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Irish Country House Collections, Display And Dispersal: A Social Study Of Irish Art Loan Exhibitions And Auctions, 1798-1916
No full textThis thesis examines Irish art loan exhibitions and auctions where
paintings were on loan and were sold from some of the premier
collections of Irish country and town houses. Framed within significant
dates relating to rebellion in Ireland 1798 and 1916, this study uses an
interdisciplinary approach, which draws on social and art history and
demonstrates how political, legislative and other social changes affected
the art collections over time. This thesis evaluates how these exhibitions
and art sales benefitted individuals and social groups, from the education
of artists to the provision of an art gallery for the nation. The findings of
this thesis indicate that from 1814 onwards, young artists did benefit
from studying these paintings at these loan exhibitions and their
subsequent output continues to be displayed in public galleries both at
national and international level. The sale of two Old Masters from one
country estate provided new housing for its tenants and exhibitions held
during the Famine raised funds to alleviate distress.
Old Masters exhibition catalogues from the early nineteenth century
have proved extremely valuable in reconstructing country house
collections, especially where no inventory exists. It also demonstrates
how the exhibitions held in Dublin and Cork established a pattern for
lending valuable paintings to later art and industry exhibitions. Held for
the promotion of industry in Ireland, artisans could improve their design
skills, with access to these exemplars. Through an analysis of exhibition
and sales catalogues, this study chronicles the trajectory of the
collections from the privacy of the country house to public exhibitions
and auctions. The Old Masters loan exhibitions have received scant
scholarly attention, and this thesis aims to recover these and others from
the shadows and bring them to the attention of a wider audience
An Examination Of Nazi Propaganda Directed At Women Of The Neutral States, 1933-45
No full textThis thesis examines the gender dimensions of Nazi propaganda in six key neutral states:
Argentina, Ireland, Spain and Portugal (states that remained neutral throughout the Second
World War) and the United States and Brazil (states which abandoned their neutrality in 1941
and 1942 respectively). Women and the Third Reich has been the focus of important historical
investigations. However, these studies have predominantly adopted a national approach or have
been concerned with states that came under Nazi occupation. Nazi foreign policy and
propaganda have also been the topics of historical inquiry, but studies dedicated to examining
the gender dimensions of both are lacking. This thesis attempts to bridge these seemingly
separate historical fields of study. It aims to do so by arguing that the gender messages and
networks that emanated from the Third Reich to neutral states formed part of Nazi attempts to
use soft power projections to gain influence abroad. The extent to which women in the neutral
states served as targets of Nazi propaganda is examined along with the response Nazi efforts
received. The analysis then moves to focus on how women served as the subjects of the Nazis’
message, seeking to influence neutral opinions about the regime, its ideological and later
wartime adversaries. Finally, the thesis explores women’s involvement in the dissemination of
Nazi propaganda and, thereby, the furtherance of the regime’s foreign policy interests. The
findings in this thesis contribute to our understanding of Nazi attitudes and policies towards
women as well as Nazi soft diplomacy by showing that the Nazis’ used women to improve
their international reputation. Six politically diverse neutral states have been chosen to show
that their efforts in this regard were not confined to states within their sphere of influence or to
bilateral encounters but were also employed along multilateral lines and to states across the
political divide
Lexicon Leponticum – concept and implementation. Cisalpine Celtic literacy. Proceedings of the international symposium Maynooth 23–24 June 2022
Get PDFThe digital edition and etymological dictionary of Cisalpine Celtic, Lexicon Leponticum (LexLep), has now been online for thirteen years. I want
to take this opportunity to take stock of what has been achieved so far,
present the status of the site as of 2023, and cast a look into its futur
How the oil and gas industry influences higher education
No full textAs the climate crisis gets worse, global fossil fuel production is growing and oil and gas companies are making record profits.
While the powerful influence of the fossil fuel industry’s lobbying on climate policy is increasingly acknowledged, our new research also shows how oil and gas companies are influencing universities.
We are researchers with combined expertise on just energy transitions and climate justice and the university (the title of Jennie Stephens’s forthcoming book). With international colleagues we undertook the first comprehensive review of academic and civil society investigations into fossil fuel industries’ ties to higher education in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
In all four countries, the research shows multiple ways oil and gas companies have been investing in universities
Critical Data Studies: An A to Z Guide to Concepts and Methods
Get PDFCritical Data Studies has come of age as a vibrant, interdisciplinary field of study. Taking data as its primary analytical focus, the field theorises the nature of data; examines how data are produced, managed, governed and shared; investigates how they are used to make sense of the world and to perform practical action; and explores whose agenda data-driven systems serve.
This book is the first comprehensive A-Z guide to the concepts and methods of Critical Data Studies, providing succinct definitions and descriptions of over 400 key terms, along with suggested further reading. The book enables readers to quickly navigate and improve their comprehension of the field, while also acting as a guide for discovering ideas and methods that will be of value in their own studies.
