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Putting Critical Learning at the Heart of Ethical Global Development Communications among INGOs.
No full textThis research is designed to support the implementation of the Guide to Ethical Communications
(Dóchas 2023), which reiterates the importance of ethical global development (GD) communications
and suggests renewed commitment on the part of INGOs in Ireland to good practice in this area. In
doing so, it explores the training and learning aspects of ethical GD communications practice among
INGOs in Ireland. Drawing on a survey, research workshops and documentary analysis, it argues
that if implementation of the Guide is to be meaningful, INGOs need to put training and learning at
the heart of ethical GD practice.
This training and learning needs to apply an organisational learning approach rather than one
focused on individual skills deficits or development. This requires that INGOs (individually or through
Dóchas) offer many different opportunities for training and learning for all those working in and with
INGOs, including all staff, management, volunteers, partners, board members and contractors, and
that links are made between this training and learning and wider organisational policy and practice. In
addressing communications at all levels of practice, relationships and culture within and across INGOs
in Dóchas, approaches should ensure that training and learning spaces and facilitation support deep,
critical, applied learning for ethical GD communications’ practice among participants. Because of the
challenges and complexities involved in ensuring ethical GD communications’ practice, this training
and learning needs to address the many power relations which underlie communications practices at
different levels (see Diagram 1 below).
The research highlights the current tendency within many INGOs to limit ‘training’ to distribution of the
Dóchas Guide, some induction training and / or short-term training for certain cohorts of staff, e.g.,
communications staff. This research shows that, at best, these practices only support surface level
understanding of what’s required for ethical GD practice. In its exploration of different approaches to
training and learning around ethical GD communications, it shows that those framed by diversity and
localisation concerns can help organisations go deeper into addressing power relationships in the
organisations themselves. In order to address the deep roots of stereotyping, paternalism, ‘othering’,
transactionalism, white supremacy, ethnocentrism and racism in GD communications, critical global
citizenship education (GCE) or anti-racism approaches are also needed. When guided by critical
and dcolonial pedagogies and critical race theory focused on systemic change, these approaches
support critical engagement and action around ethical GD communications at all levels.
In short, the research shows the need to put critical learning at the heart of GD communications’
practice through the development of INGO critical learning strategies, which are well-resourced and
supported by organisational management and Dóchas
Intersectional and Decolonial Perspectives on an Incorporeal Materialism: Towards an Elemental Philosophy of Art Education
No full textConsidering art and its educative potentials as a living experiment with the body's elemental constitution and modes of organisation, this article engages water, earth, air, and fire as milieus through which a body learns to sense, move, and act in the world differently. This leads to a series of propositions for an elemental philosophy of arts education, which recognises the intersectional and decolonial potentials of bodies, and strives to amplify and proliferate these potentials through creative pedagogic practices. If, as Elizabeth Grosz (2017) proposes, “the chain of evolutionary emergence is unbroken not only materially but also conceptually” (p. 250), then arts education offers an expression of the body's incorporeal and material potentials as they change and evolve through time. Further to this position, we argue that arts education has the potential to radically reframe relationships with water, earth, air, and fire in ways that resist their co-option as tools of colonialism and intersecting categories of oppression
Psychiatric Illness and Clinical Negligence: When Can “Secondary Victims” Successfully Claim for Damages? Recent Developments from the United Kingdom
No full textOn January 11, 2024, the United Kingdom (U.K.) Supreme Court rendered its judgment in Paul v Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust , restricting the circumstances in which “secondary victims” can successfully claim for damages in clinical negligence cases. This ruling has provided welcome clarity regarding the scope of negligently caused “pure” psychiatric illness claims, but the judgment may well prove controversial. In this article, I trace the facts and opinion from the majority and also discuss an important dissenting opinion. I then reflect on what the ruling means for psychiatric illness claims by secondary victims, and more broadly on the implications for clinical negligence law. I suggest that while much-needed clarity has been injected in this area of the law, it is difficult, reading the majority of the Supreme Court’s emphasis on the restricted scope of a medical practitioner’s duty, to envision a scenario in which secondary victim could ever succeed in a clinical negligence context
