2030. So how are cities dealing with it? Some cities are boosting public transport systems to allow more city-dwellers the option of car-less living, while others are putting in bike lanes to minimize traffic and the pollution from it. In Berlin and San Francisco, car-sharing schemes have become popular. An apparently effective method for reducing traffic and pollution involves congestion charges on cars driving in town centers during peak hours. London implemented this in 2003, resulting in a 21% decrease in traffic and an estimated 16% reduction in CO2 emissions. After introducing the Password May 2008
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world’s first significant road-pricing scheme in 1975, Singapore recently made a more radical move: a 100% tax on all new cars purchased. While in Bangkok, city officials reduced air pollution by 20-30% – despite a 40% increase in vehicles in the past ten years – by enforcing strict pollution controls on cars, raising taxes on motorbikes and making taxis run on (subsidized) liquefied natural gas. In Jakarta, more than 2.5 million cars and 3.8 million motorcycles take to the streets daily. To stem pollution, the city launched a “three-in-one” policy that demands a threepassenger minimum in every car traveling on major roads during certain hours. On Earth Day 2007, New York City’s mayor announced plans to make the city more bio-friendly by requiring city taxis to become hybrids by 2012. In recent years, Mexico City began closing high-polluting factories, mandating that vehicles be driven only six days a week and replacing diesel-powered buses with a new rapid transport system, saving an estimated 47,000 tons of CO2 emissions annually.
Green energy But it takes more than clean air to make a city sustainable. According to the International Energy Agency, energy demand is set to double between 2002 and 2030. Predictions like this inspire cities to find ways to both reduce consumption and create their own green energy.
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Lining rooftops with solar paneling – which can produce energy and passively heat and cool the building – and small windmills are new trends as are geothermal and biomass power plants. Los Angeles is creating its own green energy by sponsoring the world’s largest solar-power project in the nearby Mojave Desert. The development includes an enormous thermal solar-generating station, which will house 20,000 40-foot-tall solar panels that produce a total of 500 megawatts (MW) of electricity. The dish-shaped technology creates energy without the need for gasoline or water, and produces no emissions. To reduce consumption, many cities are turning to energyefficient LED lighting, which can produce energy savings of 90% compared to traditional incandescents. London has already made the switch to LED-based street lighting while Budapest is installing LEDs in traffic lights. Other cities are saving energy by going green – literally. Projects include planting more trees and plants around the city as well as planting grass on rooftops. These ‘green’ roofs can help reduce energy needed for cooling and heating buildings through improved insulation. They also produce oxygen, absorb air pollutants and reduce water loss due to run-off. A good example is the sloped green
Working towards solutions
Cities are struggling to deal with the
functionalities into the outside layer of
Understanding cities as dynamic and
challenges of urbanization, and this could
buildings. This challenges traditional
ever-evolving ecosystems can help
have consequences for our daily lives.
building design by switching the focus
formulate strategies for a sustainable
Philips wants to be part of the solution.
from building surfaces with benign and
urban future. Jack Mama, creative
To this end, Philips Design has developed
inert materials used for construction and
director for the project, explains that
the Off the grid: Sustainable Habitat 2020
shelter to creating sensitive functional
while there’s no easy solution, there is
project, under the Design Probes initiative,
skins that are ‘alive’ and act as membranes
hope: “There is not just one best way to
to promote discussion and debate around
around the building. This membrane
deal with the issues. That’s why it’s so
urban issues and possible solutions.
(pictured at right) could harness energy,
impor tant to keep the dialogue going,
recycle waste, channel and purify
therefore helping different concepts
One of the main ideas involves
rainwater and passively cool the building
and ideas to eventually become
integrating electronics and bio-chemical
through air flow.
solutions.”
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roof of the Palais Omnisports in Paris, which is not only beautiful but also functional. After a study estimated that installing green roofs on Chicago’s buildings would save 720 MW of energy annually, at a savings of USD 100 million, the mayor put a green roof on the city hall that soaks up water and absorbs heat. On the opposite side of the world, Melbourne city officials have commissioned an ecologically sustainable building airconditioned by a natural ‘breathing system’, which draws in cool air at night to flush out heat from the day.
Water works Cities are also notorious for the huge amount of water they consume on a daily basis. Methods for reduction range from building rainwater collection cisterns to enforcing strict water usage limits. New York City is using 28% less water than it did in 1979, mostly as a result of new water policies, including one that requires water-saving devices in renovations and new construction. The city has also been more diligent in finding and fixing leaks, which contribute significantly to lost water, in its vast system of pipes. Not wanting to let rainwater go to waste, Seoul now requires all newly constructed buildings to install a rainwater utilization system and has developed an incentive program to promote rainwater recycling. Mexico City,
where water supplies are rapidly depleting, is considering switching road pavement to a water-permeable version that allows rainwater to run through to the water table instead of flowing out to sea through the drainage system.
A greener future
Janice Perlman, founder of the Mega-Cities Project and urban trendwatcher, points out that urban areas are key to global sustainability. “Concentrating the human population in cities is an environmental necessity,” she explains. “Not only do the economies of scale create energy and resource effiencies, but also, if the entire planet were divided into individual household plots, there would be no space left for either agriculture or natural wilderness.” And although green cities are far from today’s urban reality, these examples here show that cities are taking the challenge of green living more seriously. This is good news because urban trendwatchers are clear on one point: for better or worse, the quality of life for most people in the future will depend on the quality of our cities. Air, water and energy are shared resources, exhaust fumes travel thousands of miles and emissions alter climate on a global scale. But as innovations and ideas keep flowing, the vision of a green city is neither impossible to imagine nor to achieve.
Philips Research is also active in exploring potential innovations that could make cities more sustainable. Terry Doyle, Senior Vice President Philips Research, explains: “We are working on environmentally friendly technologies for clean air, clean water and efficient use of energy. These will form the basis of green living for growing cities and new living areas and offer opportunities for sustainability on a large scale, while improving people’s well-being.”
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Thinking of tomorrow, today Philips Research is one of the world’s largest corporate research organizations and has a rich history of producing successful innovations in the areas of healthcare, lifestyle and technology. Powered by the intellect and hard work of more than 1,800 talented individuals, we fuel value creation and growth within Philips by creating new technologies that will improve people’s lives. www.research.philips.com