NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
Not a member yet
18159 research outputs found
Sort by
There are so many moving parts. Epistemologies in physiotherapy: An exploration of disconnection.
No full textThis thesis explores epistemologies in the author’s own academic and clinical practice as a
physiotherapist, examining knowledges that are privileged and emulated, and in active use by
practitioners. The approach taken examines a personal disconnect between the
epistemologies of disciplinary research used to generate evidence for practice and
epistemologies used in practice. In addition, this thesis explores physiotherapy practitioner
knowledge that does not appear in research outputs.
Physiotherapy as a profession, its identity and its knowledge sources were examined.
This was completed with a historical review of physiotherapy in Ireland and borrows from
Foucault’s concepts of archaeology of knowledge and discipline, and with an examination of
musculoskeletal original research published in two disciplinary journals. A qualitative
approach was taken to explore epistemologies in practice. Twelve physiotherapists in private
practice in Ireland participated in semi-structured interviews, which are analyzed and
discussed using insight from Deleuzian concepts of the rhizome, common-sense, multiplicity
and difference. The research creates a framing for how the author may understand their
experienced disconnect between the epistemology of practice and the epistemology of
evidence-based practice.
The findings of this research suggest that the processes of professionalization and an
identity aligned with medico-scientific epistemologies lead much musculoskeletal
physiotherapy disciplinary research to focus on methods that contribute to the legitimization
and emulation of evidence-based practice. This research also finds that despite not seeing it in
research outputs, tacit craft knowledge is strongly utilized by practitioners and is
acknowledged and valued by them in their work. The physiotherapist practitioner respects
and sees value in evidence-based practice, but they do not embody the disconnection, instead
navigating through their practice drawing from multiple epistemologies.
This research provides an illumination of physiotherapy private practice in an Irish context. It
examines knowledge sources in use by clinical practitioners and finds that craft aspects of
practice are fully appreciated, though not easily articulated, and are felt to be beyond research
in the format these physiotherapists are most familiar with
When places change: Impacts of undesirable environmental change on coastal community’s well-being and adaptive capacity
No full textSolastalgia describes distress, grief, powerlessness and inability to achieve solace in one’s
home following disruptive environmental change or place loss. With climate change
likely to increase sea level rise and intensify winter storms, coastal communities are
particularly vulnerable to impacts of disruptive environmental change. Moreover,
transformative adaptation responses to climate change impacts are likely to be
increasingly implemented as adaptation becomes more urgent. Therefore, understanding
solastalgia will be critical for adaptation planning and building adaptive capacity of
coastal communities. This thesis aims to address knowledge gaps related to lived
experiences of solastalgia and disruption of place attachment as a result of chronic and
undesirable environmental change and loss of place. Specifically this thesis examines i)
the extent of solastalgia and place disruption experienced by the communities of
Courtown harbour and Riverchapel and how these experiences influence future
perceptions of place; ii) how solastalgia, place attachment and place disruption influence
community and individual ability to cope with environmental change and loss of place;
iii) how lived experiences of place have been altered by negative environmental change
and loss of place; iv) how communities of Courtown and Riverchapel are reimagining
place, and; iv) how attitudes towards governance and decision-making processes relate to
solastalgia and place attachment.
Employing a mixed methodology of quantitative and qualitative approaches this thesis
finds that a large proportion of residents in Courtown and Riverchapel Co, Wexford
experience solastalgia and place disruption as a result of undesirable place change,
showing that slow and chronic environmental change can cause solastalgia within an Irish
context. Solastalgia is strongly and positively correlated to place attachment and
pessimistic outlooks for the future, it also relates to negative perceptions of place and
place disruption. In some cases, undesirable place change has undermined place
attachment giving rise to a desire to relocate. However, in many cases, despite
experiences of solastalgia people maintain hope for the future. Place is being reimagined
by local residents by shifting place attachment to unchanged locations, increasing
community cohesiveness, and engaging in climate change programmes. Despite such
positive action, solastalgia is related to negative attitudes and perceptions of governance
leading to lack of trust and higher resistance to policies and local developments. Weak
consultation and inclusion in decision-making as well as a perceived indifference of
governance towards undesirable place change has reduced trust and amplified feelings
associated with solastalgia. However, despite experiences of solastalgia and lack of trust
in governance, residents believe there are opportunities for re-imaging the future if their
voice is meaningfully incorporated in decision-making.
