7 November 29, 2012 | year 55
Biweekly magazine of the Eindhoven University of Technology For news: www.cursor.tue.nl and follow tuecursor on Twitter and Facebook
4|S t. Nicholas 2.0 3 Connect with my culture
3 Dangerous computer games
10 University news
2 | For Starters
November 29, 2012
Dear St Nicholas,
Colophon Editor in chief Han Konings
I know there are many students and staff members who enjoy spending their days here, just like I do. Still, if I were allowed to make a list for our university, I’d wish: •m ore fun, international events (p3 English section)
Executive editor
• you’d modernize a bit. We offer some suggestions for Sint 2.0 (p4-5 English section) • users of MetaForum will soon be able to enjoy their new building (even more) and that complaints are taken (even more) seriously (p14-15, Dutch section)
• students will set a world record in the near future (p2-3, Dutch section) Oh, and have some more students enroll if you can, preferably ladies from all over the world. Thank you, St Nicholas!
Judith van
Brigit Span
Gaal
Editorial staff Judith van Gaal Tom Jeltes | Science Frits van Otterdijk Norbine Schalij Monique van de Ven
Clmn Sunlight
Staff Nicole Testerink Gerard Verhoogt
Photography Rien Meulman Bart van Overbeeke
Cover David Ernst
Translation Annemarie van Limpt (pages 2,3) Benjamin Ruijsenaars (page 4,5)
Layout Natasha Franc
Editorial board prof.dr. Cees Midden prof.dr. Hans Niemantsverdriet Angela Stevens- van Gennip Thomas Reijnaerts Arold Roestenburg Anneliese Vermeulen-Adolfs
The sun. Actually the lack of it... at the moment. It is getting darker and darker. Winter puts a spell on the Dutch grounds and prepares it for at least three months of rest. But how the sun is affecting us? We wake up, the sun is not yet there. We leave our desks at work or school, the sun is already gone. Last week we had some bright days, when I couldn’t take my eyes off the office window and the only thing I dreamed about around 12 o’clock was not the lunch, but how to GET OUT. Go outside, breathe and enjoy the sunbeams. We did that with couple of my colleagues who, the same as me,
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appreciate minutes of light. Natural light. When I think about my values somehow they are closely related to Mother Nature and its power to rule our lives. Lithuania is much up north compared to the Netherlands. Although the length of the day is very similar, we have much stronger difference between four seasons. Winter is supposed to be white and cold. Spring comes late, but is extremely green and blossomy. Summer can be blue or greenyellow, full of berries and mushrooms (depends on how much sun and rain sky offers to the Baltic people and the land). And then.. autumn. Long, grey, chilly... and only a splash of colors, when the trees decide to drop off their outfits. The culture is built around the changes in the nature. Apples are eaten in the late summer and autumn, and some are saved for winter in the dark basement which slows down the rotting.
Bert Meijer appointed to Governing Board NWO 26 November - Professor Bert Meijer has been appointed by the State Secretary for Education, Sander Dekker, as a member of the Governing Board of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Bert Meijer is a Professor at the TU/e Departments
of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. He will join the NWO Governing Board with effect from 1 January 2013. He is the successor to retiring member professor Ben de Kruijff.
Strawberries is the treat of June. Blueberries are picked in the forest of July. We celebrate light in winter, when miraculously two weeks after Christmas the day becomes longer by three steps of a rooster. Yes, a rooster. It is probably impossible to translate the saying literally, but the idea is that each second of more LIGHT makes us happy. Therefore in the end of June the night is beaten by the longest day with the midsummer fest. Girls and boys jump over the fire, single ladies make beautiful flower wreaths and send them with the river flow, hoping to meet the good man later in the year. No sleep. And all the Balts are in the woods searching for the, perhaps non-existing, blossom of fern. The blossom which makes all the dreams of teeny tiny human to come true. People celebrate the light.
So, when we, Baltic people, and I can also talk for some of my Scandinavian friends, see the sun, no matter how cold it is, we run outside and soak up the light. Vitamine D. We can smile and save the smile for coming greyer days. And we enjoy the warmth on our skin.
Indre Ka Interactionlinauskaite, User Sy st trainee at ID departmem ent
TU/e gets ‘Business Process Technologies’ chair 23 november - TU/e will get a specially endowed ‘Business Process Technologies’ chair. This professorship focuses on the optimization and automation of business processes so that businesses
achieve lower costs and improved returns. Researchers in Eindhoven will develop innovative technologies with which the Netherlands can strengthen its leading role in this field.
