9 Biweekly magazine of the Eindhoven University of Technology For news: www.cursor.tue.nl and follow tuecursor on andmm
January 10, 2013 | year 55
X | Budging pellets 3 Fed up with lectures
4 Brains in Brussels
11 A truly international university? (in dutch section)
2 | For Starters
Colophon Editor in chief Han Konings
Executive editor Brigit Span
Editorial staff Judith van Gaal Tom Jeltes | Science Odette Knappers (trainee) Frits van Otterdijk Norbine Schalij Monique van de Ven
January 10, 2013
Clmn
Manneken Pis Recently, EuroTech Universities (ETU), consisting of four leading European universities of technology including TU/e, set up shop at the gates of the European Parliament. ETU may be small in size, but it’s a heavyweight when it comes to hard science. And one that wants to have its voice heard in Brussels at that. The aim: more research funds and a say in European research policy. A brave and necessary quest. ETU should look to Manneken Pis for inspiration,
My (and everybody’s) New Year’s Resolutions for TU/e Frits van O
tterdijk
who’s used to getting attention. Little men, great deeds. See page 4.
Staff Nicole Testerink Gerard Verhoogt
Rewwwind www.cursor.tue.nl
Photography Rien Meulman Bart van Overbeeke
Our Rewwwind feature provides you with snippets of last week’s news. What happened online after the previous Cursor magazine was published?
Cover Bart van Overbeeke
Translation Annemarie van Limpt (pages 2,3,5) Benjamin Ruijsenaars (page 4)
Layout Natasha Franc
Editorial board prof.dr. Cees Midden prof.dr. Hans Niemantsverdriet Angela Stevens- van Gennip Thomas Reijnaerts Arold Roestenburg Anneliese Vermeulen-Adolfs
Address editorial office TU/e, Laplace 0.40 5600 MB Eindhoven tel. 040 - 2474020 e-mail: cursor@tue.nl
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10 million euro for 100 research positions 8 January 2013 - As a result of cuts in government funding the number of PhD positions declines. The TU/e wants to counteract this by investing 10 million euro’s in those research positions. In partnership with industry,
this initiative is expected to lead to 100 new four-year research positions. This was announced monday by dr.ir. Arno Peels, chairman of the TU/e Executive Board, in his New Year’s speech.
More than half major Valorization Grants for TU/e 8 January 2013 - Technology Foundation STW has awarded four out of seven Phase-2 Valorization Grants from the fall round of 2012 to TU/e researchers. The researchers will be receiving a maximum of 200,000 euro towards making a technological invention appeal to commercial investors in two years’ time. None of the eleven smaller Phase-1 grants were awarded to TU/e applicants. Dr. Alexandra Suma (Built Environment) received a Grant for
IRWES, a system installed on the roof tops of high buildings that generates wind energy. OneChipRadar by dr.ir. Reza Mahmoudi (Electrical Engineer ing) was also awarded. This project involves a radar system on a chip. Prof.dr.ir. Maarten Steinbuch (Mecha nical Engineering) received a grant for PRECEYES, an eye-surgery robot. With SPINID dr.ir. John van der Schaaf wants to market chemical reactors based on the spinning-disk technology.
Fix the men’s bathrooms in Paviljoen. If you’re a man then probably you have peed in the urinals at PAV 0.t13. They work in a rather funny way: as soon as you approach the urinal to release your bodily fluids, all 5 urinals flush in unison. When you’re done, they all again flush at the same time. If someone else arrives to pee while you were peeing, they again flush. I am not sure how much water is wasted per day there, but someone should check it out. Fix OASE once and for all. Or even better, get a new platform. Make the ‘groene’ loper groen. Last year there was a really cool green area in front of the Auditorium. People used to chill there on sunny days, play football, and seat down in the grass. Now there are just too many concrete pathways and they are just way too wide. The area for a nice green surface is now extremely reduced. It probably should be renamed to the ‘grauwe’ loper. Repair defective bike-parking racks. There is a considerable amount of parking racks with defects. Some are just extremely old and rusty and falling to pieces. With an increasing student population, every parking spot is solid gold.
lectures are being broadcasted, they always start 15 minutes late because at the other end they can’t hear what the teacher is saying. When someone at the remote location wants to ask the teacher a question, the microphones won’t work properly. Fellow students have decided to take classes that don’t interest them rather than taking the ones they like as video lectures. Last but most definitely not least, WiFi in the MetaForum. I don’t need to further explain the importance of this one. *Bonus points awarded if someone fixes the projector at PT2.21
Gerardo M.Sc. studOchoa is a second ye ent Embedd ar from Mexic ed Systems o
Do something about the videolectures. The top 3 technical universities can’t build a solid video-lecture platform. When your
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.
