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Máire, feara fáil agus an díchoilíniú
No full textMholadh Aimé Césaire (1955: 15) cothromóid nó ‘colonisation = chosification’, sin le rá go ndéantar rudaí de dhaoine faoin choilíneachas: próiseas a tháirgeann sochaithe gan dada dúchasach díobh féin, cultúir chloíte, cumainn chreachta, críocha coigistithe, creidimh chéasta, na hEalaíona eagna éignithe, agus, thar aon ní eile, olldeiseanna dochreidte nach gcomhlíonfaí go deo. Mhaígh Franz Fanon (2016: 27) gurbh ionann díchoilíniú agus daonnachas radacach a dhéanfadh an caipitleachas agus coimhthiú an duine mar aon a threascairt trí ghníomh an dúchasaigh féin. ‘La « chose » colonisée devient homme dans le processus même par lequel elle se libère.’ Cloistear macalla na smaointe seo i roisc chatha Uí Chadhain nó ’sí an Ghaeilge athghabháil na hÉireann, agus is í athghabháil na hÉireann slánú na Gaeilge. Pléann an t-alt seo le fathach eile de chuid na hathbheochana mar atá, Máire nó Séamus Ó Grianna. Cé gur chaill sé a mhisneach ó thaobh na hathbheochana de agus é i ndeireadh a shaoil is a laethanta, chlóigh Máire lena phoblachtachas ó bhreith go bás (Ó Dornáin, 2018: 82). Tógann an t-alt seo ar argóint Uí Dhornáin (2018: 26), mar sin de, go dtig linn teoiric Fanon agus Said a úsáid le saothar Mháire a lonnú i bhfráma an díchoilínithe.peer-reviewe
Marking dad’s centromeres: maintaining CENP-A in sperm
No full textDuring spermiogenesis, histones are removed from most genomic loci and are replaced by protamines in mature sperm nuclei. Yet, centromeres appear resistant to this process. We review the experimental evidence that the centromeric histone CENP-A is maintained in mature sperm nuclei, comparing human, bovine, mouse and fly species. We also recall how the detection of centromeres in mature sperm nuclei in the 1990’s contributed to the isolation of the CENP-A protein and the eventual cloning of the human CENP-A gene. Further, based on more recent genetic studies carried out in flies and in mice, we discuss the inheritance and functional importance of paternal CENP-A and how it is complemented by maternal CENP-A to give rise to a healthy embryo. Finally, we raise some unanswered questions regarding the exclusive maintenance of CENP-A on sperm, the organisation of sperm centromeric chromatin and its importance for fertility and early embryo development.Open Access funding provided by the IReL Consortium. This project was supported by Research Ireland (grant number 20/FFP-A/8519 to EMD and MS and GOIPG/2023/3987 to RSK).peer-reviewe
A theoretical kinetic study of ĊH3 + ṄH2: From electronic structure to NH3/CH4 combustion modelling implications
No full textCarbon–nitrogen interaction reactions play an important role in governing the reactivity of ammonia blended fuels. However, there remains uncertainties regarding their detailed reaction pathways and rate constants, hampering the development of high-fidelity chemical kinetic models. In this study, the kinetics of ĊH3 + ṄH2, a key C–N interaction reaction in ammonia/methane blend combustion have been investigated. The potential energy surface has been explored using the high-level ANL0F method, yielding highly accurate stationary point energies that agree with ATcT values within 0.1 kcal mol–1. Variable reaction coordinate transition state theory is used to treat the barrierless association and decomposition reaction channels, based on directly sampled radical-radical interaction energies at the CASPT2-F12(2e,2o)/cc-pVTZ-F12 level of theory. The minimum transitional mode numbers of states obtained are then coupled with the RRKM/master equation to calculate temperature- and pressure-dependent rate constants. Our a priori calculations capture available experimental measurements from the literature very well. The calculated rate constants have been incorporated into an NH3/CH4 chemical kinetic model currently under development at the University of Galway. The effect of the updated kinetic data for ĊH3 + ṄH2 on model predicted NH3/CH4 fuel reactivity is elucidated.peer-reviewe
