NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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The Recast Reception Conditions Directive and the Rights of Asylum Seekers with Disabilities: Opportunities, Challenges and the Quest for Reform
No full textIn recent years, the European Union (EU) has, like much of the developed world, experienced a sustained period of inward migration from refugee-producing States in Africa and the Middle-East. This ‘refugee crisis’ has placed a strain not only on the political will of the EU institutions and Member States to find a satisfactory resolution to deal with the flow of migrants, but also on their ability to put in place fair processes for any resulting claims for asylum and to adequately support the needs of asylum seekers while those claims are being processed. This article discusses the latter issue from a discreet angle, focusing on how the EU has addressed the needs of asylum seekers with disabilities. As a party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ( CRPD ), which enjoys sub-constitutional status within the EU legal order, the EU is obligated to interpret all legislation in light of the Convention. Thus, this article seeks to assess the degree to which Directive 2013/33/EU on the material reception conditions for asylum seekers can protect and promote the rights of asylum seekers with disabilities and fulfill the ‘human rights model of disability’ embedded within the CRPD . It also assesses the most recent proposal to replace the Directive, and examines whether the potential shortcomings within it have been addressed thus far. Ultimately, it finds that the ambiguities and lack of procedural certainty within the current Directive provide too much room to derogate from the standards arguably mandated by the Convention, and these have yet to be addressed within the new Proposal
Wave energy control: status and perspectives 2020
No full textWave energy has a significant part to play in providing a carbon-free solution to
the world’s increasing appetite for energy. In many countries, there is sufficient wave energy
to cater for the entire national demand, and wave energy also has some attractive features in
being relatively uncorrelated with wind, solar and tidal energy, easing the renewable energy
dispatch problem. However, wave energy has not yet reached commercial viability, despite the
first device designs being proposed in 1898. Control technology can play a major part in the
drive for economic viability of wave energy and this paper charts the progress made since the
first wave energy control systems were suggested in the 1970s, and examines current outstanding
challenges for the control community
LTI energy-maximising control for the Wave Star wave energy converter: identification, design, and implementation
No full textConsidering the Wave Star wave energy converter (WEC), which is a standard
point absorber prototype, this study addresses the complete energy maximising control design
procedure. The WEC model is obtained using system identification routines. Then, using the
identified model, a LTI energy maximising control strategy, recently presented in the literature,
is designed. Additionally, for the wave excitation force estimation, a standard Kalman filter
with a harmonic oscillator is considered. Finally, for the assessment of the performance of
the complete system, the controller and estimator are implemented in the numerical WEC
simulation environment WEC-Sim. The system is tested under realistic conditions and satisfying
performance of the LTI controller is shown. Thus, through a non-conventional approach,
and considering a realistic software environment, a novel energy maximising controller is
implemented, obtaining results which indicate the feasibility of the approach
Probing top quark FCNC couplings in the triple-top signal at the high energy LHC and future circular collider
No full textOur main aim in this paper is to present detailed studies to probe the top quark flavor changing neutral current (FCNC) interactions at tqg, tqγ, tqHand tqZ(σμν, γμ)vertices in the triple-top signal pp→t¯tt(¯tt¯t)at the high energy proposal of Large Hadron Collider (HE-LHC) and future circular hadron-hadron collider (FCC-hh). To this end, we investigate the production of three top quarks which arises from the FCNC couplings taken into account the fast simulation at √s=27TeV of HE-LHC and 100 TeV of FCC-hh considering the integrated luminosities of 10, 15 and 20 ab−1. All the relevant backgrounds are considered in a cut based analysis to obtain the limits on the anomalous couplings and the corresponding branching ratios. The obtained exclusion limits on the coupling strengths and the branching ratios are summarized and compared in detail with the results in the literature, namely the most recent direct LHC experimental limits and HL-LHC projections as well. We show that, for the higher energy phase of LHC, a dedicated search for the top quark FCNC couplings can achieve much better sensitivities to the triple-top signal than other top quark production scenarios. We found that the limits for the branching ratios of tqgand tqHtransitions could reach an impressive sensitivity and the obtained 95% CL limits are at least three orders of magnitude better than the current LHC experimental results as well as the existing projections of HL-LHC
