NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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Latent Tensor Bayesian Models for Estimating Complex Interactions in Plant Variety Testing.
No full textThis thesis addresses the critical challenge of predicting crop yield. As the demand
for food surges due to population growth, accurate and efficient predictive models
become increasingly important. Leveraging a comprehensive database from
the Horizon 2020 InnoVar project, which includes variables across phenomics, genomics,
soil, and weather conditions, we aim to extend the existing Additive Main
Effects and Multiplicative Interaction (AMMI) modelling framework.
Our work is divided into three key contributions. First, we propose a computationally
efficient Bayesian AMMI model using variational inference, addressing the
high computational costs often associated with traditional Markov chain Monte
Carlo methods. Second, we introduce the Bayesian Additive Main effects and Multiplicative
Interaction Tensor (BAMMIT) model, which extends the AMMI model
to accommodate multiple categorical variables. Third, we present the Clustered
Bayesian Additive Main Effects and Multiplicative Interaction Tensor (CBAMMIT)
model, incorporating Gaussian Mixture Models to allow for the inclusion of
categorical representations of numerical variables.
Our findings show that these extensions not only improve predictive accuracy
but also offer probabilistic assessments of predictions. They have real-world applicability,
as demonstrated using data from Ireland, and can potentially guide
stakeholders in agriculture – from farmers to policymakers – in making informed
decisions
Exploration of physical activity knowledge, preferences and support needs among pulmonary hypertension patients
No full textObjective
Physical activity (PA) is an established adjunct therapy for pulmonary hypertension (PH) patients to mitigate PH symptoms and improve quality of life. However, PA engagement within this population remains low. This study investigated PH patients’ knowledge of PA, recalled advice, exercise preferences and PA support needs.
Methods
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 19 adults (mean age 50 years; SD ±12 years) diagnosed with PH, living in Ireland. Interview scripts were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.
Results
Four key themes were identified: Lack of PA knowledge; exercise setting preference; accountability and monitoring; and clinician delivered PA information and guidance.
Conclusion
This study found that PH clinicians provide suboptimal PA advice, yet patients desired clinician-delivered PA guidance. Home-based exercise was preferred with monitoring and external accountability deemed as important to facilitate sustained engagement.
Practice implications
PH clinicians are well positioned to play a critical role in assisting and empowering PH patients to engage in PA. Providing training and education to PH clinicians regarding exercise prescription may be beneficial. Further research is needed to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of home-based exercise interventions to improve quality of life and physical activity in PH
Multi-dimensional sensorimotor grounding of concrete and abstract categories
No full textSemantic categories, and the concepts belonging to them, have commonly been defined by their relative concreteness, that is, their reliance on perception. However, sensorimotor grounding must be regarded as going beyond the basic five senses and incorporate a multi-dimensional variety of perceptual and action experience. We present a series of exploratory analyses examining the sensorimotor grounding of participant-produced member concepts for 117 categories, spanning concrete (e.g. animal and furniture) and highly abstract (e.g. unit of time and science) categories. We found that both concrete and abstract categories are strongly grounded in multi-dimensional sensorimotor experience. Both domains were dominated by vision and, to a lesser extent, head movements, but concrete categories were more grounded in touch and hand–arm action, while abstract categories were more grounded in hearing and interoception. Importantly, this pattern of grounding was not uniform, and subdomains of concrete (e.g. ingestibles, animates, natural categories and artefacts) and abstract (e.g. internal, social and non-social) categories were grounded in different profiles of sensorimotor experience. Overall, these findings suggest that the distinction between abstract and concrete categories is not as clearcut as ontological assumptions might suggest, and that the strength and diversity of sensorimotor grounding in abstract categories must not be underestimated
Raising Expectations: Scrutinising Violence Against Women Policies using the WHO Respect Women Framework as a Measurement Tool.