Findings of this thesis provide valuable insights for climate related adaptation strategies
concerning the influence that loss of place, solastalgia and governance has on community
adaptive capacity. Firstly, solastalgia is experienced by a coastal community in the
southeast of Ireland reflecting the lived experiences of millions world-wide who are
struggling to cope with coastal erosion. Disruptive place change as a result of climate
change and transformative adaptation responses are likely to intensify solastalgia.
Therefore, adaptation planning must consider the emotional and psychological impacts
of perceived undesirable place change. Secondly, adaptation actions and local authority
policy that fail to consider place-based values and meanings can cause disruption,
intensifying feelings of loss. Therefore, adaptation planning must consider factors that
compound feelings of loss for communities. Finally, collective action, increased
consultation and inclusion in local decision-making can help residents come to terms with
solastalgia and reduce resistance to adaptation actions. Therefore, decision-makers need
to create opportunities that include local voices and co-produce knowledge and local
decisions. This research explores the anatomy of place change, highlighting many
compounding and interconnecting factors leading to feelings of place loss, thereby
increasing understanding of the lived experiences of solastalgia from chronic and
disruptive environmental change. These insights will be critical for helping decision-
makers and coastal communities navigate climate change. If these issues are not
addressed, it is very likely that solastalgia will become a more dominant aspect of lived
experiences of place for millions world-wide as climate change and adaptation actions
intensify disruptive environmental change
Historical Droughts in Irish Catchments: Flow Reconstructions, Drought Characteristics and Impact Analysis
No full textLong-term hydrometric records are required to identify and categorise drought events, their
characteristics and impacts. In Ireland, a lack of long-term flow data combined with the
paucity of extreme droughts in recent decades has impeded understanding of drought and
its impacts. To address this, 250 years of monthly flow reconstructions were generated for
51 river catchments across the island of Ireland for the 1766-2016 period, by employing
gridded precipitation and temperature data and an ensemble of hydrological models.
Catchment-based standardised precipitation and streamflow indices (SPI; SSI) were derived
from reconstructions and analysed to identify the most extreme drought events, spatial and
temporal differences in drought characteristics (severity, duration, accumulated and mean
deficits) and drought propagation dynamics. Subsequently, a novel database of land-based
and hydrological-based drought impact articles (1900-2016) was linked to the derived
indices using logistic regression models, finding distinctive regional drought impact
likelihoods. Overall results show that Ireland is prone to drought, confirming that recent
decades, in which positive North Atlantic Oscillation conditions and related wetter weather
have been more prevalent, are unrepresentative of the long-term record. Three regionally
distinct catchment groupings were identified with hydrological drought more frequent in
the wetter northwest as opposed to the drier east/southeast, a consequence of the flashier
features of catchments in that region. Once established however, drought in the south-east
tends to last longer and results in greater accumulated deficits due to the larger areas and
greater groundwater storage of catchments in the region. Southwestern catchments
showed characteristics intermediate of the other two regions. The most extreme island-wide droughts occurred in 1803-1806, 1854-1859, 1933-1935, 1944-1945, 1953-1954 and
1975-1977. Trend assessment found a tendency towards shorter more intense droughts
over time. Finally, linking drought impacts (via newspaper articles) and indices found that
SPI-3 and SSI-2 perform best for drought impact analyses and that northwestern catchments
are more vulnerable to drought impacts, particularly hydrological-based impacts, with
increases in the likelihood of reported impacts having occurred in the region post-1961, in
contrast to reductions elsewhere. The study findings considerably advance understanding
of drought, its dynamics and impacts at the catchment level in Ireland and, together with
the flow reconstructions, will be of interest to hydrologists and water managers in Ireland
and further afield
Barriers and Facilitators to Cultural Participation by People with Disabilities: A Narrative Literature Review
No full textArticle 30 of the UN Convention on the rights of Persons with Disabilities obliges States
Parties to ensure accessibility of cultural goods, services and heritage and to adopt
measures enabling persons with disabilities to utilize their artistic potential. However,
people with disabilities experience barriers to engagement in cultural life as audiences
and as creators. This article presents a narrative literature review that classifies
barriers and facilitators to cultural participation identified in previous studies. It does
so under five headings: (1) lack of effective/adequate legislation, policies and legal
standards; (2) lack of funding and/or of adequate services; (3) negative attitudes; (4)
lack of accessibility; (5) lack of consultation with, and involvement of, persons with
disabilities in cultural organisations. This provides a novel contribution to the state
of art by synthesising findings from different yet related fields. It forms the basis for
future multi-method research addressing barriers to participation in culture
Growth and retreat of the last British–Irish Ice Sheet, 31 000 to 15 000 years ago: the BRITICE‐CHRONO reconstruction
No full textThe BRITICE-CHRONO consortium of researchers undertook a dating programme to constrain the timing of
advance, maximum extent and retreat of the British–Irish Ice Sheet between 31 000 and 15 000 years before present.