A farewell
to New Year’s resolutions
About half of my day I desire something. You too by the way. This ‘something’ could be anything, that’s not the issue here. What matters is that fifty percent of our waking day, we actively want something. This is a good thing, for otherwise we might not embark on anything. But about half of those desires are problematic (so-called temptations) that we need to resist. This resistance requires strength: willpower. Willpower is a wonderful phenomenon some of us (claim to) have in abundance, others too little. But the fact is we need it frequently. What is it we want most? Recent research has indicated that our strongest desires are not the ones we claim we cannot resist, like alcohol or smoking. Our strongest desire is for sleep (sex came in second). And our most frequent desire beside sleep is eating and drinking. Note: both desires often conflict with goals for educational or professional achievement. We learned all this from a recent study performed in Germany. Three scientists -Hofmann (desire), Vohs (motivation), and Baumeister (willpower)- had people fill in questionnaires multiple times a day, every time a beep sounded on the PDA they carried with them.
The study rendered numerous insights on desires, temptations, resisting them, and giving in to them. The latter -giving in to temptations- is something Yvonne de we do not succumb to frequently: about 1 in every Kort, Asso ciate profes in the Hum sor enviro an-Technol 6 temptations on average. Interestingly, our nmental ps ogy Intera ychology ction grou p, departm willpower is compromised most frequently when ent of IE & IS we desire to work. This is particularly striking if we consider that this desire conflicts only modestly with other goals: perhaps we just do not crave for it sufficiently? We also give in to temptations more easily after we have had to employ it to resist an earlier temptation. If willpower gets depleted, we run a higher risk of falling for the next one. This certainly is something to consider before making numerous New Year’s resolutions. And just in case you did decide to spend more effort on your studies or career, please take my advice: (1) do not go on a diet! (2) steer clear of temptations; (3) but above all, choose a career that really speaks to you, as this is what boosts willpower most.
For Starters | 3
See for more news www.cursor.tue.nl
Vox Academici Prof.dr. Perry den Brok, professor of Educational Innovation at the Eindhoven School of Education (ESoE)
Are lectures outdated? His students chat, eat, drink, and surf the web on their smartphones during lectures; Nijmegen professor Jan Derksen is fed up. He no longer wants to act as a school teacher, and believes university education has become too childish. Last week he started a heated discussion by arguing in favor of online studying: no more mandatory lectures. Instead, students should pursue their own interests on their laptops. But where does the useful discussion between lecturer and students go with distance education? “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a good lecture”, says Perry den Brok, professor of Didactics at the Eindhoven School of Education, and a regular lecturer. “I beg to differ with Jan Derksen’s claim he’s up against yawning, inattentive students. It’s your job as a teacher to make sure your lectures are current, of course. The world around us is ever-changing, and we have many new technologies at our disposal. Don’t treat students to a monotonous 45-minute narrative, but make sure there’s interaction between you and the lecture theater. TU/e is modernizing more and more in that respect, by using response systems or ‘clickers’ for example. Knowing students’ answers to questions provides the lecturer with a way to communicate interactively, even with a large audience,
and assess the group. And there’s new software popping up all the time. Take ‘Scorative’, a program that allows students to participate in quizzes or a lecturer’s ‘interactive’ via their laptop or phone. Smartphones at lectures aren’t necessarily a bad thing. Lectures are a great way to transfer knowledge, and a chance for students to ask questions and enter into discussions. However, note that they should be part of a complete program. Eindhoven knows a design-oriented approach, whereas Maastricht has opted from problem-oriented education. Both models have incorporated lectures as a fully accepted part of the curriculum, complementing other teaching methods. Research has shown lectures contribute to the educational yield. And if a former student is asked what they remember most about their studies, a common response is: those lectures by so-and-so. I’m still amazed at how he managed to captivate me and those other 499 students.
ones, though. There would be a lack of communicative possibilities, verbal as well as nonverbal. Besides, it’s quite naïve to think students would sit through an entire lecture on their laptops. If you’re not passionate or clear enough, you’ll be gone at the click of a mouse. It requires new didactic skills, which we do try to teach our teachers-in-training.
