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Trends in adult visual impairment certification in Northern Ireland: a 10-year analysis
No full textPurpose: In the UK, people are certified as severely sight impaired (SSI) or sight impaired (SI) according to Government guidelines. Certification ensures people with visual impairments can access adequate support and benefits. Certification of visual impairment data has been collected and analysed in Northern Ireland by a team and full continuous data is available from 2014 to 2023.Methods: Data from certification forms was collected, entered into an Excel spreadsheet, and 10% was validated by the certification of visual impairment team. This data was collated, cleaned and analysed using IBM SPSS (version 27) for frequency, mean, median and interquartile ranges.Results: Results show that over a 10-year period (2014–2023) the number of certifications in Northern Ireland has increased to a point where they are aligned with figures from other regions of the United Kingdom (UK). Results show that more people are certified as SSI than SI in Northern Ireland (NI) which is in contrast to figures reported in England and Wales. More females are certified than males in NI. Similarly to England and Wales, the most common cause of certification of visual impairment in adults in NI is Age-Related Macular Degeneration, accounting for around 50% of certifications annually. The second most common cause is glaucoma followed by diabetic eye disease (DED). In working age adults, DED is the leading cause of certification.Conclusion: The results from 10 years of certification data in NI show common themes with other high-income countries, including increased certification, particularly among females, and the most common causes of certification remain AMD, glaucoma and DED.<br/
Scarring and selection in the Great Irish Famine
No full textHow do famines shape the health of survivors? We examine the long-term impact of the Great Irish Famine (1845–1852) on human stature, distinguishing between adverse scarring effects and the apparent resilience of survivors due to selection. Using anthropometric data from over 14,500 individuals born before, during, and after this famine, we find that selection effects were most pronounced in areas with the highest mortality rates. Individuals born in severely affected regions exhibited no evidence of stunted growth, indicating that the Famine disproportionately eliminated the most vulnerable. In contrast, stunting is observed only in areas with lower excess mortality, where selective pressures were weaker. These findings contribute to debates on the biological consequences of extreme catastrophic risks, demonstrating how selection effects can obscure long-term health deterioration. More broadly, our study provides a methodological framework for assessing selection in historical anthropometric research
Nanodrug therapy for salmonella biofilm disruption
No full textSalmonella infections pose a significant global health threat, affecting millions of people each year. These infections can cause a range of illnesses, from mild gastroenteritis to severe systemic diseases, such as typhoid fever. Bacteria are particularly hazardous due to their ability to form biofilms, which provide a robust defense mechanism, making traditional antibiotic treatments largely ineffective. Biofilms, which are composed of bacterial cells and extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs), create a protective barrier that impedes the penetration of antibiotics, allowing bacteria to survive even under adverse conditions. The innovative use of nanomedicine therapeutics to address the persistent challenge of Salmonella biofilm infections is explored in this chapter. Various nanodrug strategies, including the use of metallic, polymeric, and lipid-based nanoparticles, have been investigated for their potential to penetrate and disrupt biofilm structures. The mechanisms by which nanoparticles enhance antibiotic delivery are also highlighted. This chapter emphasizes the role of nanotechnology in developing more effective treatments against multidrug-resistant Salmonella strains. This chapter also focuses on the urgent need for further research to find innovative solutions for combating persistent bacterial infections
Creating digital value: the role of independent creators as multi-platform users
No full textThis chapter discusses the role of online platformplatforms in the production and consumption of cultural products. We explore contemporary forms of cultural creation through digital means where production, distribution, and consumption intertwine. We contribute to the literature on platformization in the cultural and creative sectors by exploring value generation via online intermediaries with different roles (e.g., patronage, funding, co-creation, streaming, and broadcasting) whereby creators produce, share, interact with audiences, and monetize content. With a presence on various platforms, creators generate economic and non-economic value from amateur or professional work by building a wide digital presence for community engagement and monetization. We argue that digitalization changes the careers of independent artists in that they become multi-platform-users adapting their presence to multi-purpose intermediaries which allows the rewarding of creation via both pecuniary and non-pecuniary means
Hollowing out communities: small rural schools in Northern Ireland and the threat of closure