1.68 million euro award for materials research program 22 november - Dr. Kees Storm has been awarded a grant of 1.68 million euros from the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) for his research program
‘The mechanics of soft materials under control’. FOM has awarded total grants of 9.9 million euros for five new programs.
Brainmatters Psychology is becoming ever more important at TU/e. Technical systems and artifacts, be they games, cars, robots, lighting systems or buildings, are all meant for human end users eventually. It’s essential to know how these users perceive, think, feel, and act. The new human-oriented program Psychology & Technology examines every technical design from a psychological perspective. From now on, Cursor will be taking a closer psychological look at students, teachers, labs, technical artifacts, the workplace, the scientific business, campus, education, and websites.
Wish lists While children are busy preparing their wish lists for Saint Nicholas day, the press gave an interesting insight into the wishes of governmental and public agencies. The police want to exploit security leaks in personal computers to secretly browse on hard disks. Criminal investigators want access to academic DNA banks. The wish list of the municipality of Amsterdam reads like that of a spoiled child. She desperately wants to deploy mobile cameras to register severe offences in public space, including, as the press uncovered, placing one’s trash bin in the street at improper times. On top of her wish list, however, are cameras with millimeter wave scanning capacities; the so-called nude-scanning technology from the airports’ customs. The need for social control is as old as Saint Nicholas himself, but technological progress has steadily reduced the effort involved in registering where you are, what you are doing, and with whom. These technologies are used to increase social security and prevent terrorist attacks, but their use repeatedly violates our fundamental human rights. They were to be employed only if the ends, which cannot be achieved otherwise, justify the means. That is, only if the benefits outweigh the costs.
The benefits of such technologies as closed circuit television systems are hard to quantify. It is even harder to determine what price citizens have to pay Antal Haans assistant pr for the curtailment of their ofessor En , vironmenta l Psycholo privacy. Economists have gy, Departm ent IE&IS attempted to measure the value of privacy by determining the price at which people are willing to sell all kinds of personal information. According to a recent study at the University of Berkley, privacy is worth little to nothing: one euro to be exact. Nobody, however, has investigated the effects of modern surveillance technologies on our personal freedom and autonomy. History has taught us, however, that it is unpleasant living in a country where the administration acts as a modern day Saint Nicolas, keeping a track record of the activities of all its citizens.
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Vox Academici
Prof.dr. Wijnand IJsselsteijn, professor of Cognition and Affect in Human-technology Interaction, Department of IE&IS
Computer games: how dangerous are they? World of Warcraft, Angry Birds, or a quick game of Wordfeud on your smartphone: we all play games sometimes, but for more and more young people, computer games are becoming a serious problem. The Trimbos expertise center for mental health and addiction estimates there are some 15,000 youngsters who are addicted to games, and that number is growing. Last Thursday, at the conference ‘Games: fun or ill-fated?’ in Utrecht, scientists assembled to discuss the risks of games and the game addict. What is it that makes a computer game addictive? And does that make playing games a bad thing? “Computer games -especially onlineare definitely an addiction for a small group of young people, but we shouldn’t be stressing about the risks of gaming”, says Wijnand IJsselsteijn, professor of Cognition and Affect in HumanTechnology Interaction at the Department of IE&IS. “When printing was invented, people were already warning for an information overload and a solitary existence because of books. The same thing happened upon the introduction of radio and television. New media, same fears. Of course, nobody should be gaming for hours on end. Game addicts often show a distorted daily routine. They’re at their computers at
night, don’t eat well and school, work, and social activities are neglected. And, like with other addictions, game addicts can show withdrawal symptoms, and their game time has to increase every time to get the same kick out of it.”
downplayed, especially by parents, but it can be very important to be appreciated for something you’re very good at. In gaming countries such as South Korea and Japan, successful gamers are like pop stars.”
“An addictive game is a good game, in a sense. It’s a game that’s so much fun you want to keep playing. In the early stages, games reward you for minimal progress - extra points, a stronger avatar, or advanced weaponry - but those rewards are ever further apart as the game advances. Rewards often vary; they’re unpredictable, which makes the conditioning effect even stronger and thus more addictive.”
“Balance is the magic word. If someone seems to have vanished completely, someone should sound the alarm, but there’s no harm in an hour of gaming. In fact, it has its upsides. Games activate the user and many things can be learned through playing. This is particularly true for serious games - we recently developed a game to stimulate people who suffered from a stroke to do their ‘boring’ muscle exercises, for example - but for regular games, too. A good gamer has quite some strategy, coordination, and logic skills: an ideal manager, if you think about it. Spending time in a virtual world is not as bad as many people think, as long as you’re aware your real life is elsewhere. My advice: gaming is fine, but play in moderation.” (NT)
“A good gamer is an ideal manager” “Apart from these micro rewards, peer pressure is another aspect that paves the way for addiction. Gamers used to play by themselves, but now there are many online games where you work in teams. If you’ve agreed to meet at seven, you have to be there. A lot is expected of team leaders especially. The aspect of social recognition is often
Wijnand IJsselsteijn. Archive photo | Rien Meulman
Warm atmosphere conquers cold at international event 1,000
Almost visitors attended Connect with my Culture. It was the nd edition of the event at which students and staff introduce other TU/e folk to their home countries. The international festival was celebrated at MetaForum on November.