Shaking photons from the vacuum: acceleration radiation from vibrating atoms
No full textAcceleration radiation—or Unruh radiation—the thermal radiation observed by an ever accelerating observer or detector, although having similarities to Hawking radiation, so far has proved extremely challenging to observe experimentally. One recent suggestion is that, in the presence of a mirror, constant acceleration of an atom in its ground state can excite the atom while at the same time cause it to emit a photon in an Unruh-type process. In this work we show that merely by shaking the atom, in simple harmonic motion for example, can have the same effect. We calculate the transition rate for this in first order perturbation theory and consider harmonic motion of the atom in the presence of a stationary mirror, or within a cavity or just in empty vacuum. For the latter we propose a circuit-QED potential implementation that yields transition rates of ∼10−4 Hz, which may be detectable experimentally
Reflections on post-bailout policy analysis in Ireland
No full textThis short article reflects on observations from the forthcoming volume Policy Analysis in Ireland, edited by Hogan & Murphy. The volume forms part of the International Library of Policy Analysis series, which covers more than twenty countries, published by Policy Press and edited by Michael Howlett and Iris Geva-May. While various themes emerge from the Irish volume, this article focuses on only one core question: whether and how the 2008 economic crisis contracted and expanded the capacity for policy analysis in Ireland. The troika of the International Monetary Fund, European Central Bank and the European Commission are associated with policy capacity innovation, but also with significant austerity. Both had a major and long-term impact on public services. While the article documents a range of successful post-bailout attempts to improve policy analysis capacity, it also points to often less conscious, but sometimes deliberate, decisions that diminished some forms of policy analysis capacity. We find economic policymaking capacity enhanced while changes to resources and policy opportunity structures depleted both space and the capacity for social policy analysis. This was particularly so within the equality and social justice sectors. Given ongoing social risks, the Covid-19 pandemic and the climate crisis, Ireland needs to adjust for a future of permanent uncertainty, or perpetual crises, and should seek to rebalance investment in social policy capacity and to develop systems for integrated policy analysis
A simple and efficient Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression system to dissect molecular processes in Brassica rapa and Brassica napus
No full textThe family Brassicaceae is a source of important crop species, including Brassica
napus (oilseed rape), Brassica oleracea, and B. rapa, that is used globally for oil production or as a food source (e.g., pak choi or turnip). However, despite advances in recent
years, including genome sequencing, a lack of established tools tailored to the study
of Brassica crop species has impeded efforts to understand their molecular processes
in greater detail. Here, we describe the use of a simple Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression system adapted to B. rapa and B. napus that could facilitate study of
molecular and biochemical events in these species. We also demonstrate the use of
this method to characterize the N-degron pathway of protein degradation in B. rapa.
The N-degron pathway is a subset of the ubiquitin-proteasome system and represents a mechanism through which proteins may be targeted for degradation based on
the identity of their N-terminal amino acid residue. Interestingly, N-degron-mediated
processes in plants have been implicated in the regulation of traits with potential
agronomic importance, including the responses to pathogens and to abiotic stresses
such as flooding tolerance. The stability of transiently expressed N-degron reporter
proteins in B. rapa indicates that its N-degron pathway is highly conserved with that
of Arabidopsis thaliana. These findings highlight the utility of Agrobacterium-mediated
transient expression in B. rapa and B. napus and establish a framework to investigate
the N-degron pathway and its roles in regulating agronomical traits in these species.
