NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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Book review: Transnational Narratives and Regulation of GMO Risks
No full textThe abstract is included in the text
Purpose definition as a crucial step for determining the legal basis under the GDPR: implications for scientific research
No full textThe General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union, which became applicable in 2018, contains a new accountability principle. Under this principle, controllers (ie parties determining the purposes and the means of the processing of personal data) are responsible for ensuring and demonstrating the overall compliance with the GDPR. However, interpretive uncertainties of the GDPR mean that controllers must exercise considerable judgement in designing and implementing an appropriate compliance strategy, making GDPR compliance both complex and resource-intensive. In this article, we provide conceptual clarity around GDPR compliance with respect to one core aspect of the law: the determination and relevance of the purpose of personal data processing. We derive from the GDPR’s text concrete requirements for purpose specification, which we subsequently apply to the area of secondary use of personal data for scientific research. We offer guidance for correctly specifying purposes of data processing under different research scenarios. To illustrate the practical necessity of purpose specification for GDPR compliance, we then show how our proposed approach can enable controllers to meet their compliance obligations, using the example of the overarching GDPR principle of lawfulness to highlight the relevance of purpose specification for the identification of a suitable legal basis
Evaluation of Machine Learning Approaches for Precision Farming in Smart Agriculture System: A Comprehensive Review
No full textIn the era of digital data proliferation, agriculture stands on the cusp of a transformative
revolution driven by Machine Learning (ML). This study delves into the intricate interplay between
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and conventional agriculture, emphasizing the role
of ML in reshaping farming practices. With the ongoing data tsunami impacting data-driven businesses,
the fusion of smart farming and precision agriculture emerges as a beacon of innovation. ML algorithms,
analyzing historical and real-time environmental data, soil conditioning, predicts suitable crop for maximum
yields, detect diseases, and optimize irrigation in smart farming, facilitating informed decision-making.
Precision agriculture benefits from autonomous vehicles and drones, driven by ML, ensuring precision
in planting, harvesting, and crop monitoring. Resource efficiency increases as ML optimizes energy
consumption, manages fertilizer application, and promotes climate-resilient practices. This comprehensive
assessment underscores ML’s pivotal role in maximizing productivity, minimizing environmental impact,
and navigating the complexities of modern agriculture
Res et Sacramentum: An Ontological Understanding of the Sign and Reality in Sacraments and Its Relevance
No full textThis research is based on identifying the structure of the sacramental economy as
communicative. God communicates and the believer responds, with a response which
involves a personal effort and a free will. This response, in turn, becomes the basis of the
communicative process involved in a sacrament. Yet, in order to enter into this dialogue,
one certainly needs to know the language of the sacrament, a language which goes
beyond the verbal to involve signs and symbols, along with verbal expressions or the
Word of Faith, as well as bodily language or the gestures. These sacramental rituals or
celebrations are actions which are transformed into symbolic actions. The Catechism of
the Catholic Church teaches that these symbolic actions are already a language which is
accompanied by the Word of God and the response of faith in order to give life to the
faithful.
Therefore, this research is in relation to the communicative dimension of the sacraments
that produce fruits or brings in the ultimate reality, the grace in a believer’s life. This
thesis, by revisiting the history of sacramental theology, seeks a new perspective on the
fruitfulness of the sacraments. This is done by exploring the communicative aspects of the
three dimensions of the sacraments as conceived by the medieval sacramental theology:
i) the sacramentum tantum: the ritual, ii) the res et sacramentum: The first effect of the
sacrament, which is both sign and reality and iii) the res tantum: the grace or the ultimate
reality conferred by the sacrament.
The three aspects of the sacraments do have a major role in establishing a communication
between the individual participating in the sacrament and the Creator. Thus, a greater
exploration of these aspects is imperative to understand the efficacy of the sacraments and
experiencing their fruits in one’s life. This thesis aims to establish how this dynamics
function and develop in the sacramental world, especially examining from an historical
and theological point of view the role of the middle aspect, res et sacramentum and the
dialogical reality it forms bringing in the fruitfulness of the sacrament
Evaluation of the efficacy of fungicide and biocontrol treatments for the control of disease on Agaricus bisporus mushroom crops
No full textDisease control within the mushroom industry has become a significant challenge.
Diseases of Agaricus bisporus were once controlled with the use of preventative chemical fungicides. However, the number of approved fungicides has significantly
reduced. There is an urgent need to find viable alternative treatments, which is the primary aim of this thesis. Two biocontrol strains (Bacillus velezensis QST 713 & Kos)
were investigated for their ability to control cobweb disease (Cladobotryum spp.) and
dry bubble disease (Lecanicillium fungicola), two major pathogens of cultivated
mushrooms.
B. velezensis Kos was able to significantly reduce the growth of Cladobotryum and L.
fungicola in liquid/plate cultures and resulted in structural damage to fungal hyphae.
Lytic enzymes such as subtilisin were identified within the inhibitory component of
the B. velezensis culture filtrate (CF). The CF also triggered changes to protein
abundance from both pathogens. Proteins associated with stress were increased in
abundance compared to the control, while proteins associated with growth were decreased. Similar in vitro responses were recorded for the L. fungicola pathogen in
response to B. velezensis QST 713. Biocontrol strains were investigated at a crop level and their efficacy was compared to conventional fungicide treatments. A C.
mycophilum isolate highly tolerant to metrafenone, was identified. Metrafenone was shown to be capable of controlling dry bubble disease but not cobweb disease caused
by tolerant isolates. Biocontrol treatments based on B. velezensis were shown to
significantly control dry bubble disease when disease pressure was low to moderate.
