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Regional Economic Impact Of Small-Scale Pilgrimage Sites: Local Value Added By Small Sanctuaries In Rural Areas (Bavaria, Germany), Markus Hilpert

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Today, pilgrimage is experiencing increasing interest, although the reasons for doing so are changing. Locations along pilgrim routes and popular sacred sites, normally profit economically, but to date, the regional economic effects of even very small pilgrimage sites are underexplored. Therefore, in this regard, this study examines two small-scale pilgrimage sites in Biberbach and Wigratzbad (both in Bavaria, Germany), using interviews and calculations. We find that even small pilgrimage sites can produce a notable increase in regional EVA and create jobs through local businesses. There is much to suggest that this is not only due to demand, but also, and …

Religious Heritage Tourism: The St. Paul Trail Project In Troas, Mustafa Boz

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Today many tourists wish to explore different cultures, and thus, visit cultural, historical and religious sites. The WTO estimates that each year between 300-330 million tourists visit the most important religious sites in the world. Religious tourism is purported to foster socio-economic development of host communities and promote awareness of the historical, cultural, traditional, and artistic heritage values of destinations. Host destinations increasingly create and offer cultural and religious routes as tourism products, so that the staying duration of tourists can be extended and revenues can be increased. One such destination, where religious / pilgrim tourism is growing in popularity …

New Age Visitors And The Tourism Industry, Peter Wiltshier

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This conceptual paper establishes a framework for socially constructed research activity to help gauge the intention of travellers in more-developed countries (MDC) of the wealthy and largely affluent North to undertake forms of continuing personal and professional development (CPD) through their travel experiences. Human physiological needs have in large already been achieved for many in more developed countries and exceeded in terms of nourishment and entertainment. Humans are social and societal creatures and in need of realisation of their spiritual, intellectual and societal choices and selections. New spiritual values are threatened by monetarism, by an ‘enveloping outside world’, as Giddens …

Terrorism In The Middle East: Implications On Egyptian Travel And Tourism, Tamer Z.F Mohamed, Tamer S. Elseyoufi

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

This paper attempts to shed the light on challenging issues affecting travel and tourism industry especially in the Middle East such as political, socio-economic and security instability. Due to its geopolitical and historical importance, the paper focuses on the situation in Egypt as a descriptive case study. The methodology relies on historical review and impact assessment to understand the roots and extended branches of instability in the Middle East that led to the Arab Spring, by focusing on the Egyptian case in the last half century. The assessment explains the negative effect of Western and Egyptian policy on extending the …

The Impact Of Smart Media Technologies (Smt) On The Spiritual Experience Of Hajj Pilgrims, Jahanzeeb Qurashi, Richard A. Sharpley

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Over the last three decades, information and communication technologies have advanced rapidly and continue to do so. Nowadays, the popularity and spread of socalled Smart Media Technologies (SMT) is not only transforming the lives of tourists around the world in general, but is impacting on the experience of pilgrims on the Hajj in Saudi Arabia in particular. Indeed, the Saudi government has undertaken a number of initiatives to encourage the use of SMT in the religious tourism industry. Specifically, the availability of SMT services such as Hajj Apps, E-bracelets for pilgrims, free WIFI and mobile charging services in Grand Mosques …

Transformative Potential Of A Short-Term Mission Trip Experience, Patrick J. Holladay

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

With the United Nations World Tourism Organization forecasting 2 billion international tourists by the 2030 there is something to consider. A volume of travel to such a scale means an opportunity to harness the tourism industry to bring people closer to Jesus. This exploratory paper begins an exploration of Christians travel experiences and transformative impacts of those experiences through interactions with other Christians. Using data from a group text messages and a personal journal, this paper presents how one specific trip type - short-term mission - influences the ‘exchanged life’ first posited by the missionary Hudson Taylor in the 1800s. …

Reflections Of Hajj And Umrah Pilgrimage On Religious Stores In Mugla-Turkey, Onur Akbulut, Yakin Ekin

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Islam’s Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages comprise two of the oldest forms of religious tourism. Hajj and Umrah have some specific features which come from the Holy Quran and thus, those individuals wanting to participate in the pilgrimages have a number of needs and requirements, both before and after their journey. Therefore, this study is intended to present a profile of religious stores based on a tourist’s origin and destination. It concentrates on a relatively less studied component of pilgrimage tourism, this being religious stores, which mainly cater for potential pilgrims of Hajj and Umrah. These stores provide a contribution to …