Significance statement: We describe an Agrobacterium-mediated transient expression system applicable to Brassica crops and demonstrate its utility by identifying the
destabilizing residues of the N-degron pathway in B. rapa. As the N-degron pathway
functions as an integrator of environmental signals, this study could facilitate efforts
to improve the robustness of Brassica crops
Saberes en movimiento. Reciprocidad, co-presencia, análisis colectivo y autoridad compartida en investigación. Knowledge in Motion. Reciprocity, Co-Presence, Collective Analysis and Shared Authority in Research
No full textEste artículo reflexiona sobre la investigación colaborativa con movimientos sociales, explorando qué implica investigar con sujetos reflexivos —comunidades epistémicas— que desarrollan sus propias prácticas de investigación, que tienen sus propios mecanismos paraetnográficos de producción y sistematización de conocimiento. ¿Cómo se modifica el trabajo de campo en estos casos? ¿Cómo se transforma el papel del investigador o investigadora académicos? ¿Es posible articular proyectos que logren ser relevantes tanto para la academia como para los sujetos-comunidades con quienes trabajamos? Basándome en mi propia experiencia de investigación, discutiré dos elementos —dos líneas de tensión— centrales en el trabajo colaborativo: la cuestión del poder en la relación de investigación, la simetría o asimetría —la jerarquización— entre los distintos actores; y, en segundo lugar, la discusión en torno a la autonomía del investigador o investigadora. Frente a estos dos desafíos, el artículo propone construir lógicas de co-presencia, análisis colectivo y autoridad compartida con nuestros sujetos de investigación/co-laboradores.
This article reflects on the praxis of collaborative research with social movements, taken
here as reflexive/epistemic communities that develop their own para-ethnographic knowledge-practices. What does it entail to do research with subjects that conceive and conduct
research as a key dimension of their political praxis? How does this affect the ethnographic encounter? How does it modify fieldwork? Drawing on my own research experience with
social movement networks, I will discuss two challenges in collaborative research: a) the
question of power, the (a)symmetry — the hierarchy — among actors; and, b) the concerns
regarding the analytical autonomy of scholars. Within this framework, the article will advocate for establishing logics of co-presence and shared authority with our co-researchers
Thermal Upgrade of Enzymatically Synthesized Aliphatic and Aromatic Oligoesters
No full textThe enzymatic synthesis of polyesters in solventless systems is an environmentally friendly
and sustainable method for synthetizing bio-derived materials. Despite the greenness of the technique,
in most cases only short oligoesters are obtained, with limited practical applications or requiring
further chemical processing for their elongation. In this work, we present a catalyst-free thermal
upgrade of enzymatically synthesized oligoesters. Different aliphatic and aromatic oligoesters
were synthesized using immobilized Candida antarctica lipase B (iCaLB) as the catalyst (70 ◦C, 24
h) yielding poly(1,4-butylene adipate) (PBA, Mw = 2200), poly(1,4-butylene isophthalate) (PBI,
Mw = 1000), poly(1,4-butylene 2,5-furandicarboxylate) (PBF, Mw = 600), and poly(1,4-butylene
2,4-pyridinedicarboxylate) (PBP, Mw = 1000). These polyesters were successfully thermally treated
to obtain an increase in Mw of 8.5, 2.6, 3.3, and 2.7 folds, respectively. This investigation focused
on the most successful upgrade, poly(1,4-butylene adipate), then discussed the possible effect
of di-ester monomers as compared to di-acids in the thermally driven polycondensation. The
herein-described two-step synthesis method represents a practical and cost-effective way to synthesize
higher-molecular-weight polymers without the use of toxic metal catalysts such as titanium(IV)
tert-butoxide, tin(II) 2-ethylhexanoate, and in particular, antimony(IV) oxide. At the same time, the
method allows for the extension of the number of reuses of the biocatalyst by preventing its exposure
to extreme denaturating conditions
Maynooth University: Submission to the HEA Research on Mature Student Participation in Higher Education
No full textMaynooth University (MU) welcomes the Higher Education Authority (HEA) call to contribute to an
investigation of the issues, barriers and challenges associated with participation in higher education (HE) of
current and potential first-time mature students. Moreover, MU is proud to be able to share over forty
years of expertise having developed relationships, programmes, events, courses and initiatives to attract
adults and mature students into education and to support them through learning