Soon, ESoE and the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science will introduce a new course option: ICT and Communication. Not only will it provide an overview of teaching methods, it will also tell teachers-intraining what is required of them as messengers. It’s all about getting the message across properly, after all.
Finally, mindset is important. Seeing a student surfing the web, would you think they’re checking Facebook, or could you imagine them googling the concept you just mentioned? Do put trust in your students. That and a solid story will definitely keep those lunchboxes shut.” (NT)
“A solid story will keep those lunchboxes shut”
Putting lectures online can still be a wonderful addition to any program, mind you. Sick students, or students taking multiple courses at the same time and can’t be everywhere at once will benefit from that. New media offer newfound freedom. I don’t believe actual lectures could ever be replaced by online
Prof.dr. Perry den Brok. Photo | Bart van Overbeeke
TU/e Unplugged During TU/e’s Christmas recess, the university managed to save
21% electricity compared
to regular winter weekends, and saved
39% on gas.
That comes down to
288,050 kWh in electricity and 159,000 m3 of gas, which saved TU/e
30,000 and 63,000 euro respectively. Prior to the holidays
3,000
signs were put up on door handles.
614 of those were
put back by residents who had ‘unplugged’ their homes. (TJ)
Archive photo | Bart van Overbeeke
4 | Zoom in
January 10, 2013
Knowledge brokers in science want to conquer Brussels EuroTech | Frits van Otterdijk Illustration | Sandor Paulus TU/e wants to make its voice heard more clearly in Brussels, where the European research policy is determined. Together with its partner universities from Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, united in EuroTech Universities, an office has therefore been opened near the gateway to the European Parliament. EuroTech Universities is located on the eighth floor at Square de Meeûs in Brussels. A small rectangular park, scantly adorned with a golden angel on a concrete pedestal in honor of the Flemish sculptor Juliaan Dillens. The gray green and the bald trees are overshadowed by faceless office blocks. There is hardly a trace of the bubbling city of Brussels to be seen. Still, that is not what the four universities of technology are aiming for. This place was chosen for strategic reasons in particular, at just a few hundred meters’ distance from the European Parliament, surrounded by the international departments and institutes that matter. Lobbying is just a short walk away. Dr. Andrew Sors and Emily Parker form the permanent staffing in Brussels. Once every month, like today, all other members are also present for the monthly meeting.
“The pressure on subsidies is greater than ever” Sors in 1982 traded in a university career in Great Britain for a job as a prominent scientific consultant in Brussels. “I gradually shifted from technology to politics.” Sors and Parker (working part-time) began literally empty-handed in October 2012. There was no business plan, no outlined strategy and no period within which a carefully circumscribed goal must have been achieved. Only an empty office that has been opened by four enthusiastic heads of universities. “It would be unfair to take it to account for this straight away”, Parker thinks. “There was nothing or nobody in Brussels yet. You need to give this project some time to develop and see which way things will go.” Sors expects that it is this very commitment of the four universities which will be the key to success. “EuroTech Universities distinguishes itself from other university lobby groups because the alliance had existed several years before the opening of an office in Brussels. Their collaboration in the areas of research and education nourished their conviction that they have the legitimacy to influence and assist in the European innovation and research policy.” Every seven years the European Union drafts a policy program. In 2014 the budget for the next period should be ready. Sors: “With one thousand
participations the four universities have secured around five hundred million euro in European research funds over the past five years. As national governments are keeping a tight hand on their purses, the pressure on those subsidies is greater than ever. Everybody feels that.” This is true for the Netherlands as well, where direct funding is waning and a redistribution of the scientific budget is taking place. For researchers it is becoming more and more difficult to finance their work, says Gerard Verschuren from the Innovation Lab. He is in Brussels two days a week as a representative of TU/e. During the other working days he tries to explain in Eindhoven what is going on in Brussels. “The EU is really coming alive within TU/e, especially now that financial resources in the Netherlands are drying up. Whereas we are reasonably successful in applying for European research funds, this effort is hardly backed up by a strategy. This office is a good instrument for the development of such a strategy. In Brussels we have rather few people in the right place with important agencies. EuroTech Universities can help in that respect.” Indeed, the alliance it is not merely in it for research funds, as Verschuren emphasizes. The four universities also wish to enhance their visibility, and consequently their influence, in Brussels. Sors thinks that although there are wise people working at the universities ‘Brussels often does not understand them’. EuroTech Universities