NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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A 30-year reconstruction of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation shows no decline
No full textA decline in Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) strength has been observed between 2004 and 2012 by the RAPID-MOCHA-WBTS (RAPID – Meridional Overturning Circulation and Heatflux Array – Western Boundary Time Series, hereafter RAPID array) with this weakened state of the AMOC persisting until 2017. Climate model and paleo-oceanographic research suggests that the AMOC may have been declining for decades or even centuries before this; however direct observations are sparse prior to 2004, giving only “snapshots” of the overturning circulation. Previous studies have used linear models based on upper-layer temperature anomalies to extend AMOC estimates back in time; however these ignore changes in the deep circulation that are beginning to emerge in the observations of AMOC decline. Here we develop a higher-fidelity empirical model of AMOC variability based on RAPID data and associated physically with changes in thickness of the persistent upper, intermediate, and deep water masses at 26∘ N and associated transports. We applied historical hydrographic data to the empirical model to create an AMOC time series extending from 1981 to 2016. Increasing the resolution of the observed AMOC to approximately annual shows multi-annual variability in agreement with RAPID observations and shows that the downturn between 2008 and 2012 was the weakest AMOC since the mid-1980s. However, the time series shows no overall AMOC decline as indicated by other proxies and high-resolution climate models. Our results reinforce that adequately capturing changes to the deep circulation is key to detecting any anthropogenic climate-change-related AMOC decline
Privileging Tacit Knowledge within a Software Engineering Curriculum: A Living Educational Theory of Practice
No full textThrough action research I inquired into my pedagogical practice by questioning the
nature of knowledge I valued as a lecturer. This questioning led me to develop my
‘living educational theory’ (Whitehead, 1989, p.41) of privileging tacit knowledge
within a Software Engineering curriculum.
My living educational theory is grounded in ideas of professional knowledge,
relationships, competence, and expertise. In developing my theory, I explain how I
transformed my ontological values of justice, democracy, and care in relation to
students through standards of judgement that I developed to direct, test, and evaluate
actions I took to improve my pedagogical practice. I describe how I experienced
conflict between my existing practice and ontological values that led me to see myself
as a ‘living contradiction’ (Whitehead, 1989, p.41) and to critique the dominant
didactic perspectives located within my practice which privileged explicit disciplinary
knowledge within a Software Engineering curriculum.
To overcome feeling like a living contradiction, I researched and engaged with
dialogical problem-posing pedagogies to encourage and support students to actively
participate in their own development of becoming competent software engineering
professionals. The dialogical problem-posing pedagogy I developed during this
inquiry is constructed on the basis of just, democratic, and caring relationships with
students, who are capable of exercising their agency and are constantly remaking their
identity as they both create and use professional knowledge to solve Software
Engineering problems.
As I engaged with this dialogical problem-posing pedagogy, I re-conceptualised my
identity as a pedagogical practitioner. I questioned the traditional and dominant
orthodoxies that I subscribed to and which dictated that I positioned myself as the
knowledge expert within the classroom. In doing so, I took action to move from being
the knowledge expert to being a facilitator within the classroom to help students to
realise their capacity to become competent software engineering practitioners
A Qualitative Study into the Impact of Outcomes Based Education on Engineering Educators and Engineering Education in the Technical Higher Education Sector in Ireland
No full textThis thesis considers the effect the transition to outcomes based education (OBE) has had on engineering educators and engineering education in the Institutes of Technology (IoTs) in Ireland. Whereas engineering education research into learning outcomes largely focuses on how teaching may better align with their use, the focus of this research, the effect OBE has on both engineering educators and engineering education, receives little attention in the literature. I conduct this research as an engineering educator seeking to understand how we have been shaped by OBE, and how this is affecting the education of future generations of engineers. My research employs a qualitative methodology, in which I consider this impact as perceived and experienced by a sample of IoT engineering academics.
My research highlights the influence of the market in shaping engineering education, which can be regarded through Bernstein’s (2000) concept of engineering as a region, facing inward to academia, but outward to the market, mediated by the professional bodies. This leads me to draw selectively on social realism, alongside my experience as an engineering educator, as a conceptual framework. This emphasises the need to gain comprehensive understanding of the historical context in which my research is situated, for which my literature review encompasses a number of inter-related socio-historical accounts: of the early development of Irish engineering education; of the establishment of the Regional Technical Colleges (which became the IoTs) to implement government policy that saw education, particularly technician education, as key to improving the life of the citizenry through economic advancement; the later development of the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ) as part of a skills-focussed reorientation of higher education; and the reasons for, and consequences of, the adoption of OBE for engineering accreditation, internationally and in Ireland.
