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Léirmheas ar Ag cur chun fónaimh: Údarás na Gaeltachta ó 1980 i leith
No full textIs cnuasach aistí atá sa leabhar Ag cur chun fónaimh: Údarás na Gaeltachta ó 1980 i leith, a chuir Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh agus Breandán Mac Suibhne in eagar agus a d’fhoilsigh Cló Iar-Chonnacht, agus léiríonn an leabhar stair Údarás na Gaeltachta óna bhunú sa bhliain 1980. Ceann de na buntaistí is mó a bhaineann le leagan amach an leabhair ná an chodarsnacht idir ailt atá dírithe ar pholasaithe agus scéimeanna a bhí agus atá ag an Údarás agus ailt a thugann cuntas pearsanta dúinn ó bhéal daoine a raibh tionchar ag na scéimeanna nó na polasaithe seo orthu. Is féidir leis an leitheoir iomhá iomlán a fháil ar thionchar obair an Údaráis.peer-reviewe
An t-ómós áite i saothar léinn agus litríochta an Ollaimh Breandán S. Mac Aodha
No full textBhí Breandán S. Mac Aodha (1934–2001) ar dhuine de na scoláirí ba thábhachtaí a rinne staidéar ar logainmneacha na hÉireann san 20ú haois. Bhí sé ina chéad ollamh le tíreolaíocht in Ollscoil na Gaillimhe agus ina chomhbhunaitheoir roimhe sin ar Studia Hibernica i gColáiste Phádraig, Baile Átha Cliath. Bhí sé ina stiúrthóir ar An tSuirbhéireacht ar Ghaeltacht na Gaillimhe Gaillimhe (1969 & 1971), agus d’ullmhaigh sé roinnt foclóirí a bhain le réimse na tíreolaíochta – Foclóir Tíreolaíochta (1972) agus Tíreolaíocht agus Pleanáil (1981), mar shampla, chomh maith le Sráidainmneacha na hÉireann (1992) i gcomhar le scríbhneoirí eile, agus faoi choimirce an Choimisiúin Logainmneacha. Chaith sé féin roinnt mhaith blianta ina bhall den Choimisiún freisin. Pléifear a oidhreacht i réimse léinn na háitainmníochta agus na tíreolaíochta san alt thíos, ach chomh maith leis sin, breathnófar ar ról na logainmneacha i bhfilíocht Bhreandáin Mhic Aodha. Chleacht sé ceird na filíochta i gcaitheamh a shaoil, agus scagfar go sonrach na dánta ina chnuasach filíochta Uaimheolaíocht a d’fhoilsigh sé in 2000 – bliain sular bhásaigh sé – agus ina bhfuil tábhacht an ómóis áite le feiceáil go soiléir.peer-reviewe
Investigating the role of the cryptic AdpS protein in Staphylococcus epidermidis physiology
No full textStaphylococcus epidermidis is a ubiquitous coloniser of human skin, and a frequent cause of opportunistic infections in vulnerable individuals. This thesis investigates the physiological role of the cryptic AdpS protein, the genetic basis of high-level methicillin resistance, and metabolic adaptations to phosphate limitation in S. epidermidis.
Infections caused by methicillin resistant S. epidermidis (MRSE) complicates management of affected patients. However research into methicillin resistance in S. epidermidis is relatively neglected compared to S. aureus. The genetic basis of homogeneous oxacillin resistance (HoR) was explored using whole-genome sequencing of resistant mutants derived from strain RP62A. Mutations in the phosphate transporter gene pitA and the RNA polymerase beta subunit gene rpoB were identified as likely contributors to high-level resistance.
Initial work on the cryptic AdpS protein focused on biofilm, a key virulence factor in chronic infections. Insertion/excision events involving the mobile genetic element IS256 can inactivate genes involved in biofilm. Previous work implicated an IS256 insertion in a small antibiotic biosynthesis monooxygenase gene – found only in coagulase negative staphylococci – with decreased biofilm production in strain RP62A. During this project and contrary to initial hypotheses, deletion and overexpression studies revealed no impact of this gene, referred to as adpS, on biofilm formation in strains 1457 or CSF41498. This misidentification was shown to stem from co-incidental sequence homology with IS256. However, further bacterial two-hybrid assays identified potential AdpS interaction partners, suggesting alternative physiological roles.