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At the start of the event at PM, there were still only a few dozen people, but that number rose to a few around PM. It was approximately centigrade that day, and for many people it was quite chilly in the market hall at MetaForum.
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Venezuela, Romania, Turkey, the Netherlands, Mexico, South Korea, Kenya, Japan, Italy, India, Indonesia, Germany, Greece, France, China and Brazil were the countries that presented themselves with music, dance, and snacks. (JvG)
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Photo | Bart van Overbeeke
What should be done differently in the year 2012 is the way in which he monitors his little rascals. Having black men creep down chimneys to see if the children are behaving themselves, seriously? Ever heard of health and safety regulations? He has a reputation of paying very short shrift to privacy anyway, so St Nicholas would do better to enter into an alliance with Zuckerberg and his cronies. After all, in today’s society everybody who is able to make a few tottering steps has a Facebook account full of personal information. (W&I)
By far the most outdated feature of St Nicholas is the way in which he gathers his information that he lugs along on his horse. It seems pretty obvious to me that is it high time he swapped that gigantic tome for an iPad.
The big benefit is that he can charge his iPhone briefly to check his list and find out whether there are sweet or naughty children in the house – for that big book is just too heavy to drag along any longer. As his grey has recently been replaced, it may be a good idea to purchase an ‘electric’ horse. Which can be recharged in turn, of course. (B)
Naturally St Nicholas and Black Peter travel across all the rooftops, but what are they to do if these should happen to be covered by an IRWES roof? This ingenious wind energy system, which generates energy with only a bit of wind, does provide a clearly demarcated landing platform – but how on earth is St going to manage to throw the packages safely through the rotating turbine via the wind inlets? I can see a possibility of blocking the turbine temporarily with his staff. Otherwise it is going to be a hell of a job to carry out his job unscathed.
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Now what is St to do with such a cloak? He, or an invisible Black Peter next to him, can carry out all sorts of novelties behind his cloak: consult databases to check the sweetness of the child, check budgets to see if there is any money left for a Play station, make travel plans, modernize the logistics…. The options are endless. For an ultramodern St Nicholas, who can still keep up the old-fashioned tradition. (EE)
Is there absolutely nothing that we can offer St Nicholas from the world of modern science and technology? There is! The changes only need to be invisible, in order not to disturb the tradition. Hence: the cloak of invisibility! You know, a magical element in which Harry Potter could hide nicely from Sneep and so on. Only: it is not magical: there is serious scientific work that can make this cloak actually possible. The idea is that certain structures lead the light around an object and then fully reconstruct it. The ‘Stealth’ airplanes are the first version of these techniques.
The feast of St Nicholas oozes the atmosphere of one hundred years ago out of every pore: cultural, pedagogical and technical. Black assistants, presents through chimneys, the big book and all those songs about sweet children finding a doll with braids in its hair in their shoes … If the legend of St Nicholas were invented today, all of that would be different. But what is really the essence of this children’s feast? That nothing changes and everything stays the same!
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Of course St Nicholas is very very old, yet with a smattering of up-to-date knowledge of TU/e and a little bit of help from industrial engineers he could make life in his old age considerably more comfortable. St Nicholas and his helpers still journey to the Netherlands by boat, which also has to carry all the present that subsequently need to be delivered to all the people’s homes. It would be much better if Nicholas were to collect all orders (which still go by the name of list of gifts wanted) in his control center in Madrid. He orders the presents on-line, and subsequently has them cleverly delivered door-to-door to the sweet little children by couriers such as UPS, DHL and TNT. It saves him a heap of work and staffing costs for all the auxiliary St Nicholas recruits. (IE&IS)
The theme ‘Wearable Senses’, which focuses on electronics worn close to the body, is able to manage with St 2.0. What about a sensor that detects whether naughty children are pulling our Holy Man’s beard too vehemently? When a threshold is crossed the beard can start blinking or -less conspicuous, but at least equally effective- emit a pulse. (ID)
The occupational hazards of old St Nicholas can be substantially reduced by fitting his miter with a sizeable spotlight, so that he will always have a good view of the slippery rooftops. The energy required will be generated by the rocking of his horse. (ID)
Of course there is a certain kind of charm about it. The dutch tradition, the simplicity, the outfit and let us certainly not forget to mention the songs full of old-fashioned words and objects, of which no child in this day and age still knows the significance or the meaning. Nevertheless it appears to us that St Nicholas will bear some improvement. So we asked TU/e students and staff members to join us in fantasizing about St 2.0: innovative, state-of-the-art, equipped and/or working with the latest technology. St Nicholas goes hightech.
