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Home, family and gender in the lives of young adults of Nigerian descent in Ireland
No full textIn comparison with other Western European countries, immigration in Ireland is a relatively recent phenomenon. The percentage of foreign-born residents increased from just 2 per cent in 1990 to 17 per cent in 2016. While the first generation of immigrants has attracted significant scholarly attention, little is known about the experiences of their offspring raised in Ireland. Most studies investigating the second generation have been conducted in countries with long traditions of immigration, particularly the US and Western Europe. Additionally, while the family unit is known to play a key role in migrant integration, there is still relatively little qualitative research on relations between generations in migrant households.
This thesis aims to address this gap by exploring intergenerational family relations in Nigerian households in Ireland. This study explores the role of the household in shaping the dynamics of children\u27s interactions within wider society, while investigating how the host society influences family relations. Based on qualitative research, the study explores how Nigerian migrants and their children negotiate norms, expectations, but also values and identities. A particular focus is paid to gendered dynamics in the household; it explores how gender norms and behaviours are negotiated alongside other expectations.
This thesis draws from focus groups and in-depth interviews with young adults aged 18- 24 living in Ireland. It also engages the perspectives of parents, community leaders and youth workers to provide a comprehensive picture of the issues studied. The findings indicate that the household is one of the main sites of identity construction for the participants in this study. Parental stories and household activities become a source of knowledge about their ancestral homeland and at the same time, they allow for a better understanding and appreciation between generations
Community and identity in rural stand-alone schools: teachers’ and principals’ perspectives ...
No full textIn the past two decades Ireland has become increasingly diverse in a myriad of ways; religious, cultural and ethnic change have become significant features of Irish society (Darmody, Smyth & McCoy, 2012; CSO, 2016). Parekh (2005) notes the problems posed by multicultural societies are without parallel in history. Schools are right at the coalface, where changes in communities and shifting identities are experienced as part of the day-to-day practice. This thesis sets outs to explore how teachers and principals in rural stand-alone schools experience the shifting and increasing plurality of identities within their communities. Stand-alone schools were identified by the Report on the Forum for Patronage and Pluralism (Coolahan, Hussey and Kilfeather, 2012) as schools where choice was considered neither an option nor desirable and which it identified as having potentially unique challenges. Given the largely denominational composition of the primary school sector it is inevitable that diverse religious and belief identities, in particular, should come to the fore in public discourse. Irwin (2009) has identified how non-recognition or misrecognition may be experienced by children with diverse religious identities. However, questions of gender, sexual and cultural identity also increasingly emerge as issues with which primary schools grapple and where questions of recognition may emerge as challenging.
In exploring questions of identity and recognition, the study views identity as a complex process of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction in which individuals may move between different identities, or draw on different components of their identity (religious, ethnic, cultural, gender), depending on context and role. In particular, the thesis draws on concepts of boundary, periphery and community as significant to the processes of identification being explored (Jenkins, 2014; Barth, 2000; Cohen, 1982).
Taking a phenomenological approach that focused on the lived experience of participants and the ways in which they constructed meaning from this experience, the study explored how 10 participants (5 teachers and 5 principals) in rural stand-alone schools in Galway, Roscommon and Mayo negotiated the plurality of identities that form part of their school community
The principal behind the report. An exploration of the evaluation perceptions of British Schools Overseas’ principals
No full textThousands of schools across the globe call themselves ‘British’, but there are only a limited number that are officially recognised by the Department for Education (DfE) in England under the British Schools Overseas (BSO) voluntary inspection scheme. Approved inspection providers accredit schools and publish a report on their findings making BSOs comparable to independent schools in England. Details of BSOs are publicly recorded in a database called ‘Get Information About Schools’ (GIAS) alongside all other DfE recognised schools. The BSO inspection scheme and the locations in which BSOs are found around the world provides the backdrop to a context where comparatively little is known about the principals of BSOs, about how they are evaluated and about their evaluation perceptions.
This socially constructed phenomenological inquiry explores the evaluation experiences of a sample of BSO principals from six different countries. Themes and interpretations are drawn from data gathered in semi-structured interviews conducted directly with the principals. Survey responses, document analysis and extensive field notes as well as the views of a number of experts in the field are also used. The findings indicate that BSO principals are evaluated for a variety of reasons in a range of settings, where evaluation methods are influenced by how school ownership is structured, by competencies in evaluation ability and by how the results are handled. The findings also point out challenges to the overall BSO inspection scheme.