No full textViolence Against Women is a human rights issue that impacts approximately 30% of women and girls worldwide (WHO, 2021). The increase of Violence Against Women cases and a disregard for relevant data have become a cause for concern for women, minority groups and the criminal justice community. This research examines the response to VAW and use of VAW policy through the questions “What measures have Ireland, Canada, and Australia taken to address and reduce Violence Against Women?” and “To what extent do Violence Against Women policies and measures in Ireland, Canada, and Australia meet the WHO Respect Women Framework’s criteria for success?”
Using documentary analysis, a comparative approach and secondary data, the study examines the measures Ireland, Canada, and Australia have taken to address and reduce Violence Against Women under their respective Violence Against Women policies. This research applies the WHO (2019) Respect Women Framework to Violence Against Women policies in Ireland, Canada, and Australia to understand the extent frameworks addressing Violence Against Women are adopted to policies.
The findings suggest that Ireland, Canada, and Australia have taken several measures to address and reduce Violence Against Women under their current Violence Against Women policies. However, due to Canada’s policy being implemented five years before Ireland and Australia, more measures were evident in Canada. The research found that according to the twenty-two recommendations to address and reduce Violence Against Women under the Respect Women Framework, Ireland met sixteen requirements, Australia met fifteen and Canada met ten. The study suggests that there are several discrepancies between measures taken to address Violence Against Women, Violence Against Women policies and the risk factors associated with Violence Against Women and makes several recommendations to bridge this gap
Unusual tellurium(iv) mediated cyclisation diols into dihydroxazoles with potential anticancer activity
No full textThe role of tellurium in medicinal chemistry has recently grown in importance due to the discovery of the anticancer properties of SAS and AS-101, two inorganic compounds based on Te(IV). Here we describe an unprecedented isolation of a series of tetramethyl-dihydroxazole tellurium hexachloride salts whose structure has been indentified and characterised with several techniques including X-ray crystallography. The novelty resides on the role of tellurium that mediate the cyclisation of 1,1,2,2-tetramethylethylene into duhydroxazole in the presence of nitriles. Reaction mechanism, physiological stability and preliminary cytotoxicity results are discussed
Pseudorandom: generative animation as performance in Emergent (2020–2022)
No full textThe body is the database of lived experience. Emergent was created
during COVID-19 from the desire to explore the extended
possibilities of digital performance beyond lens-based media. The
work includes generative animations and sound compositions
using data collected from a consumer fitness tracker worn since
the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. As a portrait of
experience through the data body (as both body of data and body
producing data), Emergent engages with the memories of the flesh,
becoming the impetus for aesthetic encounters through digital
performance. In this article about the work, Putnam describes how
it was produced, provides a detailed overview of the work and its
theoretical context, and discusses how it functions as a digital
performance between the artist and computer. The result is a work
where data visualisation and sonification generates ambiguity,
rather than clarity, introducing difference in how biometric sensing
devices are used and understood
Seán Ó Ríordáin: Na Dialanna 12, 1940; Ní insint dán ach bheith: Aistí ar Smaointeoireacht an Ríordánaigh
No full textCad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan chanóin? Tá cuma chlaonta sheanchaite anois ar an nós idirdhealú neamhleithscéalach a dhéanamh idir an bhó bheannaithe agus an bhó bhradach in éiceachóras na litríochta. Teastaíonn uainn a bheith ionchuimsitheach oscailte, agus is maith sin. Ach faoi mar a bhí riamh, tá scríbhneoirí agus Scríbhneoirí ann: scríbhneoirí, a shoilseoidh staidéar téamach ó am go chéile, agus Scríbhneoirí a spreagfaidh allagar, aistí agus tráchtais i gcónaí
The Bellews of Barmeath a Catholic Landed Family From Restoration to Emancipation, 1685-1829
No full textThe Bellews of Barmeath in County Louth number amongst the few landed Catholic families
who successfully navigated the penal era in Ireland during the long eighteenth century. They
also retain a remarkable family archive at Barmeath Castle. This archive provides the basis for
this study of how the penal laws impacted them and how they successfully navigated the
challenges.
