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Building a Red Navy: communist activism and military authority in the Baltic Fleet, 1918-1940
No full textThis article examines the activities of the Soviet military-political organs in the Baltic Fleet. It shows that the web of party institutions transformed the Fleet into a space of political and social activism that had little to do with the strictly military aspects of government policy. Such activism was nevertheless unfailingly promoted even as it became clear that it compromised core elements of military efficiency such as discipline and well-defined chains of command. This argument has implications for our broader understanding of the nature of the Soviet state. It indicates that once the Bolsheviks’ revolutionary ideology had become institutionalised in the state via the ubiquitous presence of party organs, pragmatic retreats for organisational efficiency became exceptionally difficult to implement.European CommissionCheck for published version during checkdate report - A
Aid curse with Chinese characteristics? Chinese development flows and economic reforms
No full textThe emergence of China as a major development partner requires a reassessment of traditional donorrecipient dynamics. In addition to using new rhetoric like ”South-South cooperation” or ”Win-Win”, China has also eschewed classifications and practices of the traditional donors of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Donor Assistance Committee (DAC). Yet this ”new approach” and willful ignorance may not spare China from the same issues confronted by traditional donors. In this paper, we consider the extent to which Chinese development efforts disincentivize difficult economic reforms by providing recipient governments with a budgetry cushion. Using an instrumental variable approach with panel data covering 117 countries during the 2000-2014 period, we find that the presence of Chinese development flows, particularly those over which recipients have a high degree of discretion, inhibit broader economic reform. These findings are robust to a number of alternative specifications, data, instruments and approaches and are suggestive of an institutional aid curse ”with Chinese characteristics” as insidious as that which has plagued some traditional donor-recipient relationships.European Commission Horizon 202
Women with disabilities: Forever on the edge of #MeToo?
No full text[No abstract available]Not peer reviewe
DCF: An Efficient and Robust Density-Based Clustering Method
No full textDensity-based clustering methods have been shown to achieve promising results in modern data mining applications.
A recent approach, Density Peaks Clustering (DPC), detects modes as points with high density and large distance to points of higher density, and hence often fails to detect low-density clusters in the data. Furthermore, DPC has quadratic complexity. We here develop a new clustering algorithm, aiming at improving the applicability and efficiency of the peak-finding technique. The improvements are threefold: (1) the new algorithm is applicable to large datasets; (2) the algorithm is capable of detecting clusters of varying density; (3) the algorithm is competent at deciding the correct number of clusters, even when the number of clusters is very high. The clustering performance of the algorithm is greatly enhanced by directing the peak-finding technique to discover modal sets, rather than point modes. We present a theoretical
analysis of our approach and experimental results to verify that our algorithm works well in practice. We demonstrate a potential application of our work for unsupervised face recognition
Citizen Science in Ireland
No full textIreland has a rich history of public engagement with science and the growing number of national citizen science initiatives is in keeping with developments seen in other European countries. This paper explores several aspects of citizen science in Ireland, in order to assess its development and to better understand potential opportunities for the field. An introduction to the roots of citizen science in Ireland’s past, from the first methodical observations of natural phenomena carried out at monastic settlements up to present day projects monitoring environmental change and biodiversity, is presented along with an overview of the current national citizen science projects running in the country. This cataloging of contemporary citizen science will be compared to the awareness of citizen science in the Irish education system at primary, post-primary, and university level. These measures of progress will be considered in the changing context of international citizen science funding and available support, such as the European Citizen Science Association and the EU-Citizen.Science platform. Citizen science in Ireland is at a critical point. If citizen science is embraced as a truly social and participatory innovation, Ireland has the chance to not only dramatically improve its citizen science output, but to also become a model of best practice for countries at similar stages of citizen science development.European Commission Horizon 2020Irish Cancer SocietyScience Foundation IrelandTrinity College Dubli
The Dynamics of Family Homelessness in Ireland: A Mixed Methods Study
No full textAvailable data in many European countries, Australia and the United States indicate that family homelessness has increased, generating intense discussion and debate about the emerging nature of this phenomenon and how it can be explained. Over the past 20 years, homelessness research has focused increasingly on the temporal character of shelter utilisation by analysing large-scale and longitudinal sources of administrative data. Most notably, the seminal work of Dennis Culhane and colleagues in the late 1990s and early 2000\u27s demonstrated that a majority of individuals and families use homelessness services on a short-term basis, with much smaller numbers going on to experience prolonged or recurrent shelter stays. While statistical evidence of these three service use profiles has since been found in shelter populations across Denmark, Canada and Ireland, understanding of why (and how) these patterns emerge has, hitherto, not been fully interrogated. Initiated in 2016 against a backdrop of exponentially rising numbers of families experiencing homelessness in Dublin, this study examined the dynamics of family homelessness in the Irish context. Adopting a mixed methods approach, a primary goal was to fill a gap in the homelessness research literature by extending beyond a descriptive statistical account of families\u27 shelter entries and exits, towards a deeper explanation of service use patterns derived from their lives as lived.
