NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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A nationally consistent approach to assessing accumulated rainfall rarity
No full textAccumulated rainfall totals are an important variable for a range of hydrological
applications, including monitoring and forecasting, and long-term planning.
For more than three decades, the National Hydrological Monitoring Programme (https://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/nhmp) at UKCEH has produced the monthly Hydrological Summary for the UK. A key component of this publication, a strategically important output with a wide readership, is a table of rainfall accumulations over a range of durations to present, and an assessment of the rarity of wet and dry periods in the context of rainfall data back to 1910. However, there is a need to update the methodology used to derive rainfall return periods, and to assess the rainfall frequencies more accurately, particularly from a low rainfall perspective.
The aim of this report is to identify the most appropriate approach to quantifying return periods of long duration rainfall. The Data and Methods sections describe the data used to test the range of distributions and goodness-of-fit measures. Results are presented which identify the most appropriate distribution for nationally
consistent applications, before the key findings are summarise
Psychological characteristics associated with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and resistance in Ireland and the United Kingdom
No full textIdentifying and understanding COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy within distinct populations may aid future public health messaging. Using nationally representative data from the general adult populations of Ireland (N = 1041) and the United Kingdom (UK; N = 2025), we found that vaccine hesitancy/resistance was evident for 35% and 31% of these populations respectively. Vaccine hesitant/resistant respondents in Ireland and the UK differed on a
number of sociodemographic and health-related variables but were similar across a broad array of psychological constructs. In both populations, those resistant to a COVID-19 vaccine were less likely to obtain information about the pandemic from traditional and authoritative sources and had similar levels of mistrust in these sources compared to vaccine accepting respondents. Given the geographical proximity and socio-economic similarity of the populations studied, it is not possible to generalize findings to other populations, however, the methodology employed here may be useful to those wishing to understand COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy elsewher
Window on the weather: a case study in multi-platform visual communication design, with a relationship to Design Thinking
No full textIn February 2018, after three years of design and development work, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Weather launched its redesigned service across multiple platforms. The project involved new ways of cross-disciplinary communication design working across broadcast and digital services. This research examines these innovations and considers the transcorporeality of our relationship with weather forecasting.
BBC Weather developed an iconography in the mid-1970s that has been integral to its brand identity and which has survived the changes in television graphics technology from magnetised acrylic symbols to digital systems. Satellite imagery, advanced computer weather modelling, mobile interaction, and weather on the move in realtime, have become integral to presenting different layers of visual sophistication and information that require translation and editing to communicate the weather across multiple platforms and formats.
An ethnographic study of the leading participants in the design project mapped out the creative process and highlighted reflexive points where design practice was modified and adapted by the interdisciplinarity of the team. Their approach to design anthropology and service design approaches are revealed in the context of Design Thinking, and how the domestication of digital services is linked to a relationship to the weather for a UK and Irish audience
CRC Codes as Error Correction Codes
No full textCRC codes have long since been adopted in a
vast range of applications. The established notion that they are
suitable primarily for error detection can be set aside through
use of the recently proposed Guessing Random Additive Noise
Decoding (GRAND). Hard-detection (GRAND-SOS) and soft-
detection (ORBGRAND) variants can decode any short, high-rate
block code, making them suitable for error correction of CRC-
coded data. When decoded with GRAND, short CRC codes have
error correction capability that is at least as good as popular
codes such as BCH codes, but with no restriction on either code
length or rate.
The state-of-the-art CA-Polar codes are concatenated CRC
and Polar codes. For error correction, we find that the CRC is a
better short code than either Polar or CA-Polar codes. Moreover,
the standard CA-SCL decoder only uses the CRC for error
detection and therefore suffers severe performance degradation
in short, high rate settings when compared with the performance
GRAND provides, which uses all of the CA-Polar bits for error
correction.
