NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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‘Cocooning’ in prison during COVID-19: Findings from recent research in Ireland
No full textThe advent of COVID-19 prompted the enforced isolation of elderly and vulnerable populations
around the world, for their own safety. For people in prison, these restrictions risked compounding the isolation and harm they experienced. At the same time, the pandemic created barriers to
prison oversight when it was most needed to ensure that the state upheld the rights and wellbeing
of those in custody. This article reports findings from a unique collaboration in Ireland between
the Office of the Inspector of Prisons – a national prison oversight body – and academic criminologists. Early in the pandemic, they cooperated to hear the voices of people ‘cocooning’ –
isolated because of their advanced age or a medical vulnerability – in Irish prisons by providing
journals to this cohort, analysing the data, and encouraging the Irish Prison Service to change practices accordingly. The findings indicated that ‘cocooners’ were initially ambivalent about these new
restrictions, both experiencing them as a punishment akin to solitary confinement, and understanding the goal of protection. As time passed, however, participants reported a drastic impact
on their mental and physical health, and implications for their (already limited) agency and relationships with others, experienced more or less severely depending on staff and management practices. The paper also discusses the implications for prison practices during and following the
pandemic, understanding isolation in the penological context, and collaboration between prison
oversight bodies and academics
A Broadband Time-Varying Energy Maximising Control for Wave Energy Systems (LiTe-Con+): Framework and Experimental Assessment
No full textMotion of wave energy converters (WECs) is usually exaggerated as a consequence of the application of control
strategies for energy absorption maximisation. With the aim of
preserving the physical integrity of the devices, constraint handling mechanisms, as part of the underlying control strategies, are
considered a key component. Recent developments in wave energy
control include a linear time-invariant-based controller presented
in the literature as LiTe-Con, which provides a simple constraint
handling mechanism. However, this handling method can lead to
conservative performance in certain scenarios. To overcome such
limitations, this study presents a time-varying methodology for
an online adaptation of the constraint handling mechanism in
LiTe-Con, while preserving its original simplicity and efficiency.
Experimental assessment of the presented control methodology is
provided in this study, using a broad range of operating conditions. Results show that the presented control strategy (LiTe-Con+)
exceeds the performance achievable with the original LiTe-Con.
Additionally, the benefits of LiTe-Con+, such as low computational
demand, technical versatility, and impressive performance level are
highlighted
A single-step enzyme-free electrochemical assay of N-acetyl-D-neuraminic acid
No full textN-acetyl-D-neuraminic acid (Neu5Ac) is a sialic acid endogenously produced in higher vertebrates including humans. Its significant physiological, nutritional and clinical importance have been revealed over the past decades and recently European Commission has approved its regulatory inclusion as a nutrition additive in commercial food products. Therefore, assay of Neu5Ac in various types of samples has potential interest. However, the state of the art of Neu5Ac assay is suffering from complex-multistep methods, costly biochemicals, sophisticated expensive instruments or long analysis time. This work presents a proof of concept for developing a single-step, robust and economic electrochemical method based on a chemoreceptor viz. ferroceneboronic acid (FcBA) for rapid assay of Neu5Ac in the linear dynamic range 0.1-5.5 mM with a limit of detection up to 30 µM avoiding interference from other saccharides. Density functional theory calculations provided a valuable insight into the most thermodynamically stable geometry of the FcBA-Neu5Ac complex and its higher stability relative to the corresponding FcBA complexes of diol viz. glucose and α-hydroxy acid viz. lactic acid
Chasing Paddy and finding Hope in a Hostile Place. An autoethnographic study of my experience of a lecturer in mental health nursing.
No full textChasing Paddy and finding Hope in a hostile place is a story about the role of a mental health nursing lecturer in Ireland. It is an autoethnographic exploration of current practice and the daily dramas and dilemmas of working within the hostilities of higher education in Ireland.
This research surfaces the challenges and difficulties encountered by many mental health educators as their practice has changed enormously over the past number of years and continues to be shaped by changes in nursing and education policy. Such policy changes have negatively impacted the occupational and professional positioning of the role locally and internationally. In Ireland there is an absence of research in this area and this thesis is an attempt to shine a light on the way in which educator practice is being shaped by the impact of neoliberalism within the mental health and higher education sectors.
This work is structured over the five years it took me to complete this doctoral programme and starts at year 1, at the beginning of term and follows this course throughout. The start of the academic year anchors this research and presents an opportunity to unpack some of the complexities of mental health nurse educator practice.