Critical Data Studies is essential reading for students and scholars from across the sciences, social sciences and humanities, as well as those who work with data professionally who want to extend and enrich their conceptual and practical understanding of data and their use
Optimisation and control of tidal range power plants operation: Is there scope for further improvement?
Get PDFTidal barrage power plants utilise the tidal range variation to generate clean electricity. Although there are
several operating tidal barrage schemes around the globe, there is still potential to expand the installed capacity.
Given their inherent storage and the high predictability of the tides, tidal barrages can be operated with more
flexibility than many other renewables. This means that the control objective of a barrage operation can vary
from energy maximisation to constant power output, or demand-matching objectives. The operation of a barrage
also influences its impact on the environment and economic activity of the site where it is located, which is a
major cause for the slow deployment of such power plants. The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive
and critical analysis of the different strategies considered to date to optimise the operation of tidal barrages, with
a focus on an in-depth analysis of the optimisation schemes employed, the barrage models utilised, and op
portunities for further improvement
Control co-design for wave energy farms: Optimisation of array layout and mooring configuration in a realistic wave climate
Get PDFThis paper presents a novel Control Co-Design (CCD) methodology aimed at economically optimising the
layout of wave energy converter (WEC) arrays. CCD ensures the synergy of optimised WEC and array
parameters with the final control strategy, resulting in a comprehensive and efficient design of the array.
By integrating a spectral-based control strategy into the array layout design, this study pursues the twin
objectives of maximising energy absorption while reducing costs. To prove the performance of the proposed
CCD methodology, an application case is proposed where the inter-device distance, alignment, and mooring
configuration of a five-device array, considering realistic wave scenarios, are optimised. Energy capture and
system cost evaluations are conducted, with results emphasising the significance of incorporating advanced
control strategies in the design phase to improve energy absorption and reduce costs. With the application
case, the study demonstrates that the optimal layout of a WEC array considering economic factors may differ
from the optimal from purely technical factors, such as energy absorption, in the analysed cas
The Irish drought impacts database: A 287‐year database of drought impacts derived from newspaper archives
Get PDFUnderstanding of past droughts has been mostly shaped by meteorological data, with relatively less known about the human aspects of droughts, their socio‐economic impacts, as well as choices people make in response to droughts in different environmental and socio‐political contexts. The lack of data that systematically record and categorize drought impacts is an important reason for this disparity. In this paper, we present an Irish drought impacts database (IDID) containing 6094 newspaper reports and 11,351 individual impact records for the island of Ireland, covering the period 1733–2019. Relevant articles were identified through systematic searching of the Irish Newspaper Archives, and recorded impacts were categorized using a modified version of the classification scheme employed by the European drought impact inventory (EDII). Drawing on the wealth and diversity of content provided by the newspapers, the IDID database provides information on the documented temporal and geographical extent of drought events, their socio‐economic and political contexts, their consequences, mitigation strategies employed and their change over time. The IDID also facilitates analysis of long‐term patterns in drought incidence, individual impact categories, as well as detailed insight into the impacts of individual drought events over nearly three centuries of Ireland's history. In addition, by allowing an examination of the coherence between meteorological records and identified impacts, it advances our understanding of the influences that contemporary economic, political, environmental and societal events had on the human experience, perception and impact of droughts. This new open‐access database, therefore, provides opportunities for improving understanding of drought vulnerability and is an important step in developing greater capacity to cope with and respond to future droughts on the island of Ireland
The Teachings of Death: Gesturing toward New Educational Thought in the Posthuman Convergence
No full textThe current trajectory of the Earth, itself becoming a vast graveyard amidst the ongoing destruction of life-sustaining conditions, is a pressing reality that demands earnest consideration. This thesis is based on the premise that reorienting this necrophiliac tendency requires, in part, a transformation in how we think about mortality and subjectivity. Gesturing towards this fundamental shift, the interdisciplinary investigation here presented delves into the educational potential of death, i.e., education imparted by death, rather than education about death. Its aim is to expand on recent studies dealing with the subject of death in educational philosophy and theory, meanwhile distinguishing itself through a unique theoretical and methodological approach. Situated in the field of philosophy of education, this work also draws on continental philosophy – particularly feminist posthuman theory, queer death studies, and the environmental humanities – and builds on contributions from the arts.
Following a research question of my own, this thesis positions death as a critical site of learning, with the aim of questioning its educational value. This approach establishes new ways to reflect on the lessons that death and the dead can offer in the era of the posthuman convergence, as well as the potential responses that may be envisaged in light of these teachings. Against this backdrop, my methodology takes the form of an aesthetic-theoretical provocation, which is itself developed through registers of ‘gesture’ and ‘choreography’ as well as three case studies analysing depictions of death in four contemporary artworks. As such, my methods and styles of thinking with and from death support the exploratory, open-ended, and cross-disciplinary character of the inquiry that brings multiple texts, materials, and ideas into play, while also drawing on the expressions and perspectives of artistic bodies and the aesthetics of knowledge, to expand understandings of death in innovative ways and without immobilising a definition or seeking to lay claim to any particular discipline.
