NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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Exposure to the Pseudomonas aeruginosa secretome alters the proteome and secondary metabolite production of Aspergillus fumigatus
No full textThe fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus is frequently cultured from the sputum of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients along with the
bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. A. fumigatus secretes a range of secondary metabolites, and one of these, gliotoxin, has
inhibitory effects on the host immune response. The effect of P. aeruginosa culture filtrate (CuF) on fungal growth and gliotoxin
production was investigated. Exposure of A. fumigatus hyphae to P. aeruginosa cells induced increased production of gliotoxin
and a decrease in fungal growth. In contrast, exposure of A. fumigatus hyphae to P. aeruginosa CuF led to increased growth and
decreased gliotoxin production. Quantitative proteomic analysis was used to characterize the proteomic response of A. fumigatus upon exposure to P. aeruginosa CuF. Changes in the profile of proteins involved in secondary metabolite biosynthesis (e.g.
gliotoxin, fumagillin, pseurotin A), and changes to the abundance of proteins involved in oxidative stress (e.g. formate dehydrogenase) and detoxification (e.g. thioredoxin reductase) were observed, indicating that the bacterial secretome had a profound
effect on the fungal proteome. Alterations in the abundance of proteins involved in detoxification and oxidative stress highlight
the ability of A. fumigatus to differentially regulate protein synthesis in response to environmental stresses imposed by competitors such as P. aeruginosa. Such responses may ultimately have serious detrimental effects on the host
Review: Filippo Motta, Studi celtici. A cura di Andrea Nuti, Pisa: Pisa University Press 2020
No full textThis volume is a collection of articles by Filippo Motta, professore di glottologia
e filologia celtica at the Università di Pisa, on the occasion of his retirement.
It assembles twenty-one articles from almost forty years of research. It is
a fundamental issue of honouring collections like this one that much of the
contents may have been overtaken by new insights in the meantime. The earliest
contributions in this volume appeared more than forty years ago, and most are at
least twenty years old. This is at least one academic generation. Even in a small,
seemingly slow-moving discipline such as Celtic Studies, important progress
comes now at the pace of a couple of years, if not months. There is no longer the
comfort of relying on data and its analysis of decades or generations ago. For
that reason, it is often the methodology demonstrated in the contributions in this
volume that is the lasting contribution, while conclusions and results themselves
may have been superseded by newer ones
Indigenous Expertise as Cultural Expertise in the World Heritage Protective Framework
No full textThis paper focuses on the engagement of Indigenous peoples with the international legal framework which seeks to protect world heritage. Significant concerns have been raised as to the role which Indigenous expertise can play in this framework.
There have been numerous criticisms regarding the Eurocentric nature of the framework, and concerns over its the decision-making processes, e.g. in respect of inscription of sites on the World Heritage List. All 3 of the UN mechanisms specific to Indigenous peoples (UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) have called on the World Heritage Committee, UNESCO and heritage advisory bodies to take remedial measures and to expand the role of Indigenous peoples in the protective framework. There have also been recommendations made as to how the World Heritage Committee, UNESCO and States can align the implementation of the World Heritage Convention with the principles and requirements of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. As part of the move to be more inclusive of Indigenous voices, an Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on World Heritage was established in 2017, however an Indigenous expertise deficit still remains within the world heritage framework. As cultural expertise is necessary to appreciate the context and background of cultural sites, and their status as ‘culture’, deserving of recognition under the world heritage framework, this paper addresses the role of Indigenous expertise as cultural expertise in the world heritage framework and underlines why Indigenous expertise is necessary in order to ensure that the framework is representative and valid
ICD‐11 ‘mixed depressive and anxiety disorder’ is clinical rather than sub‐clinical and more common than anxiety and depression in the general population
No full textBackground. The new International Classification of Diseases was published in 2018(ICD-11; World Health Organization, 2018) and now includes ‘Mixed depressive and anxiety disorder’ (6A73: MDAD) designated as a mood disorder. This disorder is defined by symptoms of both anxiety and depression occurring more days than not, for a period of two weeks, and neither set of symptoms considered separately reaches a diagnostic threshold for either disorder. However, to date no study has examined the validity of these guidelines in a general population sample. Methods. Using Goldberg et al.’s (2017) guidelines regarding measurement of depression and anxiety, this study used factor mixture modelling (FMM) to examine the validity of the ICD-11 criteria of MDAD. Symptom endorsement rates are provided as well as demographic predictors and somatization outcomes. Results. Fit indices suggested the two-factor four-class solution was the best balance between model complexity and model fit. The results did not support a class that is subsyndromal to both anxiety and depression. On the contrary, we suggest that there exists a ‘Comorbid’ class that represents endorsement of both anxiety and depression symptoms at a higher level when compared to both ‘anxiety’ and ‘depression’ groups. Demographic predictors, as well as somatization and functional impairment outcomes, provided support for this FMM solution. Conclusions. The ‘Comorbid’ group was the largest symptomatic group and had the highest levels of both anxiety and depression symptoms. Importantly, this group was larger than either the ‘anxiety’ or ‘depression’ group and was associated with high levels of functional impairment and somatizatio
Mind the gap: Intended versus perceived human resource practices and knowledge sharing of line managers and employees
No full textUnderstanding how human resource (HR) management can stimulate knowledgesharing among employees has received considerable attention recently. However,the extant research has focused predominantly on which HR practices are usedand has paid little attention to how they are implemented. Building on both per-spectives, we explore the nature of the gaps between intended and perceived HRpractices and the effects of these gaps on knowledge-sharing behaviours. Based ona survey of 198 respondents from a high-tech company, we found that the gapsbetween intended and perceived HR practices (a) can be multidirectional, that is,both underestimation and overestimation of HR practices exist; (b) differ in theirmagnitude between line managers and employees; and (c) have varied effects onknowledge-sharing behaviours—they can be positive, negative or have no impact,and these effects differ between line managers and employees. We discuss a rangeof conceptual, methodological and practice implications of these findings
Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy and resistance amongst parents of children under 18 years of age in Ireland
No full textAs COVID-19 vaccination for children becomes commonplace in Ireland, it is important to understand parent's willingness to vaccinate their children and factors associated with hesitancy and resistance. Amongst a nationally representative sample of parents from Ireland, surveyed in March/April 2021, 52.1% had, or were intending to have their child vaccinated; 30.1% reported they might vaccine their child; and 17.8% reported they would not vaccinate their child. Compared to vaccine-accepting parents, hesitant parents were more likely to be younger, less educated, poorer, to not know somebody who was sick from COVID-19, to believe the COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe, and to hold negative beliefs about scientists and healthcare professionals. Vaccine-resistant parents were more likely to be younger, living alone, to distrust scientists, and to believe the COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe. Public health messaging should target younger, lower income parents with clear information about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines for children
Validation of the International Trauma Questionnaire—Child and Adolescent Version (ITQ-CA) in a Chinese mental health service seeking adolescent sample
No full textBackground: The International Trauma Questionnaire-Child and Adolescent version (ITQ-CA) is a self-report measure that assesses posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD (CPTSD) based on the diagnostic formulation of the 11th version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). This study aimed to provide a Chinese translation and psychometric evaluation of the ITQ-CA using a sample of mental-health service seeking adolescents in Mainland China.
Methods: The ITQ-CA was translated and back-translated from English to simplified Chinese and finalized with consensus from an expert panel. Adolescents ages 12-17 were recruited via convenience sampling from an outpatient psychiatric clinic in Mainland China. Participants completed the ITQ-CA; measures of four criterion variables (depression, anxiety, stress, adverse childhood experiences); and the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5). Construct validity, concurrent validity, and comparison of PTSD caseness between ICD-11 and DSM-5 measures were assessed.
Results: The final sample consisted of 111 Chinese adolescents (78% female; mean age of 15.23), all diagnosed with a major depressive disorder. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated the two-factor second-order model provided optimal fit. All criterion variables were positively and significant correlated with the six ITQ-CA symptom cluster summed scores. In the present sample, 69 participants (62.16%) met symptom criteria for ICD-PTSD or CPTSD using the ITQ-CA, and 73 participants (65.77%) met caseness for DSM-5 PTSD using the PCL-5. Rates of PTSD symptom cluster endorsement and caseness deriving from both diagnostic systems were comparable.
Conclusions: The Chinese ITQ-CA has acceptable psychometric properties and confers additional benefits in identifying complex presentations of trauma-related responses in younger people seeking mental health services
Grandparenting as the resolution of kinship as experience
No full textThis article argues that a population of relatively affluent retired people in a small Irish town have
employed the possibilities of grandparenting to resolve many of the tensions of contemporary kinship.
This includes the tension between the obligations of prescriptive relationships as against the
voluntarism of friendship. This is considered against a background shift in kinship studies towards a
distinction between kinship as a category and kinship as experience. Kinship as experience often now
comprises a series of deep fluctuations during the life course. Experience is also extended by the
growth in life expectancy. This makes it still more important that the legacy of an individual’s prior
experiences of kinship may be partially resolved through the experience of grandparenting. The
profound consequences of grandparenting lie not in the relationship to the grandchildren but in the
possibilities that grandparenting offers to recalibrate all other kinship relations. These include the
relationship with one’s own children, the relationship with partners, the legacy of one’s prior
experience of being a parent, and even the memory of the way one was parented when a child
Effective computational discretization scheme for nonlinear dynamical systems
No full textNumerical methods are essential to investigate and apply nonlinear continuous-time dynamical systems in many fields of science and engineering and discretization schemes are required to obtain the solutions of such dynamical systems. Although computing power has been speedily growing in recent decades, embedded and large-scale problems have motivated significant research to improve the computational efficiency. Nevertheless, few studies have focused on finite precision limitation on discretization schemes due to round-off effects in floating-point number representation. In this paper, a computational effective discretization scheme for nonlinear dynamical systems is introduced. By means of a theorem, it is shown that high-order terms in the Runge-Kutta method can be neglected with no accuracy loss. The proposed approach is illustrated using three well-known systems, namely the Rössler systems, the Lorenz equations and the Sprott B system. The number of mathematical operations and simulation time have reduced up to 81.1% and 90.7%, respectively. Furthermore, as the step-size decreases, the number of neglected terms increases due to the precision of the computer. Yet, accuracy, observability of dynamical systems and the largest Lyapunov are preserved. The adapted scheme is effective, reliable and suitable for embedded and large-scale applications
An Irish perspective on initial teacher education: How teacher educators can respond to an awareness of the ‘absurd’
No full textInternationally, initial teacher education has experienced shifts towards competence and school-based programmatic reforms. As a result, literature on the role of teacher educators operating within the academy suggests a sense of doom as market-based and political distrust of the academy grows. For now, initial teacher education in Ireland is largely housed within the academy. However, several governing policies have recently been published which subtly seek to marginalise the role and practices of teacher educators. Drawing on Camus’ understanding of the absurd as emerging from the interaction between the longing of human beings for clarity and the universe’s indifferent and silent reply, this paper sets out to investigate possible methods that teacher educators may select in responding to an awareness of the absurd