NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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The Application of PERSIANN Family Datasets for Hydrological Modeling
No full textThis study investigates the application of precipitation estimation from remote sensing information using artificial neural networks (PERSIANN) for hydrological modeling over the Russian River catchment in California in the United States as a case study. We evaluate two new PERSIANN products including the PERSIANN-Cloud Classification System–Climate Data Record (CCS–CDR), a climatology dataset, and PERSIANN–Dynamic Infrared Rain Rate (PDIR), a near-real-time precipitation dataset. We also include older PERSIANN products, PERSIANN-Climate Data Record (CDR) and PERSIANN-Cloud Classification System (CCS) as the benchmarks. First, we evaluate these PERSIANN datasets against observations from the Climate Prediction Center (CPC) dataset as a reference. The results showed that CCS–CDR has the least bias among all PERSIANN family datasets. Comparing the two near-real-time datasets, PDIR performs significantly more accurately than CCS. In simulating streamflow using the nontransformed calibration process, EKGE values (Kling–Gupta efficiency) for CCS–CDR (CDR) during the calibration and validation periods were 0.42 (0.34) and 0.45 (0.24), respectively. In the second calibration process, PDIR was considerably better than CCS (EKGE for calibration and validation periods ~ 0.83, 0.82 for PDIR vs. 0.12 and 0.14 for CCS). The results demonstrate the capability of the two newly developed datasets (CCS–CDR and PDIR) of accurately estimating precipitation as well as hydrological simulations
Forging a Link between Competitive Gaming, Sport and the Olympics: History and New Developments
No full textUsing historical narratives and a qualitative research approach, this article aims to understand how competitive gaming has established its relationship with sport and the Olympics in the past five decades, and further discusses the obstacles and challenges for esports’ Olympic inclusion. In the 1970s and 1980s, game manufacturers and publishers, consciously or unconsciously, forged a link between video games, competition and sport. Beginning in the early 2000s, due to its overwhelming popularity, efforts have been made by various organisations to have esports accredited as a full sport. In recent years, sporting governing bodies have started to take esports seriously, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has made efforts to incorporate it into the Olympic movement. This article suggests that the IOC must adopt a more open-minded and inclusive approach in order to better understand the esports ecosystem and the young digital generations
‘We did what needed to be done’: Cherish, the first support group for unmarried mothers in Ireland
No full textHistorically, unmarried mothers have suffered greatly in Irish
society. Advocacy for unmarried mothers began in the 1970s with
the emergence of the women’s movement in Ireland. ‘Cherish’
became one of the first organisation in Ireland to push for rights
for unmarried mothers. This article is the first comprehensive
study into the organisation exploring its establishment and
development throughout the late twentieth century. Against the
backdrop of the larger women’s movement, this article focuses
on the early years of the campaign incorporating the push for
unmarried mothers allowance; accommodation assistance offered;
advice on legal issues including maintenance; as well as lobbying
politicians on legislative change. It incorporates the organisation’s
connection with the Catholic Church whilst simultaneously and
unapologetically challenging Archbishop Dermot Ryan on
prejudices against unmarried mothers. In the 1980s, the group
faced new challenges as more women with unplanned
pregnancies sought information on abortion. The organisations
link with the Catholic Church diminished throughout the 1980s as
Cherish began to direct women to abortion information helplines
and openly supported the Defend the Clinics Campaign, despite
their receipt of state funding. The establishment of Cherish and
its commitment to advocacy for women in crisis pregnancy has
been somewhat overlooked in the historical analysis of the Irish
women’s movement
Grievances or skills? The effect of education on youth political participation in Egypt and Tunisia
No full textThe educated have figured prominently in protests and elections in several Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries. The dominant explanation for this pattern centers on grievances and unfulfilled aspirations due to low education returns in the MENA. However, the pattern may simply reflect the unequal participation observed in many democracies where education provides skills and resources that facilitate political participation. This article compares the roles of skills and grievances in explaining the relationship between education and youth political participation during and after the Arab Spring. We use youth surveys with detailed data on education and political participation from Egypt and Tunisia. We control for parental education and family background to partially account for the potential of background to drive the education and participation relationship. Overall, our results are consistent with the skill channel and lend little support to the grievance channel. Our findings raise concerns about the exclusion of uneducated youth from both unconventional and conventional political participation in MENA politics
The Evolution of Local Politics in Fingal, North County Dublin, 1870-1948
No full textThis thesis examines the evolution of local politics in Fingal through the experiences of its political elite, who exercised varying degrees of power and influence through local government in the generations from 1870 to 1948. It concentrates on local political leaders, their personalities, motivations, ideals, activities, alliances and rivalries and their responses to and relationship with a changing national political landscape. It explores the effect of reforming legislation on political life in Fingal, enquiring whether a measure of autonomy was achieved through local government before independence, and whether this continued after 1922.
