95 research outputs found
Optimal resolution tomography with error tracking and the structure of the crust and upper mantle beneath Ireland and Britain
No full textThe classical Backus–Gilbert method seeks localized Earth-structure averages at the shortest
length scales possible, given a data set, data errors, and a threshold for acceptable model
errors. The resolving length at a point is the width of the local averaging kernel, and the
optimal averaging kernel is the narrowest one such that the model error is below a specified
level. This approach is well suited for seismic tomography, which maps 3-D Earth structure
using large sets of seismic measurements. The continual measurement-error decreases and
data-redundancy increases have reduced the impact of random errors on tomographic models.
Systematic errors, however, are resistant to data redundancy and their effect on the model is
difficult to predict. Here, we develop a method for finding the optimal resolving length at every
point, implementing it for surface-wave tomography. As in the Backus–Gilbert method, every
solution at a point results from an entire-system inversion, and the model error is reduced by
increasing the model-parameter averaging. The key advantage of our method stems from its
direct, empirical evaluation of the posterior model error at a point. We first measure inter-
station phase velocities at simultaneously recording station pairs and compute phase-velocity
maps at densely, logarithmically spaced periods. Numerous versions of the maps with varying
smoothness are then computed, ranging from very rough to very smooth. Phase-velocity curves
extracted from the maps at every point can be inverted for shear-velocity (V S ) profiles. As
we show, errors in these phase-velocity curves increase nearly monotonically with the map
roughness. We evaluate the error by isolating the roughness of the phase-velocity curve that
cannot be explained by any Earth structure and determine the optimal resolving length at a point
such that the error of the local phase-velocity curve is below a threshold. A 3-D V S model is then
computed by the inversion of the composite phase-velocity maps with an optimal resolution
at every point. The estimated optimal resolution shows smooth lateral variations, confirming
the robustness of the procedure. Importantly, the optimal resolving length does not scale with
the density of the data coverage: some of the best-sampled locations display relatively low
lateral resolution, probably due to systematic errors in the data. We apply the method to image
the lithosphere and underlying mantle beneath Ireland and Britain. Our very large data set
was created using new data from Ireland Array, the Irish National Seismic Network, the UK
Seismograph Network and other deployments. A total of 11 238 inter-station dispersion curves,
spanning a very broad total period range (4–500 s), yield unprecedented data coverage of the
area and provide fine regional resolution from the crust to the deep asthenosphere. The lateral
resolution of the 3-D model is computed explicitly and varies from 39 km in central Ireland to
over 800 km at the edges of the area, where the data coverage declines. Our tomography reveals
pronounced, previously unknown variations in the lithospheric thickness beneath Ireland and Britain, with implications for their Caledonian assembly and for the mechanisms of the British
Tertiary Igneous Province magmatism
Alcohol Action Ireland: submission to the Working Group on Regulating Sponsorship by Alcohol Companies of Major Sporting Events. It's not a game.
No full textAlcohol sponsorship of sport is the keystone for a wide range of alcohol marketing activity in Ireland. An array of marketing activities are used to leverage the link between alcohol, sports and elite athletes, which ultimately drives consumption of alcohol. Advertising “activates” the sports sponsorship to increase sales. A ban on alcohol sponsorship of sport would decelerate the relentless promotion of alcohol in Ireland and diminish the overall potency of alcohol advertising, thereby reducing alcohol consumption.
The purpose of marketing is to create a need or desire for a product. Alcohol is not a staple, it is not a necessary purchase, therefore a market must be created for it – and new drinkers must be recruited to create and expand that market. While the Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland (ABFI) claims that “there is no link between sponsorship and alcohol consumption”, Diageo, sponsor of Irish rugby and the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), attributes sales increases directly to sports sponsorship activity in its most recent annual report and Carlsberg, sponsor of the FAI, in its most recent annual report, says that “ultimately, sponsorships are about growing our business and driving the long-term sales of our beer brands”.
