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Representations of Ireland, 1830-1880
No full textIn 1883, the Bentley firm published A Struggle for Fame, the autobiographical novel by Irish-born Charlotte Riddell (née Cowan, 1832–1906). The three-decker work features vivid pen-portraits of Newby, Tinsley, Bentley and other publishers, and details a young Irish woman’s struggles for success in mid-century literary London, against contemporary views that ‘Irish stories are quite gone out’. More than once, its acerbic narrator diagnoses astutely the forces constraining women‘s literary fame
Support workers and the health professions in international perspective: The invisible providers of health care
No full textFrom a sociology of work standpoint, one of the noteworthy outcomes of the COVID-19
pandemic has been the extent to which it has increased the visibility of what heretofore
was a largely overlooked frontline workforce – support workers in health and social care
(Rossiter and Godderis, 2020)
Federated adaptive asynchronous clustering algorithm for Wireless Mesh Networks
No full textIt is a challenge to generate an accurate machine learning model in a distributed network due to the increased concern in data privacy and high cost in gathering all raw data. This paper presents an adaptive asynchronous distributed clustering algorithm for agents in wireless network to learn the global models, while the privacy is protected. Moreover, the communication cost and clustering quality can be adaptively balanced. The proposed clustering algorithm does not require the number of clusters to be pre-defined. To improve the accuracy of the global model, we propose a bounding boxes based method to fully utilize the shape information of clusters. In addition, we consider different knowledge levels of agent and different requirements about the global model. In experiments on randomly generated network topologies, we demonstrate that methods which do more extensive clustering in each cycle, and which exchange descriptions of cluster shape and density instead of just centroids and data counts, achieve more consistent clustering, in significantly shorter elapsed time. We also show that the proposed methods can learn the same number of clusters as the ground truth when clusters are well separated from each other
"Factual Fictions": Representations of the Land Agitation in Nineteenth-Century Irish Women\u27s Fiction
No full textWriting in 1997, critic Siobhán Kilfeather observed: ‘Although the narrative of nineteenth-century fiction is often traced from Edgeworth to Somerville and Ross, I would argue that in this debate there is an exclusion of a certain kind of women’s writing and a demotion of the melodramatic and sensationalist aspects of nineteenth-century fiction that in Britain were associated with an appeal to woman readers.’ In spite of the best efforts of the editors of the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, volumes IV and V, few signs yet exist of any significant change in this condition of exclusion. In this essay, I wish to highlight another demotion, that of domestic or sentimental fiction, with specific reference to Irish women’s fiction from the late nineteenth century. This body of writing is especially interesting since it sought the incorporation of contemporaneous and often highly charged political subject matter into the existing modes of sentimental fiction, a notable example being the representation of contemporary land agitation by female novelists
Studies of Integrable One-Dimensional Quantum Systems
No full textIn this thesis, I use the Bethe Ansatz (BA) to study various one-dimensional
models. I first go through some background on the BA (both the coordinate
and algebraic forms). I start the study by using the BA to compare bound
state occurrences between the 2-particle XXZ, Bose–Hubbard, and Fermi–
Hubbard models. In the next chapter, I introduce ‘quenches’ and use the
BA in order to calculate quench overlaps in the Lieb–Liniger model. In the
final chapter, I introduce the spatial von Neumann bipartite entanglement
entropy and use the BA in order to calculate this entropy in the Lieb–Liniger
model
Size-dependent bending modulus of fibre composite laminates comprising unidirectional plies
No full textHeterogeneous materials can show size-dependent behaviour in which the bending modulus depends on sample size. In fibre composite materials the interaction between fibre and matrix can lead to such a size effect. Then the effective modulus calculated by the rule of mixtures can either underestimate or overestimate the bending modulus of the laminate, depending on the fibre/matrix material mismatch, the microstructural morphology (fibre distribution) and the laminate thickness. In this work, the bending
behaviour of a laminate comprising unidirectional fibre composite plies is considered using Euler Bernoulli beam theory and the influence of size on the bending modulus is investigated. The effective bending modulus of each ply is calculated and used to formulate the overall bending modulus of the laminate. The results show that the laminate bending modulus depends on the number of plies, the number of fibres through the thickness of each ply, the fibre spacing and radius, and the mismatch of fibre and matrix material properties in each ply. Our analysis shows that accounting for the ply microstructure (fibre spacing and radius and number of fibres per ply) can lead to a 10% difference in the predicted bending modulus in a three ply laminate, when there are less than four fibres through the thickness in each pl
Capturing and modeling complex manufacturing systems: extending and embedding BPMN in DES
No full textBusiness process models are developed for the purpose of understanding the system behaviour and identifying the possible areas for performance improvement. Among existing process modelling languages, Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) was selected to be assessed and extended, as it is the leading standard for business process modelling. The BPMN is currently gaining great attention in various business practices; it is an easy and flexible way to construct business process models, and thus it was hard to be overlooked by authors who are concerned with improving manufacturing processes.