During experiments to analyse the impact of the adpS mutation on growth under different culture conditions, we discovered that the ability of S. epidermidis strains to grow in low phosphate chemically defined medium (LP-CDMG) was variable. Strain CSF41498 adapted by acquiring mutations in pyrP, encoding a uracil permease, which enhanced growth and altered resistance to the toxic uracil analogue, 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). These data suggest that PyrP mutations may reduce the uptake of uracil and 5-FU, potentially enhancing the transporter’s specificity for an alternative substrate that supports growth under phosphate limited growth conditions.
This work highlights the genetic and physiological diversity of S. epidermidis, challenging assumptions about conserved virulence pathways and resistance mechanisms. Future studies should explore the interaction networks of AdpS and the clinical implications of strain-specific metabolic adaptations, advancing strategies for infection control and treatment.Irish Research Council GOIPG/2019/201
Language and education policies across scales: policy processes in the institutional order of German-language ECEC in South Tyrol, Italy
No full textDespite a long tradition of ethnographic research on language and education policy processes, these have remained underexplored in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). This paper draws on a one-year sociolinguistic ethnography of a German-language kindergarten in the Italian province of South Tyrol to trace how language and education policies travel across spatiotemporal and institutional scales. It shows how educators set goals for their kindergarten, reflect on their practices in light of these goals, and make use of evaluation documents to negotiate policies with the District. The paper argues that institutionalised requirements of goal setting and evaluation bring policy texts into focus on the level of the individual kindergarten and create feedback loops with the district. By revealing how educators come to adopt framings that implicitly equate ‘language’ with ‘Standard German’, the paper contributes to elucidating the reproduction of linguistic hierarchies within educational institutions.peer-reviewe
A multi-component psychosocial intervention programme to reduce psychological distress and enhance social support for women undergoing termination of pregnancy for foetal anomaly in China: A randomised controlled trial
No full textBackground
Termination of pregnancy for foetal anomaly causes significant psychological distress, yet evidence-based psychosocial interventions tailored to the needs of women experiencing termination of pregnancy for foetal anomalyremain limited.
Objective
To evaluate the effectiveness of a multi-component psychosocial intervention designed to reduce depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and enhance psychological flexibility and social support among women following termination of pregnancy for foetal anomaly.
Methods
A single-blinded, two-arm randomised controlled trial was conducted in two maternity hospitals in Hunan Province, China. Eighty-six participants were randomly allocated to the multi-component psychosocial intervention group (n = 41) or the control group (n = 45). The multi-component psychosocial intervention included informational support, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and social support involving an online peer support group and family engagement. Depression, PTSD, psychological flexibility and social support were assessed at baseline, immediately (T1), one-month (T2) and three-months (T3) post-intervention.
Results
Although the intervention group showed greater reductions in depressive symptoms (EPDS: β = 0.92, 95 % CI: –1.38 to 3.21, p = 0.435) and post-traumatic stress symptoms (IES-R: β = 5.31, 95 % CI: –1.25 to 11.86, p = 0.113) compared to the control group, these differences did not reach statistical significance. Significant group-by-time effects emerged for PTSD-related avoidance symptoms (β = 2.98, 95 % CI: 0.27 to 5.70, p = 0.031; d = 0.49), perceived social support (β = –1.56, 95 % CI: –3.10 to –0.02, p = 0.047; d = 0.38) and utilisation of social support (-0.83, 95 % CI: -1.48 to -0.18, p = 0.013; d = 0.55) at T3. Participants with baseline EPDS > 9 (n = 54) showed stronger effects, with significant improvements in depression (β = 2.02, 95 % CI: 0.38 to 3.66, p = 0.016) and experiential avoidance (β = 2.54, 95 % CI: 0.30 to 4.78; p = 0.026) at T1, PTSD (β = 11.75, 95 % CI: 2.39 to 21.12, p = 0.014; d = 0.61) and utilisation of social support (β = -0.95, 95 % CI: -1.85 to -0.04; p = 0.040, d = 0.65) at T3. No adverse events occurred.
Conclusions
The multi-component psychosocial intervention programme reduced PTSD-related avoidance symptoms and enhanced social support. Participants with depressive symptoms experienced immediate improvements in depression and psychological flexibility, with sustained benefits in PTSD and utilisation of social support over three months. Tailoring the intervention components to individual needs may benefit women undergoing termination of pregnancy for foetal anomaly. Further research should compare women with and without baseline psychological distress to determine who benefits most from this intervention.This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72074225); the Hunan Provincial Philosophy and Social Science Foundation (22YBA004); the Hunan Provincial Social Science Foundation23YBA011).peer-reviewe
Adaptive reinforcement learning: From time series anomaly detection to continual learning
No full textThe complexity and scale of IT systems are increasing dramatically, posing many challenges to real-world time series anomaly detection. Many existing methods emphasize feature learning and anomaly scoring but give limited attention to thresholding. Static or manually defined thresholds are commonly used, but they lack adaptability to complex data. Reinforcement learning (RL) is well known for providing optimal control in complex, dynamic systems. This thesis investigates its application for dynamic thresholding control in anomaly detection, and validates the proposed methods in real-world cyber-physical systems (CPS).
First, an agent-based dynamic thresholding (ADT) method is proposed, which models thresholding in time series anomaly detection as a Markov decision process (MDP). ADT employs a deep Q-network and integrates it with an autoencoder-based anomaly scorer to provide dynamic thresholds adaptively. ADT consistently outperforms traditional static and statistical thresholding methods, achieving significantly improved detection performance and robustness even when trained with limited data.
Next, ADT is extended and evaluated in real-world CPS with additional challenges. Experimental results show that ADT significantly outperforms baseline anomaly detection methods, maintaining superior anomaly detection performance, dynamic thresholding capability, data efficiency, and fast training. It shows strong robustness even when the environmental feedback is noisy, partial, or delayed. Moreover, when integrated as a dynamic thresholding controller into existing anomaly detection methods, ADT significantly enhances their detection performance.
Traditional RL methods typically assume a static MDP that rarely holds in practice. This thesis further investigates the continual reinforcement learning (CRL) problem, where the RL agents continually learn and adapt to evolving tasks without catastrophic forgetting. Unlike existing methods that apply prior knowledge mainly through optimization with limited direct guidance on the agent’s behavior, this thesis introduces a novel demonstration-guided continual reinforcement learning (DGCRL) framework, which stores prior knowledge in an external, self-evolving demonstration repository and uses selected demonstrations to directly guide the agent’s exploration and adaptation across tasks, following a dynamic curriculum-based strategy. DGCRL demonstrates superior average performance, knowledge transfer, mitigation of forgetting, and learning efficiency
Functionalizing injectable hydrogels with cobalt-based metallacarboranes for targeted delivery in triple-negative breast cancer
No full textCobalt-based metallacarboranes have emerged as potential candidates for cancer treatment owing to their unique structural properties. In this study, a biocompatible delivery platform is developed by noncovalently incorporating cobalt metallacarborane (CoSAN) into hyaluronic acid (HA) functionalized with lysine (Lys). HA-Lys 2 enables the electrostatic interaction of CoSAN while retaining its cytotoxic activity, as confirmed by cellular assays using MDA-MB-231 triple-negative breast cancer cells. Elemental mapping via energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) confirms the successful and homogeneous incorporation of CoSAN to lead HA-Lys-CoSAN 3, and the composite is further characterized using diffusion-ordered nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy (DOSY). Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy data demonstrate comparable cellular uptake in MDA-MB-231 cells of free and HA-loaded CoSAN. Additionally, release studies under physiologically relevant conditions show a sustained release profile over 24 h with pH dependency to mimic normal and tumor microenvironments. The present study describes a viable method for integrating metallacarboranes into a polymeric drug delivery system without compromising their anticancer properties, thereby advancing their potential for future therapeutic use.This publication has emanated from research supported in part by a research grant from Research Ireland and is co-funded under the European Regional Development Fund under grant number 13/RC/ 2073 P2. R.M.D. acknowledges funding support from the National Breast Cancer Research Institute grant number FY24001. D.G., K.F., and W.J.T. thank the University of Strathclyde for financial support and the EPSRC for providing the instrumentation via EP/N010914/1. The authors acknowledge the scientific and technical assistance of Dr. Éadaoin Timmins in the use of SEM within the Anatomy Imaging and Microscopy Facility at the University of Galwa
Organic ultraviolet filters in Irish sediments and biosolids
No full textThis study provides baseline data on the concentrations of selected ultraviolet filters (UVFs) in 81 inland and transitional sediments as well as in 21 agricultural biosolid samples sourced from seven wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) across Ireland. Concentrations of five prominent UVFs were determined: 4-methylbenzylidene camphor (4-MBC); benzophenone-3 (BP-3); 2-ethylhexyl-4-methoxycinnamate (EHMC); homosalate (HMS); and Octocrylene (OC). Mean concentrations in sediments were as follows: OC (3.66 ng/g); HMS (2.35 ng/g); 4-MBC (1.87 ng/g); BP-3 (0.19 ng/g); and EHMC (0.04 ng/g). Based on 95th percentile concentrations in sediments (MEC95), HMS, EHMC, and 4-MBC were found to pose moderate ecotoxicological risk. Concentrations found in Irish sediments were found to be low compared to similar studies internationally. Arithmetic mean concentrations of UVFs in Irish biosolids were: OC (666 ng/g); HMS (453 ng/g); 4-MBC (13.9 ng/g); EHMC (12.7 ng/g); and BP-3 (1.28 ng/g). Fewer international data are available for these UVFs in biosolids, though available results indicate Ireland to have low levels compared to those found internationally for EHMC, 