NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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An exploration of happiness within the Irish LGBTI community
No full textThis paper explores factors which contribute to
happiness among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and
intersex (LGBTI) individuals as part of the largest study to
date of mental health in the LGBTI community in the
Republic of Ireland (LGBT Ireland study). This mixed methods
study informed by minority stress theory, contained
an online survey (n ¼2,264) which explored various
aspects of mental health and distress, but also the extent
and experience of happiness and concomitant factors.
The survey included ratings of happiness and life satisfaction
and an open-ended question on LGBTI
related happiness. Quantitative findings showed a mean
happiness rating of 6.58 out of 10 (11-point scale), which
is lower than the general population in Ireland. Those
identifying as gay men or lesbian women rated their happiness
significantly higher than bisexual, transgender, or
intersex participants. There was also an effect for age:
teenage LGBTI participants had significantly lower ratings
than other age groups. Happiness ratings very highly correlated
with life-satisfaction (.88). A multiple linear
regression showed happiness was predicted most significantly
by self-esteem and being in a relationship.
Qualitative findings emphasized the importance of selfacceptance
and peer support for happiness. Findings are
discussed using the minority stress perspective and
cognitive dissonance theory
A longitudinal study of ICD-11 PTSD and complex PTSD in the general population of Israel
No full textThe ICD-11 includes two trauma disorders: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex PTSD (CPTSD). CPTSD is a disorder comprised of PTSD and Disturbance in Self-Organization (DSO) symptoms. Evidence supports the construct validity of PTSD and CPTSD, however, the temporal stability of these constructs has rarely been tested. This study examined the diagnostic stability of PTSD and CPTSD, and the temporal associations between PTSD and DSO symptoms over a period of one-year. Data were collected from a nationally representative sample of Israeli adults (n = 1,003) and one year later a random half of this sample were reassessed (n = 543). There were no statistically significant changes in rates of PTSD (6.7%, 5.3%) and CPTSD (4.9%, 3.7%) over time. Latent variable cross-lagged analysis indicated that PTSD and DSO symptoms were stable over time and that DSO symptoms predicted subsequent PTSD symptoms. Results suggest that ICD-11 PTSD and CPTSD are stable constructs in the general population over a period of one year. We discuss the possibility that these findings are influenced by the specific cultural context of Israel. Additionally, given the stability and influence of DSO symptoms we discuss the potential value of psychological therapies that directly address these symptoms
Article Assessing and improving the national reporting on human rights in and through physical education, physical activity and sport (PEPAS)
No full textThe Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) are two of the nine international human rights treaties that safeguard the rights of vulnerable groups. This paper aims to examine, from a macropsychology perspective, the relevance and significance of Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport (PEPAS) in reporting mechanisms related to the CRPD and CEDAW. A systematic document review of State Parties Reports (CEDAW n=100, CRPD= 133); List of Issues (CEDAW n=123, CRPD=84) and Concerns/Observations and Recommendations (CEDAW n=12, CRPD n=23) was undertaken. States Parties acknowledge the significance of sport and report on some key aspects, but they do not provide enough evidence or data to evaluate the impact of a legal framework into practice. The guidance given by the CEDAW and CRPD committees on articles related to PEPAS was appropriate and had a cross-cutting intersectional approach, although limited in scale. With the support of the sport sector both Treaty Bodies can leverage their capacity to call for greater attention to this agenda. A General Comment on Physical Education, Physical Activity and Sport (PEPAS) would help to provide clarification and guidance to State Parties on how to report on these related articles
New Spectral Markers for Broken Bars Diagnostics in Induction Motors
No full textThe paper discusses the spectral markers of fault rotor bars in induction motor current
signature analysis (MCSA). The results of the simulation of the deterioration process for a single rotor
bar, as well as the results of research for various mutual bracing of two broken bars, are reported.
We proposed a simple empiric technique allowing one to obtain frequencies for spectrum markers of
damaged rotor bars based on simulation analysis. The set of frequencies obtained in the experimental
part of the study was compared with simulation results and the results of real-life measurements. The
theoretical results were verified through the experiment with the real induction motor under load.