‘Aidiacht chanúnach iseadh “Wuthering”’: Seán Ó Ciosáin faoi chuing an chanúnachais agus Wuthering Heights á aistriú aige
No full textCíorfar san alt seo faillí a rinne Seán Ó Ciosáin le linn Wuthering Heights a aistriú go Gaeilge: is é sin, ba bheag iarracht a rinne sé an t-idirdhealú idir ardréim agus ísealréim chainte (ar a mbraitheann scaoileadh shnaidhm an scéil sa bhunleagan) a thabhairt slán sa spriocthéacs. Áiteofar thíos nach raibh neart aige air sin go pointe agus é dulta in abar i ngné de nuatheanga a bhí fós ag teacht i gcruth: is é sin, buntéacs roghnaithe aige le haistriú inar chiúta inste í aicmíocht chainte ach é ag aistriú go teanga a bhí aonchineálach ó thaobh aicmí sóisialta de.peer-reviewe
MesenmiR: Towards a microRNA-modified mesenchymal stromal cell therapeutic for chronic limb-threatening ischaemia
No full textChronic limb-threatening ischaemia is the most severe manifestation of peripheral artery disease and is defined by the presence of ischaemic rest pain, ulceration, or gangrene of the lower limb. Despite current treatment options, many patients have no option but to undergo amputation. In chronic limb-threatening ischaemia, vascular occlusion causes distal tissue ischaemia, which results in a severe skeletal muscle pathology which is characterised by muscle atrophy, impaired satellite cell function, fibrosis, myosteatosis, mitochondrial dysfunction, and other features. There has been significant interest in novel therapeutics, such as cell and gene therapies, to improve outcomes in these patients. However, despite early promising data, translational success has been limited. These novel therapeutics have largely focussed on "therapeutic angiogenesis"; however, more recently, there has been increasing interest in targeting the skeletal muscle. MicroRNAs are small, non-coding RNAs that have also gained attention as pathological mediators and potential therapeutics in chronic limb-threatening ischaemia. In this thesis, I aimed to investigate skeletal muscle pathology, with a particular focus on its associated microRNA dysregulation, to inform the rational design of novel microRNA- and cell-based therapeutics. In Chapter 3, I utilised publicly available RNA sequencing data from gastrocnemius biopsies from chronic limb-threatening ischaemia patients to perform microRNA-Target Enrichment Analyses and identified a panel of microRNAs with a potential regulatory role in chronic limb-threatening ischaemia-associated skeletal muscle pathology. In a preclinical murine hindlimb ischaemia model, I showed that three of these microRNAs, miR-1, miR-133a, and miR-29b, were downregulated in skeletal muscle ischaemia on day 7 post-hindlimb ischaemia. Through functional enrichment analysis, I showed a role of this three-microRNA panel in regulating targets associated with fibrosis in the ischaemic limb. In chapter 4, I optimised a pre-existing protocol to isolate RNA from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded skeletal muscle sections to profile the expression of microRNAs and mRNAs. I investigated the three-microRNA panel in human umbilical cord mesenchymal stromal cell-treated skeletal muscle in the hindlimb ischaemia model and further validated their downregulation at day 28 post-hindlimb ischaemia. Further, human umbilical cord mesenchymal stromal cell treatment was associated with a partial but significant restoration of miR-133a levels towards non-ischaemic levels. miR-133a levels were strongly correlated with decreased ischaemic damage of skeletal muscle in the hindlimb. In chapter 5, I established a 2D in vitro NIH-3T3 fibroblast and C2C12 myoblast coculture model with markedly enhanced myogenesis. In this model, induction of simulated ischaemia partially but inconsistently recapitulated features of skeletal muscle pathology seen in human chronic limb-threatening ischaemia and the murine hindlimb ischaemia model, such as myotube atrophy. However, further optimisation of this model will be required to enhance its applicability to chronic limb-threatening ischaemia research.