Using GRAND, existing systems can be upgraded from error
detection to low-latency error correction without re-engineering
the encoder, and additional applications of CRCs can be found
in IoT, Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC),
and beyond. The universality of GRAND, its ready parallelized
implementation in hardware, and the good performance of CRC
as codes make their combination a viable solution for low-latency
applications
Understanding the Value of Digital Archival Collections to Faculty at Maynooth University Library
No full textThis article first defines what constitutes a “Special Collection” and what constitutes a “digital archival collection”. Some background on the evolution of surrogate primary sources, from microfilm, through online databases to Open Access resources is presented. The article then explores the literature relating to the management and use of Digital Archival Collections and other digital primary sources. Some contextual information on Maynooth University and our digital primary sources is given. The article goes on to report on a consultation with faculty members who offer their insights on using DACs. The findings of the consultation process, which broadly show a strong appreciation of the merits of these resources, but mainly as an enhanced surrogate are discussed. The article concludes with some considerations of what these findings mean for collection development and what needs to be done to further stimulate engagement with these resources in Maynooth University
Change One Thing: The Leaving Cert. needs a rethink
No full textThe second level education system in Ireland is in need of a reimagining away from the narrow path of teaching to the test and towards a meaningful and joyful experience of learning that will benefit both teachers and pupils as we consider what education should be in Twenty-First century
The Communiversity Network: Access All Areas
No full textThe Communiversity Network (CN) is a loose affiliation of community based adult guidance counsellors, adult and community education co-ordinators; lifelong learning officers and local employment staff who work for LEADER Partnership Companies, Local Development Companies and Local Employment Offices across Ireland. All of the members are committed to social inclusion, some working directly in the Social Inclusion Community Activation Programme (SICAP), while others seek to move individuals into education, training or employment of as part of an individualised learning/care plan. The members of the Network engage with those people deemed hard to reach and underserved and so their contributions in the submission below are from the frontline. In some cases the organisations that they work for have sections that provide full wrap around and life span services from early years education to school going years up to adult education and older learners therefore they have a unique perspective on access that goes beyond the mere widening participation in HE that Access is usually associated with. Widening Participation narrowly defined could be construed as one dimensional, in this submission deepening and lengthening the role of access in an individual’s life adds to the conversation. Access in this sense means access to life chances and opportunities that individuals and whole sections of people living in Ireland are denied
Explaining the rise and fall of psychological distress during the COVID‐19 crisis in the United States: Longitudinal evidence from the Understanding America Study
No full textObjectives.It has been shown that psychological distress rose rapidly as the COVID-19pandemic emerged and then recovered to pre-crisis levels as social lockdown restrictionswere eased in the United States. The aim of the current study was to investigatepsychosocial and behavioural factors that may explain the rise and fall of distress duringthe initial months of the COVID-19 crisis.Design.This study examined six waves of longitudinal nationally representative datafrom the Understanding America Study (UAS) collected between March and June 2020(N=7,138, observations=34,125).Methods.Mediation analysis was used to identify whether changes in distress (PHQ-4)during the COVID-19 pandemic were explained by the following factors: perceivedinfection risk and risk of death, perceived financial risks, lifestyle changes resulting fromthe virus, perceived discrimination related to the virus, and changes in substance use andemployment status.Results.All mediating factors played a role in explaining changes in distress and togetheraccounted for 70% of the increase in distress between 10-18 March and 1-14 April and46.4% of the decline in distress between 1-14 April and early June 2020. Changes inperceived health risks were most important in explaining changes in distress followed bychanges in lifestyle and the perceived financial risks associated with COVID-19.Conclusions.This study provides longitudinal population-based evidence detailing themediating factors explaining changes in distress during the COVID-19 crisis. Perceivedhealth risks associated with the virus may play a key role in explaining rising and fallinglevels of psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic
Neuroticism mediates the relationship between industrial history and modern‐day regional obesity levels
No full textObjective: The historical factors and contemporary mechanisms underlying geographical inequalities in obesity levels remain uncertain. In this study we examine whether modern regional variation in obesity is partly a result of the impact of large-scale industry on the personality traits of those living in regions once at the center of the Industrial Revolution.
Method: Exposure to the effects of the Industrial Revolution was assessed using unique historical data from English/Welsh counties (N=111). Specifically, we examined the relationship between the regional employment share in large-scale coal-based industries in 1813-1820 and contemporary regional obesity levels (2013-2015). The Big Five personality traits and regional unemployment levels were examined as potential mediators of this association.
Results: The historical regional employment share in large-scale industries positively predicted the modern-day regional prevalence of obesity. Mediation analysis showed that areas exposed to the decline of large-scale industries experienced elevated neuroticism and unemployment levels that explained almost half of the association between the historical dominance of large-scale industry and modern-day obesity levels. Conclusions: Our results provide initial evidence that raised regional neuroticism levels may play a key role in explaining why exposure to the rapid growth and subsequent decline of large-scale industries forecasts modern-day obesity levels
Socio-Demographic Factors Influencing the Use of Assistive Technology among Children with Disabilities in Malawi
No full textAbstract: This paper aims to address the information gap on the influence of socio-demographic
factors on access and utilization of Assistive Technology (AT) among children with disabilities in
Malawi. Thus, it contributes towards the realization of the recommendations of the UN Convention
on the Rights of Persons with disabilities and the development of a framework for creating an
effective national AT policy. The paper used two statistically matched datasets, namely, the 2017
survey on Living conditions among persons with disabilities in Malawi and the 2015-16 Malawi
Demographic and Health survey. Logistic regression and structural equation modeling techniques
were utilized to assess the influence of socio-demographic factors on the use of AT among children
with disabilities. The results indicate that there is a high level of unmet need for AT among young
children aged 2 to 9 and those living in urban areas. The results further indicate that children with
multiple disabilities have lower odds (OR = 0.924) of using AT for personal mobility compared
to children with a single functional difficulty. These results entail that AT needs for children with
multiple disabilities are not adequately addressed. Therefore, when developing policies on AT,
younger children and those with multiple disabilities need to be specifically targete