Digital Commons Network^™

The Tev Spectrum Of H1426+428, P. T. Reynolds, Et. Al.

Physical Sciences Publications

The BL Lac object H1426+428 was recently detected as a high-energy γ-ray source by the VERITAS collaboration (Horan et al.). We have reanalyzed the 2001 portion of the data used in the detection in order to examine the spectrum of H1426+428 above 250 GeV. We find that the time-averaged spectrum agrees with a power law of the shape

The statistical evidence from our data for emission above 2.5 TeV is 2.6 σ. At the 95% confidence level, the integral flux of H1426+428 above 2.5 TeV is larger than 3% of the corresponding flux from the Crab Nebula. The spectrum is …

Discovery Of Spectral Variability Of Markarian 421 At Tev Energies, P. T. Reynolds, Et. Al.

Physical Sciences Publications

The detection of spectral variability of the γ-ray blazar Mrk 421 at TeV energies is reported. Observations with the Whipple Observatory 10 m γ-ray telescope taken in 2000/2001 revealed exceptionally strong and long-lasting flaring activity. Flaring levels of 0.4-13 times that of the Crab Nebula flux provided sufficient statistics for a detailed study of the energy spectrum between 380 GeV and 8.2 TeV as a function of the flux level. These spectra are well described by a power law with an exponential cutoff: dN/dE ∝ E-αeimg1.gif m-2 s-1 TeV-1. There is no evidence for variation in the cutoff energy with …

The Evolution Of Cell Colonies In Volvocacean Algae : Investigation By Theoretical Analysis And Computer Simulation., Frank Noe

Theses

This thesis presents a mathematical analysis and computational simulation which is used to investigate the evolution of cell colonies. The evolutionary transition from unicellular to cell colony form is a prerequesite for multicellular life as it exists abundantly on earth. This transition has occured numerous times independently so that we expect a high selective advantage to be associated with it. The photosynthetic green algae order Volvocaceae is an appropriate set of model organisms for the study of the evolution of cell colonies since it comprises living unicellular organisms, cell colonies, and multicellular organisms of different shapes, sizes and levels of …

Robust Generalised Predictive Control - An Optimal Design For Uncertain Systems, Thomas O'Mahony

Theses

One of the more popular model predictive control approaches, of late, is the generalised predictive controller (GPC). It has received widespread dissemination in academia and numerous successful applications in industry testify to its usefulness. Its popularity partly stems from its superiority over its predecessors, its simplicity and its control acumen. However, since GPC is based on a mathematical model of the process, significant deterioration in performance or even closed-loop instability may arise due to the inevitable discrepancies that arise between the model and the true system. To ensure that the loop stability is not compromised and an adequate level of …

A Physical Activity Intervention Program, Jackie Ní Mhuircheartaigh

Theses

Physical activity levels decline dramatically during adolescence, particularly among adolescent girls. Data is lacking on ways to tailor physical activity interventions to the needs and interests of young girls to prevent this rapid decline. This study aimed to design and implement a physical activity intervention program aimed at promoting increased participation in physical activity among adolescent girls.

Forty-five transition year female students (mean age 15.65yrs) from two girls secondary schools participated in this study. Schools were assigned to intervention and control conditions. All students participated in focus groups, two questionnaires were utilised in the study and a random sample of …

An Evaluation Of Relationship Marketing And Customer Retention Practices In The Hotel Industry, Lisa Kenny

Theses

Customer relationships have received considerable attention from both academics and practitioners. It is accepted that relationship marketing is keeping, not just getting customers, (Berry, 1983). However, it has been criticised that firms frequently focus on attracting customers (the “first act”) but then pay little attention to what they should do to keep them (the “second act”) (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991). It has been demonstrated that it is far less expensive to retain a customer than to acquire a new one. The increasing emphasis of relationship marketing is based on the assumptions that building committed customer relationships results in guest satisfaction, …

Campylobacter Spp: A Molecular Investigation Of Transmission Through The Food Chain In Ireland, Brigid Lucey

Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate the epidemiology of thermophilic Campylobacter infections in Ireland, and to assess antimicrobial resistance among animal isolates and its relevance to human enteric infection with Campylobacter. The first part of the study focused on 84 isolates of human, poultry and porcine origins, isolated between 1996 and 1998 in the Cork region. These isolates were identified to species level using a combination of biochemical and molecular methods. Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni) was the predominant organism among human and poultry isolates, whilst all of the porcine isolates examined were identified as C. coli. DNA amplification …

Active Noise Control Using Adaptive And Advanced Control Techniques, Michael O'Brien

Theses

The theory and application of Active Noise Control to remove irritating acoustic pollution from a variety of sources has and continues to receive significant attention from both theoreticians and practitioners.

