3483 research outputs found
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Seán Lemass
No full textChapter providing biography of Ireland's greatest Taoiseach for new publication 'Taoiseach' on the lives of each of independent Ireland's fifteen prime ministers (Taoisigh) edited by LBC's Iain Dale
Exploring the Intersection Between Informal Carers’ Experiences, Digital Poverty and Poor Socioeconomic Status, Protocol
Full text linkAims: In 2021–2022, 10.5% of UK citizens provided unpaid informal care, saving the government £162 bn annually. Many carers reside in high-deprivation areas, where access to appropriate health and social care services is limited. Previous studies indicate that carers are more prone to depression, anxiety, and physical symptoms, and these negative outcomes are higher among socio-economically disadvantaged carers. The shift of some health and social care services online, combined with ‘digital poverty’ (having no suitable electronic devices with Internet access or limited access or skills concerning the Internet), may exacerbate difficulties with accessing health and social care support, potentially increasing unmet needs and burdens among socioeconomically disadvantaged carers. The aim is to understand how informal carers with marginalised socioeconomic status (SES) access existing health and social care services and how this impacts their mental health. The second aim of the project is to explore how potential digital poverty may shape a carer’s mental health outcomes.
Methods: A systematic literature review will identify barriers and facilitators of accessing health and social care by informal carers, the impact of access/non-access on mental health, stratified by carer SES and care-recipient’s health conditions. Followed by a qualitative photovoice study to explore carers’ experiences of accessing health and social care and the effects of digital poverty, analysed through critical discourse analysis. Thirdly a survey (N >300) examining how factors underpinning access to health and social care are related to informal carers’ mental health as moderated or mediated by the caregiver SES, carers’ perceptions of access to health and social care and of digital poverty analysed by structural equation modelling.
Results: We will identify if and how informal carers with a marginalised socioeconomic background access health and social care services. Which will allow us to develop an evidence-based health promotion model.
Conclusion: This study will offer us a unique opportunity to develop an evidence-based health promotion model for these carers that shows how to mitigate existing pathways of health inequalities. Based on key findings, recommendations will be generated and shared with researchers, clinicians, and policymakers via academic publications, conferences, exhibitions of carers’ photographs, and carer forums with NHS Trust(s)
Enhancing Learning for the Future: A Document Analysis of Serious Child Safeguarding Case Reviews with Romani and Traveller Communities in England
Full text linkIntegrating document analysis with the core principles of critical social research, this article aims to dig beneath the surface of historically specific social structures of child welfare services. Analysing the descriptive content presented in 13 serious child safeguarding case reviews, formal reports published after the death or serious injury of a Romani or Traveller child in England, this article shines a light on how the child welfare system worked, including how ideology and the presence of reciprocated feelings of fear and helplessness concealed the processes that contributed to the harm that was experienced. Seeking to provide a detailed analysis of the strengths and weaknesses in policy, procedure and practice, the article concludes by reflecting on valuable learning points for child protection professionals working with Romani and Traveller children, families and communities
Knowledge-Driven Explainable AI for Automated Defect Detection in Nuclear Reactor Components
Full text linkCritical assets in nuclear power plants, such as reactor vessels, coolant systems, and containment structures, must be inspected to ensure safe and reliable operations. However, these inspections are often complicated by the harsh environments in which they are conducted, with high radiation levels creating significant visual noise in inspection footage. Identifying defects, such as cracks or surface anomalies, is vital for preventing failures, but manual review by engineers can be timeconsuming due to challenging visual conditions. To address these challenges, a novel, automated defect detection algorithm has been developed, integrating image processing techniques with a knowledge-driven framework. The approach uses frame differencing to detect temporal changes in video frames, thresholding to isolate potential defects, and morphological operations to eliminate noise. The main contribution of this work is a rule-based filtering process that incorporates domain-specific knowledge, including factors such as anomaly size, persistence across multiple frames, and proximity to critical surfaces. A key feature of this approach is the emphasis on explainability. Unlike black-box machine learning models, this method provides clear, rule-based justifications for each detected anomaly. Such transparency is crucial in the highly regulated nuclear industry, where every decision must be traceable and defensible. To validate the approach, it was applied to a case study involving Calandria Tubesheet Bore (CTSB) inspection videos, a particularly challenging dataset due to the visual noise caused by radiation. The knowledge-based rules tailored to this inspection process helped filter out irrelevant anomalies and generated detailed reports with visualisations to assist engineers in their final assessments
An internal focus of attention benefits motor function in children with Sydenham chorea syndrome: A case study
No full textWhilst traditionally motor learning literature cautions against a self-focus during movement execution, there is an argument for the benefits of a somaesthetic awareness when utilised appropriately. Evidence suggests that paying attention to the body (i.e. an internal focus of attention) can be advantageous for afferent proprioceptive processing during motor skills wherein this information is relevant for successful task execution. It stands to reason that this approach may also hold true for individuals with movement disorders, such as Sydenham chorea syndrome: a rare neurological condition that results in rapid, involuntary, and uncoordinated movements. The present study provides a case study of two children (age 10 and 11 years), unable to walk independently due to low postural stability from Sydenham chorea syndrome. Both children completed ‘10-Meter Walk’ and ‘Timed Up and Go’ tests as a baseline, before undergoing three sessions per week of an intervention, for three months. Both children practiced walking and dynamic balance, with one child instructed to focus on their feet (i.e., an internal focus) and the other on signs installed along the path of movement (i.e., an external focus). A post-test experimental phase was then conducted to measure learning. Results revealed superior within-session learning and retention when adopting an internal focus of attention. When movement disorders create ambiguity in motor efference, an internal focus on task-relevant proprioceptive information may facilitate more appropriate movement organisation. This supports a recent body of literature, which argues that an internal focus of attention has task-dependent advantages