Adopting an autoethnographic approach, in which the researcher becomes the researched, this work presents a series of stories about people who have impacted my educator practice and help to shine a spotlight on issues of professional identity, the nature of mental health work, occupational positioning and the multiple influences on current pedagogical practice.
The role of a mental health educator involves the educational preparation of students to become registered mental health nurses and so this research transcends mental health, nursing, and education. Navigating these areas involves is a complex and messy task and the addition of carefully crafted characters aid this process enormously. These characters are composites, drawn from a sociological imagination and are situated at various points which transcends almost forty years of nursing practice. The central character is Paddy who helps craft an intertwined, layered story of self and others which provides the main backdrop for this story.
Underpinned a social constructionist lens this work explores the lives of the characters in the research and interprets lived lives emotively and critically.
Autoethnography is the research approach which guides the researcher through sensitive, soulful, and searching questions allowing for author vulnerability, self-expression, critical reflexivity, and scholarly creativity.
Such creativity allows this work to be presented in a nontraditional way. The importance of author positioning which is central to autoethnography is represented in the non-conventional, performative, and sometimes fragmented means of writing seen throughout this research. This fragmentation is often evident in the back-and-forth nature of the work, moving from present to past, to present, to future, to present and never settling. The use of various tenses helps to draw the reader into experiences but not confine them to a particular era, signifying the ongoing, messy, evolving, and infinite nature of this work. This facilitates expressions of uncertainty, questioning and ambiguity which is incorporated in many diverse and interpretative ways of knowing. The performative nature of the study invites the reader to follow a story with many different elements each attending to different sensibilities.
An important feature in this study is the representation of voice, that of the author and that of others which sometimes appears in differing guises in this work. The use of capital letters, commas, inverted commas, singular inverted commas instead of the traditional double, short punchy dialogue, pauses, white spaces, incomplete sentences, neologisms added to the purposeful disruption to narrative flow and aesthetic nicety. Carving out a place for the characters to represent their own textual narrative necessitated a departure from the artificiality of conventional academic writing with the use of imperfect dialogue, unsavory language, and words which are common parlance within mental health. Reader sensitivity underpins this research throughout as the reader can interpret their own meaning from the stories therein.
This study is an important one because it draws attention to mental health nurse education in Ireland. Much of the referenced work about this area of concern emanates from the UK and Australia and the study attempts to locate the problem and its particular situation within an Irish context. It is insider research, which is a departure from traditional forms of enquiry in mental health nursing and one where the author is fully present and accountable standing behind each word written. It has helped me to understand my practice, its limitations, and possibilities both from an educator and activist perspective
TeRMEd: a framework for educators to aid in the design and evaluation of technology-enhanced resources in mathematics
No full textIn this paper, we describe a classification framework which we developed
and that practitioners find useful and usable in the design and evaluation
of technology-enhanced resources and that incorporates factors which
impact on student engagement with such resources. The classifications in
the TeRMEd framework were derived from an evaluation of technology-enhanced resources, trialed within non-specialist first-year undergraduate
mathematics modules. The theoretical foundation included a literature
review, detailed analysis of resource trials and outcomes of the resource
evaluations. Subsequently, the TeRMEd framework was evaluated by lecturers involved in the resource trials. Using the TeRMEd framework for technology integration was shown to be beneficial in terms of both design and
evaluation. By carefully considering the classifications, practitioners can also
encourage student engagement with resources
Reinforcement Learning and Optimal Control for Additive Manufacturing
No full textDesigning efficient closed-loop control algorithms is a key issue in Additive Manufacturing
(AM), as various aspects of the AM process require continuous monitoring and regulation,
with temperature being a particularly significant factor. Here we study closed-loop
control of a state space temperature model with a focus on both model-based and datadriven
methods. We demonstrate these approaches using a simulator of the temperature
evolution in the extruder of a Big Area Additive Manufacturing system (BAAM). We
perform an in-depth comparison of the performance of these methods using the simulator.
We find that we can learn an effective controller using solely simulated process data.
Our approach achieves parity in performance compared to model-based controllers and
so lessens the need for estimating a large number of parameters of the intricate and complicated
process model. We believe this result is an important step towards autonomous
intelligent manufacturing
A method for creating complex real-world networks using ESRI Shapefiles.
