Effective resource planning in higher education requires anticipating student demand for courses, especially when dealing with elective programs. Monitoring student preference is a recurring topic in the literature; however, to the authors’ knowledge, no simple methods for estimating student preferences when choosing courses in higher education have been proposed. This study develops and explores the use of a simple questionnaire to capture patterns in student course preferences within a university context. The research is developed in the context of the nine Cross-Over modules offered as part of the curriculum of the master’s programs (MSc) of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences of Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands). No prior registration is required far in advance for these courses, making an accurate estimation of student numbers critical for the planning and allocation of educational resources. The developed questionnaire is applied three times in two different academic years to the students’ choice of Cross-Over modules. The questionnaire was shared in 2021, with 225 responses out of 339 students, in 2022, with 159 responses out of 365 students, and in 2024, with 94 responses out of 272 students. Student enrollment in the academic year 2023/2024 is used to assess the performance of the questionnaire. The questionnaire is able to capture general preferences of the students, providing fair estimates of the number of students per course; larger differences are observed in courses with a lower number of students. In addition, some patterns were identified in student preferences: there is a relationship between the first and second choices, and students usually choose modules closer to their own disciplines. The developed questionnaire provides with a reasonable first estimation of the expected number of students in courses, allowing for better planning and allocation of educational resources beforehand. ... Read more

This short communication presents a practical tool for assessing the subsurface connectivity of animal burrows, with emphasis on its potential for early detection and evaluation of animal-induced damages in levees that can compromise the structure during high water emergencies.

Drawing inspiration from fundamental biology research and plumbing leak testing, the technique involves injection of coloured smoke into burrows using smoke bombs. A leaf blower then propels the smoke through the burrow network, enabling the identification of openings and providing insights into subsurface connections.

Systematically tested in various environments and applied to investigate burrow networks of diverse animal species, including crabs, voles, and moles, the results underscore the efficacy of the smoke test as a rapid, non-destructive, and cost-effective approach for detecting interconnected burrow networks. ... Read more

This manual is primarily designed for and by teachers for use in education, but should be a useful resource for anyone interested in creating and collaborating on Jupyter book. Our aim is to provide a simple way to start book-making for new users (it only takes 10 clicks!) through advanced usage for experienced users. We hope you find this resource useful and refer back to it often. ... Read more

This book covers a wide range of topics that involve the use of probability to solve problems in engineering design and research. Although it is relevant for a wide range of disciplines, it draws heavily on the fields of civil engineering, environmental engineering and the geosciences. Specific topics include risk analysis, probabilistic design, reliability-based design (component and system reliability). Future versions of this book will include additional applications of probability theory related to continuous distributions, extreme value analysis and expanded chapters on component and system reliability. A number of practical examples and exercises are included, both analytic and numerical, some of which use an interactive feature that allows Python code to be used in the web browser without any additional software installation. ... Read more

MUDE stands for Modelling, Uncertainty and Data for Engineers, a required module in the MSc programs from the faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.

The current version of the MUDE Textbook can be found at mude.citg.tudelft.nl/book and the most recent "complete" version is mude.citg.tudelft.nl/book/2024. Additional information about the book and its contents can be found on the Credits Page from 2024; technical information about the book and its source code can be found in the README of the GitHub repository TUDelft-MUDE/book. General information about MUDE can be found at mude.citg.tudelft.nl.

This Zenodo record archives the HTML files and provides a DOI for the MUDE Textbook. In general, the GitHub repository github.com/TUDelft-MUDE/book and book URL mude.citg.tudelft.nl/book should be used as primary links for the book, whereas Zenodo is used as an archive and DOI publisher, providing a "permanent" URL. The book is registrered in TU Delft's Research Portal PURE too.

The recommended citation for the MUDE Textbook is provided on the Credits page of the book (link above); the Zenodo recommendation on the side of this page should not be used (neither should the citation in the source code record). ... Read more

In a world affected by climate change and sea-level rise, intense storms are expected to become more frequent in the future. This implies that our coastal protections will be more often and more intensely affected by overtopping waves, potentially endangering the safety of our coastal communities. The objective of the present study is to investigate the hazard to people/pedestrians by postwave overtopping flows over an inclined surface, simulating a coastal dike. ... Read more

Reliability analysis is used to evaluate the probability of failure of a flood defence embankment subject to a blanket layer foundation condition, where high seepage forces increase the likelihood of internal erosion and slope failure. The stochastic effect of hydraulic conductivity and blanket layer thickness, in addition to soil shear strength properties, is considered for the underseepage and slope stability failure modes using the first-order reliability method. The blanket layer thickness controls the factor of safety (F) and reliability, followed by the unit weight of the blanket layer. Despite variation over orders of magnitude, hydraulic conductivity is less important than and comparable to the effect of soil shear strength parameters. Aleatory uncertainty is evaluated using fragility curves and a confidence interval on the expected value of F (stochastic F). Uncertainty in probability distribution parameters allows quantification of a subset of epistemic uncertainty and is used to construct confidence intervals for fragility. ... Read more