The introduction of BPMN to the manufacturing domain potentially allows all stakeholders to take advantage of the simplicity of this language in gaining full understandings for manufacturing processes through simple representations of the process models. Only limited work can be found addressing the use of BMPN in the modelling of manufacturing systems, and it is still not clear how powerful BPMN is in realizing performance improvements. This work proposes Manufacturing Process Model and Notation (MPMN) as an extension to BPMN; it offers a set of new and adapted notations that represent manufacturing processes. In order to add the ability to optimise or improve the system under study, MPMN is further extended and integrated with a full discrete-event simulation package to be able to easily build and simulate models of manufacturing systems.
MPMN simulator is created to be a generic and reusable tool. It has a drag and drop library for non- simulation experts, to model and simulate MPMN models in the ExtendSim environment. This integration is considered a substitution to BPSim, the Business Process Simulation Standard that integrates BPMN and Simulation to model and execute business processes. The MPMN simulator combines both, models that are understood by all stakeholders and a simulation tool that is expressive enough to handle the varying levels of complexity in the manufacturing domain. This will strengthen the analysis and the evaluation of the current and future status of a system under study. The effectiveness of the developed system is demonstrated by application to two case studies covering different industry sectors
Automation and robotic control of a multi-sensor medical device platform
No full textBiocompatibility testing is a complex and time-consuming process that can create significant delays when new medical devices and systems are brought to market. This thesis summarises work performed when automating a platform that incorporates new technologies to speed up the test protocol.As part of the H2020 project PANBioRa, several partners within the consortium have developed sensing technologies for cytotoxicity and cytokine analysis which are intended for inclusion in a multi-test platform. This platform is designed for use in the medical device industry and for use in hospitals, where tests on individuals will provide personal biocompatibility results. Dublin City University has been tasked with integrating the novel sensing methods to determine cell health and to design the system so that it is contained in a user-friendly bench-top unit.
The thesis is focused on the design of an autofocusing microscope that will be used to identify cells, test for confluency within cell chambers, and determine cell health throughout the testing process by implementing image processing algorithms. The microscope is designed to obtain approximately 10x magnification and to have a physical size that allows it to move and operate as an end effector of a robotic system, meaning it can navigate to various cell locations. The objective of this project was therefore to design, construction, and validation of a high precision multi-axis robot to control the position and focus of the microscope, while in addition meeting the cost and size demands of the project.
With the system being capable of moving the microscope assembly into various positions where cells were present, while with the desired level of accuracy. Continuing to autofocus on cells and collect Images of cells to a level where the desired characteristics could be determined
Ability Grouping and Children\u27s Psychosocial Wellbeing - A Matter of Children\u27s Rights?
No full textOpening Up Education: Options, Obstacles and Opportunities, Online Conference, 3-5 September 2020Pandemic presents opportunity to bring children’s rights to the heart of decision making when responding to this crisis. Revision of national curricula. Move beyond teaching about children’s rights to teaching how to enact these rights as citizens. Integration of a rights-based approach to the curriculum being taught and the methods being used to teach across the school day. Can we embed a pedagogy of child rights at the heart of teachers’ work in Irish classrooms
Can introducing a set of practice review documents into community nursing improve practice?
No full textThe desired outcome of this study was to develop and implement a set of practice review documents (the Tool)into community nursing with the intention of improving practice. The study explores the development of the documents in the Tool, their implementation and it then investigates if any changes occurred as a result of their implementation leading to an improvement in nursing practice.
The literature associated with the study involved an examination of the role of continuous professional development and career planning in maintaining best practice. In addition, the Magnet Hospitals and the Pathway to Excellence Programmes were examined and the role they play in producing gold standard practice and how they instil these values in staff. Key issues used to improve quality in nursing were also investigated; these included maintaining competence, best practice delivery, staff retention, succession planning and capacity building. Various management approaches used to improve the quality of nursing care delivery were also observed like effective leadership, empowerment of staff, reflective practice, mentorship, staff accountability and ongoing support. Finally, the literature focused on investigating the usefulness of potential key elements being introduced through the Tool in the research, in the hope of improving practice, like case review, early identification of clinical issues and speedy intervention all of which claim to assist with a quicker improvement and/or resolution of clinical issues, which enhance the prospects of better practice outcomes and assist staff feel supported.
An action research methodology was used in the research as it allowed for the development of knowledge together with the implementation of actions and it also supports the change process. Grahams et al (2006) model of action research was applied through four action research cycles: an exploratory phase; a consultation and development phase; a pilot phase and a re-development and roll-out phase. The research findings demonstrated that the documents were successful in improving practice and delivering safer healthcare while supporting staff. This in turn, leads to better staff retention and improved patient outcomes. Several recommendations were made, including the introduction of
the documents for future practice