Over the past century, our understanding of life has been focused on its most fundamental building blocks: molecules. Biological molecules, such as proteins found in blood, other body fluids, or tissues, are excellent guides to identifying a normal or abno ...
Fluid-driven frictional ruptures are important in a broad range of subsurface engineering technologies and natural earthquake-related phenomena. Some examples of subsurface operations where borehole fluid injections can induce frictional slip are deep geot ...
Transportation, which deals with moving people and goods around, has a clear impact on the economic development of our society and our well-being. Traditionally, transportation was studied and analyzed using expensive sensors, such as induction loops, that ...
The field of artificial intelligence is set to fuel the future of mobility by driving forward the transition from advanced driver-assist systems to fully autonomous vehicles (AV). Yet the current technology, backed by cutting-edge deep learning techniques, ...
The present doctoral thesis aimed to achieve a robust cultivation of microalgae by recycling nitrogen from a liquid digestate. However, the use of non-sterile nutrient source increases the risks of contamination of undesired organisms such as bacteria, vir ...
The Kunsthal in Rotterdam is a key work in the oeuvre of OMA/Rem Koolhaas that marks the threshold between the firmâ s architectural production of the decades before and after 1990. This doctoral thesis aims at a deeper and comprehensive understanding of ...
Novel two-dimensional metamaterials, known as metasurfaces, have emerged as a breakthrough platform for controlling electromagnetic wave properties at the nanoscale. These metasurfaces consist of subwavelength nanoantennas or so-called meta-atoms, which ca ...
The employment of geostructures as structural supports and as heat exchangers represent an effective, renewable and sustainable way to satisfy thermal needs of the built environment. The structural support of conventional geotechnical structures is coupled ...
For decades, the understanding of life has been focused on its most fundamental building blocks: molecules. Deciphering the dynamic activities of protein molecules in human cells is of vital significance for fundamental and clinical studies. The minuscule ...
Employing geostructures as structural supports and geomaterials as reservoirs for the extraction and storage of heat represent effective means to meet human activity needs since ancient times. This doctoral thesis focuses on the thermo-mechanical behaviour ...
Regional planning, especially in the Alps, is high on the current news agenda in Switzer- land, more so than ever before. The skiing boom has driven massive urbanisation in mountain areas, primarily in locations at altitudes of 1400m or higher. For several ...
This doctoral thesis aims at demonstrating the technical feasibility of methane production from microalgae via continuous catalytic supercritical water gasification (CSCWG). This work focuses on three different research approaches: (i) assessment and impro ...
The city planning of La Chaux-de-Fonds, they way we know it today, is the result of a long evolution. It starts the day after a fire which, in 1794, practically devastated the whole village. With the human and material loss which the fire caused, this disa ...
We describe here experiments that combine differential ion mobility, which separates conformational isomers of biomolecular ions, with electronic spectroscopy in a cold, radio-frequency ion trap. Although the low temperature attainable in a cold ion trap g ...
Light has important visual and non-visual effects on humans and high-quality light should therefore be supplied inside buildings in sufficient quantities. On the other hand, artificial lighting is responsible for a large part of an office building's electr ...
This doctoral dissertation defines and sheds light on a nascent phenomenon in management, informally referred to as "crowdsourcing". I term this concept Open Source Corporate Strategy, or OSCS, which borrows insights from the open source innovation literat ...