There is clearly one message for policymakers and another for shareholders, but it is the latter whose interests the alcohol industry is working for and protecting. Our legislators must do the same for the public health. To suggest that sports sponsorship is not linked to sales of alcohol or has no influence on the beliefs and drinking behaviour of Irish people, particularly children and young people, not only lacks evidence and credibility, it also flies in the face of logic and common sense.
Alcohol sponsorship of sport works in terms of increasing sales and, as a result, alcohol consumption. If it didn’t, the alcohol industry simply would not spend so much money on it. Pairing a healthy activity, such as sport, with an unhealthy product, such as alcohol, makes that product seem less unhealthy and more acceptable and normal. It creates a culture where children and young people perceive alcohol consumption as a normal everyday part of life and see it as something associated with having fun and sporting success. It is entirely contradictory that a society with the second highest level of binge drinking in the world and where three people die every day from an alcohol-related illness is supine with regard to this aspect of alcohol promotion.
The Cabinet has endorsed the Healthy Ireland strategy, which stresses the need “to ensure that health is an integral part of all relevant policy areas, including environment, social and economic policies” – capitulating to the alcohol industry on the issue of alcohol sponsorship of sport completely undermines the credibility of this endorsement and the strategy itself. The legal age for purchasing alcohol is 18 for very good reasons. Alcohol use is a serious risk to children and young people’s health and well-being, due largely to the fact that they are more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol than adults as their bodies and brains are still developing.
There is nothing to be gained by blaming children and young people, who are, in many ways, a product of their environment when it comes to alcohol consumption. We have allowed an environment to be created for them that is saturated with alcohol, particularly with regard to the healthiest of activities they can enjoy, such as sport.
It is vital that we legislate comprehensively to regulate the promotion of alcohol including a ban on alcohol sponsorship of sport, which is a powerful and sophisticated influence on young people’s drinking behaviour and expectations, increasing the likelihood that they will start to use alcohol at an earlier age and to drink more if they are already using alcohol.
It is not just supported by the evidence, it is the right thing to do
Irish Nationalist Organisations in the North East of England, 1890 – 1925
No full textThis thesis is the first major study of organised Irish nationalism in the North East of England, set against the wider context of events in Britain and Ireland, from the division that followed Parnell’s fall in 1890 until shortly after the foundation of the Irish Free State and the Irish Civil War. It is a significant contribution to our understanding of the history of the largest ethnic group in Britain before the Second World War – the Irish. It is also an important regional study, revealing the vitality and diversity of the North East’s expression of Irish nationalism that was probably not equalled anywhere else in England and Wales, other than in London. That vitality was manifested in the raising of the Tyneside Irish Brigade for the British Army in 1914. The Tyneside Irish was the crowning achievement of the pre-1918 Irish nationalist organisations in the North East, and arguably in Britain, demonstrating the organisations’ commitment both to John Redmond and to the region, where so many Irish migrants had settled. Irish nationalism’s diversity in the North East was embodied in the Irish Labour Party, which, alone in England, took root on Tyneside, and sought to blend class and ethnic issues at a time of national crisis in Ireland. This organisation casts light on the complex issue of the transference of working-class Irish Catholic allegiance from nationalism to the labour movement in Britain, and, therefore, in the assimilation of that community into the wider British community. Though none of these nationalist organisations has left any extensive archive, this thesis utilises Irish and English manuscript sources, and a wide array of Catholic, labour, and regional newspapers, to demonstrate that these organisations were not only an important part of the history of the Irish in the North East, but also of the North East itself
A.J. Potter (1918-1980): The career and creative achievement of an Irish composer in social and cultural context