Analysis of experimental results proved that the given algorithm for spectrum analysis is suitable for
early detection of fault rotor bars in induction motors
Aerial Base Station Deployment in 6G Cellular Networks Using Tethered Drones: The Mobility and Endurance Tradeoff
No full textAirborne base stations (BSs) (carried by drones) have a great potential to enhance the coverage and capacity of 6G cellular networks. However, one of the main challenges facing the deployment of airborne BSs is the limited available energy at the drone, which curtails the flight time. In fact, most current unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can only operate for a maximum of 1 h. The need to frequently visit the ground station (GS) to recharge limits the performance of the UAV-enabled cellular network and leaves the UAV?s coverage area temporarily out of service. In this article, we propose a UAV-enabled cellular network setup based on tethered UAVs (tUAVs). In the proposed setup, the tUAV is connected to a GS through a tether, which provides the tUAV with both energy and data. This enables a flight that can last for days. We describe in detail the components of the proposed system. Furthermore, we list the main advantages of a tUAV-enabled cellular network compared to typical untethered UAVs (uUAVs). Next, we discuss the potential applications and use cases for tUAVs. We also provide Monte Carlo simulations to compare the performance of tUAVs and uUAVs in terms of coverage probability. For instance, for a uUAV that is available 70% of the time (while unavailable because of charging or changing the battery 30% of the time), the simulation results show that tUAVs with a 120-m tether length can provide up to a 30% increase in coverage probability compared to uUAVs. Finally, we discuss the challenges, design considerations, and future research directions to realize the proposed setup
Censorship, literary commemoration and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-2018
No full textThe twentieth century was a century of wars and conflicts. The Spanish Civil War was one of them. This conflict, followed by almost four decades of dictatorship, affected Spain’s politics, economy and society at the time. And the consequences can still be seen today. The Spanish Civil War is the result of political tensions during the Second Republic (1931-1936). These political tensions are directly linked to the ‘deeply transformative’ reforms voted in by the Spanish Socialist Party (el PSOE), during the Second Republic. Among the reforms presented by the government of the Second Republic, the following were particularly new to Spain’s conserva-tive society: a ‘fairer’ distribution of land, the extension of the right to vote to women and soldiers, the reorganisation of the army, the redefinition of private property, the questioning of the relationship between church and state. Even on a European scale, some of these reforms appeared too pro-gressive for the 1930s. At that time, these reforms were not unanimously accepted. They were considered too ‘communist’ by big landowners, the clergy and supporters of right-wing parties. At that time in Europe, com-munism was seen as a growing threat
‘Restor(y)ing their position in the spotlight, please welcome back on stage… Postgraduate Students who teach… or Graduate Teaching Assistants... or Teaching Postgrads… or…’
No full textThis is the story of the experiences of eleven postgraduate research students who
teach within the Institute of Technology (IoT) sector in Ireland. Despite being
present within the university sector, both nationally and internationally, the
concept of teaching postgraduates, within the IoT sector, is a relatively recent one,
and to date, very little research has been conducted into their experiences. They
have been on stage, but not centre stage…they have supported from the wings.
Adopting a narrative approach, this research presents the stories of these
postgraduate students and shines a spotlight on their occupational positioning and
identity within the sector. Underpinned by a poststructuralist stance, which sets
out to deconstruct existing structures, the study problematizes the concept of
Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) and explores the many different challenges
that face teaching postgraduate students within the sector, as voiced by the
postgraduate students themselves. Guided by a Foucauldian theorisation, that
suggests power can be pervasive and capillary, the study highlights how threads
of power are interwoven throughout the entire GTA experience, but also shows
how there is agentic power within the postgraduates themselves. The study also
considers how these teaching positions are being shaped by the impact of
neoliberalism within higher education and how their emergence has gone hand
in-hand with cost-saving measures and efficiencies.
But just as narrative may be viewed as a messy form of methodological inquiry
(Connolly, 2007) and poststructuralism favours a deconstructed form, this study
is also presented using a non-traditional format. Rather than following a conventional writing style, this study embraces performative writing as a means
of exploring different ways of knowing. The performative nature of the study is
a way of drawing explicit attention to the artificiality of conventional academic
writing and highlights the importance of writing as inquiry in itself. In addition,
through the adoption of performative writing in this study, a space has been
created for the reader to create their own meaning and to explore gaps in
knowledge.
The eleven individual stories are peppered throughout the study, as a way of
indicating that the postgraduate students are omnipresent throughout, just as they
are within higher education institutions. But You will also see that this study is
continuously interrupted by Celisne, who acts as a disruptive discursive
companion, and represents the many subjectivities of those who have been part of
this study, thereby inviting You to consider the multiple interpretations of this
story.