PSO‐based optimal placement of electric vehicle charging stations in a distribution network in smart grid environment incorporating backward forward sweep method
No full textThe transition from conventional fossil‐fuel vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs) is critical for mitigating environmental pollution. The placement of electric vehicle charging stations (EVCS) significantly impacts the utility operator and electrical network. Inappropriately placed EVCS lead to challenges such as increased load, unbalanced generation, power losses, and reduced voltage stability. Incorporating distributed generation (DG) helps mitigate these issues by maximizing EV usage. This study focuses on optimizing EVCS and DG placement in radial distribution networks. The methodology employs a backward and forward sweep method for load flow analysis and utilizes the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to determine optimal EVCS and DG locations and sizes. This approach, validated on the IEEE‐33 bus system, outperforms existing methods. Results indicate a 2.5 times greater power loss reduction compared to simulated annealing (SA), 1.6 times better than artificial bee colony, and parity with genetic algorithm (GA). Overall, the PSO algorithm demonstrates superior optimization effectiveness and computational efficiency, showcasing 1–2.5 times better performance than other methodologies. Employing this approach yields significantly improved results, making it a promising technique for optimizing EVCS and DG placement in distribution networks
Feeling healthy versus being healthy: Discrepancies between subjective and objective health in older adults
No full textBackground: With increasing age, older adults experience declines in
health, often in the form of reduced functionality, increased multimorbidity
and waning cognitive capacity. Despite such declines, some older adults provide
stable (and sometimes even improving) subjective appraisals of their
health over time – even in the face of declining objective health. Growing
dissociations between subjective and objective health scores in later
life mean that some older adults may provide overly ’health optimistic’ or
’health pessimistic’ appraisals of their health. However, consensus on how
these individuals should be identified is lacking. Additionally, the long-term
health implications of being overly health optimistic or pessimistic in later
life is considerably underexplored.
Methods: To address this, the present thesis describes a health asymmetry
framework, a metric which classifies older adults into groups, based on
the level of agreement between their subjective and objective health scores
(‘health optimistic’, ‘health pessimistic’, ‘good health realistic’ and ‘poor
health realistic’). Using four nationally representative, secondary archived
datasets across Europe, including one instance of primary data collection,
the thesis longitudinally investigates how these health asymmetry categories
are associated with mental and functional health sequelae over time.
STUDY 1 utilises data from wave one of the Irish Longitudinal Study of
Ageing to create a health asymmetry metric. Self-rated health scores were
compared to scores from a Frailty Index, in a sample of n=6907 older adults
(aged 50+ years), resulting in the derivation of the following categories:
’health optimistic’, ’health pessimistic’ and ’health realistic’. Multinomial
logistic regressions found that being health pessimistic was associated with
psychosocial factors such as increased anxiety, increased loneliness and decreased
social connectedness. In contrast, being health optimistic was associated
with increased levels of vigorous exercise and alcohol consumption.
STUDY 2 describes how a sample of older English adults transitioned from
one health asymmetry category to another, across waves one to three of the
English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Using first-order Markov transition
and generalised logit models, health realistic individuals were likely to remain
health realistic over time. The prevalence of the health optimistic
category increased over two wave transitions, while the health pessimistic
category yielded volatile, unstable transition probabilities.
STUDY 3 investigated how baseline health asymmetry status predicted
depressive symptoms and change in depressive symptoms over time in European
older adults. Using data from the Survey of Healthy Ageing and
Retirement in Europe, multilevel growth curve models found that health
pessimists consistently had the highest levels of depressive symptoms over
time. Health optimists had a gradually declining trajectory of depressive
symptoms across a 14-year study period.