The strength of this study is its exploratory nature which is significant for international school leadership, for principal evaluation and for those who have a wider academic interest in international education. This report on the evaluation perceptions of BSO principals contributes to a previously limited corpus of knowledge on the subject
Mathematical modelling of drug release from a porous granule
No full textUnderstanding drug release from pharmaceutical granules is vital to the development of
targeted release profiles. A model describing diffusion and solubility-limited drug dissolu tion and release from a porous spherical granule of drug and excipient is considered. Ra dially varying porosity and initial concentration profiles which can arise in pharmaceutical
granules are incorporated. A range of boundary-value and moving-boundary-value prob lems arise, depending on the relationship between the drug saturation concentration in
the solvent medium and the initial drug concentration and porosity profiles. The model
is derived in detail for the case where the initial drug concentration is greater than the
drug saturation concentration in all parts of the granule. In this case, a moving bound ary forms at the granule surface and propagates inwards, separating an unextracted in ner core from a shell region which undergoes extraction via diffusion. The full model is
non-dimensionalised and analysed using asymptotic methods and numerical solution. A
leading-order model is derived by exploiting a small parameter corresponding to the ratio
of the drug saturation concentration to the maximum initial concentration in the gran ule, allowing estimation of the time taken for the moving boundary to reach the granule
centre. The behaviour of the full model is considered by solving it using a boundary immo bilisation method and the finite element method for a range of parameters and comparing
to the leading-order model. Finally, the model outputs for the moving boundary position
and normalised drug release are compared with experimental data from the literature
S-commerce design _ a framework for s-commerce design and development
No full textRapid developments in social networking technologies have led to the increased integration of
social media elements in various business operations. Accordingly, online commerce
operations have been integrated with social media elements such as ratings, reviews, feedback,
and referrals for improving online shoppers’ experience and engagement. This approach of
supporting online selling and purchasing activities with the support of social media elements
is referred to as social commerce (S-Commerce). The increasing number of internet users,
social networking users, and mobile phone users has further contributed to the rise in SCommerce operations. The rapid developments in S-Commerce have led to a related increase
in research related to S-Commerce, especially its adoption, the impact of social media
elements, and other aspects. However, the impact of culture on S-Commerce operations and
users remains largely under-researched. In addition, previous studies have focused on the
impact of social constructs such as ratings, reviews, referrals, recommendations etc. Other
important factors such as users’ behavioural and psychological constructs, for example
motivation, satisfaction etc.; design factors; and the relationship between these factors, remain
largely unaddressed. Considering these limitations, this study focuses on identifying the
various factors that influence S-Commerce operations and users’ behaviour, the relationship
between these factors, and their impact on decision making and purchase intentions on UserCentric S-Commerce Platforms (UCSCPs) in two culturally different countries: Ireland and
Saudi Arabia. A User-Centric S-Commerce Framework is derived from the literature, and this
is used to develop the platforms for Ireland and Saudi Arabia.
Qualitative semi-structured interviews (Phase II), focus groups (Phase I) and quantitative
surveys were used to collect the data in two phases (Phase I: gathering user requirements for
developing UCSCPs; and Phase II for evaluating the theoretical framework and UCSCPs) from
users in both Ireland and Saudi Arabia. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative
data, and statistical techniques including PLS-SEM and Pearson correlational tests were used
for the quantitative data analysis. The findings revealed that social constructs, such as reviews,
ratings, and referrals; behavioural and psychological constructs including motivation,
satisfaction, experience, learnability, and usability; cultural factors including language,
celebrity branding, price consciousness, images and videos, and themes can impact users’ trust,
and in turn affect the purchase intentions of the users on UCSCPs. In addition, it was identified
that culture can impact the relationship between the various factors that influence users on SCommerce platforms.
