Courses tagged with "Quality" (70)

Did you know that cities take up less than 3% of the earth’s land surface, but more than 50% of the world’s population live in them? And, cities generate more than 70% of the global emissions? Large cities and their hinterlands (jointly called metropolitan regions) greatly contribute to global urbanization and sustainability challenges, yet are also key to resolving these same challenges.

If you are interested in the challenges of the 21^st century metropolitan regions and how these can be solved from within the city and by its inhabitants, then this Sustainable Urban Development course is for you!

There are no simple solutions to these grand challenges! Rather the challenges cities face today require a holistic, systemic and transdisciplinary approach that spans different fields of expertise and disciplines such as urban planning, urban design, urban engineering, systems analysis, policy making, social sciences and entrepreneurship.

This MOOC is all about this integration of different fields of knowledge within the metropolitan context. The course is set up in a unique matrix format that lets you pursue your line of interest along a specific metropolitan challenge or a specific theme.

Because we are all part of the challenges as well as the solutions, we encourage you to participate actively! You will have the opportunity to explore the living conditions in your own city and compare your living environment with that of the global community.

You will discover possible solutions for your city’s challenges and what it takes to implement these solutions. Your participation will also contribute to wider research into metropolitan regions as complex systems.

We invite you to take the first steps in understanding the principles that will be essential to transform metropolitan regions into just, prosperous and sustainable places to live in!

This course forms a part of the educational programme of the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions and is developed by Wageningen UR and TU Delft, two of the founding universities of AMS Institute.

*Note - This is an Archived course*

As fossil-based fuels and raw materials contribute to climate change, the use of renewable materials and energy as an alternative is in full swing. This transition is not a luxury, it is has become a necessity. We can use the unique properties of microorganisms to convert organic waste streams into biomaterials, chemicals and biofuels. This course provides the insights and tools for biotechnological processes design in a sustainable way. Five experienced course leaders will teach you the basics of industrial biotechnology and how to apply these to the design of fermentation processes for the production of fuels, chemicals and foodstuffs. Throughout the course, you will be challenged to design your own biotechnological process and evaluate its performance and sustainability. The undergraduate course includes guest lectures from industry as well as from the University of Campinas in Brazil, with over 40 years  of experience in bio-ethanol production. The course is a joint initiative of TU Delft, the international BE-Basic consortium and University of Campinas.

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The course materials of this course are Copyright Delft University of Technology and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Netherlands License.

This is a past/archived course. At this time, you can only explore this course in a self-paced fashion. Certain features of this course may not be active, but many people enjoy watching the videos and working with the materials. Make sure to check for reruns of this course.

The knowledge base of the world is rapidly expanding, and much of this information is being put online as textual data. Understanding how to parse and analyze this growing amount of data is essential for any organization that would like to extract valuable insights and gain competitive advantage. This course will demonstrate how text mining can answer business related questions, with a focus on technological innovation.

This is a highly modular course, based on data science principles and methodologies. We will look into technological innovation through mining articles and patents and implement natural language processing. We will also utilize other available sources of competitive intelligence, such as the gray literature and knowledge bases of companies, news databases, social media feeds and search engine outputs. Text mining will be carried out using Python, and could be easily followed by running the provided iPython notebooks that execute the code.

FAQ

Who is this course for?

The course is intended for data scientists of all levels as well as domain experts on a managerial level. Data scientists will receive a variety of different toolsets, expanding knowledge and capability in the area of qualitative and semantic data analyses. Managers will receive hands-on oversight to a high-growth field filled with business promise, and will be able to spot opportunities for their own organization. You are encouraged to bring your data sources and business questions, and develop a professional portfolio of your work to share with others. The discussion forums of the course will be the place where professionals from around the world share insights and discuss data challenges.

How will the course be taught?

The first week of the course describes a range of business opportunities and solutions centered around the use of text. Subsequent weeks identify sources of competitive intelligence, in text, and provide solutions for parsing and storing incoming knowledge. Using real-world case studies, the course provides examples of the most useful statistical and machine learning techniques for handling text, semantic, and social data. We then describe how and what you can infer from the data, and discuss useful techniques for visualizing and communicating the results to decision-makers. 

What types of certificates does DelftX offer?

Upon successful completion of this course, learners will be awarded a DelftX Professional Education Certificate.

Can I receive Continuing Education Units?

The TU Delft Extension School offers Continuing Education Units for this course. Participants of TXT1x who successfully complete the course requirements will earn a Certificate of Completion and are eligible to receive 2.0 Continuing Education Units (2.0 CEUs)

How do I receive my certificate and CEUs?

Upon successful completion of the course, your certificate can be printed from your dashboard. The CEUs are awarded separately by the TU Delft Extension School.

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The course materials of this course are Copyright Delft University of Technology and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International License.

