HAPPY RESEARCH and to all, a good day!

Twas The Night Before Christmas
(Chemistry Edition)
by Merrissa Sorrentino

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the lab
not a beaker was burning, nor lid left uncapped.
Our goggles were hung in the cupboard with care
in the hopes that St Mendeleev soon would be there.

The chemists were nestled, all snug in their coats
going over molecular formula notes.
The Professor in glasses reciting compounds
had just finished jotting the last of them down

when outside the door there arose such a clatter.
I sprang from my desk to see – what was the matter?
We raced down the hallway in a quantum-like flash
dodging the test tubes and measuring flasks.

The light of the fluorescent tubes up above
gave a lustre as bright as my chemical gloves
when what, to my wandering eyes, should appear
but a Chemist with Eight Elemental Reindeer!

Faster than light, these elements came.
He whistled and shouted and called them by name:

“Now Bismuth! Now Carbon! Now Krypton and Bromine!
On Copper! On Cobalt! On Xenon and Fluorine!"
From out of the hallway and into the class
they formed an unusual luminous gas.

Like heat that emerges within a reaction
their atoms were striving for more interaction.
So off with their lids, the elements flew
with a gift for the lab, and St Mendeleev too.

And then in a startle, I heard from the hall
the clinking of pipettes and glass-mixing rods.
As I drew in my head and was turning to look
St Dmitri appeared with his chemistry book.

He was dressed all in white, from his head to his foot
but his coat was all tarnished with ashes and soot.
With a bundle of research files flung on his back
he looked like a student who’s ready for class.

His eyes – how they peered – as he looked all around.
His cheeks – were as pink as a Lithium compound.
Through the beard on his chin, in Titanium white
the smirk on his face conveyed utter delight.

The stub of his pencil, he held in his hand
as a sign of a very intelligent man.
And with it, he granted us wisdom and knowledge
which quickly began to envelop the college.

He spoke of a dream where elements took structure
like a symphony of atoms, and he, the conductor.
When arranged on the table in front of us all
he gave us a wink, then was gone from the hall.

He went in a flash as he called for his Elements.
Away they all flew in a cloud of intelligence.
But I heard him yell out – before fading away …

“HAPPY RESEARCH and to all, a good day!”

STRP - ways to visualise biological data

STRP Biënnale, one of world's ten leading festivals on creative technology, incited the curiosity of 30 000 visitors over a period of 10 days this year. Both well recognised scientists and talented young makers present their work at this event. It offers the audience the chance to experiment various scientific themes and see the result immediately. I was part of the crew team this year.

Figure 1. Let's make sense of the future now

Man and machine are connected more and more by systems that translate the sensory information into digital command lines. The key to a successful connection between man and machine is the interaction method. Physics and engineering play an important role to design new and more efficient ways to translate for the machine what the body understands through biological pathways what the environment input states. The future of technology depends upon discovering new forms of interaction.

Video 1. STRP project documentation from Milan van Belle on Vimeo.

This subject is not easy for the audience to embrace. For this, a simple and very popular app (The Particle Party) was designed to track in real time, with dots, the movement of a person in front of a screen. The time allocated was short, and the trace is saved by the user as a photograph.

Figure 2. Celebrate our senses at the Particle Party

"We will keep adding new sensors and senses to the things we make. Of course, everything will get eyes (vision is almost free), and hearing, but one by one we can add superhuman senses such as GPS location sensing, heat detection, X-ray vision, diverse molecule sensitivity, or smell. These permit our creations to respond to us, to interact with us, and to adapt themselves to our uses. Interactivity, by definition, is two way, so this sensing elevates our interactions with technology."

( Kevin Kelly, 2016 )

Design your world

In October of each year, Dutch Design Week takes place in Eindhoven. The biggest design event in Northern Europe presents work and ideas of more than 2500 designers to more than 275 000 visitors from home and abroad. In more than a hundred locations across the city, Dutch Design Week organises and facilitates exhibitions, lectures, prize ceremonies, networking events, debates and festivities. Last year I was part of the organising crew for the event.