While a classical acoustic noise problem is the rejection of acoustic tonal disturbances with the most common solution employed being the celebrated filtered-X LMS algorithm, this thesis shows that the presence of non-linearly induced harmonics at multiple frequencies of the original tone often results in poor performance of this algorithm. It is further found that the noise reduction at these problematic harmonics can be improved in a number of ways, …

An Investigation Of The Effects Of A 12-Week Exercise Programme For People With Diabetes, Olive Fanning

Theses

To determine and examine the effects of a 12-week exercise programme for people with diabetes on their blood glucose control, physiological components and psychological well-being.

The purpose of the study was to examine a wide variety of physiological components including assessment of aerobic capacity, body composition, lung, function, flexibility and blood glucose control (HbAlc levels). Psychological well-being was also assessed which includes sub scales for depression, anxiety, energy and positive well being. This had the purpose of identifying exact levels of these variables so as to compare these to the general public norms. It additionally had the benefit of being …

An Examination Of The Relationship Between Lung Function And Aerobic Capacity In People With Asthma., Pat Flanagan

Theses

The prevalence of asthma is rapidly increasing throughout the world. Many developed countries have reported a greater incidence and severity of asthma in both adults and children (Woolcock and Peat, 1997). Up to 90% of those diagnosed with asthma will experience some asthma symptoms during or after exercise. This condition is known as Exercise-Induced Asthma (EIA). The severity of the bout of EIA depends mainly on the type, intensity and duration of the exercise session. Environmental conditions, medication and possibly the level of fitness of the individual may also influence EIA (Storms and Joyner, 1999; Guill, 1996; Weiler, 1996).

The …

Closed Industrial Water Cycles, Celine Bellec

Theses

Due to this decade of rapid growth, Ireland has to face difficulties created by an increase use of water as well as a decreasing water quality due to sewage discharges, agriculture and industries.

The awareness of the danger to the environment, resulting from the over extraction and stricter discharge regulations, has caused the cost of freshwater and wastewater treatment to rise. Therefore there is a growing interest in the manufacturing industries to reduce both freshwater consumption and wastewater production by improving the efficiency of their processes.

Three industrial sectors were studied following the same methodology: the pharmaceutical sector, the textiles …

Extensible Data Storage And Presentation Technology For An Ophthalmology Electronic Patient Record, Markus H. Heinrichs

Theses

The Electronic Patient Record (EPR) is a central element of practice systems used in ophthalmology. It acts as a repository for multi-media patient care data as well as billing information, serving healthcare providers and ultimately their patients. The aim of this thesis is to create both a data structure and a flexible on-screen representation of an EPR for an ophthalmology practice, and to provide an XML-based experimental prototype as a “proof of concept” which could ultimately be used as an replacement for an existing DOS- based solution. The medical background and requirements for this system will be described. The state-of-the-art …

Development Of A Genomic Approach For The Study Of A Coryneform Bacterial Collection., Carole Feurer

Theses

In the last few years, genomics has profoundly changed research in the biological sciences and in particular in microbiology. Recent studies have demonstrated that comparative genomics is a powerful approach contributing to a deeper understanding of the evolution of microorganisms. Bacterial collections are important resources of microorganisms, however, the potential that genomics has to offer remains to be realised as it is still virtually absent in any study involving strain collections. This feature thus framed the experimental objectives for this study, whose aim was to define the most comprehensive way to apply genomic based methods (high throughput sequencing and bioinformatics) …

Design Of Low Phase Drift Cmos Frequency Synthesisers, Cyril Patrick Hervé Florent Lahuec

Theses

This thesis presents a methodology for the development of high performance video clock synthesisers that have high (2000) input to output clock multiplication ratios. The synthesisers are required to be compatible with standard CMOS technologies and they must exhibit very low drift between their input and output clocks.