Development of a Novel Software Interface for tracking Student Behavior, Performance and Attendance
No full textThis paper presents a novel software interface for tracking student behavior, performance and attendance, exploring how software is used in education and analyzing the benefits and challenges that can come with its use. Technology has become increasingly important to education over recent years, making it a major focus within both technology and education. In this context, the paper presents the implementation of a website, designed to convey how technology can streamline access to information, making it faster and more efficient than the usual paper-based methods used to track attendance, behavior and grades of students. Leveraging on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Constructivist Learning Theory (CLT), a Client-Application Server and Database have been integrated into a novel framework where different users (i.e. student, parent, teacher, admin) can query the database. Role-based access is controlled through users’ tables which contain the user ID, name, email, password. The relationships between the tables are enforced using foreign keys, to maintain data integrity. The proposed system’s design prioritizes accessibility, enhancing the learning capability with a user-friendly interface. The system’s performance has been successfully tested in terms of time response, speed, efficiency and clarity, Initial single-user testing showed a load time of 18 ms for the student login page, with further validation needed for multi-user scenarios
Victim or Defiant? A Critical Reading of Contemporary Female Social Media Celebrities in Postdigital Bangladesh
No full textThis article explores how contemporary Bangladeshi Muslim female social media personalities challenge two dominant narratives: the Western-centric stereotype of Muslim women as passive victims and the local patriarchal expectations of middle-class respectability. Using a postdigital feminist framework, the study analyzes the online presence of three women: Barisha Haque, Rubiat Fatima Tony, and Laila Akhtar Farhad, who, through their entrepreneurial visibility and spousal choices, renegotiate gender roles, marital expectations, and public perceptions of Muslim womanhood. The analysis shows that these women demonstrate the agency and complexity of Muslim women from the Global South in ways that reject both Western-centric categories and local expectations. This work contributes to postdigital feminist scholarship by providing a grounded case study that highlights the nuanced, multimodal self-representations of non-Western women influencers
Meister Eckhart and the fisherman’s wife: exploring the mystical implications of a fairy tale through apogesis
Full text linkThis essay provides a mystical interpretation of the medieval German fairy tale, ‘The Fisherman and His Wife.’ I seek to show how a deeper understanding of the tale can be achieved through the mystical theology of Meister Eckhart. I begin by recounting the tale, before moving to a section titled Initial Reflections in which I discuss the tale in the context of categorization, history, variations, translation, and most importantly interpretation. Rather than interpret the tale through either exegesis or eisegesis, I seek to explain and apply a unique hermeneutic method situated between the two that I call apogesis. In the final section titled Eckhartian Implications, I use my method to explore how the tale implies key themes in Eckhart’s work. I conclude the essay by focusing on the significance of the tale’s dramatic peripety and startling dénouement in the light of Eckhartian thought
Mon ami Diogène: La voie rapide vers le bonheur
No full textFigure emblématique de la philosophie cynique, Diogène de Sinope est un sage de l’Antiquité grecque qui incarne, à travers sa pratique, l’idée que le bonheur réside tout simplement dans la poursuite d’une vie vertueuse, en accord avec la nature. Il propose ainsi une « voie courte » vers l’épanouissement, où la simplicité de ses principes contraste avec la difficulté de leur mise en œuvre.
Diogène nous confronte à une réflexion des plus fondamentales : pourquoi vivons-nous, si ce n’est pour bien vivre ? Rejetant richesse, pouvoir et vanité, il opposa à sa société son franc-parler et un mode de vie radical.
Souvent critiqué pour la simplicité de son message, Diogène a longtemps été marginalisé. Pourtant, derrière son humour et ses provocations se cache une sagesse profonde, plus pertinente que jamais dans notre monde consumériste en crise
Representing Illness and Dying: The Uses of Sociology
No full textFirst person narratives (or “pathographies”) by individuals in the throes of terminal illness, usually from cancer, have continued to proliferate in recent years. They have also become widely available and accessible in a variety of forms beyond the traditional printed word—as blogs, video diaries, podcasts and through various social media. This chapter discusses the contemporary tendency for sharing personal experiences of dying; of dying publicly using various media—as “mediated public dying”—in ways that may shape experience itself. A sociological focus is applied in order to raise questions about the function of narrative, the politics of representation, and the potential uses of such first-person narratives—for self, society and the formation of policy around the end-of-life. Recent examples of mediated public dying in the 21st century are woven into the discussion in ways that illustrate key sociological thematics of late modern society—of “life politics” and the reflexive project of the self; as a hinge that links individual biography with social structure and wider historical epoch; and as public sociology that speaks to issues and audiences beyond an immediate academic community of scholars. Such narratives, the chapter argues, can not only be seen as interventions in the public sphere, but as a form of public sociology itself, even when such narratives are not necessarily from sociologists themselves. In such instances, sociologists have a crucial role to play in interpreting such narratives and their utility—for service users and providers in social and clinical care, as well as for self and society more generally.
Keywords
Cancer, Mediated Public Dying, Narrative, Pathography, Public Sociolog