STUDY 4 explored whether health asymmetry categories differentially
predicted the risk of an injurious fall in older Swedish adults. Data from
the Swedish National Study on Ageing and Care in Kungsholmen were
utilised. A set of time-varying Cox and Laplace regressions found that
health optimists had the most elevated risk of experiencing an injurious fall
of all health asymmetry categories, which may be due to their poor OH and
optimistic biases which make health pessimists believe they are not at risk
of falling.
STUDY 5 involved intensive primary data collection from a sample of
n=53 middle aged and older Irish adults, through a smartphone-based Ecological
Momentary Assessment design. Health anxiety data were collected
over the course of a 6-day study period. Growth mixture modelling found
that two latent trajectories of health anxiety evolved over the study period.
Health asymmetry categories did not significantly predict health anxiety
scores over time.
Conclusions: Health asymmetry appears to be a clinically relevant tool
which is significantly associated with depressive symptomatology, injurious
falls and mortality. Health asymmetry may be more useful as a summary
tool for large-scale population-based studies, given that the metric can be
retrospectively constructed using secondary data. Future research should
consider exploring the association between health asymmetry and other
important physical and functional health outcomes in older adults, such as
psychological distress and multimorbidity
Evaluation of the efficacy of fungicide and biocontrol treatments for the control of disease on Agaricus bisporus mushroom crops
No full textDisease control within the mushroom industry has become a significant challenge.
Diseases of Agaricus bisporus were once controlled with the use of preventative chemical fungicides. However, the number of approved fungicides has significantly
reduced. There is an urgent need to find viable alternative treatments, which is the primary aim of this thesis. Two biocontrol strains (Bacillus velezensis QST 713 & Kos)
were investigated for their ability to control cobweb disease (Cladobotryum spp.) and
dry bubble disease (Lecanicillium fungicola), two major pathogens of cultivated
mushrooms.
B. velezensis Kos was able to significantly reduce the growth of Cladobotryum and L.
fungicola in liquid/plate cultures and resulted in structural damage to fungal hyphae.
Lytic enzymes such as subtilisin were identified within the inhibitory component of
the B. velezensis culture filtrate (CF). The CF also triggered changes to protein
abundance from both pathogens. Proteins associated with stress were increased in
abundance compared to the control, while proteins associated with growth were decreased. Similar in vitro responses were recorded for the L. fungicola pathogen in
response to B. velezensis QST 713. Biocontrol strains were investigated at a crop level and their efficacy was compared to conventional fungicide treatments. A C.
mycophilum isolate highly tolerant to metrafenone, was identified. Metrafenone was shown to be capable of controlling dry bubble disease but not cobweb disease caused
by tolerant isolates. Biocontrol treatments based on B. velezensis were shown to
significantly control dry bubble disease when disease pressure was low to moderate.
However, biocontrol treatments struggled to control both dry bubble and cobweb
disease under extreme disease levels. It was determined that the application of
biocontrol treatments did not significantly impact casing microbiome dynamics. The lack of persistence of biocontrol strains within the A. bisporus casing may explain the reduced antagonistic abilities of both strains at a crop level. Other integrated pest management strategies such as salting, and disease monitoring were shown to be effective at limiting disease symptoms.
Results suggest that biocontrol agents can form part of the future mushroom disease control strategies in combination with increased hygiene and integrated pest management strategies
Introduction: Motherhood, Mobility, Migration in Twenty-First-Century Women’s Writing
No full textDespite the centrality of experiences of migration, exile, and displacement in our globalized world, there are surprisingly few literary narratives that tell the stories of mothers who mother on the move, who mother in or through several languages, across linguistic and cultural barriers, or who negotiate non-motherhood in transnational settings. This special issue seeks to right this imbalance by drawing attention to matrifocal and maternal narratives of migration, displacement, exile, expatriation, transnationality, and nomadism since they shed light on ways in which motherhood is negotiated in this relatively new reality. It explores the diversity of literary representations of migrant motherhood in contemporary women’s writing and reflects on the poetics of motherhood and mothering across literature in different cultures and languages. In this way, the special issue contributes to the understanding of motherhood in a contemporary globalized world by shedding light on what often falls outside of the Western discourses of motherhood and mothering, thus offering fresh ways of imagining and living motherhood that is agential, empowered, and relational
Coastal sea-level changes driven by oceanic and atmospheric circulation
No full textThis thesis investigates the coastal sea-level changes driven by oceanic
and atmospheric circulation, with a focus on three ocean basin boundaries
in the northern hemisphere: the northeast Atlantic, the northwest Pacific
and the northwest Atlantic.
In a first part, the focal point is on the northeast Atlantic and
the European shelf and coastal sea level. Observations of the oceanic
circulation in the northeast Atlantic are presented, using altimetry
observations and in-situ measurements from moored instruments deployed
in the last thirty years. Together, these recent observations showcase a
poleward flow to the west of Ireland and Scotland: the Rockall Slope
Current. In contrast, I find no evidence of an upstream continuation to the
Rockall Slope Current which would form a continuous slope circulation
circumnavigating Europe. The spatial distribution of sea level induced
by an idealised eastern boundary slope circulation, representative of the
Rockall Slope Current, is then derived. Both bottom friction as well as
the joint effect of baroclinicity and relief are considered in this theoretical
study. I demonstrate how the large-scale poleward dynamic height decline
in the North Atlantic is mediated to the shelf and eventually affects the
coastal sea level thanks to the transport divergence generated by bottom
Ekman currents. Through this process, the poleward slope circulation is
slowed down. Finally, the sub-annual variability in sea level and currents is
investigated. The shelf sea-level changes are found to reflect the alignment
of the winds with the along-isobath direction. Analysis of the in-situ
current data reveals the build-up of sea level on the shelf leads to changes
in along-isobath currents on the outer-shelf and upper-slope.
In a second part, the focal point shifts to the links between subtropical
western boundary currents and sea-level variability in the northern
hemisphere. The role of the Gulf Stream and of the Kuroshio in driving
interannual changes in nearby coastal sea level are conjointly investigated.
It is found that the sea level on the Japanese and American coasts is
strongly affected by the variability of these major western boundary
currents. In particular, path changes of the western boundary currents
are responsible for important coastal sea-level variations. Coastal sea-level
changes reflect meridional shifts of western boundary currents downstream
of their separation from the continental slope. In the northwest Pacific,
meandering of the Kuroshio in the region upstream its separation point
is also a strong driver of coastal sea-level changes
Impact of the metal ion-chelating metabolite gliotoxin on bacterial systems.
No full textAntimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global problem and new ways of identifying
antibiotic targets are essential. Gliotoxin is a potent antimicrobial with broad
spectrum activity produced by Aspergillus fumigatus. The toxicity of gliotoxin was
previously attributed to reactive oxygen species (ROS) production resulting from
conversion between the oxidised (GT) and reduced (DTG) forms. However, the
nascent zinc-chelating ability of DTG inspired research into a metallo-centric model
of bacterial growth inhibition. The ROS model has been augmented by work herein
showing gliotoxin is a broad-spectrum antimicrobial whose toxicity is attenuated by
specific metal ion supplementation (zinc, copper). This finding was supported by
unbiased LFQ proteomics revealing gliotoxin induced perturbation of metal, primarily
zinc, homeostasis systems in both Gram-positive and -negative pathogens, including
Adc, Znu, and TonB metal uptake proteins, ribosomal remodelling to zinc free
paralogs, and the activation of the Fur controlled acinetobactin biosynthesis gene
cluster. Pre-formed DTG chelates caused growth inhibition, and promotion in the case
of DTG:Cu, positing DTG as a potential ionophore. This metallo-centric model was
supported by experiments showing DTG ejects zinc, copper, and iron from
chromogens (PAR, Siderotec™ Total, Siderotec™ HiSens). DTG also ejected zinc from
protein extracts in vitro. Despite this, DTG did not cause intracellular zinc depletion.
This multi-metal chelating ability was confirmed using mass spectrometric analysis to
detect DTG:Zn, DTG:Cu, and DTG2:Fe chelates. Thioacetylated DTG was synthesised
which requires future study but may be usable as an attenuated form of gliotoxin
which can be administered alone or in combination with antibiotics. Co-addition
studies using gliotoxin and vancomycin revealed a zinc dependent additive effect.
Proteomic analysis revealed significant alterations due to combination treatment and
perturbation of several key systems including cell wall biosynthesis and several
transcriptional regulators. Overall, this work provides new insight into the Pathfinder
role of gliotoxin in the fight against AMR
Investigations into Esophageal Epithelial Basal Cell Differentiation: Fluorescent Reporters and Mechanosensing
No full textThe esophageal disease, Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EoE) is a chronic and allergic disease.
EoE is driven by food allergens which trigger Type 2 inflammation in the esophagus and causes
symptoms such as vomiting, stomach pain, and difficulty swallowing. Increasing in prevalence,
EoE poses a significant quality of life burden to patients. Left untreated, either due to diagnostic
delay or ineffective treatments, EoE patients can develop fibrosis of the esophagus (FS-EoE)
with worsening symptoms including food impaction and esophageal stricture. Histopathologic
manifestations of the disease include basal zone hyperplasia, which worsens the barrier function
of the epithelium. To date, there is no published research mechanistically linking fibrotic tissue
stiffening to hyperproliferation in EoE. We sought to explore the molecular mechanisms of this
hyperproliferation and fibrosis.
In order to map hyperproliferation, we sought to use KRT14 as a marker of
proliferative basal cells. To map epithelial cell differentiation, we sought to use KRT13 and
KRT4 as markers of differentiated suprabasal cells. Esophageal biopsy from control and EoE
patients were stained for basal and suprabasal cell markers, KRT14 and KRT13/KRT4,
respectively. Here we have confirmed that KRT14 and KRT4 can be used to map the basal
and suprabasal layers, respectively, in esophageal epithelium. In EoE epithelium, there is an
expansion of the basal (KRT14+) and early suprabasal (KRT14-
KRT13+KRT4-
) cell layers.
While KRT14 has been assessed in EoE tissue, here, we quantified KRT14+ basal expansion
on a protein level. Likewise, while sequencing has revealed increases in suprabasal cell markers,
here, we have quantified KRT13 and KRT4 on a protein level.
To understand epithelial cell differentiation in vitro, we confirmed that this stratification
pattern was recapitulated in submerged and 3D ALI model systems, with KRT14 expressed in
proliferative basal cells, and KRT4 expressed in differentiated, barrier-forming suprabasal cells.
The promoters for KRT14 and KRT4 were therefore used to successfully drive expression of
fluorescent proteins, DsRed and eGFP, respectively.
In order to understand the relationship between fibrosis and hyperproliferation in FS-EoE, the proliferation-associated and mechano-sensing transcriptional co-factor, Yes-associated protein (YAP) was assessed for its role in esophageal epithelial cells and EoE. While
YAP has been studied in muscle in EoE, here, for the first time, we investigate the role of YAP
in non-FS- and FS-EoE tissue and in esophageal epithelial cells. We have found that YAP-mediated transcription is increased in EoE and further increased in FS-EoE tissue. We have found that YAP protein not excluded from nuclear localization in EoE tissue. YAP is not
sequestered at cell-cell junctions, mirroring EoE-related barrier deficits. We found that in vitro,
YAP cellular location is responsive to cell density and ECM stiffness in esophageal epithelial
cells. Pharmacologic-induced nuclear YAP translocation, via XMU-MP-1 was seen to increase
migration of EPC2-hTERT cells, in an EMT-like manner in submerged cultures. In air-liquid
interface (ALI) cultures, pharmacologic upregulation of nuclear YAP is shown to decrease
barrier function in an EMT-like manner and enriched the suprabasal cell population.
Therefore, in EoE and FS-EoE, YAP signaling likely contributes to decreased barrier and
fibrosis through EMT and to basal zone hyperplasia through maintenance of the KRT13+ cell
population