The dating campaign across Ireland and Britain and their continental shelves, and across the North Sea included
1500 days of field investigation yielding 18 000 km of marine geophysical data, 377 cores of sea floor sediments, and
geomorphological and stratigraphical information at 121 sites on land; generating 690 new geochronometric ages.
These findings are reported in 28 publications including synthesis into eight transect reconstructions. Here we build ice
sheet-wide reconstructions consistent with these findings and using retreat patterns and dates for the inter-transect
areas. Two reconstructions are presented, a wholly empirical version and a version that combines modelling with the
new empirical evidence. Palaeoglaciological maps of ice extent, thickness, velocity, and flow geometry at thousand-
year timesteps are presented. The maximum ice volume of 1.8 m sea level equivalent occurred at 23 ka. A larger extent
than previously defined is found and widespread advance of ice to the continental shelf break is confirmed during the
last glacial. Asynchrony occurred in the timing of maximum extent and onset of retreat, ranging from 30 to 22 ka. The
tipping point of deglaciation at 22 ka was triggered by ice stream retreat and saddle collapses. Analysis of retreat rates
leads us to accept our hypothesis that the marine-influenced sectors collapsed rapidly. First order controls on ice-sheet
demise were glacio-isostatic loading triggering retreat of marine sectors, aided by glaciological instabilities and then
climate warming finished off the smaller, terrestrial ice sheet. Overprinted on this signal were second order controls
arising from variations in trough topographies and with sector-scale ice geometric readjustments arising from
dispositions in the geography of the landscape. These second order controls produced a stepped deglaciation. The
retreat of the British–Irish Ice Sheet is now the world’s most well-constrained and avaluable data-rich environment for
improving ice-sheet modelling
Design, content, and fieldwork procedures of the COVID‐19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study – Wave 4
No full textObjectives This paper outlines fieldwork procedures for Wave 4 of the COVID‐19 Psychological Research Consortium (C19PRC) Study in the UK during November–December 2020. Methods Respondents provided data on socio‐political attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours, and mental health disorders (anxiety, depression, and posttraumatic stress). In Phase 1, adults (N = 2878) were reinvited to participate. At Phase 2, new recruitment: (i) replenished the longitudinal strand to account for attrition; and (ii) oversampled from the devolved UK nations to facilitate robust between‐country analyses for core study outcomes. Weights were calculated using a survey raking algorithm to ensure the longitudinal panel was representative of the baseline sample characteristics. Results In Phase 1, 1796 adults were successfully recontacted and provided full interviews at Wave 4 (62.4% retention rate). In Phase 2, 292 new respondents were recruited to replenish the panel, as well as 1779 adults from Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, who were representative of the socio‐political composition of the adult populations in these nations. The raking procedure successfully re‐balanced the longitudinal panel to within 1% of population estimates for selected socio‐demographic characteristics. Conclusion The C19PRC Study offers a unique opportunity to facilitate and stimulate interdisciplinary research addressing important public health questions relating to the COVID‐19 pandemic
Quantum Multi-factor Authentication
No full textWe present a quantum multi-factor authentication mechanism based on the hidden-matching quantum communication complexity problem. It offers step-up graded authentication for users via a quantum token. In this paper, we outline the protocol, demonstrate that it can be used in a largely classical setting, explain how it can be implemented in SASL, and discuss arising security features. We also offer a comparison between our mechanism and current state-of-the-art multi-factor authentication mechanisms
Individuals with obesity who survive SARS‐CoV‐2 infection have preserved antigen‐specific T cell frequencies
No full textObjective: Obesity is a major risk factor for severe disease in COVID-19, with
increased hospitalization, intensive care unit admission, and mortality. This increased
impact of COVID-19 in people with obesity (PWO) is likely driven, in part, by the
well-described obesity-induced immune dysregulation. Obesity has also been associated with impaired immune memory in many settings, including weakened responses
to hepatitis B, tetanus, rabies, and influenza vaccination. Recently, it was reported
that PWO who have COVID-19 have reduced IgG antibody titers with defective neutralizing capabilities. However, it remains unknown whether PWO generate durable
T cell immunity to SARS-CoV-2.