Within the choreographic structure of the thesis, I articulate teachings of death around three main intersecting lenses, which I call ‘scenes’: philosophical, educational, and aesthetic-pedagogical. In the first scene, I lay conceptual foundations by elaborating a concept of death in terms of relation. Deploying feminist and posthuman philosophy, I seek to understand death not as an individualising event, but, on the contrary, as one that highlights relationality and the singularity of a life. This proposed conceptualisation defines a model for understanding relations with and of death in which the human individual is not at the centre but entangled in multiple networks of human, more-than-human, and ahuman mortal legacies and assemblages. This philosophical envisioning of death propels the second scene, in which I give attention to the educational
implications of the relational approach, including its ethical and political dimensions. Here, I propose to examine death as a source of education that can generate affirmative and ethical modes of subjectivity and relationality, thus challenging the paradigm of modernity’s social and political denials of death. The third scene continues and deepens this reflection by examining the aesthetic aspect of death’s teachings through a pedagogical analysis of four works of art, each featuring a distinct ‘death narrative’. While differing in form and content, these works question various forms of violence, highlighted in their narratives, and the normalisation of certain deaths, often assumed or implicit within the context of entangled, multiple crises that are characteristic of the posthuman convergence. Through their narratives, I examine how each work points toward neglected, irreverent, and novel ways of thinking with death, overturning conventional representations and opening new avenues for pedagogical reflection and action.
Overall, this dissertation contends that while education is, and always has been, linked to issues of death, the lessons that death imparts have rarely been incorporated into our lives in a concrete, pedagogical way. This research attempts to address this point, and it moves towards a position where facing up to death is not about negating life, but about deepening our awareness of what constitutes it
Brain Glucose: Development and Characterisation of a Microelectrochemical Composite Biosensor for Chronic Real-time Monitoring in Freely Moving Rats
No full textThe aim of this project was to characterise a first-generation polymer enzyme
composite (PEC) biosensor for monitoring brain extracellular glucose. The brain is
heavily dependent on glucose as its primary energy source and dysregulation of
metabolism is linked to several neurological disorders including neurogenerative diseases
such as Alzheimer’s. Therefore, quantification and an improved understanding of glucose
changes and their relationship to other metabolites in the brain, are important research
goals. This project involved applying the composite biosensor design that has previously
been used to monitor other neurochemicals such as D-serine, choline, glutamate and
lactate to the existing glucose biosensor design that was previously developed by Lowry
et al. The core components of different crosslinking/stabilising agents, layering strategies
and drying times for the PEC biosensor design have already been optimised in the
previously developed devices. When the composite design was applied for the detection
of glucose the chosen sensor design was:
PtD(PoPD)(Sty)(GOx/GA)15
Where a PtD electrode (Platinum disc) was modified with PoPD (poly-ophenylenediamine),
an interference rejection layer, Sty (Styrene) an immobiliser, GOx
(glucose oxidase) the enzyme and finally GA (glutaraldehyde) a cross-linking agent.
Firstly, a literature review of neurochemical glucose biosensors was conducted to
compare and contrast the new glucose biosensor’s response characteristics (e.g.
sensitivity, Vmax and Km) with devices already reported. An in vitro characterisation of the
composite glucose biosensor was performed to determine the sensitivity of the device.
The sensor was exposed to a range of pH and temperatures that it may encounter in the
brain. Oxygen dependence studies were performed to ensure the low O2 concentration in
the brain would not hinder the biosensor’s performance. Biocompatibility tests were
conducted as exposure to brain tissue can lead to a decrease in sensitivity due to electrode
poisons, surfactants and surface modifying agents. A range of different stability
experiments were performed to determine the effect repeat calibrations had on the
sensitivity of the biosensor along with shelf-life experiments to assess the longevity of
the device. Finally, interference rejection was tested for common endogenous
electroactive interferents to ensure they had minimal effect on the glucose signal
recorded.
In summary, the polymer enzyme composite biosensor achieved an excellent
sensitivity of 32.42 ± 0.90 nA.cm-2.μM-1. It had a shelf-life of several weeks and no loss
of sensitivity was observed after repeat calibrations or exposure to ex vivo rodent brain
tissue (14 days). The sensor performed adequately under all physiologically relevant pH
and temperature ranges. The addition of a poly-ortho-phenylenediamine (PoPD) layer
provided the sensor with interference rejection properties which resulted in a reliable,
interference-free detection of glucose. Preliminary in vivo studies were performed in
freely moving rats where the sensor demonstrated reliable signals in response to neuronal
activation (tail pinch), and expected signals were observed when interference testing for
ascorbic acid and oxygen was performed. Future work will involve extending the vivo
characterisation of the biosensor