Stress is a widely known phenomenon in all societies. Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, stress and anxiety issues are becoming more severe for a wide number of people. At the same time, relaxing becomes more challenging, because of working … Continue reading
Category Archives: The Network Institute
Ivano Malavolta appointed Director Network Institute
Last week Ivano Malavolta was appointed by the Board of Deans as the new director of the Network Institute, thus succeeding Ivar Vermeulen (Communications department, VU). Ivano is Assistant Professor at the S2 (Software and Sustainability) research group. He will strive to … Continue reading
Practicing Mentalization skills in VR
In the treatment of people with intellectual disabilities, remedial educationalists are involved. To organize care what the person feels comfortable with, a relationship of trust is essential. By using mentalization-based skills persons with intellectual disabilities’ information processing can be supported, … Continue reading
Credibility of DeepFake
Credibility of Deepfakes Deepfakes, i.e. videos merging images and audios from different sources, blending them so as to generate a fully plausible clip, initially generated attention for their entertainment purposes: finally, it was possible for anyone to appear superimposed on … Continue reading
Getting rid of Cyber Sickness
The VU Network Institute has recently been asked by the VU Department of Human Movement Sciences for help with the development of two VR based tests to measure “visual dependency” in relation to motion sickness susceptibility. Motion sickness is gaining … Continue reading
Use advanced Eye Tracking in Virtual Reality
Since about a year the Tech Labs are in possession of the HTC Vive Pro Eye virtual reality headsets. These top-level VR headsets have integrated eye tracking that offers all sorts of new possibilities for research. Already we’ve created several … Continue reading
Linked Data projects at the Network Institute
The Network Institute is featured in a recent blog on DBpedia! It explains our Academy Assistants program and shows a couple of examples that fit in the Linked Data area of research. “Network Institute Academy Assistant (NIAA) Through a variety … Continue reading
Researching Online Data Platforms
At the end of 2019 the Network Institute’s Tech Labs started collaborating with Giulia Ranzini (Communication Science). The experiment was carried out thanks to the Idea Generator grant. Our goal was to understand which of the (few) elements on dating … Continue reading
VR symposium: Let’s get virtual!
Successful VR symposium hosted by Network Institute “Let’s get virtual!” showed the fascinating diversity if VR research at the VU Virtual Reality (in VR) is an exciting new medium that provides a compelling new user experience. Unlike other existing media, … Continue reading
Virtual Reality research at the Fieldlab Rotterdam
Virtual Reality research at the Fieldlab Rotterdam The Fieldlab Burglary Free Neighbourhood uses smart sensors to detect suspicious sounds and movements. In the Rotterdam Fieldlab we’re experimenting with sensors and subsequent measures to determine their effectiveness in sensing and preventing … Continue reading
VR Symposium @ VU
The Network Institute’s VR group invites to to join our morning symposium on VR in research and education at the VU. We have an interesting list of speakers introducing you to their take and use on Virtual Reality in academia. … Continue reading
Inter-Ethnic online dating
The last decade has seen both an increase in the diffusion of online dating and an uptick in the number of inter-ethnic marriages. Could users’ participation on online dating contribute to the formation of more heterogeneous couples ? The awarded … Continue reading
Preventing burglary in Virtual Reality
Burglaries are a continuous threat to our safety and society. Increasingly we are trying to understand how the typical burglar thinks and works to try to prevent this type of criminal behavior. What is needed to deter a burglar from … Continue reading
NWO Veni awards
Political scientist Mariken van der Velden and communications scientist Kasper Welbers have each been awarded a prestigious Veni grant in recognition of their work, the Dutch Research Council (NWO) has announced. A Veni grant is worth up to 250,000 … Continue reading
Gravitation Grants 2019 – Hybrid Intelligence
Hybrid Intelligence: augmenting human intellect Professor of Computer Science Frank van Harmelen (member of the Network Institute) leads a team of scientists from six Dutch universities with the aim of combining human and artificial intelligence. The goal is to enrich, … Continue reading
Network Institute End-of-the-year Event – July 2 @ 15:00
Dear members of the Network Institute, You are invited to the annual, traditional, original, nutritional, but above all unmissable Network Institute end-of-the-academic-year event, taking place: *** Tuesday July 2nd, 15.00 hrs, Tuinzaal (W&N) *** We have a very interesting program … Continue reading
Network Institute Promotional Video
Upcoming VR meetings
We are pleased to inform you about the upcoming VR meetings with three special hosts in the field of VR: Unfortunately cancelled – April 25th from 15:00 – 16:00, with Tara Donker Currently, her main focus of research is investigating … Continue reading
VR for rehabilitation following stroke or brain injury
Faviola Dadis, PhD candidate within the Department of Clinical Neuropsychology at the VU, is working in collaboration with prof dr. Erik Scherder and dr. Tilo Hartmann on her VR game “Koji’s Quest,” which aims to change the way people approach … Continue reading
MediaLab open again
As of March 1, 2019 the MediaLab (11th floor Main Building) with 8 cubicles is open for research again. After a few months closure the cubicles have new computers installed with Windows 10 and are ready for use. The MediaLab … Continue reading
Weston Brain Institute grant project starts in collaboration with the Tech Labs
Professor Charlotte Teunissen and her team at the NeuroChemistry group at the VUmc, received a grant from the Weston Brain Institute to further develop a biomarker helping in the detection of a large number of neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer’s … Continue reading
Proceedings of the NIAA program 2017-2018 published under Open Access
We are pleased to announce that the results of last year’s Network Institute Academy Assistant program are now available online. The proceedings consist of research reports of the individual projects which were collected in these proceedings after having undergone a … Continue reading
Tech Labs at the AI Field Trip 2018
Last November (2018) the first year students of Artificial Intelligence had their annual Field Trip. During these two intensive days they learn to translate a societal problem into a technological solution and build an actual proto-type to show how it … Continue reading
Tech Labs at ‘VR for Justice’ conference
On December 14, 2018 the University of Twente organised a short conference on the use of XR-technology by anyone working at legal organisations like the Justice department, police, probation offices, criminology and law researchers, etc. The goal was to exchange … Continue reading
Tech Labs Mobile App scores Best Demo at BNAIC 2018
The Babbeltruc app (see here for more) made by Computer Science VU and the Tech Labs of the Network Institute, won the Best Demo at this year’s Benelux AI Conference!
The Network Institute hosts WebSci’18 at VU from 27-30 May 2018
The Network Institute hosts the 10th ACM Conference on Web Science, 27-30 May 2018. It is a wonderful opportunity and a great pleasure for the Network Institute to be able host the 10th ACM conference on Web Science, WebSci’18, at … Continue reading
NWO Grant for Marleen Huysman et al
Marleen Huysman, Marlous Agterberg, Bart van den Hooff, Hans Berends, Philipp Tuertscher (all FEWEB) and Maarten de Laat (Open University-Welten Institute) receive a grant from NWO for their research project ‘New Ways of Working and Human Capital Development’. The grant … Continue reading
Promo video for ICT4D course
Do you think Web Science can be useful for Regreening in Africa? If you want to know, visit W4RA.org, if you have good ideas, you can join the W4RA community, worldwide. A new course on ICT4D, “ICT for Development” for … Continue reading