No full textA. J. Potter (1918-1980) was one of the most significant composers working in Ireland in the latter part of the twentieth century. This thesis surveys his career and creative achievement, which have not hitherto been subjected to detailed scrutiny. The opening chapter presents a biographical overview: its first part outlines the circumstances of Potter's childhood and early adulthood, including his studies with Vaughan Williams at the Royal College of Music in London, his period of service in the British Army during World War II and his subsequent three-year sojourn in Africa; the second continues the narrative from 1951, when he settled permanently in Ireland, up to his death in 1980. In addition to detailing events of note in his private and professional life, an important subsidiary focus of this section is to depict the impoverished and culturally marginalised nature of Irish musical life at this period and describe the frustrations that these conditions engendered for the composer and his contemporaries. The remaining chapters are devoted to an examination of Potter's major works. Chapter 2 considers four student compositions that were written or conceived in the late 1930s and were subsequently revised when he resumed composing in 1949 after a creative silence of over a decade. Chapter 3 is divided in two parts: the first delineates the salient features of his mature creative aesthetic, while the second provides an account of his later orchestral works. The remaining chapters explore his choral music and stage works, which, in addition to the scores previously described, constitute his most noteworthy achievements
Collaborative Learning: A Qualitative Descriptive Study of Undergraduate Student Nurses’ Experiences of Receiving a Group-Mark for Modular Assessment
No full textBackground: Over the last few decades, education, including nursing, has afforded considerable attention to collaborative learning. However, students can also sometimes find working in a group negatively impacts on their learning. Problems encountered with group work may be more upsetting when the student’s grade depends on the work of the group. Successful collaborative learning requires students to have positive beliefs about collaborative learning. Few studies have examined student experiences of group work when a group mark is awarded. To motivate group learning, educators must better understand the effect a group mark has on student experience of group work.Objective: To describe nursing student’s experiences of receiving a group mark for collaborative learning modules and the impact this has on their learning and group work experiences.Design: A qualitative descriptive approach was employed.Setting: One higher education institution in Ireland in which nursing students undertake a primary degree.Participants: A total of 14 undergraduate nursing students (across years 1, 2, and 4) who were completing a degree in children’s and general nursing participated. These students were selected because they were exposed to problem based learning modules through which they receive a collective group mark for collaborative learning.Methods: Individual and focus group interviews were conducted. Data were analysed thematically.Results: Students reported binary dependent relationships; whereby each student was dependent on other group members and other group members were dependent on each student for their grade. This mutual dependency created an array of negative emotions which emerged across the three sub-themes of lack of controllability; challenges of co-dependency and invisible work.Conclusion: Students must be taught effective group work skills to enhance learning and group work experiences. Further research is needed to examine the appropriateness of awarding group grades where results contribute to degree classification.
Mutual Recognition in Goods and Services: An Economic Perspective. ENEPRI Working Paper No. 16, March 2003
No full textMutual recognition is a remarkable innovation facilitating economic intercourse across borders. In the EU's internal goods market it has been helpful in tackling or avoiding the remaining obstacles, namely, regulatory barriers between member states. However, there is a curious paradox. Despite the almost universal acclaim of the great merits of mutual recognition, the principle has, in and by itself, contributed only modestly to the actual realisation of free movement in the single market. It is also surprising that economists have not or hardly underpinned their widespread appreciation for the principle by providing rigorous analysis which could substantiate the case for mutual recognition for policy-makers. Business in Europe has shown a sense of disenchantment with the principle because of the many costs and uncertainties in its application in actual practice. The purpose of the present paper is to provide the economic and strategic arguments for employing mutual recognition much more systematically in the single market for goods and services. The strategic and the ‘welfare’ gains are analysed and a detailed exposition of the fairly high information, transaction and compliance costs is provided. The information costs derive from the fact that mutual recognition remains a distant abstraction for day-to-day business life. Understandably, verifying the ‘equivalence’ of objectives of health and safety between member states is perceived as difficult and uncertain. This sentiment is exacerbated by the complications of interpreting the equivalence of ‘effects’. In actual practice, these abstractions are expected to override clear and specific national product or services rules, which local inspectors or traders may find problematic without guidance. The paper enumerates several other costs including, inter alia, the absence of sectoral rule books and the next-to-prohibitive costs of monitoring the application of the principle. The basic problems in applying mutual recognition in the entire array of services are inspected, showing why the principle can only be used in a limited number of services markets and even there it may contribute only