The thesis also examines the nature and extent of the social as well as the political revolution that occurred, and attempts to determine the extent to which a counter-revolution followed in independent Ireland. The period from 1870 to 1948 can be characterised as one of continuity and change, frequently local continuity at a time of national change. The significance of intervening periods of progress and consolidation between momentous episodes are often underestimated. The questions of land, class and nationalism permeate the entire period, but not in lockstep with the national narrative. In the mid-nineteenth century, Fingal was home to some of the most senior figures in the Conservative party and governments in the United Kingdom, including George Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Edward Taylor. Individuals
'from Fingal played leading roles in the Land War, but their native region was quiet. It was the :pnly rural location involved in the Dublin Lockout in 1913. Fingal men were military participants in the Easter Rising, but the area remained relatively quiescent thereafter.
This thesis examines the debates and conduct on these local government bodies as a window on what was happening in local society Local government can be a bridge between the state
and local society, a visible manifestation of the state in people's lives
Conclusions and Future Directions in STEM Education Research Approaches: Research Methodology and Design
No full textConnected to innovation, and which has also received considerable debate over the past while, is research ethics and ethical considerations when undertaking STEM education research. Ethical processes have become more formalised within institutions with increased regulation. In addition to the consideration of ethics as a potential limiter on methodological innovation in STEM education research, the role and purpose of ethics in research is socioculturally and socio-politically centralised in an era of mankind marred by grotesque inequities motivated by racism, colonialism, sexism, neoliberalism, ethnocentrism and the rise of extreme right-wing vulgarities, among others. Adopting such a critical orientation will encourage the broadening of research methodologies to examine and develop transdisciplinary research in STEM education as a distinct sphere. The chapter also presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book
Affiliated issue with 2020 College Art Association Annual Conference, ‘flesh and circuit: rethinking performance and technology’ (Chicago, IL, USA)
No full textThe live, embodied, material, and interactive qualities of performance have made it a notable means of exploring the creative potential of technological engagement, acting as a critical vector for revealing and resisting the technological colonisation of everyday life. The innovative collaborations of Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT) during the 1960’s with artists such as Yvonne Rainer and Robert Rauschenberg, Stelarc’s extreme body modifications, Dumb Type’s intermedia performance, and Guillermo Gomez-Pena and La Pocha Nostra’s poetic and speculative imaginings, have mapped the advances in technology and opened new creative fields to explore embodiment. However, there are still some significant oversights in regard to the pervasive and intimate nature of technological mediation, surveillance, and behavioural modification. Currently, technological embodiment assumes new forms tied to data assemblages of unprecedented scope and granularity. The body is commodified as data to be exchanged, controlled, and influenced in algorithmic regimes of governance and as raw material for machine learning and AI. Artists working with performance and technology are engaging with these exclusions, rethinking the intersection of performance and technology, and re-defining embodiment for the twenty-first century. The following articles start to fill these gaps in the literature on art, technology and embodiment through the lens of performance. While much remains to be written on the topic to account for current artistic practice and the changing nature of digital platforms and ubiquity of algorithmic governance, these articles point to new ways of thinking on issues around the intersections of flesh and circuits
International Responses to Regretting Motherhood
No full textRecent debates about maternal regret, prompted by the publication of Israeli sociologist Orna Donath’s (2015) research with mothers who admit to regretting their motherhood, have manifested differently in different cultural contexts. This chapter situates Tiina Sihto and Armi Mustosmäki’s analysis of a discussion of regret among contributors to an online forum for mothers in Finland (see Chap. 10.1007/978-981-16-1174-2_10 ) within the international context by comparing the Finnish discussion to similar media debates in Spain and the Anglophone countries. Our analysis reveals that while the idea that a woman might regret her motherhood is more readily accepted in countries where institutional support for mothers is lacking, there is a general acceptance that the inordinate pressures placed on mothers in neoliberal societies to negotiate the competing demands of family and paid employment make it inevitable that some women will experience regret. Moreover, we find evidence that the open conversation about regret triggered by Donath’s research is perceived as a further step towards destabilizing traditional attitudes towards gender roles
Anxiety and depression symptoms, the recovery from symptoms, and loneliness before and after the COVID-19 outbreak among the general population: Findings from a Dutch population-based longitudinal study
No full textObjectives
Examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health and loneliness in the general population. More specifically, the study focused on prevalence of anxiety and depression symptoms, the extent to which individuals with existing symptoms recovered or not, the prevalence of subtypes of loneliness, and the extent to which loneliness before and during this pandemic was associated with anxiety and depression symptoms.
