Biomolecule electrotransfer to mammalian cells

Delivery of biomolecules using pulsed electric fields or electrotransfer has applications such as biomedical engineering, bioprocess engineering and genomic engineering. When a cell is placed in an electric field, the induced transmembrane voltage catalyzes the formation of pores on the cell membrane. This enables the delivery of otherwise cell...

Urban airspace design for autonomous drone delivery

The paradigm of large-scale adoption of autonomous drone delivery promises to provide commercial and societal benefits. Over the past years, several companies have investigated the use-case of drones to transport small express packages of fast-food meals and time-sensitive medical supplies. The latter has shown to be highly beneficial in many...

Rules, Power and Trust: Interplay between inter-organizational structures and interpersonal relationships in project-based organizations in the construction industry

The aim of this PhD project was to explore the multi-level interplay between the inter-organizational structures and interpersonal relations in building project organizations. In the first two studies, quantitative approaches were used to validate assumptions about how inter-organizational structures are shaped by actors and how interpersonal...

Green Climate Control: Analysing the impact of (active) Plant-based Systems on Indoor Air Quality

Several studies have demonstrated the potential of botanical biofiltration and phytoremediation to remove indoor pollutants and improve overall comfort. However, there is a lack of evidence on how indoor greenery affects the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), particularly on Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). The main goal of this research project was...

Solving Large-Scale Dynamic Collaborative Vehicle Routing Problems: An Auction-Based Multi-Agent Approach

The freight transportation sector is one of the major contributors to air pollution. An important way to reduce emissions consists of collective route planning. Although unloaded trips and inefficient routes could not always be prevented by individual carriers, more efficient operations could often be obtained if multiple carriers collaborate by...

Atomic and Molecular Layer Deposition for Controlled Drug Delivery

The majority of pharmaceutical products is made of solid powders. The morphology and surface characteristics of drug particles affect both their bulk behaviour, e.g., flowability, dispersibility and tabletability, in the manufacturing process of dosage forms as well as their bioavailability upon administration into the human body. For instance,...

Economies of scale: a multi-level perspective: Applications in Dutch local public services

Driven by a quest for efficiency, many Western countries have witnessed merger waves across the entire breadth of their public sectors. The underlying assumption is that economies of scale exist in public service delivery; the idea that the average cost of public services decreases as the size of public organizations increases. The analysis of...

Integrated project delivery methods for energy renovation of social housing

European Social Housing Organisations (SHOs) are currently facing challenging times. The ageing of their housing stock and the economic crisis, which has affected both their finances and the finances of their tenants, are testing their capacity to stick to their aim of providing decent and affordable housing. Housing renovation projects offer...

Unravelling Interdependence: Coordinating Public-Private Service Networks

Governments aim to improve service delivery towards citizens and businesses. One of the main trends in this area is that organisations are increasingly trying to integrate service delivery by using information and communication technology (ICT). Service integration is necessary as individual service offerings are often just a part of a bigger...

Towards Contextualized Information Delivery: A Rule-based Architecture for the Domain of Mobile Police Work

An increasing number of mobile users demand adaptive services tailored to their specific requirements in a particular situation. Typically, when carrying out the task at hand, police officers need to have up-to-date information contextualized to their current situation in order to support their decision making. In contrast to the traditional...