Methods: This study investigated SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses in a cohort
of 40 patients (n = 20 PWO and n = 20 matched control individuals) who had recovered from COVID-19. T cell (CD4+, CD8+) cytokine responses (IFNγ, TNFα) to
SARS-CoV-2 peptide pools (spike, membrane) were determined using multicolor flow
cytometry.
Results: Circulating T cells specific for SARS-CoV-2 were readily detected in the total
cohort. PWO displayed comparable levels of SARS-CoV-2 spike- and membrane-specific T cells, with both T cell subsets responding.
Conclusions: These data indicate that PWO who survive COVID-19 generate robust
and durable SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity that is equivalent to that seen in
those without obesity
Microfoundations of Strategic Agility in Emerging Markets: Empirical Evidence of Italian MNEs in India
No full textWe propose the individual-level microfoundations of subsidiary CEOs in emerging markets as antecedents of the strategic agility of multinational enterprises, and subsidiary embeddedness as a key organizational-level moderator of these relationships. Combining quantitative data on subsidiary CEOs operating in India with qualitative interviews with Italian HQ counterparts, our results suggest that subsidiary CEOs’ tenure in emerging markets, along with their overall experience, affects MNE strategic agility positively. Similarly, CEOs’ cognitive characteristics - problem solving and reasoning, and language and communication skills (individual-level microfoundations) - affected strategic agility positively, while subsidiary embeddedness moderated these relationships in different ways, leaving space for fresh managerial and theoretical considerations
Assessing homogeneity of land surface air temperature observations using sparse‐input reanalyses
No full textState-of-the-art homogenisation approaches for any test site rely upon the avail-ability of a sufficient number of neighbouring sites with similar climatic condi-tions and a sufficient quantity of overlapping measurements. These conditionsare not always met, particularly in poorly sampled regions and epochs. Modernsparse-input reanalysis products which are constrained by observed sea surfacetemperatures, sea-ice and surface pressure observations, continue to improve,offering independently produced surface temperature estimates back to the early19th century. This study undertakes an exploratory analysis on the applicabilityof sparse-input reanalysis to identify breakpoints in available basic station data.Adjustments are then applied using a variety of reanalysis and neighbour-basedapproaches to produce four distinct estimates. The methodological indepen-dence of the approach may offer valuable insights into historical data qualityissues. The resulting estimates are compared to Global Historical ClimatologyNetwork version 4 (GHCNMv4) at various aggregations. Comparisons are alsomade with five existing global land surface monthly time series. We find a lowerrate of long-term warming which principally arises in differences in estimatedbehaviour prior to the early 20th century. Differences depend upon the exactpair of estimates, varying between 15 and 40% for changes from 1850–1900 to2005–2014. Differences are much smaller for metrics starting after 1900 and neg-ligible after 1950. Initial efforts at quantifying parametric uncertainty suggestthis would be substantial and may lead to overlap between these new estimatesand existing estimates. Further work would be required to use these data prod-ucts in an operational context. This would include better understanding the rea-sons for apparent early period divergence including the impact of spatialinfilling choices, quantification of parametric uncertainty, and a means toupdate the product post-2015 when the NOAA-CIRES-DOE 20CRv3 sparseinput reanalysis product, upon which they are based, presently ceases