Figure 1. My participation at the training for the new crew members

An average family owns at least 200 000 objects, from a paper clip to a toaster. Rarely we ask ourselves where these items came from, how they are made, or how we can make them more suitable for our needs, or more presentable. This event organises a series of interviews and presentations from top designers and new talents in the field that answer some of these questions.

Video 1. Presentation of Martijn Paulen, director of Dutch Design Week

In the past, the designer created new products and then various marketing techniques were used to sell the product to the customer. This method doesn't work anymore. Nowadays the customer's needs are put in the center of attention of the designer from the beginning of the creative process.

Video 2. Presentation of Martijn Paulen, director of Dutch Design Week

As consumers, we are losing sight of the complex world behind the products and services that we use every day. One of the main organisers of this exhibition, designer Bas van Abel, researched the market of smartphones that we all possess nowadays. He asked himself what should be the balance between the financial and the other values when it comes to product development. He asked himself also which is the role of a designer: to simply design the final product without thinking of the costs for the materials and for the production process, or to consider all the aspects before applying for a patent. He chose to develop a sustainable telephone of his own, the Fairphone, that takes into account all aspects, from human, to material costs, and production pipeline.

Video 3. Presentation of Bas van Abel, ambassador for Dutch Design Week

Technology develops more and more nowadays, quicker as the time passes by, and the automatization process of everything around us increases in use each day. We rely more and more on technology for more and more of our daily tasks. With the use of improved technology, one may complete more daily tasks nowadays, and the things around us adapt better to our needs with the use of technology. Nevertheless, there is always a balance between the human factor and the use of technology, a balance that is harder and harder to keep in mind with the increase of speed in our lives.

Video 4. Presentation of Maarten Baas, ambassador for Dutch Design Week

Each one of us can make time to better understand the products and services that we use every day. Increased knowledge of these details makes us more capable to make responsible decisions in our lives. A responsible consumer, if not even a designer, can make this world a better place to live.

Smarter lifestyle with Philips

During The Dutch Technology Week in 2016 I attended a very interesting event about how technology improves the quality of life of the ageing population.

The demand for healthcare that provides high quality at affordable costs is continuously growing. People when they are getting older they want to be self-sufficient for as long as possible, without having to leave the security of their own homes.

These technological innovations represent the target of the Slimmer Leven 2020 cooperative, a partnership within the Southeast of Netherlands with Brainport Eindhoven region at its core. With a good cooperation between the members of the cooperative, significant breakthroughs were achieved in care, living and well-being with the use of eHealth applications.

Among the many partners in the cooperative, Philips gave a general presentation during The Dutch Technology Week. Philips supports the HealthSuite digital platform that represents the link between the healthcare providers and the patients. The data is collected with well-established security protocols and stored in a cloud-based platform. The data is collected from various devices and sources, stored on the platform, correlated and analysed by professionals and a diagnostic of the current health status of the patient is released. The patients may have an online appointment with the doctor, via a videophone, in the comfort of their home, to update the progress done and for future tasks to be achieved. The Personal Health File provides directly to the patient all the medical data, which gives the opportunity for the people to understand better the diagnostic received, and to better manage their health in the future. While living at home independently, one can be included in an online community with other people that have similar health problems, and receive support.

Video 1 . One of the presentations of Philips about smarter living during The Dutch Technology Week 2016

Philips celebrated 125 years of innovation up to 15 May 2016. Philips doesn't innovate just for the sake of it, but it provides personalised technological solutions. I enjoyed watching, at the Philips Museum in Eindhoven, a small video that presents in a compact way so many years of technological design in medical imaging.

Video 2 . Philips has come a long way in developing new technology in healthcare during time, as the Philips Museum in Eindhoven nicely depicts in a short historic video

In the next ten years the demand for healthcare that provides a good trade-off between quality and affordability is rising, while the number of people working in healthcare is likely to be reduced. Making use of reliable technological innovations becomes a necessity for self-empowerment at an older age.