National University of Ireland, Maynooth
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Social partnership, company-level collective bargaining and union revitalization in Ireland
Get PDFThis article explores recent trade union efforts in Ireland to re-engage activists and members and promote revitalization following the termination of a 22-year period of tripartite social partnership. It analyses four case studies of major unions’ strategies to involve activists and members in a workplace-anchored model of firm-level collective bargaining. The findings indicate that decentralized bargaining has become the preferred model of pay determination for Irish unions, and they express little interest in returning to national-level centralized bargaining. Union leaders are enthusiastic about company-level bargaining primarily for three reasons. First, it revitalizes unions by sustaining and expanding union membership at the workplace. Second, it supports local bargaining arrangements that produce tangible benefits for workers, showcasing the effectiveness of unions in advocating for their members. Third, workplace arrangements enhance union influence over management decision-making, both directly through firm-level collective bargaining and indirectly by fostering incentives for continuous dialogue and information exchange
Assessing the Impact of Environment and Electrode Configuration on P300 Speller Performance and EEG Signal Quality
Get PDFRecent years have seen extensive use of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) using electroencephalography (EEG).
A critical element in BCI research is electrode selection, which influences performance, experiment duration, resource utilization,
and consequently, cost. Electrode choice is partly dictated by the
study location, as environmental electrical noise can impact EEG
signal quality. This study evaluates the performance of a P300
speller and EEG signal quality using 4-, 6-, 8-, and 16-electrode
configurations in two different office environments. Ten healthy
adults participated in a single session, using a P300 speller to
spell three words with each electrode set. Participants were split
between two locations, with five individuals in each. Significant
performance disparities were observed between the locations.
Notably, within each location, the performance differences among
4-, 6-, and 8-electrode sets were minimal; only the 16-electrode set
outperformed the others in both settings. The location associated
with poorer performances also exhibited lower P300 amplitudes
and higher levels of mains electricity noise
Illusions of online readiness: the counter-intuitive impact of rapid immersion in digital learning due to COVID-19
Get PDFFramed from a socio-cognitive perspective, and the contemporary increased salience of digital learning readiness and competence, the purpose of this study was two-fold: to validate Online Learner Readiness Scale in a new context and to explore potential variances in online readiness within a student-teacher population between less (pre-COVID) and more experienced (during COVID) groups. A CFA was used to examine the suitability of the OLRS in an Irish context, and variances between groups based on gender and professional experience were explored. Two cross-sectional datasets were gathered from student teachers from a university teacher education programme in the Republic of Ireland (n1 = 281, n2 = 154). The analysis demonstrated significantly lower perceived online readiness in the more experienced ‘during COVID’ cohort compared to ‘pre-COVID’ cohort. This counter-intuitive finding is in direct contrast to prior research, and potential influencing factors include the sudden immersion in an entirely digital learning environment. The more experienced cohort reported significantly lower online readiness across all five components of the OLRS. The findings are discussed in the context of a major shift in the student-teacher learning experience due to COVID-19. Implications for future research are explored in the context of increasingly digitised teaching and learning environments during and after the COVID-19 pandemic
Navigating School Attendance Challenges: Towards a Collaborative, Equitable and Unified Community Response in Limerick
Get PDFWhilst attending school is a positive and rewarding
experience for most children and young people,
concerns surrounding school attendance problems
are increasing both in Ireland and internationally. The
term School Attendance Problems (SAPs) is used
internationally to refer to difficulties labelled as school
refusal, and more recently termed school avoidance
or emotionally-based school avoidance; as well as
other types of school absenteeism, such as truancy,
school withdrawal or school exclusion (Heyne, Gren-Landell, Melvin & Gentle-Genitty, 2019). The reasons
for SAPs are complex and multifaceted and they
have been made more challenging by the COVID-19
pandemic (McDonald, Lester & Michelson, 2023). It is
increasingly clear that the world is changing, students’
needs are more diverse, and as a result, our approach
to school attendance and each student’s relationship
with education must be different too (Heyne, Gentle-Genitty, Melvin, et al., 2024)
Procrastination, depressive symptomatology, and loneliness in later life