The thesis examines the evolving use of strict settlement by Irish landed families in the
seventeenth century and builds on this foundation to examine the impact of the 1704 and 1709
Popery Acts on that usage. In doing so, it provides a much clearer understanding of the actual
legal impact of the Popery Acts on Catholic families in their use of strict settlement. The study
provides much detail of the Bellews’ experience in navigating the many challenges, including
the threat of Protestant discovery and a rare case of a younger son who forced his claim to
gavelkind. It also shows how they leveraged the various tools available to Catholics, such as
convert lawyers, collusive discovery and Protestant trustees.
The focus switches after 1760 to explore the Bellews’ involvement in the political campaigns
for Catholic relief and emancipation. By exploring the perspective of elite landed Catholic
families, a segment of the Catholic body often overlooked in the existing historiography of
these campaigns, the study adds nuance to understanding of the tensions and conflict within
the Irish Catholic population and also provides new details of some aspects of the campaigns.
Finally, the focus switches again to explore the Bellews’ educational, employment and travel
strategies in Britain and on the Continent. This demonstrates how such mobility provided
opportunity and reinforced their identity as members of an elite transnational class, which in
turn provided both practical and psychological support in facing the challenges at hom
Improving Spectral Efficiency, Reliability, and Latency in Optical Wireless Communications
No full textAs the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) IMT-2030 have just begun invitation to participate in the global study surrounding the use-cases for 6G, the technical Key Performance Indicator (KPIs) which translate from the potential use-cases
have not been explicitly reported. However, with the innately higher speeds, lower
latency and improved reliability planned for 6G cellular technology a variety of new
use-cases and applications will become possible, including sensitive time-critical environments such as Machine to Machine (M2M), Medical and Military. Supporting the advancements in technology surrounding human-centric, environmental-centric, machine-centric and sustainability-centric applications, 6G is the solution
for increased area traffic capacity, energy efficiency, network density, latency, mobility, spectral efficiency and data rates.
Light communications offer a range of innate advantages, including wide, and virtually unlimited, bandwidth and solid state hardware. As well as this, the plan for 6G
100GHz communications are generally Line Of Sight (LOS) which is ideal for Optical Wireless Communications (OWC). In contrast to traditional Radio Frequency
(RF) communication systems where complex envelopes mixed onto a carrier signal
for transmission are required, OWC systems use real signals which operate at base-band. As such, many works have been completed in developing signal standards
appropriate for light communications.
This thesis contributes to the advancement of such OWC signal standards with respect to spectral efficiency, channel estimation and equalization, Multiple In Multiple Out (MIMO) architectures and physical implementation. The novel developments listed are cultivated with the acknowledgement of pre-existing, as well as
complimentary traditional RF, technologies. The focal point of the work presented
here is the optimisation of techniques for signal transmission and real-time Field
Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) transceiver development. The first novel contribution is a technique to increase the spectral efficiency of OWC
signals. By taking advantage of an existing characteristic of most OWC signals, the
spectrum efficiency is increased by the removal of redundant information which
can be reconstructed in the Receiver (Rx) to obtain the original data set. By using
the novel processing algorithm cultivated from the innate Hermitian Symmetry behavioural characteristics within OFDM-based optical signals, the spectral efficiency
is doubled.
The second contribution is the development of a low-latency FPGA OWC transceiver.
As most OWC techniques are low-complexity, the resources available on-board can
be utilized carefully to achieve lower latency systems. This is a major requirement of
developing 5th Generation (5G) and 6th Generation (6G) technologies which include
the use-case of critical systems to their standards. Measured results consist of a sub-400ns Transmitter (Tx) and a sub-1ms Rx.
The next contribution is the optimization of a single iteration channel estimation and
equalization technique using the Zadoff-Chu sequence for OWC which has multipurpose potential. It is shown experimentally that this sequence can be used for
time synchronisation, physical encryption and channel distortion correction. This
technique exhibits performances similar to more complex estimation methods such
as Recursive Least Squares (RLS) and Least Mean Squares (LMS) which converge
after multiple loops.