modestly to genuine free movement and competitive exposure. A special section is devoted to a range of practical illustrations of the difficulties that business experiences when relying on mutual recognition. Finally, the corollary of mutual recognition – regulatory competition – is discussed in terms of a cost/benefits analysis compared to what is often said to be the alternative, that is ‘harmonisation’, in EU parlance the ‘new approach’ to approximation. The conclusion is that the manifold benefits of mutual recognition for Europe are too great to allow the present ambiguities to continue. The Union needs much more pro-active approaches to reduce the costs of mutual recognition as well as permanent monitoring structures for its application to services (analogous to those already successfully functioning in goods markets). Above all, what is required is a ‘mutual recognition culture’ so that the EU can better enjoy the fruits of its own regulatory ingenuity
Array collective (2021 Turner prize winners): in conversation
No full textJane Morrow (born Derry, Northern Ireland, 1983) is a visual art curator, writer, PhD researcher, educator, and advocate now based in Belfast. She is an independent visual art curator and PhD researcher with a specialism in artist and organisational development. Jane is interested in infrastructure for artists, working across network and production contexts, and through creating formal and informal developmental platforms for practitioners. Resourcing, nurturing, and profiling others’ practices has been a longstanding facet of her approach. Her practice-led PhD research focuses on the precarity of artists’ studios and workspaces; labour and practice, collective and co-operative models, and permanence and peripateticism. She has held numerous strategic, programming, and fundraising roles for galleries, initiatives and individuals around the UK and Ireland, and also develops independent and collaborative projects. Her writing is regularly commissioned by arts press and featured in peer-reviewed journals. Jane also occasionally teaches on undergraduate courses at Belfast School of Art, and on the postgraduate course in Arts Management at Queen’sUniversity.Array Collective are a group of individual artists rooted in Belfast, who join together to create collaborative actions in response to the socio-political issues affecting Northern Ireland. In December 2021, they won the Turner Prize, an annual award made to artists born, living, or working in the UK, for an outstanding exhibition or public presentation of their work anywhere in the world in the previous year. In 2021, and for the first time, the Turner Prize shortlist1consisted entirely of artist collectives, representative of the solidarity and community demonstrated by artists in response to the pandemic. Array Collective are the first winners from Northern Ireland. This conversation took place in Belfast on 14 September 2022
Thymic epithelial tumors express vascular endothelial growth factors and their receptors as potential targets of antiangiogenic therapy: A tissue micro array-based multicenter study
No full textObjectives: Tumor angiogenesis is an essential and complex process necessary for the growth of all tumors which represents a potential therapeutic target. Angiogenesis inhibitors targeting vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) or their receptor tyrosine kinases have been approved by the FDA. In thymic epithelial tumors (TET), targeted therapies have been sporadically applied due to their rarity. To ascertain the presence of potential therapeutic targets, we analyzed by immunohistochemistry the expression of angiogenesis-related biomarkers in a large series of TET arranged in Tissue Micro Arrays (TMA). Materials and methods: We assessed by immunohistochemistry the expression of the possible molecular target of anti-angiogenic therapy, i.e. VEGFA, VEGFC, VEGFD, VEGFR1, VEGFR2, VEGFR3, and PDGFRβ, in a TMA series of 200 TET collected in the framework of a multi-institutional collaborative project for Rare Diseases. Results: When compared to the low-risk tumors, high-risk TET (B2, B3, carcinomas) contained higher proportion of cancer cells expressing VEGFA, VEGFC and VEGFD (P< 0.001, P< 0.001, and P< 0.001) growth factors, and their receptors VEGFR1 (P= 0.002), VEGFR2 (P= 0.013), and VEGFR3 (P= 0.041). No differences were observed in terms of PDGFRβ expression. Conclusions: According to our data, it is possible to hypothesize the existence of multiple paracrine and/or autocrine loops in TET, particularly in the high-risk ones, involved in TET growth and progression. Anti-angiogenic agents, directed to inhibit these loops, are therefore to be considered as potential tools in advanced TET therapy. © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd.Abstract
OBJECTIVES: Tumor angiogenesis is an essential and complex process necessary for the growth of all tumors which represents a potential therapeutic target. Angiogenesis inhibitors targeting vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) or their receptor tyrosine kinases have been approved by the FDA. In thymic epithelial tumors (TET), targeted therapies have been sporadically applied due to their rarity. To ascertain the presence of potential therapeutic targets, we analyzed by immunohistochemistry the expression of angiogenesis-related biomarkers in a large series of TET arranged in Tissue Micro Arrays (TMA).