Text | Monique van de Ven Illustration | David Ernst
St Nicholas goes hightech
4 | Zoom in November 29, 2012
The musical entertainment this year is provided by a group of DARE robot Peters, who ceaselessly keep playing ‘Sinterklaasje kom maar binnen met je robot’ (W)
Our help-robot St Nicholas comes with state-of-the-art recognition software to make sure that all the children will get the right presents. He works night and day, without ever getting tired, recharging himself with the batteries that the children have put in their little shoes for him. In addition, the help-robot St Nicholas collaborates closely with a small army of TURTLE robot Peters, who can shoot the packages from the street right up into the chimneys.
Although our holy man is not as young as he used to be, the growing world population is making life ever busier for him. Small wonder then that he is forced to hire more and more auxiliary St Nicholas and Black Peter recruits to hand out all the packages. However, considering the economic downturn in Spain, Nicholas can no longer afford this. Which is why we at TU/e have been working hard to find the ultimate solution, under code name ‘Sint 2.0’: a help-robot St Nicholas!
Whereas we normally try to come up with textile solutions that contribute to the elderly living on their own independently much longer, it is important for Nicholas to monitor his health properly so as to ensure that he can keep working. This implies comfortable underwear with a mechanically knitted-in circuit to register his heartbeat, blood pressure and stress level. It stands to reason that St Nicholas will not keep the results of these measurements to himself, as it can be deduced from the intensity of the red of his tabard. (ID)
St Nicholas sets great store by the health of his Black Peters and the children. By means of imaging markers St Nicholas has been tracking the absorption of ‘pepernoten’ (gingerbread nuts) into the body, and examined the relation between the ingestion of pepernoten and the development of diabetes. The ‘pepernoten’ which Black Peter now scatters around (and eats), have been given such a composition that they taste like genuine ‘pepernoten’, while being as healthy as fruit and vegetables. So keep the sweets coming! (BMT)
Featuring contributions by: B or de Kock, student Mathematics and Computer Science (W&I) - Gerrit Kroesen, professor of Applied Physics (TN) - Maarten Versteeg, lecturer/researcher Industrial Design (ID) - Jos van der Tol, researcher Electrical Engineering (EE)Alexander Suma, lecturer/researcher Architecture, Building and Planning (B) - Aukje Zijlstra, communications officer Biomedical Engineering (BMT) - Martijn van Aspert, student Operations Management & Logistics, Industrial Engineering & Innovation Sciences (IE&IS) - Heico Sandee, project manager robotics Mechanical Engineering (W).
For this reason he has begun a collaboration with the plasma physics group EPG within the Applied Physics Department. St Nicholas’s scientific staff is working together with researchers to develop the Plasma crosier. Indeed: under the right circumstances, plasmas can kill bacteria while leaving human cells and nearly all materials unaffected. A plasma generator has been built into the curve of the crosier, which generator is automatically powered if anything comes too close. This enables St Nicholas swiftly to decontaminate all the lists of gifts wanted as well as his own hands by holding these close to the curve of the crosier. Within several years St Nicholas will be commercializing this appliance. (TN)
Despite this, nobody has ever found St Nicholas to develop a rash, open wounds or sores that will not heal easily. This is because throughout all those centuries it has been his wont to scrub his hands many times every day, after which he invariably puts on new gloves. It also happens regularly that Nicholas keeps on working in spite of chafed and smarting hands: his gloves conceal so much.
St Nicholas is exposed to millions of wish lists every year. All of those lists contain millions of germs, which have no trouble at all penetrating his white gloves. This means that the risk of St Nicholas contracting a bacterial infection is huge.
Amerigo’s saddle has been given an overhaul. No more decubitus sores for Nicholas! (BMT)
The life of St Nicholas, for many years a shining role model for Biomedical Engineering buffs. Nowadays we know better how to live a long, happy, healthy life. That is why St Nicholas is one of the family to try out all the new medical gadgets. Although Nicholas definitely does look the 1732-year-old man he is, you cannot say the same for his insides. Recently he was the first volunteer to receive a tissue-engineered heart, grown from his own stem cells. (BMT)
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