The research objectives were as follows: 1) determine to what extent patterns of short-term, long-term and recurrent shelter use exist in the Irish context; 2) identify risk and protective factors related to families\u27 prolonged and repeated shelter stays as well as those which facilitate lasting exits to alternative housing; and 3) generate in-depth understanding of the individual, contextual and structural drivers that influence families\u27 differing shelter system trajectories over time.
Situated in a Critical Realist paradigm that equally values and validates multiple perspectives in the production of knowledge, the research employed a sequential (explanatory) mixed method design. Quantitative analysis was first undertaken to interrogate a large-scale data set (N = 2533) assembled from administrative records pertaining to all families who had accessed Dublin-based State-funded emergency accommodation over a six-year observation period (2011 - 2016). A cluster analysis was performed to test the prevailing three-fold typology of transitional (short-term), chronic (long-term) and episodic (recurrent) homelessness service use using variables derived from the entry and exit dates of families\u27 shelter stays. The emergent groupings were then compared by available demographics, family-level characteristics and service background data. These results fed directly into the development of the qualitative arm of the research and informed the selection of theoretically relevant cases for participation. Twenty-six parents whose families exhibited transitional (n = 7), chronic (n = 12) and episodic (n = 7) service use histories were recruited and in-depth interviews were conducted with these mothers and fathers. These data were analysed thematically to generate rich insights to help explain, elaborate and contextualise the broader patterns of shelter utilisation observed.
This research mobilised a complex-realist explanatory framework that fused the ontology of Critical Realism with complex systems theory to advance understanding of families\u27 homelessness service use patterns. With analytic emphasis placed on families\u27 interrelationships with the multiple parts of the shelter system, the conceptual constructs of non-linearity, adaption, self-organisation and emergence were used to identify mechanisms, contexts and circumstances that helped to explain why certain families exited emergency accommodation quickly, while others went on to experience prolonged or repeated shelter stays.
The results of the quantitative analysis revealed three distinct shelter system trajectories - linear, uninterrupted and circuitous - that broadly corresponded to Culhane and colleagues\u27 typology of transitional, chronic and episodic service use, respectively, though notable proportional differences were observed amongst the sub-groups. While cluster membership was not related to parents\u27 age or gender, significant inter-cluster differences were found on the basis of household composition, migrant status, race/ethnicity and the number and type of emergency accommodation services accessed over the study period. From these patterns of association, episodic service users emerged as having the most distinctive profile, while transitional and chronic service users demonstrated a number of similarities across several metrics. The study\u27s qualitative data were analysed according to families\u27 macro- and micro- level interactions both with and within homelessness service (and other related) systems. Parents\u27 narratives revealed that their families\u27 distinct shelter system trajectories were strongly influenced by their interdependencies with the wider \u27environment\u27 of emergency accommodation, including: how they related (and responded) to linear models of homelessness service provision and evolving homelessness policies; their ability to access and navigate public and private housing systems; and their experiences with health and social care systems over the course of their lives. Turning to their interrelationships within the shelter system, specifically, parents\u27 accounts emphasised the role of shelter rules, management practices and service settings in contributing to their experiences of exiting, remaining in and moving between emergency accommodation(s) over time.
While there is general consensus that homelessness must be viewed as a process, this thesis extends this conceptualisation by reframing the distinct trajectories that families\u27 take through the shelter system as a process of \u27becoming\u27 that is unpredictable, yet ordered: it is complex. Mobilising a mixed methods approach that contextualises administrative data and individual action, the analysis opens up a manner of thinking about the relationship between agency, \u27choice\u27 and constraint in the lives of families navigating homelessness services in a way that transcends a limited individual/structure dichotomy. Two generative (causal) mechanisms - neoliberalism and pathologising responses - are proposed to explain the dynamic patterning of shelter use amongst families in the Irish context. It is argued that when activated, these mechanisms have critical implications for homelessness policy, practice and service-level interventions
Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care: Gender, Class, and Women who Care(s)?