Spatial Changes Of Pilgrimage Centers In Pilgrimage Studies – Review And Contribution To Future Research, Justyna Liro, Izabela Sołjan, Elżbieta Bilska-Wodecka

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

Pilgrimages and pilgrimage centres are a subject of research often undertaken from the perspective of geographic sciences. Geographical research on pilgrimage movement and sanctuaries is important due to its focus on the spatial aspect. This article analyses the current state of research on pilgrimage centres. The main trends of the current studies include: the phenomenon of pilgrimage in terms of religion, society, culture and tourism; as well as its impact, including on the development of the settlement and; studies of pilgrimage centres, in particular their impact on space in various spatial and temporal scales, as well as; the conclusions drawn …

Editorial : Cabi Religious Tourism And Pilgrimage Book Series, Kevin Griffin, Razaq Raj

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

No abstract provided.

Title Page And Table Of Contents Vol 6(Iii), Kevin Griffin, Razaq Raj

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

No abstract provided.

The Changing Face Of Pester Power, Margaret-Anne Lawlor

Articles

No abstract provided.

Pineapple Poetry - Studying Literature Through A Food Studies Lens, Anke Klitzing

Articles

In his essay 'A Winter Feast', literature professor Paul Schmidt unveils the layers of meaning that Pushkin wove into the description of a New Year’s feast in Eugene Onegin. But unusually, Schmidt continues his essay making the jump from literary criticism to food studies by musing on the various items on the menu without reference to Onegin, but rather to the cultural and philosophical context of food, bringing in such varied references as Brillat-Savarin and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Studying food writing through the lens of literary criticism allows us to penetrate the social and symbolic meanings of food more deeply, while …

On The Exactitude Of Big Data: La Bêtise And Artificial Intelligence, Noel Fitzpatrick, John D. Kelleher

Articles

This article revisits the question of ‘la bêtise’ or stupidity in the era of Artificial Intelligence driven by Big Data, it extends on the questions posed by Gille Deleuze and more recently by Bernard Stiegler. However, the framework for revisiting the question of la bêtise will be through the lens of contemporary computer science, in particular the development of data science as a mode of analysis, sometimes, misinterpreted as a mode of intelligence. In particular, this article will argue that with the advent of forms of hype (sometimes referred to as the hype cycle) in relation to big data and …

A Comparison Of Agent-Based Models And Equation Based Models For Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Elizabeth Hunter, Brian Mac Namee, John D. Kelleher

Articles

There are two main methods that are used to model the spread of an infectious disease: agent-based modelling and equation based modelling. In this paper, we compare the results from an example implementation of each method, and show that although the agent-based model takes longer to setup and run, it provides additional information that is not available when using an equation based model. Specifically, the ability of the agent-based model to capture heterogeneous mixing and agent interactions enables it to give a better overall view of an outbreak. We compare the performance of both models by simulating a measles outbreak …

Distance-Based Cluster Head Election For Mobile Sensing, Ruairí De Fréin, Liam O'Farrell

Conference papers

Energy-efficient, fair, stochastic leader-selection algorithms are designed for mobile sensing scenarios which adapt the sensing strategy depending on the mobile sensing topology. Methods for electing a cluster head are crucially important when optimizing the trade-off between the number of peer-to- peer interactions between mobiles and client-server interactions with a cloud-hosted application server. The battery-life of mobile devices is a crucial constraint facing application developers who are looking to use the convergence of mobile computing and cloud computing to perform environmental sensing. We exploit the mobile network topology, specifically the location of mobiles with respect to the gateway device, to stochastically …

Evaluating Load Adjusted Learning Strategies For Client Service Levels Prediction From Cloud-Hosted Video Servers, Ruairí De Fréin, Obinna Izima, Mark Davis

Conference papers

Network managers that succeed in improving the accuracy of client video service level predictions, where the video is deployed in a cloud infrastructure, will have the ability to deliver responsive, SLA-compliant service to their customers. Meeting up-time guarantees, achieving rapid first-call resolution, and minimizing time-to-recovery af- ter video service outages will maintain customer loyalty.