The fieldwork, comprising interviews and a focus group with engineering academics, reveals the perceptions of my research participants of the effect that OBE is having on their academic identity, including their approach to curriculum and pedagogy, and provides insight into the structure of engineering education, and the identity formation of students. I will show that my interviewees regard OBE as effective, in terms of: facilitating communication; improving access to education; impacting positively on pedagogy; and as a framework for curriculum design. However, my research critiques the assessment focussed pedagogy that they appear to have adopted as a consequence, questions the appropriateness of the ‘language of levels’ related to NFQ terminology that has emerged in our pedagogic discourse, and raises concerns about the impact on curriculum and the structure of engineering education
"Is there a way back to me, for me"? Older men's stories of Life, Loss, Connection and Community Development.
No full textIt is well documented that older men do not connect in any real way with community
work, are difficult to engage with, and are at risk of isolation. This narrative inquiry tells
the story of six older men (55+) living on the margins of society in a public sheltered
housing complex in Dublin and how they talk about their engagement with a local
community development project.
The participants were selected from the many older men that engage with the local
community development project, that were interested in sharing, as well as being capable
of telling their story. The study is located within the interpretive paradigm where the
narrative methodology approach involved un-structured, participant led interviews which
maximized the potential for important discovery, particularly when combined with the
researcher’s long-time relationships that had been built over many years of working with
the participants. Data collection took place over numerous hours of conversational type
interviews and observation; stories were elicited, while also employing a constant back
and forth researcher/participant clarity checking process.
The study was guided by an ethical imperative, embedded within community work values,
and the relational ethic of narrative inquiry. The findings reflect the struggle facedby the
participants in dealing with poverty, inequality over a lifetime, invisibility disconnection,
unemployment, and loss of identity,struggle for redemption, love and loss,onset of old-age
and the subsequent loss of their masculinity script. Participants displayeda strong sense of
longing to belong, while dealing with personalized blame and regret fortheir perceived
failure as men. The findings emphasised the important work of the local community
development project, and the imperative of trusting relationships between community
workers and the people they engage with. Engaging in community development as well
asthe research process created in the participants a sense of agency,renewed purpose, self�belief that grew throughout the study.
In order to create positive change, when working with older men, we need to create
conditions and environments where those who are seldom heard feel that their voice is
relevant, listened to, understood, and acted upon
Dancing on the Threshold of Time: An Orphic Journey into the Second Half of Life.
No full textMy thesis is concerned with storying the lived experience of being on the threshold
between the first and the second half of life, using the archetypal mythical framework of
Orpheus and Eurydice, a story of love, loss and transformation. This work produces an
alternative knowledge about this stage of adult development, in attending to the process
of loss, mourning and letting go. Drawing on the conceptual framework of
poststructuralism and social constructionism, the thesis is developed by troubling the
legitimacy of our social and cultural constructions, disrupting their power through our
storytelling, making visible how we make meaning and create knowledge. It offers an
alternative viewpoint to the predominant psychological narrative of “the first person
perspective” (Zahavi, 2008:107), to being storied and understood in our social and
cultural contexts, “as a product of narratively structured life” (Zahavi, 2008:107),
“rather than separated pieces related only to [our] personal psychology” (Etherington,
2009: 228).The autoethnographic expression of this stage of adult development is re-imagined in this thesis, in being situated in the betwixt and between reveried space of
the upper and the lower worlds, the living and the dead, the conscious and the
unconscious. It is here, in this narrative space, we bear witness to, and avow each
other’s unfinished stories of love and loss, opening up a “narrative of reconciliation”
(Ahmed, 2014: 35), freeing us like Orpheus and Eurydice, into our own destinies. In the
movement of these six Orphic Moments, there is a rhythm often visible and invisible
that traces the bitter-sweetness of being on the threshold of time, between the first and
the second half of life. Each Moment signifies an invitation to accept the
Orphic/Eurydician call to “stand in the heat of this transformation fire” (Hollis, 2006,
31), and become deeply immersed in mourning to that place of transformation, with the
living and the dead. This study produces a new methodological knowledge of this phase
of adult development, through a process of engaging relationally and reciprocally with
each other, in becoming witnesses to each other’s stories, enabling “a transformation of
the self, from which there is no return” (Butler, 2005: 28). This thesis gestures to an
alternative view on how we can re-imagine more expansive ways of living for the
second half of life, where “voice is always provisional and contingent, always
becoming” (Grant, 2013: 8), where we can “produce a different knowledge and produce
knowledge differently” (St. Pierre, 1997: 613)
Remodeling Street-Level Workers With Quasi-Markets: Comparing Ireland’s Mixed Economy of Welfare-to-Work