The methodology used borrows techniques established for RF synthesisers in the GHz range. In the RF domain there are significant constraints on spectral spread and because of this there has been significant interest in phase noise generated by intrinsic device noise. Simple and accurate models were developed that help understand the up …

Servo Response And Modelling Issues In Generalised Predictive Control, Ben Griffin

Theses

One of the more popular control strategies, of late, is the Generalised Predictive Controller (GPC). It has received widespread dissemination in academia and numerous successful applications in industry testify to its usefulness. Its popularity partly stems from its superiority to its predecessors, e.g. the generalised minimum variance and pole-placement controllers, but also from the GPC ‘tuning knobs’, which have simple time-domain interpretations and extremely robust default settings. However, despite the widespread interest, there would appear to be some issues relating to the specification of the closed-loop serv^o response that have not been covered in any great detail in the GPC …

The Local Moduli Of Sasakian 3-Manifolds, Brendan Guilfoyle

Publications

The Newman-Penrose-Perjes formalism is applied to Sasakian 3-manifolds and the local form of the metric and contact structure is presented. The local moduli space can be parameterised by a single function of two variables and it is shown that, given any smooth function of two variables, there exists locally a Sasakian structure with scalar curvature equal to this function. The case where the scalar curvature is constant (η-Einstein Sasakian metrics) is completely solved locally. The resulting Sasakian manifolds include S 3, Nil, and SL˜ 2 (ℝ), as well as the Berger spheres. It is also shown that a conformally flat …

An Investigation Into The Concepts And Applicability Of Agent Technologies, Anne White

Theses

The software world is one of great richness and diversity

Even though the concept of software agents date back to the days of AI (Artificial Intelligence) work (1970’s) the word “Agent” is currently in vogue in the computing press and computer science communities.

This thesis presents a review of the ongoing evolution of software agents, places agents in context within today’s software domain, and takes a closer look at the ongoing debate of what really constitutes an '"Agenf\ The numerous dimensions of classification are studied and an opinion of the attributes that an agent should encompass is put forward. Leading …

Adaptive Radio Resource Management For 2.5g Cellular Networks, Ken Murray

Theses

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in demand for mobile communication services and with the introduction of 2.5G services such as general packet radio service, this trend is expected to increase further. These new services will introduce highly dynamic tele-traffic variations due to the inherent variability in resource usage of the new data services. The net effect will be considerable increase in load on the available radio resources. The currently employed fixed channel allocation scheme lacks the flexibility to support such traffic variations. A plethora of dynamic channel allocation schemes have been proposed in the past in an effort …

Design And Analysis Of Radio Frequency Deployment Algorithms For Gsm, Mónica Pérez-Carbonell

Theses

Due to the growth of the subscriber base and the introduction of new services, mobile communications networks’ demand for wireless resources is increasing. This has resulted in an increasing need to change the frequency allocation of a network in order to adapt the cellular network to new frequency demands.

Currently, a planning tool generates a new frequency plan, which is. then deployed to cell sites. The deployment should ideally be carried out with minimum disruption to network operation, which makes this deployment process a critical undertaking as any errors during or after the deployment can leave the network with poor …

From Unemployment To Self-Employment, An Investigation Into The Profile Of ‘This’ Entrepreneur, Nora Mary O'Mahony

Theses

Richard Cantillon, who in 1734 introduced the term ‘entrepreneur’ into economic literature, described entrepreneurship as

‘‘Self-employment of any and every sort" (Long 1983 P 48)

Self-employment is entrepreneurship at its simplest form. According to O’Kane (1997) entrepreneurship is

“The dynamic process of creating wealth, undertaken hy people who assume a risk in terms of money, energy, time and/or career commitment, and creating value through the provision of some product or service. ” (O’Kane 1997 P 6)

Entrepreneurship is nothing new. Men without wealth have always been attracted by the prospect of attaining it and the opportunities, which it affords. (Bruce …