wants to voice more clearly what the work and the vision of the alliance entail. It is not yet entirely clear in what way this should be accomplished. Sors: “I see us as ‘knowledge brokers’ who relay the message of the universi ties of technology to the European institutes. And in turn inform the universities of technology about the innovation and research policy of Brussels, so that they can align their strategy to it. As knowledge brokers we are not so much pursuing a specific goal, we rather provide a strategic vision. How we can bring about a sustainable Europe by means of research into smart cities and smart mobility. What technological solutions there are for social issues. EuroTech Universities already has a voice in Europe, but it needs to be more pronounced, especially when you consider that research and innovation are linked more emphatically to the challenges facing Europe. We want to show that our alliance is of use to society and can play a leading role in the EU. The best universities of technology of Europe have committed themselves to combining their competencies in a
unique collaboration. It is an exciting experiment that will help European society to promote sustainable growth.” Sors leaves aside whether this alliance will continue to count four universities of technology. According to him a small company, cooperating closely, can often act more decisively than a large group of universities. Thereby he seems to indicate his preference in a roundabout way. “No, we are not exclusive, nor do we work behind closed doors. It is up to the universities to determine whether the alliance will be expanded. Our criterion is excellence. That gives us the legitimacy and the esteem to talk along about the European research policy which indirectly leverages national research programs.” Each university itself determines the number of man-hours it wants to spend on its representation in Brussels. The costs of the office and its staffing by Sors and Parker -around 250,000 euro annually- are shared by the four universities. This month Brainport Eindhoven will be subleasing a part of the office space for two representatives. Followed by a staff member from the Danish university of technology DTU, who will promote the interests of the European Energy Research Alliance, a group of fifteen European research institutes. There are no immediate expectations that the costs incurred will
be offset by income. Whether and when the office in Brussels will attain its objectives is still fully up in the air. A clearly demarcated framework is absent and no strict time-limit has been set. “If we land one extra research project, we will amply have made up for the expenses already”, Verschuren underlines. “Still, that is not the right criterion for measuring our work.”
“As knowledge brokers we provide a strategic vision” His Danish colleague Claus Andersen could not agree with him more. “Our work is far broader. You cannot evaluate our impact simply by counting how much research money we secure. How do you propose to claim that your contribution is securing the extra research budget? You’ll never know that and it is totally irrelevant. You’re part of a process. It’s all about the ‘branding’ of the universities and the alliance. That will enable you to recruit the best researchers and students. The aim is to be recognized as the leading universi ties of technology in Europe and perhaps in the world. While it goes without saying that the four universities compete with each other, at the same time you need
to look upon EuroTech Universities as a joint mission. We have been put on the earth to think up solutions for social issues. The best way to achieve this is not only by conducting research, but also by influencing the EU research agenda. That may be to the advantage of EuroTech Universities, and it may just as well mean a bonus for other universities. As long as our work benefits society at the end of the day. Then our mission will have succeeded.”
www.eurotech-universities.org/ brussels.html
Research | 5
See for more news www.cursor.tue.nl
Brown’s budging pellets Researchers at Molecular Materials and Nanosystems (M2N) had already proven that smartly designed electrodes can be used to propel electrons highly energy-efficiently. Doctoral candidate Wijnans Germs of M2N studied the concept of the ‘electronic ratchet’ as a way to separate plastic nano-pellets by size, a method that might be useful for medical self-testing kits. When Robert Brown was peering through his microscope studying pollen grains back in 1827, the Scottish botanist noticed unexpected movements: tiny particles from the pollen grains moved about through the water quite hapha zardly, as if propelled by invisible forces. This Brownian motion later turned out to be the result from particles continually colliding with water molecules. In 1905, Albert Einstein showed that Brownian motion may even be used to predict size, mass, and number of these water molecules, and he so indirectly proved the existence of molecules. Watching the energetic Brownian motion, you might think you’re on to something: what if it’s possible to generate energy with the help of some kind of paddlewheel powered by Brown’s moving particles? Should the wheel be equipped with a ratchet system making it spin one way only, it could be useful. Unfortunately, the possibility of a Brownian ratchet goes against the second law of thermodynamics: you can’t draw energy from a system in thermodynamic equilibrium – ‘there’s no such thing as a free lunch’ does not only apply to economics.
