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Social networking as a marketing tool: evidence from Donegal
Get PDFThe objective of this research was to examine social networking sites (SNSs) as a\ud
marketing tool with evidence from County Donegal. This will then help establish how\ud
valuable SNSs are for marketing by small medium enterprises (SMEs). By analysing\ud
certain literature, it was clear that no handbook currently exists to help SMEs handle\ud
their social media presence. It was evident from the literature that start-up businesses\ud
tend to choose social media networks that they engage in without much strategy. This\ud
research aims to be useful to SMEs within Donegal and throughout Ireland in regards to\ud
using social networking as a marketing tool.\ud
Secondary research consisted of a literature review examining SNSs, their use by\ud
SMEs, the behaviour of consumers and the management of brands. Primary research\ud
was conducted in two phases. Phase one involved 160 surveys distributed online to\ud
users of the SNS Facebook. Phase two involved conducting four semi-structured\ud
interviews with SME owner/managers located in Donegal in the sectors of retail and\ud
travel/hospitality.\ud
The study found that SNSs are a highly effective marketing tool for SMEs and are a\ud
cost-effective way for companies to pull in new business from customers. SNSs are\ud
influentially powerful platforms that allow SMEs to see who their customers are,\ud
resulting in sales and overall profit for busines
The demand for and supply of sustainable tourism in Ireland: towards the sustainable management of tourism destinations
Get PDFIntroduction: Tourism destinations need to adapt to changes in management. They cannot afford to ignore the issue of changes in the pattern of demand and the type of tourism they offer\ud
(Tourism Sustainability Group, 2007). The sustainable management of tourism\ud
destinations is being consolidated at an international level. The indicator systems and\ud
criteria for the sustainable management of tourism destinations demonstrate a precedent\ud
for the management of tourism destinations globally. This is through the Global\ud
Sustainable Tourism Criteria for destinations (2012) and the European Commissions,\ud
European Tourism Indicator System (2013) for sustainable management at destination\ud
level. This research contributes new knowledge on the demand for and supply of sustainable\ud
tourism in Ireland. It also seeks to improve our understanding on the sustainable\ud
management of tourism destinations. This chapter will set the scene for the remainder of\ud
the thesis. A consideration of the contextual issues demonstrating the research intent\ud
commences this chapter. With this foundation in place, a presentation of the aims and\ud
objectives will follow, in addition to a discussion on the importance of this research and\ud
its contribution to knowledge. The context of Irish tourism and its structure for the\ud
sustainable management of tourism will consequently be examined. The chapter will be\ud
concluded with an overview of the thesis structure
Threat modelling for legacy enterprise applications
Get PDFLegacy enterprise applications provide unique challenges for software security personnel. The \ud
size and historical nature of these systems can result in vulnerabilities that do not have the \ud
appropriate countermeasures in place. Development teams that support these systems can be \ud
unaware of such security weaknesses until they have been exploited by an adversary. By \ud
successfully identifying threats, development teams can put in place the appropriate \ud
mitigations. \ud
This research discusses the practice of Threat Modelling as a systematic approach to identifying \ud
security vulnerabilities in software systems. Although numerous works have been presented on \ud
the subject of Threat Modelling, very little has been published on the unique challenges faced \ud
with Threat Modelling legacy systems. This research presents different Threat Model \ud
methodologies and provides a comparison of leading practices suitable for the Threat \ud
Modelling of large scale systems. The comparison is based on both theoretical research and the \ud
practical application of two of the most popular Threat Models. This research then offers a \ud
Threat Model case study of a major component of a live commercial legacy enterprise \ud
application. An Irish based software company has provided access to an existing legacy system \ud
for the purpose of this project, the practical development of a Threat Model and a detailed \ud
analysis of the system
Design implementation and evaluation of a tablet-based student response system for an engineering classroom
Get PDFStudent response systems (SRSs) have generated significant debate and discussion in the educational research literature in the past decade. It is well known that they offer several important advantages including encouraging student interaction, offering anonymous and instant student feedback and improving the student learning experience. While several different types of such systems exist, they nevertheless remain limited in their input capabilities. In particular, they typically only allow for multiple-choice style responses, although some devices do cater for numerical and textual input. However, most of the available SRSs do not allow for freeform input such as mathematical equations, graphical drawings or circuit diagrams. This is of particular relevance to Engineering and Science disciplines where such information is core to the student learning. The approach to solving a problem is often as important, if not more so, than the actual final answer itself. This paper presents a classroom response system that allows for freeform input and operates on any smart media device with a touch interface and that employs the Android operating system, such as everyday smart phones and tablets. The proposed system involves three different components, namely a student application that allows for sketch capabilities, a lecturer application that allows for the viewing and marking of multiple student sketches and a cloud service for the exchange of messages. In addition, this proposed system was evaluated by a class of engineering students at NUI Maynooth, the results of which are presented within