The next contribution involves the minimisation of Digital Pre-Distortion (DPD)
computational demands in MIMO systems. Although linear Power Amplifiers (PAs)
are often used in optical front-ends, as research and the demands for distance increase, so will the output required from the PA modules such as within Millimeter
Wave (mmWave) RF chains. By scaling the signals to a reference point, only one DPD
path is required for a multi-path system, as opposed to an individual DPD block for
each path. This novel technique is experimentally validated on a 4-PA array with
DPD trained on a singular PA, minimising the ACPR to acceptable transmission levels within MIMO architecture.
The final contribution involves the minimisation of the effective constellation size of
a signal to increase the overall average power, leveraging the best dynamic ranges
for any given channel scenario
The “Mind Your Next Dance” (MYND) Programme: a mixed methods study of a mindfulness-based dance movement psychotherapy for people with mild to moderate dementia and their caregivers. Vol. 1
No full textBackground: The majority of people with dementia (PwD) experience behavioural and psychological
disturbances (BPDD) such as depression, agitation, apathy and aggression, which can be associated
with disease progression, hospitalisation, institutionalisation and increased morbidity, mortality, and
healthcare utilisation. Considering the substantial evidence on the risks, side effects, and long-term
inefficacy of psychotropic drugs for the treatment of BPDD, numerous guidelines recommend non�pharmacological strategies as the preferred first line treatment approach. The aim of this study was to
develop a multi-component non-pharmacological intervention (NPI) using mindfulness and dance
movement (psycho)therapy for PwD and their caregivers (“Mind Your Next Dance” [MYND] Programme)
and to prepare a protocol to assess its feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness.
Method: Informed by the UK’s Medical Research Council’s guidelines for developing complex
interventions, an exploratory multiphase sequential mixed methods design was employed. Three studies
were conducted, whereby qualitative data from in-depth individual interviews (n= 31) and a focus group
(n=10) informed a (mainly) quantitative Delphi survey (n=30). A critical realist, inductively driven approach
to reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data.
Results: Analysis of the qualitative interview data gave rise to four overarching themes: (1) key
therapeutic factors and intervention characteristics contributing to therapeutic change, (2) barriers to and
enablers of the adoption of NPIs, (3) lessons learned from practice and (4) a framework for understanding
integrative and holistic approaches to compassionate and person-centred dementia treatment and care.
Four overarching themes were identified in the focus group analysis: (1) the reconciliation of
pharmacological with non-pharmacological approaches for integrated dementia care, (2) the
(de)medicalization of psychological therapies, (3) therapeutic factors that can improve outcomes and
facilitate therapeutic change and (4) rebuilding more equal and accessible dementia care. Delphi findings
complemented and validated the findings from the interviews and focus group and facilitated formal
consensus on a range of statements regarding (1) the key determinants of effective therapeutic
processes, (2) factors that can improve implementation and (3) factors enabling effective holistic,
integrated and continuing dementia care.
Conclusions: The MYND programme can benefit PwD and their caregivers when implemented by
competent professionals, within a person-centred and human rights-based approach and when integrated
in health care plans/community mental health services. Psychotherapeutic and psychosocial
interventions can address complex and diverse dementia-related needs, including social and peer
support, assisting PwD and caregivers to maintain social engagement and improve BPDD, as well as
enhancing relationships, well-being and quality of life. These interventions should be personalised and
co-developed by PwD, caregivers and diverse cadres of clinicians and (psycho)therapists. They should
also be adaptable to different contexts (clinical and community settings, in-person, online, blended) and
changing capacities, embracing individuality, diversity and multiculturalism. They should comprise an
integral part of post diagnostic dementia support and should be widely available and communicated and easily accessible. It is crucial for such interventions to be offered at low/no cost, sustained over time, and
supported by policies, clinical practice guidelines and governmental funding