To date, regression-based models have been applied to generate these predictions for client machines using the kernel metrics of a server clus- ter. The effect of time-varying loads on cloud-hosted video servers, which arise due to dynamic user requests have not been leveraged to improve prediction …

The Parisian Immigrant Cook: Who Are You?, Siobhán Gough

Masters

This research focuses on the working conditions, professional lives and identities of immigrant cooks working in Paris with a view to improving, through a better understanding of these aspects, their accessibility to the workforce and potential career paths. France is the home of the restaurant and is historically a country of welcome and refuge for migrants. In the past ten years the rhetoric surrounding immigration and migrants has changed and there is growing negativity surrounding this population group despite the many studies pointing to migrant workers’ positive contributions to societies and economies. The culinary industry relies on, and will continue …

Agro-Industrial Lignocellulosic Biomass: A Sustainable Platform For The Production Of Α-Amylase And Xylanase A, Rajeev Ravindran

Doctoral

Enzymes such as α-amylase and xylanase offer potential for numerous industrial applications such as food, beverage, and animal feed production, detergents, textile, cosmetics and biodiesel production. Economic factors such as achievement of optimum yields and production cost are the main deterrents in the industrial use of these enzymes. Enzymes are generally produced via microbial fermentation using expensive mediums which account for 30 to 40% of the production cost. Food industry wastes such as spent coffee waste (SCW) and Brewers’ spent grain (BSG) are two of the most common food waste products expelled by the food and beverage industry here in …

The Goldilocks Approach: A Review Of Employing Design Of Experiments In Prokaryotic Recombinant Protein Production, Barry Ryan, Albert Uhoraningoga, Gemma K. Kinsella, Gary T. .. Henehan

Articles

The production of high yields of soluble recombinant protein is one of the main objectives of protein biotechnology. Several factors, such as expression system, vector, host, media composition and induction conditions can influence recombinant protein yield. Identifying the most important factors for optimum protein expression may involve significant investment of time and considerable cost. To address this problem statistical models, such as Design of Experiments (DoE), have been used to optimise recombinant protein production. This review explores the application of DoE in the production of recombinant proteins, focusing on prokaryotic expression systems with a specific emphasis on media composition and …

A Qualitative Investigation Of The Degree Of Explainability Of Defeasible Argumentation And Non-Monotonic Fuzzy Reasoning, Lucas Rizzo, Luca Longo

Conference papers

Defeasible argumentation has advanced as a solid theoretical research discipline for inference under uncertainty. Scholars have predominantly focused on the construction of argument-based models for demonstrating non-monotonic reasoning adopting the notions of arguments and conflicts. However, they have marginally attempted to examine the degree of explainability that this approach can offer to explain inferences to humans in real-world applications. Model explanations are extremely important in areas such as medical diagnosis because they can increase human trustworthiness towards automatic inferences. In this research, the inferential processes of defeasible argumentation and non-monotonic fuzzy reasoning are meticulously described, exploited and qualitatively compared. A …

Multifunctional Coatings For Biodegradable Biomedical Devices, Sankalp Agarwal

Doctoral

Magnesium (Mg) and its alloys have been widely explored for orthopaedic applications due to its biodegradable nature, biocompatibility and closely related mechanical properties with bone. However, rapid degradation of Mg alloys under physiological conditions is a major challenge for biomedical industries and clinicians. Amongst the various methods employed, deposited coatings have been widely favoured to enhance the corrosion resistance and compatibility of the Mg alloys. This study focused on developing multifunctional coatings on AZ31 Mg alloy having a corrosion resistant, osteoinductive and antibacterial properties for orthopaedic applications. The aim of this study was achieved through the following objectives: - Fabrication …

Food Safety Knowledge And Practices Among Saudi Mothers, Wafa O. Ayaz, Anushree Priyadarshini, Amit Jaiswal

Articles

This study examines food safety knowledge and practices of mothers in Saudi Arabia. A total of 979 respondents participated in the study and completed a questionnaire that accessed their knowledge of food storage, food handling, usage and maintenance of kitchen facilities, personal hygiene and food poisoning. Results showed that mothers in Saudi Arabia had moderate knowledge of food storage (passing rate 64.9%) and usage and maintenance of kitchen facilities (passing rate 66.5%). While they had good knowledge of personal hygiene (passing rate 83.8%) and food poisoning (passing rate 78.5%), their knowledge with regard to food handling was poor (passing rate …

Regeneration Of Aged Dmf For Use In Solid-Phase Peptide Synthesis, Jordan K. Magtaan, Marc Devocelle, Fintan Kelleher

Articles

DMF, which is still the most commonly used solvent for Fmoc-SPPS, has the potential for degradation over time on exposure to air (and water vapour) and storage, to give dimethylamine and formic acid impurities. In particular, dimethylamine can lead to unwanted deprotection of the Fmoc group during for example the initial loading of Fmoc amino acids in SPPS, which leads reduced calculated loading values. We have found that treatment of such aged DMF by simple sparging with an inert gas (N₂), or vacuum sonication, can regenerate the DMF in order to restore loading levels back to those found …

Exchanging Personal Health Data With Electronic Health Records: A Standardized Information Model For Patient Generated Health Data And Observations Of Daily Living, Panagiotis Plastiras, Dympna O'Sullivan

Articles

Objective: The development of a middleware information model to facilitate better interoperability between Personal and Electronic Health Record systems in order to allow exchange of Patient Generated Health Data and Observations of Daily Leaving between patients and providers in order to encourage patient self-management.