However, biocontrol treatments struggled to control both dry bubble and cobweb
disease under extreme disease levels. It was determined that the application of
biocontrol treatments did not significantly impact casing microbiome dynamics. The lack of persistence of biocontrol strains within the A. bisporus casing may explain the reduced antagonistic abilities of both strains at a crop level. Other integrated pest management strategies such as salting, and disease monitoring were shown to be effective at limiting disease symptoms.
Results suggest that biocontrol agents can form part of the future mushroom disease control strategies in combination with increased hygiene and integrated pest management strategies
Decolonising Medieval Irish Studies
No full textThis short article reviews some of the colonial underpinnings of the field of Medieval Irish Studies (a subdiscipline of Celtic Studies), using the career of Whitley Stokes (1830–1909) as a case study in the entanglements between British colonial activity in India and the development of philological research on medieval Irish literature in the 19th century. It then proceeds to use autoethnographic reflections from graduate students in the field of Medieval Irish Studies whose backgrounds locate them at various intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. These reflections offer constructive pathways toward working to decolonise the discipline
“My Work Is to Show That It’s So Much More Beautiful When You Can Mix”: An Interview With Kim Thúy
No full textKim Thúy Ly Thanh, who publishes under the pen name Kim Thúy, was born in Saigon, Vietnam, in 1968. In 1978, when she was ten years old, Thúy and her family fled their home country by sea as part of the mass emigration of people seeking to escape the repressive communist regime and harsh economic conditions in Vietnam after the end of the war. These refugees, who were collectively referred to as “boat people” due to the many small, overcrowded boats they used to escape Vietnam, often faced perilous conditions on the sea; those who survived the risky journey were initially accommodated in refugee camps in Southeast Asia before being resettled in countries such as the US, Australia, France, Germany, and the UK.1 Thúy and her family made it to Malaysia, where they spent a few months living in a small refugee camp in Kuantan; they were subsequently offered political asylum in Canada and settled in French-speaking Québec in early 1979. In this interview, Thúy describes the warmth and affection with which she and her family were welcomed in Canada, which marked a sharp contrast to the emotional restraint she was used to within Vietnamese culture. She also outlines the challenges her parents faced in integrating into Canadian society and culture, which was so different from everything they knew. By contrast, Thúy quickly immersed herself in the culture of her new home, learning French and pursuing an education. She studied at the University of Montréal, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in Translation in 1990 and subsequently with a Bachelor’s degree in Law in 1993
Introduction to the special issue on spatial machine learning
No full textWhile, many of the machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) methods that are now commonly being used to answer questions across scientific disciplines have been around for some time, their widespread application to spatial data
and spatially-explicit research questions is much more recent. The large number of
excellent review papers and special issues in leading journals published in the last
few years—which this issue of the Journal of Geographical Systems takes its place
among—attest to the growing interest in the application and development of cutting-edge methodologies for spatial data. This editorial begins by proposing a new inclusive definition for spatial ML, then provides a brief overview of each of the six
papers in this special issue, and ends with a suggestion of several possible directions
for future research in spatial ML
Book review: The Making of a Left-Behind Class Educational Stratification, Meritocracy and Widening Participation by Fred Powell, Margaret Scanlon, Patrick Leahy, Hilary Jenkinson and Olive Byrne
No full textThe abstract is included in the text
Embedding a Culture of Interdisciplinary Open Research in Criminal Justice: A New Partnership for Ireland
No full textThis special edition of the Irish Probation Journal celebrates its excellent
track record of publishing open access criminal justice research and building links
among researchers, practitioners and policymakers on the island of Ireland. Both
probation services have expressed strong commitments to partnership working
and to using research and evidence to inform their practices and decision-making,
using the Journal to facilitate these discussions. With this in mind, it is important
to consider how we can build on this open, collaborative approach to research,
evidence-based policy and practice and publishing into the future.
This article represents the first output from a National Open Research Forum-funded project that aims to embed a culture of interdisciplinary open research in
the field of criminal justice. The setting for this project is Ireland. Its authors are
among the many research, criminal justice and community-sector professionals who
represent their organisations on the new Criminal justice Open Research Dialogue
(CORD) Partnership, launched as part of the funded project. The article was
developed collaboratively during the CORD Partnership’s first event in Maynooth
in January 2024, and then subsequently via an open authorship process through
which partners could become named authors. It contextualises the establishment of the CORD Partnership, outlining what we mean by a ‘culture of open research’
and situating our goals in Ireland’s research and criminal justice policy frameworks.
The piece then outlines the Partnership’s agreed purposes and principles and
provides some opening considerations as to the criminal justice sector’s open-research needs. It concludes by describing the CORD Partnership’s next steps.
The views expressed here represent those of the named authors only, not of their
organisations, nor of anyone who participates in the CORD Partnership but is not a
named author on the article.
This project has received funding from Ireland’s National Open Research Forum
(NORF) under the 2023 Open Research Fund. NORF is funded by the Higher
Education Authority (HEA) on behalf of the Department of Further and Higher
Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS