NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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Nothing About Us Without Us – Nigerian and Irish WomenWorking Together
No full textThis chapter is probably quite different to what comes before and after it. It is a conversation between three adult educators; Veronica who is a Nigerian woman of colour, Camilla who is a white Irish woman and Philomena who is a woman of colour, also from Nigeria. We have known each other for around 5 years, firstly through a student-lecturer relationship and more recently through work we have undertaken that involves the design and delivery of workshops on ‘culture’, ‘interculturalism’ and ‘racism’. Our approach contrasts with how many of you might more typically read ‘about’ these topics. We lean on an autoethnographic approach where our writing seeks to describe our experiences and draw out analyses from these. This method is thus both a process and a product (Ellis, 2011). Our first-hand account explores relationships that exist amidst the intersections of race, gender and institutional positions. Our capacity to overcome these barriers and successfully work together is determined by the quality of our relationship. Nothing is taboo and we have often discussed the joys and challenges of working together
Varieties of Responsible Management Learning: A Review, Typology and Research Agenda
No full textOver the past two decades an increasing number of research papers have signalled growing interest in more responsible,
sustainable and ethical modes of management education. This systematic literature review of peer-reviewed publications
on, and allied to, the concept of responsible management learning and education (RMLE) confrms that scholarly interest in the topic has accelerated over the last decade. Rather than assuming that RMLE is one thing, however, this review
proposes that the literature on responsible management education and learning can be divided into four distinct categories:
(1) Teaching Responsible Management; (2) Organizing for Responsible Education; (3) Responsible Individual Learning,
and; (4) Responsible Organizational Learning. Although the literature on RMLE has grown, work on how managers learn
responsible management in organizational or workplace settings, particularly without the intervention of external educational
providers, is minimal. The Special Issue of the Journal of Business Ethics is the frst to address this signifcant lacuna. The
vast majority of published peer-reviewed research is related to organizational provider-centric organizing for responsible
management education. Each category is explored and the implications of organizing the literature this way for the feld of
RMLE are discussed. Finally, an agenda for future research and theory development on RMLE is proposed
Managing the transition from Vaisala RS92 to RS41 radiosondes within the Global Climate Observing System Reference Upper-Air Network (GRUAN): a progress report
No full textThis paper describes the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Reference Upper-Air Network (GRUAN) approach to managing the transition from the Vaisala RS92 to the Vaisala RS41 as the operational radiosonde. The goal of GRUAN is to provide long-term high-quality reference observations of upper-air essential climate variables (ECVs) such as temperature and water vapor. With GRUAN data being used for climate monitoring, it is vital that the change of measurement system does not introduce inhomogeneities to the data record. The majority of the 27 GRUAN sites were launching the RS92 as their operational radiosonde, and following the end of production of the RS92 in the last quarter of 2017, most of these sites have now switched to the RS41. Such a large-scale change in instrumentation is unprecedented in the history of GRUAN and poses a challenge for the network. Several measurement programs have been initiated to characterize differences in biases, uncertainties, and noise between the two radiosonde types. These include laboratory characterization of measurement errors, extensive twin sounding studies with RS92 and RS41 on the same balloon, and comparison with ancillary data. This integrated approach is commensurate with the GRUAN principles of traceability and deliberate redundancy. A 2-year period of regular twin soundings is recommended, and for sites that are not able to implement this, burden-sharing is employed such that measurements at a certain site are considered representative of other sites with similar climatological characteristics. All data relevant to the RS92-RS41 transition are archived in a database that will be accessible to the scientific community for external scrutiny. Furthermore, the knowledge and experience gained regarding GRUAN's RS92-RS41 transition will be extensively documented to ensure traceability of the process. This documentation will benefit other networks in managing changes in their operational radiosonde systems.Preliminary analysis of the laboratory experiments indicates that the manufacturer's calibration of the RS41 temperature and humidity sensors is more accurate than for the RS92, with uncertainties o
Seasonal statistical–dynamical prediction of the North Atlantic Oscillation by probabilistic post-processing and its evaluation
No full textDynamical models of various centres have shownin recent years seasonal prediction skill of the North AtlanticOscillation (NAO). By filtering the ensemble members onthe basis of statistical predictors, known as subsampling, it ispossible to achieve even higher prediction skill. In this studythe aim is to design a generalisation of the subsampling ap-proach and establish it as a post-processing procedure.Instead of selecting discrete ensemble members for eachyear, as the subsampling approach does, the distributions ofensembles and statistical predictors are combined to createa probabilistic prediction of the winter NAO. By compar-ing the combined statistical–dynamical prediction with thepredictions of its single components, it can be shown that itachieves similar results to the statistical prediction. At thesame time it can be shown that, unlike the statistical predic-tion, the combined prediction has fewer years where it per-forms worse than the dynamical prediction.By applying the gained distributions to other meteorolog-ical variables, like geopotential height, precipitation and sur-face temperature, it can be shown that evaluating predic-tion skill depends highly on the chosen metric. Besides thecommon anomaly correlation (ACC) this study also presentsscores based on the Earth mover’s distance (EMD) and theintegrated quadratic distance (IQD), which are designed toevaluate skills of probabilistic predictions. It shows that byevaluating the predictions for each year separately comparedto applying a metric to all years at the same time, likecorrelation-based metrics, leads to different interpretations ofthe analysis
The Information Behaviour of Social Workers: Needs, Seeking, Acquiring and Using Information in Practice
No full textIn the debate about what informs social work practice, research remains the dominant
discourse. However, the relationship between research and social work practice
has always been an uneasy one, arguably passed from other clinical disciplines without