MATERIALS AND METHODS: We assessed by immunohistochemistry the expression of the possible molecular target of anti-angiogenic therapy, i.e. VEGFA, VEGFC, VEGFD, VEGFR1, VEGFR2, VEGFR3, and PDGFRβ, in a TMA series of 200 TET collected in the framework of a multi-institutional collaborative project for Rare Diseases.
RESULTS: When compared to the low-risk tumors, high-risk
Assessing the role of soil chemoautotrophs in carbon cycling: An investigation into isotopically labelled soil microorganisms
No full textRecently observed increases in atmospheric CO2 have created great interest in carbon capture technologies and natural sinks of this major component of the carbon cycle. Humic substances are a large, operationally defined fraction of soil organic matter. It was thought that humic substances consist of cross-linked macromolecular structures forming a distinct class of compounds. However, it was recently concluded by members of my research group that the vast majority of humic material in soils, are a complex mixture of microbial/plant biopolymers and degradation products, and not a distinct chemical category. The postulation that microbial inputs to soil carbon are greatly underestimated was put forward by my research group in 2007. Therefore, I have attempted to demonstrate the inputs made by soil chemoautotrophic bacteria. A method was developed where soil samples were measured for chemoautotrophic activity by subjecting them to a suite of scientific techniques. A growth chamber was used to propagate extant soil chemoautotrophic bacteria from different soils and subjected to an array of chemical and biological analyses. The growth chamber was used to measure CO2 concentrations and introduce stable isotopic 13CO2. Estimations of CO2 sequestration were made using direct measurements for Irish soils and one Eurasian soil. Isotope labelled DNA was isolated using cesium chloride gradient ultracentrifugation. The dominant chemoautotrophic bacteria uncovered were Thiobacillus denitrificans and Thiobacillus thioparus. Labelled biomass was isolated and described using GCMS-IRMS and NMR, where an array of PLFAs, protein/peptide, carbohydrates and aliphatics were observed. Finally, an attempt to mimic common agricultural practice was performed to measure soil chemoautotrophic activity. This demonstrated the capability of this approach to benefit carbon flux estimations and hopefully in the future help to elucidate carbon flow into soils for the greater environment
BUSINESS DEMOGRAPHY DYNAMICS IN PORTUGAL: A NON-PARAMETRIC SURVIVAL ANALYSIS
No full textWe address the post-entry performance of new Portuguese firms by investigating the structural characteristics of the hazard and survival functions, using non-parametric survival analysis. In order to approach prevalence of some stylized facts and determinants of new firm survival, we produced a new entrepreneurship database, using the administrative data of Quadros de Pessoal, following the Eurostat/OECD´s internationally comparable business demography methodology. This allowed the computation of a comprehensive array of entrepreneurship indicators on employer enterprise and survival dynamics in Portugal, over a period of 18 years, disaggregated in dimensions such as sectors, regions and size classesEntrepreneurship, Business Demography, Business Survival, Performance Determinants, Micro-data
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