The study findings contribute to the S-Commerce literature. Firstly, the findings contribute to
the understanding of critical factors that influence users on S-Commerce platforms. They also
identify the relationship between the various factors in S-Commerce that influence decision
making and purchase intentions. Lastly, the theoretical contributions of this research are related
to the technical, social, cultural, behavioural, and psychological fields, based on the review of
SAM, TPB, OLT, UTAUT, and the diffusion of cultural aspects. Similarly, various practical
implications can be identified from this study. Firstly, the User-Centric S-Commerce
Framework proposed in this study can be used for designing and developing various SCommerce platforms. Secondly, the theoretoical model proposed can help industry
practitioners to understand the influence of culture and the relationship between various other
factors that influence purchase intentions, enabling them to develop more user-centric platform
designs
Improving Robustness Falsification for Medical Device Software
No full textThe artificial Pancreas(AP) is a closed-loop system based on the combination of a continuous glucose monitor, a computer-controlled algorithm, and an insulin pump (Blauw et al., 2016). Insulin pumps are designed for continuous delivery of insulin and mimic the way of human pancreas works by delivering small doses of insulin continuously (the basal dose). The device is also used to deliver variable amounts of insulin when a meal is taken (bolus dose). However, the errors in insulin pump software can bring risks to the patients including high blood glucose levels and dangerously low glucose levels (Zhang et al., 2011). In this research, we use Hovorka artificial pancreas mathematical model, which is designed a basic insulin-glucose regulatory system (Artificial Pancreas) in a diabetic patient (Cobelli et al., 1982 Dalla Man et al., 2007 Patek et al., 2009).
Patients with glucose over 9 for a long time can cause damage to human health including the eye, kidney, heart, and blood vessels, but glucose under 4.5 may lead to trembling or weak, under 2.5 can lead to coma or even death. We see that glucose under 4.5 is more dangerous than over 9. The research problem is how can we make the software more sensitive to more dangerous risks?
In this dissertation, we will use S-TaLiRo (Annpureddy et al., 2011) robustness tool which utilizes optimization-based falsification a method of search-based testing that adopts stochastic optimization. With this falsification approach, the robustness falsification problem is turned into an optimization problem (Fainekos and Pappas, 2006a) (see figure 1.1). Since the lower glucose is dangerous than higher glucose, we are trying to enhance the robustness when the glucose is under 4.5. Let s say the scaling would be used to increase the robustness measure for the glucose is under 4.5, and when the glucose is 4, the original robustness is 4-4.5 = -0.5, after twice enhancing the original robustness, scaled robustness value should be -1.0.
We explored 4 different approaches to scale robustness, including scaling during optimize search, simple scaling, discontinuous scaling, and continuous scaling
Examining the potential for enhancing User experience in exploratory search using conversational agent support
No full textTraditional information retrieval applications require users to develop a well-formed query describing their information need. This places a cognitive burden on the searcher who must expend effort in attempting to select words that succinctly describe their information need, with the implicit assumption that they know enough to describe their target. A more natural mode of human enquiry is via dialogues which enable incremental development of topical understanding and corresponding effective queries. The conversational search seeks to enable the next generation of more natural and efficient search applications that should be easy to use while less cognitively demanding on searchers. Since conversation is a natural means of human information inquiry, framing the information retrieval process within dialogue is hypothesized to make the search process more natural for the user in terms of query entry, interaction to locate relevant content, and engaging with system output.
This PhD research project seeks to make progress toward realizing the vision of conversational search systems. In this project, we investigate the opportunities to integrate the exploratory search process within a conversational setting. We
propose a conceptual framework for dialogue-based exploratory search applications combining a standard search tool with an interactive agent in an integrated user interface. Additionally, we introduce an implicit evaluation framework for conversational search in exploratory search setting, including multiple dimensions: search experience, knowledge gain, software usability, cognitive load and user experience, based on studies of conversational systems and information retrieval.
We examine the behaviour of current conversational assistants to support complex information seeking tasks and propose and evaluate extensions to improve their effectiveness. Using implicit evaluation we examine the user-experience using our
conversational search interface using a conversational agent taking a rule-based approach and a machine learning approach. Our findings show that users respond intuitively and positively to the introduction of conversational support into their
interactive search experience
Professional learning for online educators
No full textThis case study describes the experiences of the #Openteach project team in developing a flexible and evidence-based approach to support professional learning for those who teach online. The project targeted online educators in particular. The rationale for this was Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is recognised as crucial to the upskilling of educators to enhance the student learning experience. However, teaching online requires different pedagogical approaches and staff require specific CPD opportunities relating to online learning in order to teach effectively in that context. The #Openteach project sought to address this gap by creating a flexible, online, open access course about teaching online that was grounded in evidence-based practice. The project had a number of phases, which included a needs analysis of online students and educators about effective online teaching, the publication of a literature review entitled Teaching Online is Different, and a pilot evaluation report. The #Openteach open course ran in March 2020 and focused on five key aspects of teaching online: social presence; facilitating discussion; collaboration online; live online teaching; and supporting online students. Following the first run, an evaluation study was conducted to explore and understand participants\u27 learning experiences of the course. Our findings indicate that professional learning about online teaching should be situated online, and the experience of being an online student is invaluable for online educators as it facilitates empathy with students learning in online contexts. Time management and workload are major challenges for educators, therefore professional learning should allow for flexible engagement. Building confidence and reducing the fear of online teaching is an important aspect of professional learning related to online education. Developing understanding and knowledge of online pedagogy is an important element of professional learning about teaching online. Finally, confidence and competence with the tools and technologies for teaching online are important threshold digital competencies for online educators. The #Openteach project has had a significant impact on the professional learning of educators at a number of levels: at a local university level, at a national level; and at an international level
Factors influencing tax experts’ perceptions of the value of expertise in their daily tax work. Exploring the field through a Bourdieusian lens
No full textThis thesis explores how tax experts value different facets of expertise in their daily work,
and how the manner and degree to which expertise is valued and experienced varies across
the field. Over the past decade, a series of high profile multinational tax avoidance scandals
has put the work of tax expert domains firmly within the public and political imagination.