No full textQuasi-markets in employment services often follow social policy turns toward activation. Critics see this as no accident, arguing that marketization is intended to raise the odds that workfare policies will be implemented. Drawing on surveys of Irish frontline activation workers, this study harnesses a natural policy experiment whereby Ireland introduced a Payment-by-Results quasi-market alongside a parallel program contracted without outcomes-based contracting. Although the demandingness of activation remains modest in Ireland, the study finds that regulatory approaches are more common under market governance conditions, which in turn has been associated with significant workforce changes and stronger systems of performance monitorin
Fabrication of a Selective Sensor Amplification Probe Modified with Multi-Component Zn2SnO4/SnO2 Heterostructured Microparticles as a Robust Electrocatalyst for Electrochemical Detection of Antibacterial Drug Secnidazole
No full textIn this study, we synthesized heterostructured zinc stannate/tin oxide microparticles (ZTO/TO MPs) by a simple coprecipitation method and used them as an effective electrode material for the electrochemical detection of the antibacterial drug secnidazole (SCZ). The as-prepared ZTO/TO MPs were characterized by XRD, Raman, FE-SEM, HR-TEM, EDX, and XPS analyses. The physiochemical studies clearly proved that the fabricated ZTO/TO MPs were formed in a heterostructure phase without other impurities. A glassy carbon electrode modified with the synthesized ZTO/TO MPs showed an excellent and improved electrocatalytic activity in the electrochemical reduction of SCZ. Using differential pulse voltammetry (DPV), an impressive linear calibration range, extending from 0.01 to 193 μM, was observed, coupled with a detection limit of 0.0054 μM and a sensitivity of 0.055 μA/μM. In addition, the ZTO/TO MPs/GCE showed very good selectivity for the detection of SCZ in the presence of a number of biological, inorganic, and structurally related compounds. Finally, the ZTO/TO MPs/GCE was investigated for the analysis of SCZ in human blood serum samples. A very good recovery was obtained when spiking the blood serum with SCZ, highlighting the good applicability of the ZTO/TO MPs/GCE for the electrochemical analysis of SCZ in complex biological samples
Graphene-Based Materials Immobilized within Chitosan: Applications as Adsorbents for the Removal of Aquatic Pollutants
No full textGraphene and its derivatives, especially graphene oxide (GO), are attracting considerable interest in the fabrication of new adsorbents that have the potential to remove various pollutants that have escaped into the aquatic environment. Herein, the development of GO/chitosan (GO/CS) composites as adsorbent materials is described and reviewed. This combination is interesting as the addition of graphene to chitosan enhances its mechanical properties, while the chitosan hydrogel serves as an immobilization matrix for graphene. Following a brief description of both graphene and chitosan as independent adsorbent materials, the emerging GO/CS composites are introduced. The additional materials that have been added to the GO/CS composites, including magnetic iron oxides, chelating agents, cyclodextrins, additional adsorbents and polymeric blends, are then described and discussed. The performance of these materials in the removal of heavy metal ions, dyes and other organic molecules are discussed followed by the introduction of strategies employed in the regeneration of the GO/CS adsorbents. It is clear that, while some challenges exist, including cost, regeneration and selectivity in the adsorption process, the GO/CS composites are emerging as promising adsorbent materials
Electrochemical formation of N–substituted polypyrrole nanowires, microwires and open microtubes and their decoration with copper structures
No full textThe substituted pyrrole monomer, N–(2–cyanoethyl)pyrrole, was electropolymerised in a 70% water and 30% ethanol solution with ClO4– and H2PO4– as the dopant species to give nanowires at short electropolymerisation times and microwires at longer deposition periods. On adding toluene to the electropolymerisation solution, hollow microtubes were formed. This was attributed to the adsorption of toluene droplets at the electrode surface which served to separate the dopants from the monomer, with the monomer being highly soluble in the toluene droplet and the inorganic dopants soluble in the water/ethanol mixture. As a result electropolymerisation was confined to the toluene-water/ethanol interface. These polymer systems exhibit redox activity with the oxidation wave centred at about 0.40 V vs SCE, and the broader reduction wave positioned between 0.75 V and 0.25 V vs SCE. Although N-substitution reduces the conductivity of the polymer, various copper deposits, including cubes, leaves and hierarchical structures were deposited at the microwires and microtubes using high overpotentials. The hierarchical structures were wrapped around the microtubes at considerable distances, typically 3–4 µm, from the substrate
Recent Developments in Chitosan-Based Adsorbents for the Removal of Pollutants from Aqueous Environments
No full textThe quality of water is continuously under threat as increasing concentrations of pollutants escape into the aquatic environment. However, these issues can be alleviated by adsorbing pollutants onto adsorbents. Chitosan and its composites are attracting considerable interest as environmentally acceptable adsorbents and have the potential to remove many of these contaminants. In this review the development of chitosan-based adsorbents is described and discussed. Following a short introduction to the extraction of chitin from seafood wastes, followed by its conversion to chitosan, the properties of chitosan are described. Then, the emerging chitosan/carbon-based materials, including magnetic chitosan and chitosan combined with graphene oxide, carbon nanotubes, biochar, and activated carbon and also chitosan-silica composites are introduced. The applications of these materials in the removal of various heavy metal ions, including Cr(VI), Pb(II), Cd(II), Cu(II), and different cationic and anionic dyes, phenol and other organic molecules, such as antibiotics, are reviewed, compared and discussed. Adsorption isotherms and adsorption kinetics are then highlighted and followed by details on the mechanisms of adsorption and the role of the chitosan and the carbon or silica supports. Based on the reviewed papers, it is clear, that while some challenges remain, chitosan-based materials are emerging as promising adsorbents