Overall, the results in this thesis highlight the role of miR-1, miR-133a, and miR-29b in chronic limb-threatening ischaemia-associated skeletal muscle fibrosis and further the potential therapeutic relevance of restoration of miR-133a by human umbilical cord mesenchymal stromal cell-treatment in skeletal muscle ischaemia. It is hoped that further work on the lines of investigation opened in this thesis will facilitate the development of novel microRNA- and cell-based therapeutics aimed at restoring homeostasis in the ischaemic limb and, ultimately, improving outcomes in patients living with chronic limb-threatening ischaemia
A workflow to obtain whole-life low-embodied GHG emissions buildings
No full textNumerous studies have investigated strategies to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions generated over the lifespan of buildings; however, no methodical approach integrates, classifies, and prioritises all these strategies into project development stages. Thus, this study addresses this deficiency by developing a workflow to obtain whole-life low embodied GHG emissions buildings. The workflow is developed based on three pillars: a systematic review on the embodied GHG emissions reduction strategies in buildings, adopted project development stages compatible with the RIBA and AIA plans of work, and the authors’ experience in building design and construction processes. The proposed workflow can help the project team achieve the optimum embodied GHG emissions reduction for their buildings’ whole life cycle. The workflow comprises 38 ordered tasks, which are categorised into seven project development stages. Material Selection stage has the highest number of reduction strategies, with reduction possibilities ranging between 16% and 48%. The highest potential embodied GHG emissions reduction is up to 85% for the strategy of Avoiding Construction and Prioritising Alternatives to Building New in the Predesign stage. The tasks depend on collaboration between the project team to succeed.This work was supported by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland [grant agreement 21/RDD/703], and the Laudes Foundation through the INDICATE project [grant reference GR-077637].peer-reviewe
Craobh na Cásca de chuid Chonradh na Gaeilge sna 1960í: Allagar, athbhreithniú agus athnuachan
No full textIna leabhar, Ireland: A social and cultural history, 1922–2002, is é ‘the decades of debate’ an cur síos a thugann Terence Brown (2004: 254–96) ar thréimhse ghuagach mórathruithe na 1960í agus na 1970í in Éirinn. De dheasca na heisimirce as éadan a tharla in imeacht na 1950í, áitíonn Brown (2004: 199) gur tháinig luachanna cultúrtha na tíre, chomh maith leis an tsamhail gheilleagrach, faoi athbhreithniú i gcomhthéacs ceistitheach na 1960í go háirithe. Leagann Ciara Meehan agus Mary E. Daly cuid den chomhthéacs sin amach:
The 1960s were a period of change in Ireland. Political, economic and social thought was revised as a result of Vatican II, the arrival of television and the potential of EEC (European Economic Community) membership. That decade also marked the passing of the revolutionary generation from power (Meehan, 2013: 1).peer-reviewe
'I am older than the Old Woman of Beare': Patrick Pearse's Mother Ireland allegory in his literary works
No full textThis thesis examines the literary works (short fiction, poetry, and drama) of Patrick Pearse with a particular focus on the influence of the Cailleach Bhéarra (Hag of Beare) on Pearse’s version of the Mother Ireland allegory. The old woman is a significant figure for Pearse in personal, creative, and political terms. His childhood relationship with Margaret Brady, his maternal great-aunt, was the starting point in his personal life of particular interest in the role of older women as representatives and conduits to younger men of Irish culture and identity. She was a formative influence on Pearse and the impression that she made on him informs his adaptation of the Cailleach Bhéarra into the central archetype in his literary and political philosophy.
Women, and especially older women, in Pearse’s literary oeuvre have not received the same amount of scholarly attention as have his male characters. For much of the twentieth century, masculinity and the theme of blood sacrifice seemed to many to loom larger in both his life and work. After Pearse’s execution in May 1916 his stories, poetry, and plays were well-received. Beginning in the 1920s and up to the present day, Pearse’s writings have appeared in Irish school curricula. He has, however, never been considered a literary artist of the first calibre.
Beginning in the 1960s after the half-centenary of the Rising, a more critical note began to be sounded. And recent literary scholarship is generally not as favourable towards Pearse. The eroticisation of young boys in some of the poems has drastically complicated the question of his work as an educator of children and as a poet. His depiction of women has been criticised for being one-dimensional and uninteresting. In the 1970s, Ruth Dudley Edwards wrote in her revisionist biography that Pearse only allows women to grieve and to cry. Philip O’Leary, writing a few years later, deems Pearse’s stories to be overly sentimental and too romantic. In the 1980s, Eavan Boland critically rewrote his ‘Mise Éire’ in the process of discarding his feminine and nationalist metaphors. Even as recently as within the last decade, Michael G. Cronin has argued that Pearse only allows his women to be mothers. Still, Pearse’s efforts to modernise Irish language literature have been noted positively, particularly by Louis de Paor, who wonders what else Pearse might have contributed to the literary world had he not been executed. Róisín Ní Ghairbhí and Eugene McNulty have paid particular attention to Pearse as a playwright in their editorial and scholarly work.
Attitudes to Pearse’s version of the Mother Ireland allegory have also shifted very noticeably since that semicentennial in 1966, in a process that mirrors the changes in women’s lives in Ireland over the same period. Pearse might have been intrigued. He was himself constantly looking back into Ireland’s past in order to rejuvenate its present and future. His ideal relationship in life and art was between the old and the young. The dust has not settled on his troubled reputation, and now, over one hundred years since the Rising, it may be a good time to take another look at his literary work in the larger context of his life and ideas. The Old Woman and the Cailleach Bhéarra are at the very centre of Pearse’s imaginative life as it manifests itself in his literary work and in his cultural, professional, and political life. It is from that past that he pulls the Cailleach and brings her into the present as a representation of the future Ireland he hoped to create. The creation process for Pearse, however, shifted dramatically from the cultural nationalism to which he devoted much of adult life towards the militant republicanism, in which his old woman becomes closely identified with violence and bloodshed.