No full textAcross Europe, the surge and prevalence of neoliberal and metro-centric education policies have resulted in the threat of closure surfacing as a major challenge facing many small rural schools (Fargas-Malet and Bagley, 2022a). In exploring the implications of this phenomenon, the chapter draws on key aspects of findings from a three-year mixed-method study of small rural schools in Northern Ireland (see Fargas-Malet and Bagley, 2022b), including data from an online survey of all small rural school principals (N=201) and five in-depth case studies. The findings reveal not only the educational impact on schools working under a constant threat of closure, but also the less well-considered wider socio-cultural impact on the close-knit communities they serve. In the context of a religiously divided post-conflict society such as Northern Ireland, an appreciation of the need for policy to acknowledge and indeed nurture the local community-based value attributed to small rural schools is deemed particularly apposite
Epidemic Oracle: an approach to boost security and performance of delay tolerant networks
No full textDelay Tolerant Networks (DTNs) play a vital role in disaster response to address intermittent connectivity, in particular when Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are deployed to relay critical information. However, most existing DTN protocols are highly susceptible to Denial-of-Service (DoS)attacks because their flooding-based or simplistic routing decisions can be exploited by malicious nodes to quickly saturate buffers, exhausting network resources and disrupting legitimate traffic. This paper presents an Epidemic Oracle (EO) implementation, to mitigate DoS threats by intelligently removing delivered messages from all buffers, thus reducing overhead and freeing network resources. Through extensive simulation in the ONE environment, EO is evaluated against three established encounter-based DTN protocols-Epidemic, Spray and Wait, and Spray and Wait Binary-under varying buffer sizes, transmission speeds, and both aggressive and stealthy DoS attacks. The findings indicate that EO substantially increases delivery ratios while curtailing buffer congestion, even under severe adversarial conditions. These improvements highlight the potential of oracle-based interventions to bolster performance in UAV-assisted disaster scenarios, paving the way for more resilient and efficient DTNs in emergency communications
Thermodynamics of coupled time crystals with an application to energy storage
No full textOpen many-body quantum systems can exhibit intriguing nonequilibrium phases of matter, such as time crystals. In these phases, the state of the system spontaneously breaks the time-translation symmetry of the dynamical generator, which typically manifests through persistent oscillations of an order parameter. A paradigmatic model displaying such a symmetry breaking is the boundary time crystal (BTC), which has been extensively analyzed experimentally and theoretically. Despite the broad interest in these nonequilibrium phases, their thermodynamics and their fluctuating behavior remain largely unexplored, in particular for the case of coupled time crystals. In this work, we consider two interacting BTCs and derive a consistent interpretation of their thermodynamic behavior. We fully characterize their average dynamics and the behavior of their quantum fluctuations, which allows us to demonstrate the presence of quantum and classical correlations in both the stationary and the time-crystal phases displayed by the system. We furthermore exploit our theoretical derivation to explore possible applications of time crystals as quantum batteries, demonstrating their ability to efficiently store energy
Power system planning under deep uncertainty: integrating tidal energy for net-zero Northern Ireland
No full textAchieving high renewable penetration is often hindered by resource variability, renewable curtailment, and deep uncertainties in long-term decarbonization planning. In coastal and islanded power systems with significant tidal potential, predictable marine resources such as tidal power can offer a valuable solution, enhancing system flexibility, reducing curtailment, and supporting progress towards net-zero objectives. In Northern Ireland, however, tidal energy remains underutilized, and limited operational flexibility continues to pose challenges for integrating large shares of renewables. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a robust multi-period power system planning framework that integrates tidal energy and energy storage using an Information Gap Decision Theory–Flexible Revision Multi-period Two-stage Stochastic Planning (IG-FRM-TSP) model. The framework explicitly accounts for uncertainties in demand growth, technology costs, and CO2 pricing, while optimizing the coordinated deployment of tidal, offshore wind, and hydrogen-battery storage. A novel Dispatch Down Reduction Index (DDRI) is introduced to quantify and reduce renewable curtailment, improving system efficiency and flexibility. Scenario analyses show that strategic co-deployment of tidal energy with offshore wind and storage can reduce curtailment to below 2 %, while achieving up to 80 % CO2 emissions reduction compared to business-as-usual scenarios, all while maintaining grid reliability. The results highlight that tidal predictability, combined with responsive storage and supportive policy incentives, plays a critical role in enabling cost-effective decarbonization pathways for islanded and coastal power systems. The proposed methodology offers a replicable approach for similar regions worldwide, emphasizing that operational coordination and market design—beyond capacity expansion—are essential to achieving net-zero goals.<br/