Get PDFObjectives: Procrastination is an almost universal behaviour and yet little research to date has focused on procrastination among older adults. The purpose of this study was to explore the potential asso-ciation between age and procrastination, and the potential mediating roles of depressive symptom-atology and loneliness.Method: Structural equation modelling was applied to data from 1309 participants (aged 29–92) from two waves United States Health and Retirement Study (2016–2020). Within the model, sex, education, marital status, and job status were added as covariates.Results: There was no statistically significant direct effect between age and procrastination (β = 0.06, p = 0.106). However, an indirect effect was present via depressive symptomatology (β = −0.40, p < 0.001). No mediating effect of loneliness was observed (β = − 0.01, p = 0.371). Subsequent analysis revealed that the symptoms, fatigue, loneliness, and lack of motivation significantly predicted procrastination.Conclusion: While age was not directly associated with procrastination, increasing age was associated with a decreased likelihood of depressive symptomatology, which was in turn associated with an increased likelihood of procrastination. Such findings indicates that age demonstrates no association with procrastination because of the suppressing effect of depressive symptomatology
Procrastination, depressive symptomatology, and loneliness in later life
Get PDFObjectives: Procrastination is an almost universal behaviour and yet little research to date has focused on procrastination among older adults. The purpose of this study was to explore the potential asso-ciation between age and procrastination, and the potential mediating roles of depressive symptom-atology and loneliness.Method: Structural equation modelling was applied to data from 1309 participants (aged 29–92) from two waves United States Health and Retirement Study (2016–2020). Within the model, sex, education, marital status, and job status were added as covariates.Results: There was no statistically significant direct effect between age and procrastination (β = 0.06, p = 0.106). However, an indirect effect was present via depressive symptomatology (β = −0.40, p < 0.001). No mediating effect of loneliness was observed (β = − 0.01, p = 0.371). Subsequent analysis revealed that the symptoms, fatigue, loneliness, and lack of motivation significantly predicted procrastination.Conclusion: While age was not directly associated with procrastination, increasing age was associated with a decreased likelihood of depressive symptomatology, which was in turn associated with an increased likelihood of procrastination. Such findings indicates that age demonstrates no association with procrastination because of the suppressing effect of depressive symptomatology
Shadow Education Uptake in Ireland: Inequalities and Wellbeing in a High-Stakes Context
Get PDFThis paper assesses the role of shadow education (SE), i.e., orga-nised learning activities outside formal schooling, in the lives of secondary school students of different social backgrounds and in different school settings, in a high-stakes context. It draws on multilevel analysis of longitudinal Growing Up in Ireland data, alongside narratives from in-depth case study research in 10 schools. Framed within a social reproduction approach, we show how access to SE as an educational resource is socially stratified, accessible to those with greater levels of family resources, and those attending schools with higher socio- economic student intakes. SE is viewed as an investment, particularly among students with average and above average levels of prior attainment, while high attaining students are less likely to use SE. Perhaps reflecting the normalisation of SE in the Irish context, students do not directly link engagement in such tuition to their socio-emotional wellbeing
Universal Error Correction Decoding Algorithms
Get PDFThere is no perfect communication channel, and any communication necessarily
involves some level of noise. Attempting to hold a conversation across a crowded
room, for instance, will likely result in miscommunication due to background noise.
Channel coding, as a field, is concerned with reducing the rate of error in such noisy
communication channels. This can be achieved by encoding messages with channel
codes, which allow communication errors to be detected and corrected. The study
of channel coding was launched in 1948 [78], and it now underlies critical technology
such as the Internet, space communications, and storage of digital information [57].
In this thesis, we develop new algorithms and channel coding techniques based
on Guessing Random Additive Noise Decoding (GRAND), a recently introduced
family of decoders for channel codes. GRAND algorithms, unusually, can decode
any channel code of any length that has a moderate amount of redundancy.
Assuming that all messages are equally likely, they achieve maximum-likelihood
decoding, which is the best possible outcome of decoding a channel code. GRAND
challenges several assumptions of traditional channel coding and asserts a new decoding
paradigm in which the particular channel code being used doesn't matter,
allowing greater flexibility in the design of communication schemes. Given that an
upper bound on GRAND's computational complexity increases exponentially with
the amount of redundancy in a code, it is impractical to directly decode arbitrary
channel codes that have a large amount of redundancy.