The purpose of this dissertation is to draw attention to a clear failing in contemporary Irish literary scholarship to acknowledge a more complex relationship between Pearse, his writing, and the figure of the woman. Pearse’s portrayal of women is worthy of reconsideration in light of the multilayered and intersectional influences that inform them. They are not ‘just’ mothers nor are they undeserving of further investigation. They are, like Pearse himself, complex, multifaceted beings
Managing uncertainties of ecologically sustainable real-time multimedia event processing over the cloud and edge
No full textThis thesis presents a framework for managing uncertainties in ecologically sustainable real-time Multimedia Event Processing (MEP) systems across Cloud and Edge environments. As the demand for Big Data applications and Internet of Things (IoT) devices grows, so does the energy consumption required to support data centres and Edge devices. This has led to an urgent need for energy-efficient solutions, particularly in the context of the Internet of Multimedia Things (IoMT), where MEP systems play a vital role in applications such as smart cities, health monitoring, and autonomous driving. These systems rely on computationally intensive Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) for tasks like computer vision (CV), which can drive up both energy consumption and computational demands. Therefore, this work focuses on the optimisation of real-time MEP systems, seeking to balance the trade-offs between accuracy, speed, and energy consumption while addressing the uncertainties introduced by real-world deployment scenarios.
The main contribution of this thesis are the 32 open-source resources that combined provide a real-time sustainable MEP framework that adapts to varying Quality of Service (QoS) requirements by effectively managing the accuracy-speed-energy trade-offs and the uncertainties from real-world deployments. The framework refines an existing MEP system by introducing a query-specific optimisation approach for balancing these trade-offs. It integrates a new event-sourcing-based architecture that improves the flexibility and adaptability of the system. This architectural shift enables 87% faster adaptation times compared to the previous version, which was crucial to reduce a major source of uncertainty in the adaptation goals. A WebRTC-based video streaming service was also incorporated to ensure sub-second latency in delivering processed video streams to end users, satisfying real-time requirements for mission-critical scenarios.
In addition to the core framework improvements, this work introduces a novel real-time early filtering pipeline for high-definition video analytics on commodity Edge devices, such as Raspberry Pis, which are resource-constrained and lack GPUs. The pipeline uses an Edge-optimised hierarchical image pre-processing method that accelerates the performance of the CV models, enabling the processing of video at speeds exceeding 80 frames per second (FPS) at 1080p resolution. This approach leverages context-aware machine learning models that are fine-tuned using a data augmentation technique, which requires just 10 seconds of original footage from the target camera. The synthetic data augmentation, using Generative AI and Cut-and-Paste methods, trains the model to the specific background and objects of interest in the video stream, allowing the filter to operate in real-time, even in resource-constrained environments. This early filtering pipeline outperforms the state-of-the-art Nano-YoloV5 model and other state-of-the-art Edge video analytics enabling methods, achieving 48.8 times higher speed and maintaining competitive accuracy.
Furthermore, this thesis addresses the challenge of managing uncertainties in MEP systems, which can arise from imprecision in hardware profiling, variability in user QoS requirements, and delays in system monitoring. By transforming the adaptation process into a multi-objective optimisation problem, the framework incorporates uncertainty-aware mechanisms that handle different types of uncertainty. A fuzzy-based Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method was developed to rank service workers while managing imprecision in hardware measurements and user criteria. Experimental results demonstrate that the uncertainty-aware approach yields improvements in energy efficiency and latency, saving up to 1.2 kilowatt-hours of energy and reducing latency by 213 seconds, with only a minimal accuracy loss of 0.29%.
In conclusion, this work contributes to the development of real-time sustainable MEP systems that are capable of operating efficiently and effectively in dynamic and uncertain real-world environments. The open-source framework, designed for both Cloud and Edge devices, provides a robust and extensible solution for real-time multimedia analytics, with the potential for wide application in IoT and smart-city scenarios.This work has emanated from research conducted with the financial support of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) under Grant Number SFI/12/RC/2289_P2, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund
An preasráiteas mar aghaidh phoiblí Chonradh na Gaeilge
No full textScríobhadh an t-alt seo mar chuid den tionscadal CARTLANN – ‘Gníomhaíochas, an Ghaeilge agus na Meáin’. Reáchtáladh comhdháil faoin ábhar sin in Ollscoil na Gaillimhe ar 13 Aibreán, 2024. An tÚdarás um Ard-Oideachas, faoin gClár Taighde Thuaidh-Theas, a mhaoinigh CARTLANN.)peer-reviewe