Finally, this study also makes claims to knowledge from a pedagogical
perspective, in that it has impacted upon my own pedagogy and practice, making
me more cognisant of the importance of involving all learners, including
postgrads who teach, in their own learning, listening to them, and ‘learning with’
them, rather than ‘teaching to’ them
Quantifying gendered participation in OpenStreetMap: responding to theories of female (under) representation in crowdsourced mapping
No full textThis paper presents the results of an exploratory quantitative analysis of gendered contributions to the online mapping project OpenStreetMap (OSM), in which previous research has identified a strong male participation bias. On these grounds, theories of representation in volunteered geographic information (VGI) have argued that this kind of crowdsourced data fails to embody the geospatial interests of the wider community. The observed effects of the bias however, remain conspicuously absent from discourses of VGI and gender, which proceed with little sense of impact. This study addresses this void by analysing OSM contributions by gender and thus identifies differences in men’s and women’s mapping practices. An online survey uniquely captured the OSM IDs as well as the declared gender of 293 OSM users. Statistics relating to users’ editing and tagging behaviours openly accessible via the ‘how did you contribute to OSM’ wiki page were subsequently analysed. The results reveal that volumes of overall activity as well editing and tagging actions in OSM remain significantly dominated by men. They also indicate subtle but impactful differences in men’s and women’s preferences for modifying and creating data, as well as the tagging categories to which they contribute. Discourses of gender and ICT, gender relations in online VGI environments and competing motivational factors are implicated in these observations. As well as updating estimates of the gender participation bias in OSM, this paper aims to inform and stimulate subsequent discourses of gender and representation towards a new rationale for widening participation in VGI
Digitally Assisted Transmitter Enhancement Techniques for Millimeter Wave Radio Systems
No full textWireless communication has become an integral part of life in a modern society. The data to be transmitted is modulated on radio frequency carrier signals for transmission where the bandwidth of the signal to be transmitted increases proportional to the speed at which the data is intended to be transmitted. The present generation cellular wireless communication systems employ channel bandwidths as wide as 20 MHz in multipole bands between 800 MHz and 3.5 GHz with digitally modulated multi-carrier transmission schemes and hybrid access schemes in time, frequency and spatial domains. The radio spectrum has stretched to occupy multiple bands below to meet the demand for volume and speed of the data to be communicated. Indoor short range wireless communications of present generation employ channel bandwidths as wide as 160 MHz and transmit at powers lesser than a tenth of that transmitted by cellular systems and employ similar access schemes as cellular wireless systems. There has been a similar evolution in the area of wireless communications through satellites. Next generation wireless communication systems such as 5G and High-Throughput-Satellite systems in the millimetre wave bands have promised a step increase in data rates in the order of several gigabits per second operating multiple frequency bands over and above those in use at present. This necessitates design of state of the art mm-wave transceivers capable of operating in millimetre wave bands with instantaneous bandwidths of several hundreds of MHz. The cost and complexity of implementation of the radio transmission system increases rapidly as the bandwidths increase. This work investigates digital enhancement techniques to enhance performance of wideband radio frequency transmitters. A section of the work focusses on characterizing wideband impairments in radio frequency hardware and mitigating them through digital signal processing. Another section devises digital signal processing operations to jointly enhance power efficiency in radio frequency transmitters along with providing an additional tier of security to the information being transmitted.The third section focusses on methods of transmission of wideband modulated signals by seamlessly interleaving multiple radio frequency transceivers of relatively narrow bandwidths in the frequency domain thereby presenting an architecture for scalable bandwidth transmitters. Overall this thesis presents innovative techniques to mitigate limitations in radio frequency hardware that hinder wideband operation and schemes to construct scalable bandwidth transceivers with scope to reuse legacy radio frequency hardware for next generation communication systems in part or whole
Developing an alternative means of assessing speed limits on rural single carriageway roads in Ireland using observed driver behaviour.
No full textSpeed limits in Ireland have undergone many changes since first introduced, most notably
in 2005 when the State adopted metric speed limits. The challenge presented to the
Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and Local Authorities is to assess, manage
and implement a system of speed limits that are appropriate, credible, transparent and
have the support and respect of the road user. Until 2005 a National Speed Limit applied
to all roads outside built-up areas. Metrification then occurred, and the National Speed
Limit was replaced by a system of Default Speed Limits that were assigned to each class
of road. Over time, this led to a lack of credibility and inconsistency in the speed limit
system. This thesis presents a history of how Irish speed limits have evolved and how they
are currently set and looks at Ireland’s collision history, its speed limits and its road safety
performance in relation to other European countries. Current speed limit assessment
methods, both in Ireland and in other jurisdictions, are also presented.
An alternative means of assessing the appropriate speed limit for rural single carriageway
roads is proposed by deriving a Safe Profile Velocity (Vsp) and an Efficiency Index value
for the road or section of road under assessment, by capturing actual driver behaviour -
the hypothesis being that the derived Safe Profile Velocity (Vsp) reflects what is occurring
on the road and simplifies the assessment method in relation to current methodologies
like the Speed Assessment Framework, while retaining core principles. A simplified
assessment method is becoming increasingly necessary as Local Authority resources are
limited, but demand for a credible speed limit system remains.
This thesis contains seven case studies and shows the relationship between the Safe Profile
Velocity (Vsp) and existing speed limits - the Efficiency Index, and shows the effect on
this Index should the speed limit be altered. The question of considering the use of speed
limit values that do not currently exist in legislation also emerges within this thesis. Areas
where future analysis or further research may be beneficial are also proposed