The catalyst for this study comes against a backdrop of societal and political scrutiny of the
work of tax experts both in corporate settings, and acting as advisers. As tax experts are the
mediators of tax practice, the way in which they value and deploy their expertise influences
compliance and the implementation of policy. Using a Bourdieusian lens, their expertise
functions as a form of capital that gives them power in the field. Expertise has many facets,
including innovation, knowledge and technical competence. This thesis explores the factors
and circumstances that influence a tax expert’s self-perceptions of the relative value of these
facets of expertise within an overall portfolio of expert capitals. Data for this research came
in two phases. First, from a large survey questionnaire directed at tax experts (N=1061)
working across fifty-nine countries. Second, from sixty-eight semi-structured interviews
conducted with practicing tax experts working across eleven countries. All of our respondents
worked in tax, were at various career stages, and held appointments across all levels of
management. They worked across a broader that usual range of tax expert domains. This
dataset facilitates an exploration of how tax experts’ experiences of these facets vary by
regulatory context, experience, gender, and sector. Bourdieusian theoretical framing is used
to theorise the factors that influence tax experts’ self-perceptions of the value of the facets of
expertise in their daily tax work. While experience (age and career stage) gender, and sector
were factors influencing tax experts’ perceptions of the value of the facets of expertise in
their daily tax work, findings also suggest that levels of regulatory oversight and jurisdiction
are influential in shaping tax experts’ perceptions of the value of the facets of expertise in
daily tax work
The potential of Ireland’s native three-spined stickleback (Gasterostues aculeatus) for the biological control of mosquito larvae (subfamily: Culicinae) in Ballyvergan Marsh, Youghal, Co. Cork
No full textMarshes provide suitable habitats for larval development of nuisance and vector mosquitoes
worldwide. Ecological and ecotoxicological consequences of traditional methods have forced
mosquito management to less destructive approaches such as Open Marsh Water Management
(OMWM); a technique that promotes larval control by tidal flushing and giving native
predatory fish access to isolated larval habitats. However, management schemes such as
OMWM are rare in European marshes and non-existent in Ireland. Ballyvergan marsh is a
coastal marsh located on the south-east coast of Ireland that supports populations of threespined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus, within a tidal creek and Aedes and Culex mosquito
larvae (Subfamily: Culicinae) in isolated, brackish pools. A field study was conducted to
determine the biological control potential of three-spined sticklebacks against mosquito larvae
by investigating 1) the predator-prey interactions between three-spined sticklebacks and
Culicinae larvae in three different sub-habitats of the marsh 2) the functional response of threespined sticklebacks in brackish and freshwater 3) the consumption rates as a function of group
size. All experiments were conducted in controlled in situ conditions using 10L plastic buckets
with mesh windows. Sticklebacks showed strong biological control potential, consuming
larvae across different sub-habitats of the marsh. A Type Ⅱ functional response in brackish and
freshwater was identified with an estimated maximum consumption rate of 429 ± 32 larvae per
pair of sticklebacks in 24 hours. It is suggested that management methods, such as OMWM
would control local mosquito populations in Ballyvergan marsh through predation by threespined sticklebacks. There is an increasing emphasis on the need to apply ecologically sound
mosquito control solutions, as the risk of re-emerging vector-borne diseases in Europe
continues to rise with climate change