The goal of this thesis is thus to explore if GRAND can be used to decode such
high-redundancy codes, which are suitable for the noisiest channel environments.
To that end, we introduce and develop two iterative decoding algorithms, Iterative GRAND (IGRAND) and block turbo decoding with GRAND, for a powerful
class of channel codes known as product codes. Product codes are, in general,
high-redundancy codes formed from a concatenation of low- to moderateredundancy
component codes. The key insight of the algorithms considered here
is that GRAND can decode product codes by decoding each of their component
codes in turn, circumventing the aforementioned complexity constraint.
Soft information indicates the reliability of a received message and is useful for
a wide range of applications, including error detection and turbo decoding. In
addition to the goal of decoding high-redundancy codes, this thesis also investigates
the question of whether it is possible for GRAND decoding to output accurate soft
information. We derive probabilistic soft output formulae for GRAND algorithms,
evaluate their accuracy, and explore their application to error detection
Composing America: Patriotism, Mythology, and Piety in the Film Scores of John Williams
Get PDFJohn Williams has been associated with the sound of Classical Hollywood Cinema (1933–58)
since his popular neoclassical scores of the 1970s seemed to revive the central European
tradition represented by composers such as Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold (among
others). Alongside this popular European romantic style, however, Williams’s scores often
reference a diverse array of American musical idioms. When scoring American-centric narratives,
or specific genres, Williams seems to rely on three distinct idioms, each with their own specific
histories and associations both within and outside of their films. For westerns (The Cowboys),
Coplandesque pastoralism serves to glorify landscape and maintain a myth of the West in ways
reminiscent of Copland’s ballets of the 1940s. For political dramas (JFK) or war epics (The
Patriot) the use of dignified brass fanfares, marches, and calls summon metatextual links to
ceremony and the military to endow images with an earnestness and a patriotic air. In historical
dramas (Lincoln) a hymn-inspired vocabulary generates a sense of the reverential or noble. Taken
together, these idioms form a lingua franca of American-associated sounds, demonstrating how
Williams cultivates the musical legacies and traditions of his homeland, while referencing
European compositional practices. Three chapters investigate the histories of each of these
idioms and their manifestations across a selection of Williams-scored films. By tracing the lineage
of each idiom, exemplifying their associative rigidity, and revealing how Williams adapts them,
this thesis not only showcases Williams’s own nationalistic mode, but additionally highlights
issues arising from the pervasiveness of this style in a broader Hollywood context
Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence
Get PDFIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments are the trusted source of scientific
evidence for climate negotiations taking place under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Evidence-based decision-making needs to be informed by up-to-date and timely information on key indicators of the state of the climate system and of the human influence on the global climate system.
However, successive IPCC reports are published at intervals of 5–10 years, creating potential for an information gap between report cycles.
We follow methods as close as possible to those used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One (WGI) report.We compile monitoring datasets to produce estimates for key climate indicators related to forcing of the climate system: emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers, greenhouse gas concentrations, radiative forcing, the Earth’s energy imbalance, surface temperature changes, warming attributed to human activities, the remaining carbon budget, and estimates of global temperature extremes. The purpose of this effort, grounded in an open-data, open-science approach, is to make annually updated reliable global climate
indicators available in the public domain (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11388387, Smith et al., 2024a). As they are traceable to IPCC report methods, they can be trusted by all parties involved in UNFCCC negotiations and help convey wider understanding of the latest knowledge of the climate system and its direction of travel.
The indicators show that, for the 2014–2023 decade average, observed warming was 1.19 [1.06 to 1.30] °C,of which 1.19 [1.0 to 1.4] °C was human-induced. For the single-year average, human-induced warming reached 1.31 [1.1 to 1.7] °C in 2023 relative to 1850–1900. The best estimate is below the 2023-observed warming record of 1.43 [1.32 to 1.53] °C, indicating a substantial contribution of internal variability in the 2023 record. Humaninduced
warming has been increasing at a rate that is unprecedented in the instrumental record, reaching 0.26[0.2–0.4] °C per decade over 2014–2023. This high rate of warming is caused by a combination of net greenhouse gas emissions being at a persistent high of 53+-5:4 GtCO2e yr-