Have you ever wondered why ventilation helps to cool down your hot chocolate? Do you know why a surfing suit keeps you warm? Why iron feels cold, while wood feels warm at room temperature? Or how air is transferred into aqueous liquids in a water treatment plant? How can we sterilize milk with the least amount of energy? How does medicine spread in our tissue? Or how do we design a new cooling tower of a power plant? All these are phenomena that involve heat transfer, mass transfer or fluid flow. 

Transport Phenomena investigates such questions and many others, exploring a wide variety of applications ranging from industrial processes to environmental engineering, to transport processes in our own body and even simple daily life problems
 
In this course we will look into the underlying concepts of these processes, that often take place simultaneously, and will teach you how to apply them to a variety of real-life problems. You will learn how to model the processes and make quantitative statements.  

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The course materials of this course are Copyright Delft University of Technology and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International License.

We increasingly depend on reliable and affordable supply of energy, water, transport, telecommunication and information services to improve livability and facilitate economic development. However, today's infrastructure systems are drastically changing. They are becoming more and more web-based, interconnected and transnational, with increasingly fragmented public and private ownership, while new technologies are on their way. The capital need for investment in new infrastructures and upgrading of ageing infrastructures is tremendous.

During this infrastructure course you will learn to examine these challenges from a new, combined engineering and social sciences perspective. Subsequently we will focus on the challenges that complex adaptive infrastructure systems pose for governance, management and decision-making in a world full of uncertainties. In the last part of the course, we will introduce a selection of topics and tools (modeling & simulation, value sensitive design, standards, ICT-architecture) which will help you to improve the adequacy of infrastructure systems and services, while dealing with the risks and vulnerabilities of infrastructure interdependencies.

In our case studies, we will focus on topical developments and policies, such as sustainable energy transition (including smart grids), urbanization and its impact on infrastructures, the challenges of climate change and water scarcity, and the phenomenon of inverse infrastructure development (self-organization).  

If you are interested or involved in the functioning of today's and tomorrow's infrastructures, this course is an exceptional learning opportunity, whether you are a student or a professional. You will be interacting with peers all over the world and we will present a large number of case studies.

The course is based on the results of an extensive and renowned international research programme titled 'Next Generation Infrastructures' (NGInfra).

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The course materials of this course are Copyright Delft University of Technology and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International License.

Does your business need a make-over? Are you unsure how to start?

Having an innovative business model is key for a profitable business and growth. In this business and management course, you will learn how to design, test and implement new business models for sustainable success.

This course introduces you to the main topics of business model innovation. You will learn what drives business model innovation and why it is valuable to you and your business. You will apply practical tools to (re)design and test a business model.

Be inspired by real-life business model examples from fellow entrepreneurs and learn from leading experts who design business model innovations. By the end of this course, you will be able to structure your thinking and communicate your business model ideas and learn how to improve your own business.

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The course materials of this course are Copyright Delft University of Technology and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International License.

The idea behind topological systems is simple: if there exists a quantity, which cannot change in an insulating system where all the particles are localized, then the system must become conducting and obtain propagating particles when the quantity (called a "topological invariant") finally changes.

The practical applications of this principle are quite profound, and already within the last eight years they have lead to prediction and discovery of a vast range of new materials with exotic properties that were considered to be impossible before.

What will you gain from this course?

• Learn about the variety of subtopics in topological materials, their relation to each other and to the general principles.
• Learn to follow active research on topology, and critically understand it on your own.
• Acquire skills required to engage in research on your own, and to minimize confusion that often arises even among experienced researchers.

What is the focus of this course?

• Applications of topology in condensed matter based on bulk-edge correspondence.
• Special attention to the most active research topics in topological condensed matter: theory of topological insulators and Majorana fermions, topological classification of "grand ten” symmetry classes, and topological quantum computation
• Extensions of topology to further areas of condensed matter, such as photonic and mechanical systems, topological quantum walks, topology in fractionalized systems, driven or dissipative systems.

What tools does this course use?

• Simple thought experiments that rely on considerations of symmetry or continuity under adiabatic deformations
• Computer simulations similar to those used in actual research will give a more detailed and visual understanding of the involved concepts
• Dissecting research papers that teaches you to simply understand the idea even in the rather involved ones.

This course is a joint effort of Delft University of Technology, QuTech, NanoFront, University of Maryland, and Joint Quantum Institute.

FAQs

Are there any books that are required for the course?

No, the course will only rely on materials and software freely available online.

Is it possible to get credit for this course at my university?

Not by default, but we invite anyone to use the course materials as a basis for a graduate course, with course materials studied as preparation and followed by a classroom discussion. Such courses are planned at universities of Copenhagen, Delft, Leiden, and University of Maryland. Following such a course will obviously give you credit points.

Would it not be better to take a more formal approach, and to describe the math in a more rigorous and systematic way?

While advanced math is certainly relevant for some researchers, in our experience it is the simple things that are the most confusing. We aim for the course to stay accessible and relevant to advanced undergraduate/beginner graduate students, both the theorists and experimentalists.