No full textThe Irish Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) sector has undergone considerable change in the last decade, including introducing various leadership roles for the ECEC practitioner. Conversely, it is difficult to establish what principles underpin these roles, as there is a shortage of leadership research and training in the sector. This study explored how leadership was conceptualised, practised, the supports in place for leadership, and the potential leadership could hold in drawing together Irish ECEC practitioners to address their working conditions. A social feminism perspective informed this study; dual system theory (Eisenstein, 1979), and 50 ECEC stakeholders were interviewed (A qualitative interview study). The participants found it challenging to articulate the purpose of ECEC leadership in a sector where there were multiple understandings of leadership emanating from a network of disjointed government departments and organisations. Ultimately, most of the participants understood leadership as a relational, context-specific, and socially constructed activity. However, the ECEC practitioners\u27 classed and gendered conceptualisation of care as a value position was incompatible with the remaining participants\u27 commodified, educationalised, and intellectualised opinions of care. The lack of recognition and respect for "care" as an axiom and fundamental mode of praxis in ECEC had marginalised practitioner knowledge and weakened their confidence in articulating and positioning care as central to the purpose of ECEC and leadership. They considered care the antidote to the neoliberal care[less] sector, the missing link in prioritising the child over affordable childcare and highlighting the importance of their work and working conditions. Ultimately it was difficult to ascertain whether the ECEC practitioners\u27 description of a caring and collaborative process involved leadership or leadership was part of a set of collaborative and participatory tools to do the work of questioning and reimaging ECEC and developing their working conditions
The Barbarian and the cart: law, citizenship and linguistic identity in Irish macaronic verse
No full textThis article focuses on the Irish language macaronic song ‘An Trucailín Donn’ (ATD) as a piece that is representative of the broader Irish/English macaronic tradition in exposing the identity conflicts that minority language speakers must internalise to resolve themselves as citizens. The article focuses, in particular, on how such songs expose the dilemma faced by Irish language speakers – to either constitute themselves as Anglophone citizens within the institutional structures of the State, or Irish speaking citizens outside it
Ultra-low-dose thoracic CT with model-based iterative reconstruction (MBIR) in cystic fibrosis patients undergoing treatment with cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulators (CFTR)
No full textAIM: To assess the utility of a volumetric low-dose computed tomography (CT) thorax (LDCTT) protocol at a dose equivalent to a posteroanterior (PA) and lateral chest radiograph for surveillance of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A prospective study was undertaken of 19 adult patients with CF that proceeded to LDCTT at 12 and 24 months following initiation of ivacaftor. A previously validated seven-section, low-dose axial CT protocol was used for the 12-month study. A volumetric LDCTT protocol was developed for the 24-month study and reconstructed with hybrid iterative reconstruction (LD-ASIR) and pure iterative reconstruction (model-based IR [LD-MBIR]). Radiation dose was recorded for each scan. Image quality was assessed quantitatively and qualitatively, and disease severity was assessed using a modified Bhalla score. Statistical analysis was performed and p-values of <0.05 were considered statistically significant. RESULTS: Volumetric LD-MBIR studies were acquired at a lower radiation dose than the seven-section studies (0.08 ± 0.01 versus 0.10 ± 0.02 mSv; p=0.02). LD-MBIR and seven-section ASIR images had significantly lower levels of image noise compared with LD-ASIR images (p<0.0001). Diagnostic acceptability scores and depiction of bronchovascular structures were found to be acceptable for axial and coronal LD-MBIR images. LD-MBIR images were superior to LD-ASIR images for all qualitative parameters assessed (p<0.0001). No significant change was observed in mean Bhalla score between 1-year and 2-year studies (p=0.84). CONCLUSIONS: The use of a volumetric LDCTT protocol (reconstructed with pure IR) enabled acquisition of diagnostic quality CT images, which were considered extremely useful for surveillance of CF patients, at a dose equivalent to a PA and lateral chest radiograph
Challenges and opportunities for culturally responsive leadership in schools: evidence from four European countries
No full textWhether voluntary or enforced, increasing patterns of migration have significantly impacted schools by making them linguistically, culturally, religiously and ethnically more diverse than ever before. This increasing diversity requires school leaders to put in place mechanisms to ensure equity of participation for migration background students. Dimmock and Walker (2005) believe that school leaders need to play a vital role in promoting and sustaining an environment that embraces diversity and, by association, contributes to solving the macro problems of society. To accomplish this emerging role, there is a need for ‘new approaches to educational leadership in which leaders exhibit culturally responsive organisational practices, behaviours and competencies’ (Madhlangobe and Gordon, 2012: p. 177). This is all well and good in theory, but the current and historical context in which school leaders operate, together with the training and supports that are provided, influences, to a significant extent, how culturally responsive leadership can operate in practice. This study, which is part of a European Commission Erasmus+ funded project entitled Supporting Culturally Responsive Leadership and Evaluation in Schools (CReLES), examines these assumptions by mapping out the factors and actors that can hinder and facilitate the flourishing of such practices in four European countries, Austria, Ireland, Russia and Spain