resizing to fit social work. Even as social work research matures as a discipline it
represents one element in a much broader composite which informs practice. This article
takes a unique step back from the traditional research-practice discourse and
examines the broader information landscape of social work practice, asking how practitioners
inform their practice, rather than how research informs practice. This study
explores the information needs that prompt practitioners to search for information,
the strategies they employ, their acquisition of information and the uses to which the
information is put. This study aims to elucidate the information behaviour with a
view to improving dissemination and use. Findings demonstrate that the social work
information base is substantially broader than has been suggested. Practitioners employ
a pragmatic palette of strategies to navigate the breadth of information that
supports practice, from research through to knowledge sharing. This article proposes
that a pragmatic framework of information behaviour is required to accurately reflect
the information behaviour of social workers
Optimal wave energy extraction for oscillating water columns using second-order sliding mode control
No full textOcean waves are an important renewable energy resource and several fields of R&D are concurrently working to
improve technologies for harnessing their power. In that context, this study presents a control to optimise the performance of
oscillating water column systems. As a first contribution, a novel criterion to attain maximum wave energy extraction is
developed, resulting in an enhancement of the global power efficiency of the system. Then, taking advantage of the proposed
criterion, a second-order sliding mode control set-up is designed, with power extraction maximisation the primary objective and
reactive power regulation a secondary one. Simulation results confirm the highly satisfactory performance of the proposed
controller and its robustness in the presence of the inherent uncertainties and disturbances in the non-linear system
Simple Controllers for Wave Energy Devices Compared
No full textThe design of controllers for wave energy devices has evolved from early monochromatic
impedance-matching methods to complex numerical algorithms that can handle panchromatic seas,
constraints, and nonlinearity. However, the potential high performance of such numerical
controller comes at a computational cost, with some algorithms struggling to implement in
real-time, and issues surround convergence of numerical optimisers. Within the broader
area of control engineering, practitioners have always displayed a fondness for simple and
intuitive controllers, as evidenced by the continued popularity of the ubiquitous PID controller.
Recently, a number of energy-maximising wave energy controllers have been developed based
on relatively simple strategies, stemming from the fundamentals behind impedance-matching.
This paper documents this set of (5) controllers, which have been developed over the period 2010–2020,
and compares and contrasts their characteristics, in terms of energy-maximising performance,
the handling of physical constraints, and computational complexity. The comparison is carried out
both analytically and numerically, including a detailed case study, when considering a state-of-the-art
CorPower-like device
Phylogenetics of Taxus Using the Internal Transcribed Spacers of Nuclear Ribosomal DNA and Plastid trnL-F Regions
No full textTaxus is a genus of trees and shrubs with high value in horticulture and medicine as a
source of the anticancer drug paclitaxel. The taxonomy of the group is complex due to the lack of
diagnostic morphological characters and the high degree of similarity among species. Taxus has
a wide global geographic distribution and some taxonomists recognize only a single species with
geographically defined subgroups, whereas others have described several species. To address these
differences in taxonomic circumscription, phylogenetic analyses were conducted on DNA sequences
using Maximum Likelihood, Bayesian Inference and TCS haplotype networks on single and combined
gene regions obtained for the nuclear ribosomal ITS region and the plastid trnL intron and trnL-F
intergenic spacer. Evidence is presented for the sister group status of Pseudotaxus to Taxus and the
inclusion of Amentotaxus, Austrotaxus, Cephalotaxus and Torreya within Taxaceae. Results are consistent
with the taxonomic recognition of nine species: T. baccata, T. brevifolia, T. canadensis, T. cuspidata, T.
floridana, T. fuana, T. globosa, T. sumatrana and T. wallichiana, but evidence is found for less species
distinction and considerable reticulation within the T. baccata, T. canadensis and T. cuspidata group. We
compare the results to known taxonomy, biogeography, present new leaf anatomical data and discuss
the origins of the hybrids T. ×media and T. ×hunnewelliana
Why Fair Procedures Always Make a Difference
No full textSection 31(2A) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 (as inserted by the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015) requires judges to refuse relief in judicial review of administrative decisions if it is ‘highly likely’ that the conduct complained of did not make a significant difference to the outcome of the decision. The strongest justification for this ‘Makes No Difference’ principle is provided by a ‘narrow instrumental view’ of fair procedures, according to which their value lies only in their producing the correct outcome. This conception of procedural fairness, however, is impoverished and flawed as a matter of political morality. Fair procedures reflect a conception of citizens as participants in their own governance and play an important communicative role in democratic legal orders. Inasmuch as it leaves no room for these aspects of the value of fair procedures, the Makes No Difference principle embodied in section 31(2A) is pro tanto unjust
Being Beatvs in Catillis' Poems 9, 10, 22 and 23
No full textsat es beatus (Catull. 23.27)
In the aggressively philosophical poem 23, Catullus attempts to change Furius’ mind about how he perceives his poverty, ‘advice’ which has been identified as either Stoic or Epicurean. Irrespective of the precise school of thought, it is clear that the poet ridicules Furius in eudaimonistic language. The poet of social commentary seeks to define the beatus uir. In fact, the term beatus has rich philosophical resonance and Catullus uses it in several other poems where attitudes to wealth form a significant backdrop to the poet's social posturing. Catullus was no philosopher. He employs the language and ideas of different schools, and, while his work does not reflect a coherent philosophical position, he was writing at a time when public discourse increasingly drew upon philosophical language and topoi. I will examine Catullus’ use of the term beatus in poems 9, 10, 22 and 23 to demonstrate that the poet draws a contrast between its different meanings across these pairs of adjacent poems. I will argue that Catullus contrasts the eudaimonistic and material meanings of the word to show the differences between clear-sighted wisdom and deceptive pleasures, between the good life and a life filled with goods