Since there’s no way around the second law of thermodynamics, it’s principally impossible to develop a working ratchet so small in size it can be powered by the Brownian motion, unfortunately. Still, that doesn’t mean Brownian motion is entirely useless, says doctoral candidate Wijnand Germs. “If you unbalance a system by adding energy, the Brownian motion can most certainly be used for a type of ratchet system.”
The pellets don’t even have to carry an electrical charge Germs researched a method based on Brownian motion to separate tiny plastic pellets by size. Such a separation method could be useful in labs-on-a-chip, devices that enable the immediate analysis of blood, saliva, or urine. A well-known application is the blood sample self-test patients can use to measure their blood sugar level. “In order to measure
Wijnand Germs. Foto | Bart van Overbeeke
specific proteins with a lab-on-a-chip, you can coat tiny plastic pellets with antibodies. The proteins you’re looking for will cling to the pellets. Separating the pellets bearing several types of proteins is no picnic, though.” One possible solution may be using pellets of various sizes. The smaller the pellets, the faster their Brownian motion – smaller pellets are simply more easily affected by water molecules bumping into them. If the Brownian motion can be forced in a certain direction, the smaller pellets will eventually break free from the larger ones, much like climbing specialists in the Tour de France break away from the peloton in an uphill stage. “Selecting nanoparticles based on their size is of importance in other uses as well”, Germs stresses. “The characteris tics of these particles depend on their size, after all.” In a lab-on-a-chip, the plastic pellets are located in a microchannel filled with fluid, so their movement is already restricted to back or forth only. Now it was thought if the pellets were electrically charged, they could be manipulated by electric fields. “Electrically charged pellets can be pulled in any desired direction using a electric field; the smaller particles will move faster then, too”, Germs says. “Unfortunately, that method requires high voltage on a very small surface area, and that’s just not practical.” There’s another way, however: by inserting finger-shaped electrodes under the microchannel, Germs creates a kind of electronic ratchet. “With a voltage of a mere one hundred millivolts, you can create an asymmetric potential. Imagine a periodic row of hills, with one of its valleys filled with a bunch of marbles (see figure). By temporarily flattening these hills by disabling the voltage on the electrodes, the particles will move in all directions because of Brownian motion. When the voltage is turned on again after a while, the asymmetry of the valleys causes more particles to gather on the right than on the left.” That way, the ratchet actuates a net movement where smaller particles get farther than larger ones. After turning the voltage on and off often enough, (nearly) all smaller pellets will have separated from the larger ones, and can subsequently be extracted from the channel separately. Germs studied pellets with diameters of either 300 or 500 nanometers. He concludes that by pausing approxi mately one second between turning on the electric field, the pellets can be separated by 94%. It’s not bad, yet not good enough either, considering the process takes roughly half an hour. “The separation process is still too slow, really; realizing an improvement of a few percent would take much more time. It’s partly due to my using larger pellets than one would come across in practice. I do that because I want to be able to track them through a microscope. We’ve developed a model that tells us exactly
what happens, and from that we’ve deduced time scales would actually be realistic were the system to be scaled down by a factor of ten. And that’s definitely feasible, although the microchannel would then be too small to separate large quantities of nanoparticles.”
The smaller the pellets, the faster their Brownian motion
Another important conclusion: the plastic pellets don’t even have to carry an electrical charge. “The foremost power that’s exerted on the pellets comes from the difference in polariza bility between the pellets and the water molecules, which shows from the fact the pellets aren’t drawn to electrodes, but instead remain hovering among them.” Influenced by the water molecules, the pellets transform into electric dipoles: one side is charged negatively, the other positively. As a result, the pellets experience the power of the electrodes without there being any net electrical charge. Germs: “That could be practical, because it means there’s no need for electrically charging the pellets.” (TJ)
The electronic ratchet. (a) In yellow: finger electrodes beneath the nanopellets in the microchannel. (b) The electrodes create the asymmetric potential (blue). At t3, the nanopellets are locked in after a period of ‘free’ Brownian motion. (c) The distribution of the smaller pellets (blue) and the larger ones (black). Over time, they continue to separate thanks to the electronic ratchet.
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