I do not know enough about condensed matter physics, but I have attended an exciting talk/read a cool article, and I'd like to learn more. Would the course be useful for me?

We are not sure. On the one hand, we will aim the course at people familiar with basic condensed matter physics and the necessary math, hence we will always assume that we don't need to explain e.g. band structures from scratch. However, a good share of the course materials are just discussions which would give you some sort of overview and understanding what this is all about.

Why didn't you discuss my favorite topic, which is certainly relevant and exciting?

Hey, that's a great idea! We aim to start from covering the basic questions, and then let the course evolve together with the field. So if you want, please help us by preparing the materials that would be helpful for the course, and they will become a bonus topic. By the way, same holds if you spot an error, or know how to improve the course: everything about this course is open, so don't hesitate to contribute.

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The course materials of this course are Copyright Delft University of Technology and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) 4.0 International License.

In this nuclear energy course, we will tackle provocative questions such as:

• Is nuclear energy a good substitute for fossil fuels to reduce our CO2 emission or not?
• Can nuclear reactors operate safely without any harm to the public and environment?
• How much nuclear waste is produced and how long does it need to be stored safely?
• How can we make nuclear energy clean and more sustainable?
• How much are nuclear energy costs?

You will learn the physics behind nuclear science, how to gain energy from nuclear fission, how nuclear reactors operate safely, and the life cycle of nuclear fuel: from mining to disposal. In the last part of the course, we will focus on what matters most in the public debate: the economic and social impact of nuclear energy but also the future of energy systems.

Practically, we will:

• Teach you about nuclear science and technology (radiation and radioactivity, nuclear reactions, nuclear reactors and fuel cycle, economics of nuclear energy, and the sociality aspects)
• Show you short videos about the theory and practical implementation of nuclear energy
• Stimulate discussion and debate about nuclear energy
• Ask you to formulate your own opinion about nuclear energy and its role in society

The GENTLE consortium has sponsored and prepared this course. GENTLE is focused on maintaining the current high level of nuclear safety, and developing a highly skilled and well informed nuclear workforce, following the conclusion of the Council of the EU that it “it is essential to maintain in the European Union a high level of training in the nuclear field“ to deal with reactor fleet safely, decommission obsolete plants, be involved in new builds where policy dictates, and deal with the legacy and future radioactive wastes.

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The course materials of this course are Copyright Delft University of Technology and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International License.

Are you an urban planner, designer, policy maker or involved or interested in the creation of good living environments?

This course will broaden your scope and diversify your take on the field of urban planning and design. We will focus on a unique Dutch approach and analyze how it can help those involved with urban planning and design to improve the physical environment in relation to the public good it serves, including safety, wellbeing, sustainability and even beauty.

You will learn some of the basic traits of Dutch Urbanism, including its:

• contextual approach;
• balance between research and design;
• simultaneous working on multiple scale levels.

You will practice with basic techniques in spatial analysis and design pertaining to these points. You will also carry out these activities in your own domestic environment.

This course is taught by the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU-Delft, ranked no. 4 in Architecture/Built Environment on the QS World University Rankings (2016).

All the material in this course is presented at entry level. But since the course has an integral perspective, combining planning and design aspects, it can still be relevant for trained professionals who feel they lack experience in either field.

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The course materials of this course are Copyright Delft University of Technology and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International License.

This course will focus on basic technologies for the treatment of urban sewage. Unit processes involved in the treatment chain will be described as well as the physical, chemical and biological processes involved. There will be an emphasis on water quality and the functionality of each unit process within the treatment chain. After the course one should be able to recognise the process units, describe their function and make simple design calculations on urban sewage treatment plants.

The course consists of 6 modules:

1. Sewage treatment plant overview. In this module you will learn what major pollutants are present in the sewage and why we need to treat sewage prior to discharge to surface waters. The functional units will be briefly discussed
2. Primary treatment. In this module you learn how coarse material, sand & grit are removed from the sewage and how to design primary clarification tanks
3. Biological treatment. In this module you learn the basics of the carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous cycle and how biological processes are used to treat the main pollutants of concern.
4. Activated sludge process. In this module you learn the design principles of conventional activated sludge processes including the secondary clarifiers and aeration demand of aeration tanks.
5. Nitrogen and phosphorus removal. In this module you learn the principles of biological nitrogen removal as well as phosphorus removal by biological and/or chemical means.
6. Sludge treatment. In this module you will the design principles of sludge thickeners, digesters and dewatering facilities for the concentration and stabilisation of excess sewage sludge. Potentials for energy recovery via the produced biogas will be discussed as well as the direct anaerobic treatment of urban sewage in UASB reactors when climate conditions allow.

This course in combination with the courses "Introduction to Water and Climate" and "Introduction to Drinking Water Treatment" forms the Water XSeries, by DelftX.

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The course materials of this course are Copyright Delft University of Technology and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 4.0 International License.