4-MBC, BP-3, and OC. This study is one of the first to report of concentrations of HMS in WWTP-derived biosolids and highlights the need for similar assessments internationally based on levels found in biosolids as well as in sediments. Ongoing monitoring in sediment is required for HMS and 4-MBC following their restrictions under the EU's Cosmetic Products Regulation (CPR), to ensure that environmental levels fall to levels concomitant with low ecotoxicological risk. Meanwhile, further assessments are required for OC, EHMC, and BP-3 to facilitate thorough evaluation of their environmental risks.This project is funded under the EPA Research Programme 2021-2030 (2021-HE-1056) and co-funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The EPA Research Programme is a Government of Ireland Initiative funded by the Department of Communications, Climate Action, and Environment
Optimization of protein quantification from soil samples
No full textProtein profiling of soil samples has the potential to enhance our understanding of soil ecosystems and guide the development of sustainable soil management practices. In that context, there is a need to develop robust proteomic workflows, starting with reliable protein quantification. Total protein quantification with the Lowry assay is a relatively easy, rapid, and cheap method, but requires interference corrections due to reactivity with a wide range of compounds that occur in soil, plant, and other biological matrices. Here, we propose sample-specific corrections for soil protein extracts. We benchmarked our approach against other protein quantification methods, including other Lowry corrections, total hydrolysable amino acids, and Qubit total protein assay. Our sample-specific Lowry corrections did not overestimate or underestimate protein content when compared to the other methods tested. As a practical contribution, this work provides a calibration method for the Lowry assay using protein reference values in a multivariate regression approach to enable simple and high-throughput total protein quantification of soil samples.This work was supported by the Irish Research Council
Constructed wetlands for removal of metals from contaminated effluents: Studying the role of plants, microorganisms, and substrate
No full textAnaerobic digestion biotechnologies are globally expanding to manage the high organic waste generation and address rising energy demands. However, challenges remain in valorising digestate due to regulatory constraints and potential environmental pollution risks. Reclaimed water reuse is imperative for effective water resource management to address the increasing pressure on freshwater. The implementation of nature-based solutions, such as constructed wetlands, for the treatment of industrial wastewater for subsequent irrigation purposes can promote a circular bioeconomy. This thesis explores integrating constructed wetlands as a post-treatment of anaerobic digestion to reuse the liquid fraction of the digestate for irrigation. The focus is on removing metals, antibiotics, and antibiotic resistance genes, and producing biomass for energy recovery. A novel configuration using Sparganium erectum for phytoremediation was tested with four liquid digestate compositions (spiked with oxytetracycline, sulfadiazine, or ofloxacin, or without antibiotic spiking). Lab-scale systems demonstrated high removal efficiencies of organic matter, ammonium and phosphate ions, metals, antibiotics, antibiotic resistance genes, and potential pathogens, showing its potential in liquid fraction of the digestate treatment. Despite the antibiotics dosing, at the tested concentrations, no effect on the removal efficiencies was observed. However, after three months of antibiotic dosing, the microbial communities of the rood bed substrate, and the endosphere of the roots, showed significant differences as compared with the control, especially systems treating sulfadiazine and ofloxacin. Additionally, strategies to enhance the methane production from S. erectum biomass, harvested from constructed wetlands systems, were investigated through three pretreatment methods, storage, aqueous ammonia soaking, and hydrothermal treatments. Each pretreatment altered biomass properties, with aqueous ammonia soaking and hydrothermal treatments having notorious effects in biomass morphology and physicochemical properties. All pretreated biomass improved methane yields, with hydrothermal carbonisation at 200°C for 60 minutes showing the most substantial increase. Moreover, dry storage emerged as the most feasible option, while aqueous ammonia soaking and hydrothermal treatments require further optimisation for economic feasibility. Overall, coupling constructed wetlands with anaerobic digestion contributes to closing the loop of AD products' lifecycles, and promotes circular economy principles, facilitating synergy between resource utilisation and environmental conservation. Finally, the thesis also proposes two educational outreach STEM activities to motivate students and promote meaningful learning, engaging them with environmental disciplines, contributing to expand circular economy beyond Academia.This research work has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement nº 861088