News in brief

The symposium will focus on cooperation between industry, government authorities and universities: chance or threat? Prof. De Quelerij really believes such cooperation offers a chance for all and says he is very proud that he managed to intensify cooperation with industry and public organisations in the area of civil engineering, which subsequently yielded 13 million euros in funds for his faculty.

Mumps

Health organisations RIVM and GGD will study the spread of the mumps virus among students. Despite vaccinations, the total number of reported cases of the mumps has increased over the last two years. When a student is reported to have the mumps, he/she will be asked to notify ten students he/she has had contact with, and these students in turn will be asked to do the same. This total group of students will then be requested to submit to daily saliva tests, and the people they come into contact with will be monitored. After six weeks, researchers expect to be able to see how the disease has spread throughout the group.

Award winners

Professor Bill Rossen of the faulty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences has been named the ‘Best TU Delft Teacher 2010-2011’. Jerôme Schalkwijk, of the Applied Sciences faculty, was awarded the title ‘Best Graduate’ of the past academic year. His degree project studied the still unknown interaction between clouds and the phenomenon of climate change.

Masterchef

Job Hogewoning, a civil engineering student, failed to become the Dutch Masterchef 2011, which came with a 25,000 euros prize. Hogewoning and his opponent, Sacha de Lint, had to execute different tasks in the TV show’s final episode. They both had to cook a starter, main course and dessert, but first they had to test their taste, a test which De Lint won. After that, Hogewoning wasn’t able to catch up with De Lint, despite of the high marks he earned for his dishes.

Re-sit

Students who failed an exam due to personal circumstances should be given an extra re-sit immediately after the first exam, the Student Council (SC) says. The SC calls this a kluistentamen, an exam that is kept in a proverbial safe and only used in special cases. After this exam, students are not allowed to take the exam home with them. In this way, the exams can be used over longer periods of time. The SC wants to prevent students from being delayed in their studies. Regular re-sits are often held six and sometimes even 12 months after the original exam.

Merger

The chairwoman of the Erasmus University Rotterdam’s Executive Board,

Pauline van der Meer Mohr, is not surprised by the resistance to the merger with the universities of Delft and Leiden. Some 72 percent of TU Delft students and staff are not in favour of a merger. This week Erasmus Magazine published the Rotterdam figures: 57 percent is against the merger. Van der Meer Mohr, however, is sticking to the story that the three universities are simply investigating a close cooperation. Like her TU Delft colleague, Dirk Jan van den Berg, she claims that a merger should not be excluded at this time.

Sino-Dutch agreement

Evides Industriewater, TU Delft and two Chinese institutes – the Harbin Institute of Technology’s National Engineering Center of Urban Water Resources and the Xi’An Provincial Academy of Environmental Science – signed a cooperation agreement last week. This agreement marks the start of the Sino-Dutch Research Program (SDRP) for the coal-chemical industry, which will combine fundamental and applied research and focus on developing new and improved advanced wastewater treatment technologies, reuse technologies and zero liquid technologies.

Amsterdam liveable

Amsterdam was ranked 12th on this year’s rankings of the world’s most liveable cities. The Mercer consultancy company annual issues this ranking of the worlds’ best cities to reside in. Vienna was adjudged the world’s most liveable city, followed by Zürich and Auckland. In this ranking of 221 cities, Baghdad was ranked in last place.

Master’s track

Tim Baart is the first student to finish the Casimir pre-PhD track for MSc students of Applied Physics (Delft) and Physics (Leiden). This Master’s track focuses on educating students, especially for PhD positions at the two institutions or elsewhere and is designed to respond to the increasing mobility of students after completing their BSc. The track leads to a particular set of courses and research experiences in more than one department. Baart conducted his research in Leiden, Harvard and Delft. He is now a PhD student at TU Delft.       

Dat beeld komt overeen met het beeld dat de politie na de jaarwisseling schetste van het verloop van de feestelijkheden. Wel moest een kleine groep raddraaiers tot de orde worden geroepen. In totaal werden elf mensen aangehouden.

Triest dieptepunt was de vermoedelijke brandstichting in een basisschool in de Poptahof. De school brandde gedeeltelijk uit, de leerlingen worden tijdelijk elders opgevangen. Bij een verzorgingshuis aan de Chopinlaan sneuvelden enkele ruiten en moest de ME de orde handhaven.