Methods
Data was extracted from the longitudinal LISS panel, based on a probability sample of the Dutch population, with assessments on loneliness in October 2019 (T1) and June 2020 (T4), and anxiety and depression symptoms in November 2019 (T2), March 2020 (T3) and June 2020 (T4; Ntotal = 4,084). Loneliness was examined with the De Jong Gierveld Loneliness Scale and anxiety and depression symptoms with the Mental Health Inventory (MHI-5).
Results
Repeated measures multivariate logistic regression analyses (RMMLRA) showed a statistical significant lower prevalence of anxiety and depression symptoms after the outbreak (T4 = 15.3%) than before (T2 = 16.8%) and during the COVID-19 outbreak (T3 = 17.2%). According to the Reliable Change Index, the distribution of recovery categories (remission, improvement, unchanged and worsening symptoms) after the outbreak did not differ significantly from the distribution of these categories before the outbreak. RMMLRA revealed that the prevalence of emotional loneliness increased significantly after the outbreak (T1 = 18.4%, T4 = 24.8%). Among individuals who were not lonely before and after the outbreak the prevalence of symptoms decreased significantly (T2 = 7.0%, T4 = 4.4%) and, likewise, among those who were not lonely anymore after the outbreak (T2 = 21.5%, T4 = 14.5%). However, the prevalence of symptoms increased significantly among those who became lonely during the pandemic (T2 = 17.9%, T4 = 26.3%).
Conclusions
Findings suggest that this pandemic did not negatively affect the prevalence of anxiety and depression symptoms nor the normal recovery of symptoms among the general population during the first four months, but that emotional loneliness increased
Assessing and protecting the mental health of the nation: A study protocol
No full textBackground: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the public health measures enacted to control its spread may affect the mental health of the general population of Ireland. Funded under the Health Research Board’s COVID-19 Pandemic Rapid Response Funding Call, this protocol outlines the aims of a project to assess and protect the
mental health of the population of Ireland during this pandemic. We will determine (i) the prevalence of common mental health disorders at various times during the first year of the pandemic, (ii) changes in the prevalence of mental health disorders during the first year of the
pandemic, (iii) if there are distinct groups of people experiencing different mental health responses to the pandemic, and (iv) the factors associated with different mental health reactions. Methods: This quantitative study uses cross-sectional and longitudinal designs. Data have been collected from a nationally representative sample of Irish adults at four assessments: Wave 1 (N
= 1,041) occurred during the first week of lockdown in March 2020, Wave 2 in May, Wave 3 in August, and Wave 4 in December. Wave 5 is planned for March 2021. Participants from Wave 1 have been recontacted at each wave to produce a longitudinal dataset. New participants were recruited using quota sampling to ensure the availability of nationally representative samples at each wave. Self-report measures of demographic, economic, psychological, and mental health variables were completed. Conclusion: This design will allow us to determine whether there has been a change in mental health disorders in the general population
during the first year of the pandemic, and if so, what variables are associated with changes in mental health. Results will be used to inform the government’s ongoing response to this crisis, to better protect the mental health of the nation during this and any future public health emergenc