Optimizing area power consumption in LTE type cells
Get PDFAs wireless networks evolve to deal with increasing traffic demand and an increasing number of users, energy efficiency is becoming increasingly important. Area power consumption, defined as the ratio of total radio access network power consumption to the area covered, is a key metric for comparing the energy efficiency of different network designs. This paper examines the optimization of an LTE type cell for energy efficiency by minimizing the area power consumption (APC) subject to user coverage and capacity constraints. First we show that operating the base station at the maximum transmit power (and cell size) which services all users optimizes APC. Next we show that APC is optimum when the base station operates with the minimum bandwidth necessary to service all users. Finally we show that a modified admission scheme (which increases the minimum SINR at which a user will be serviced) improves APC by increasing the maximum capacity and size of cells that can be supported. In addition to improving energy efficiency, the modified scheme requires fewer cells in new or overlay deployments and may potentially permit removal of cells from an existing network
Linearity vs. power consumption of CMOS LNAs in LTE systems
Get PDFThis paper presents a study of linearity in wideband CMOS low noise amplifiers (LNA) and its relationship to power consumption in context of Long Term Evolution (LTE) system. Using proposed figure of merit to compare 35 state-of-the-art LNA circuits published in recent years, the paper shows a proportional but relatively weak dependence between amplifier performance (that is combined linearity, noise figure and gain) with power consumption. As a result, the predicted increase of LNA performance, necessary to satisfy stringent linearity specifications of LTE standard, may require a significant increase in power, a critical budget planning aspect for both handheld devices and base stations operating in small cells
Wireless sensed environment for body area networks
Get PDFIn low power wireless body area networks it is envisaged that there will be communication between on-body devices and wireless nodes placed in the environment (sensed environment) to provide a range of applications including health monitoring. However, there remain major challenges to realise this scenario such as decisions on the optimal node location, node orientation, transmit power level, and the number of nodes to cover the area of interest (sensed environment) which if not correct can lead to poor coverage or over-provisioned, oversized networks. In this paper we experiment with a BAN device and nodes deployed in a variety of locations throughout an office environment to represent a sensed environment. Packet loss rates (PLR) were analysed to explore trade-offs between node densities and transmit power levels. We determine that the deployment location, the density, and BAN transmission power level are important factors to be considered in the scenario where a mobile BAN communicates with a sensed environment. We found that deploying the environment nodes at chest height on the surrounding wall yielded the best results in terms of coverage and node density providing an optimal link between the BAN and the sensed environment
A review of issues influencing tourism in Belfast in 2013
Get PDFThis conference paper focusses on factors influencing tourism in Northern Ireland, with a particular emphasis on Belfast. It also looks at the major drivers of urban tourism, and examines other major tourist cities like Glasgow, and Liverpool. Paying particular attention at the initiatives that they undertook over the years to attract tourists to their towns. The paper also focuses on the benefits that tourism has brought to Belfast and how the city can learn from other established cities like the ones above
Development of food trails- a case study approach in County Donegal
Get PDFThis paper seeks to explore the area of food trails, especially how this can be used in food tourism. The study aims to identify and define a business framework for the development of food trails in Ireland. The main concepts which will be addressed include trail management, performance, reviewing and renewing, quality assurance and performance evaluation, branding, promotion and communication . County Donegal in Ireland is used as a case study for the purposes of this research, where; ten food pubs are used as a sample. The research will provide a list of the options open to industry in the areas of trail product, brand development and communication and will include the management of the trails’ online presence, i.e., Web page, Social media etc. It will also determine the options for organisational structure, quality assurance and management of the trails. Recommendations will include a number of industry supports such as the development of a workshop for new and existing food trails that could enable the growth and success of this sector as well as suggesting areas for future research
Development of a prototype knowledge discovery portal for energy informatics
Get PDFThis paper describes the development of a prototype knowledge discovery portal (KDP) for energy informatics. The research domain is Ireland which is increasingly challenged to achieve energy efficiency targets and to implement renewable energy systems (RES). The reasons for undertaken this research is to\ud
provide a mechanism to disseminate information on energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies to a number of sectors: community, educational, industrial and research. The prototype KDP was developed using design-science methodology.\ud
The work integrates information both in the horizontal and vertical axes. In the horizontal plane it provides information to community users, educational bodies and industrial companies. In the vertical plane it allows deeper access depending on the requirements of the user: from technological overviews to detailed data from the energy system (solar collectors, heat pump and wind turbine). Future work will involve further development of the portal and extending the KDP for energy to other technologies and sectors