Materials and methods: An information model based on HL7 standards for interoperability has been extended to support PGHD and ODL data types. The new information models uses HL7 CDA to represent data, is instantiated as a Protégé ontology and uses a set of mapping rules to transfer data between Personal and Electronic Health Record …

A Comparative Study Of Defeasible Argumentation And Non-Monotonic Fuzzy Reasoning For Elderly Survival Prediction Using Biomarkers, Lucas Rizzo, Ljiljana Majnaric, Luca Longo

Conference papers

Computational argumentation has been gaining momentum as a solid theoretical research discipline for inference under uncertainty with incomplete and contradicting knowledge. However, its practical counterpart is underdeveloped, with a lack of studies focused on the investigation of its impact in real-world settings and with real knowledge. In this study, computational argumentation is compared against non-monotonic fuzzy reasoning and evaluated in the domain of biological markers for the prediction of mortality in an elderly population. Different non-monotonic argument-based models and fuzzy reasoning models have been designed using an extensive knowledge base gathered from an expert in the field. An analysis of …

Components Of, And Approaches To, Effective Feedback, Sarah Gibbons, Jonathan Mccarthy, Paul Mcevoy, Patricia Mordaunt

Practitioner Research Projects

Feedback is the subject of much research and discussion in Higher Education. Nationally the focus has intensified due to reports of low levels of student satisfaction with the feedback process e.g. the Irish Survey of Student Engagement (ISSE). The focus of this report is an examination of effective feedback in undergraduate education. The importance of effective feedback (particularly for those beginning their third level education) is reflected in a project funded by the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, called the Y1Feedback project. This is aimed at increasing the quality of the third level experience and has …

The Development Of A Psychometric Test Aimed At Aligning Students To A Range Of Professional Roles, Darren Brian Carthy, Brian Bowe, Kevin Gaughan

Conference papers

Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), working as part of the PREFER project, a European commission funded project, have developed a psychometric test in order to better align engineering students to three distinct professional roles within industry. This paper reports on the development process of the test, which took place between February and August of 2018.

Achieving Graduate Attributes Through Authentic Learning: The Case Of Student Managed Funds, Robert Dunne, James Fitzgerald, Jennifer Manning, Sean O'Reilly

Practitioner Research Projects

According to the Department of Education and Skills (2011), as cited by Murphy and Whelan (2016), there has been a growing emphasis on the importance of graduate attributes in higher education in Ireland. This not only places emphasis on the application of disciplinary specific knowledge, but also on the ‘soft skills’ highly sought by employers. By providing an authentic learning environment, higher education institutes can facilitate the development of graduate attributes while also ensuring graduates are gaining disciplinary specific knowledge. This project explores how Student Managed Funds (SMFs) represent an authentic learning experience through which students achieve a range of …

Problem-Based Learning As An Authentic Assessment Method, Stuart Henderson, Mary Kinahan, Elaine Rossiter

Practitioner Research Projects

Traditional learning and assessment typically focus on students being told what to do, memorising it, and the teacher assigning a problem on how to use it (Savery, 2006). By contrast, in problem-based learning (PBL) and assessment a problem is assigned to a group or individual, the teacher then facilitates the students’ learning as they identify what they need to know, and the students learn and apply a solution to the problem (Savery, 2006). PBL was developed and pioneered by Barrows and Tamblyn in McMaster University as part of the Medical School programme due to students’ lack of application of their …

A Generic Integrated And Interactive Framework (Giif) For Developing Information Literacy Skills In Higher Education, Aoife Donnelly, Maria Chiara Leva, Ayman Tobail, Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos

Practitioner Research Projects

Information literacy (IL) is defined as “the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning” (ACRL 2015, p.3). The term IL was originally confined to library and IT skills (Behrens, 1994; Johnston & Webber, 2003) but has since received increasing international interest. It is considered as an important 21st century skill in combination with critical thinking (Kong, 2014), and is perceived as basic human right within the digital world (UNESCO, 2008). The importance …