No full textA classic optimization problem with many real-world applications is optimal route search in graphs or
networks. Graphical networks resembling real world networks are an important requirement for these
studies. Python packages NetworkX and OSMnx are probably the most popular approaches in industry for creating and analyzing real world graphical networks using ESRI Shapefiles (Geospatial
Vector Data). However, creating such a network is a complex and tedious process as these packages
require the input data to be in a specific format. In this study,
• We outline a flexible method that can be used to easily create graphical network representations in NetworkX or OSMnx using road network topology data stored in ESRI Shapefiles.
• A detailed step-by-step process is outlined to successfully transform the ESRI Shapefile data into
the compatible format for graph analysis libraries like OSMnx and NetworkX.
• A data cleaning strategy is suggested to reduce resource consumption without distorting the actual
structure of the graph.
This method will allow researchers to efficiently generate graphical networks and validate their theories by evaluating their efficiencies using real-world network data of different sizes and topologies.
This method could benefit, but is not limited to, research areas such as Advanced Transportation
Systems (ATS), Graph Neural Networks (GNN), Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithms, to mention
a few
Doing Criminology and Criminal Justice in Ireland: Perspectives From a Peripheral Nation
No full textThis special issue invites authors engaged in cutting-edge research on crime and criminal justice in the Republic of Ireland to demonstrate Ireland’s global significance in these fields. Irish criminology is a burgeoning, diverse and outward-looking discipline, with a rising number of scholars making novel contributions to international debates on the theoretical and empirical study of crime and criminal justice. Its relatively unique position as both a Western European democracy and a post-colonial territory means that Ireland is of equal significance to the Global North and Global South. Moreover, this growth in local scholarship coincides with changes to criminal justice that should be of interest to advocates and analysts around the world. With articles on gendered historical abuses, public attitudes to policing, countering violent extremism, penal decision-making, penal politics, youth justice and organised crime, the issue brings this research to a global audience
Journalistic privilege in Ireland
No full textLegal protection for confidential journalist sources has often been
a site of tension and dispute between journalists, the police and
the courts. Journalists routinely claim that freedom of expression
guarantees provided for under international and domestic human
rights instruments include a legal privilege against disclosure of
confidential journalist sources. This claim is often raised to resist
compelled disclosure of journalistic materials to police as part of
criminal investigations. Courts in many jurisdictions have forcefully
repudiated this legal claim, though many recognise some right for
journalists to refuse disclosure. Some courts have reluctantly conceded
to the naming of this right as ‘journalistic privilege’.
In 2020, courts on both sides of the Irish border were called upon to
vindicate this right against disclosure. This recent flurry of litigation
has, in the Republic of Ireland, built upon more than a decade of
significant legal developments around ‘journalistic privilege’. These
latter developments have dramatically expanded the scope of the Irish
Constitution’s freedom of expression guarantees.
This article critically reviews this last decade of significant legal
developments around ‘journalistic privilege’ in the Republic of Ireland.
It examines the two recent and highly significant Irish determinations
from 2020 in Fine Point Films and Corcoran, and how the former
Northern Irish judgment has created significant new avenues for legal
development in the Republic of Ireland. The article also identifies and
considers some important, emergent themes in Strasbourg’s article 10
jurisprudence: specifically an apparent new ‘source motive’ test for
article 10 protection of confidential source material
Representative linearised models for a wave energy converter using various levels of force excitation
No full textIn guiding the progression, development, and operation of wave energy converters (WECs) in a more efficient
way, mathematical analysis and understanding of the dynamic process is essential. Mathematical WEC models,
obtained either by numerical analysis or physical modelling, form the basis of most (model-based) energy
maximising control strategies available in the literature, where experimental design and system identification
methodology directly impact the resulting model. This study, using an experimental-based WEC model (which
can be used for linear control design), investigates the dynamic behaviour of a WEC by analysing the dominant
poles of the system, generated using fully nonlinear computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-based numerical wave
tank (NWT) experiments. The aim is to effectively track the dominant dynamics of the WEC, using different
force-input amplitude levels in the NWT setup, and perform a comparison with the classical linear boundary-element-methods (BEM) equivalent methodology. Thus, the presented case studies are shown to agree with
previously proposed model assessment of linear WEC models, based on a free-decay NWT setup. In addition,
the representative WEC models determined as part of this study can be used for WEC controller design, either
singly, or using a form of model/controller gain scheduling