Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Non-Linear Modelling Of Internal Geophysical Waves, Joseph Cullen

Doctoral

Geophysical waves are waves that are found naturally in the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. Internal waves, that act as an interface between fluids of different density are examples of geophysical waves. The system set-up will incorporate a model with a flat bottom, flat surface and internal wave. The system has a depthdependent current which mimics a typical ocean set-up and, as it is based on the surface of the rotating Earth, includes Coriolis forces. Using well established fluid dynamic techniques, the total energy is calculated and used to determine the dynamics of the system using a procedure called the Hamiltonian …

Towards An Improved Understanding Of The Concept Of Style And Its Implications For Textual Style Transfer, Somayeh Jafaritazehjani

Doctoral

The concept of linguistic style denotes that many aspects of text can vary while maintaining a same source core semantic meaning. For example, a message may be written in a formal or informal style. The textual style transfer problem aims at generating a paraphrase of a given text by modifying its style while preserving its content. To the best of our knowledge, within the literature on textual style transfer, there is no standard widely accepted definition of the concept of style. Moreover, very few works have investigated the characteristics of language styles. Therefore, previous research, as far as our knowledge …

Structured Dialogue State Management For Task-Oriented Dialogue Systems, Anh Duong Trinh

Doctoral

Human-machine conversational agents have developed at a rapid pace in recent years, bolstered through the application of advanced technologies such as deep learning. Today, dialogue systems are useful in assisting users in various activities, especially task-oriented dialogue systems in specific dialogue domains. However, they continue to be limited in many ways. Arguably the biggest challenge lies in the complexity of natural language and interpersonal communication, and the lack of human context and knowledge available to these systems. This leads to the question of whether dialogue systems, and in particular task-oriented dialogue systems, can be enhanced to leverage various language properties. …

Probing With Noise: Unpicking The Warp And Weft Of Taxonomic And Thematic Meaning Representations In Static And Contextual Embeddings, Filip Klubička

Doctoral

The semantic relatedness of words has two key dimensions: it can be based on taxonomic information or thematic, co-occurrence-based information. These are captured by different language resources—taxonomies and natural corpora—from which we can build different computational meaning representations that are able to reflect these relationships. Vector representations are arguably the most popular meaning representations in NLP, encoding information in a shared multidimensional semantic space and allowing for distances between points to reflect relatedness between items that populate the space. Improving our understanding of how different types of linguistic information are encoded in vector space can provide valuable insights to the …

Power, Passion And Politics: A Grounded Theory Study Of Academic Experiences In Policy Development And Implementation In Higher Education, Marie Brennan

Doctoral

This research study is designed to investigate the lived experiences and perspectives of the academic community on policy development in Irish higher education. A review of the current policy landscape in Ireland and Europe and in particular empirical studies concerning policy implementation provided the focus of the study. The initial study focused on contemporary literature on policy development practices affected by globalisation and subsequently the issues at a national level. Where the gaps in knowledge were identified were in terms of policy implementation at the local level and where the study is aligned. The participants in the study are academics …

Identification Of Nanotechnology Skill Shortages In Ireland’S Agri-Food Sector: Towards The Safe, Innovative And Sustainable Development Of Nano-Food Technology, Eileen Mccarron

Doctoral

The purpose of this research was to assess the nanotechnology skill and capacity shortages in Irelands Agri-food sector. In 2008 the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) published its statement on ‘The Relevance for Food Safety of Applications of Nanotechnology in the Food and Feed Industries’. The importance of the food sector to the Irish economy was clearly emphasised by the FSAI’s statement. The report identified the urgent need for focused research programs into the potential of nanotechnology in the agri-food sector and it highlighted the need for a multi-organisation approach between state agencies, industry and academia to ensure safe …

Development Of 3d In Vitro Tissue Models For The Analysis Of Solar Radiation Damage Of Skin, Ulises Lopez Gonzalez

Doctoral

The aim of this work was to investigate changes to the molecular composition and conformation of HaCaT cells as a result of simulated solar radiation in a 3D in vitro skin model by Raman spectroscopy. The process to achieve this goal was performed in three main stages: (1) optimisation of the working concentration and volume of two 3D membranes, used as a structural support in the skin model; (2) the construction of the 3D in vitro skin model and; (3) the investigation of the dose-dependent effects of solar radiation on HaCaT cells in the skin model in comparison with the …

The Design And Evaluation Of An Educational Software Development Process For First Year Computing Undergraduates, Catherine Higgins

Doctoral

First year, undergraduate computing students experience a series of well-known challenges when learning how to design and develop software solutions. These challenges, which include a failure to engage effectively with planning solutions prior to implementation ultimately impact upon the students’ competency and their retention beyond the first year of their studies. In the software industry, software development processes systematically guide the development of software solutions through iterations of analysis, design, implementation and testing. Industry-standard processes are, however, unsuitable for novice programmers as they require prior programming knowledge. This study investigates how a researcher-designed educational software development process could be created …

Just-In-Time Pastureland Trait Estimation For Silage Optimization, Under Limited Data Constraints, Patricia O'Byrne

Doctoral

To ensure that pasture-based farming meets production and environmental targets for a growing population under increasing resource constraints, producers need to know pastureland traits. Current proximal pastureland trait prediction methods largely rely on vegetation indices to determine biomass and moisture content. The development of new techniques relies on the challenging task of collecting labelled pastureland data, leading to small datasets. Classical computer vision has already been applied to weed identification and recognition of fruit blemishes using morphological features, but machine learning algorithms can parameterise models without the provision of explicit features, and deep learning can extract even more abstract knowledge …

Big Data: Potential As An Ocular Epidemiology And Public Health Tool, Michael Moore

Doctoral

Refractive error is a significant cause of vision impairment both through the limited access to correction in some areas and the associated ocular diseases for which refractive errors are risk factors. Having timely, regular access to population level estimates of refractive error and vision impairment is necessary to adequately plan public health resources and resource appropriate interventions. A lack of access to current and regularly updated refractive error and vision impairment prevalence data has been identified as a significant limitation in predicting future population trends with many countries lacking any prevalence data or available data being outdated. This project addresses …

Dublin Smart City Data Integration, Analysis And Visualisation, Hammad Ul Ahad

Doctoral

Data is an important resource for any organisation, to understand the in-depth working and identifying the unseen trends with in the data. When this data is efficiently processed and analysed it helps the authorities to take appropriate decisions based on the derived insights and knowledge, through these decisions the service quality can be improved and enhance the customer experience. A massive growth in the data generation has been observed since two decades. The significant part of this generated data is generated from the dumb and smart sensors. If this raw data is processed in an efficient manner it could uplift …

Deep Learning In The Maintenance Industry, Paulo Cesar Ribeiro Silva

Doctoral

No abstract provided.

Chemical Effects Of Cold Atmospheric Plasma On Food Nutrients, Juan Manuel Pérez Andrés

Doctoral

A range of nonthermal techniques have demonstrated process efficacy in ensuring food product safety, extension of shelf-life and in general a retention of key quality attributes. However, various physical, chemical and biochemical effects of nonthermal techniques on both macro and micronutrients are evident, leading to both desirable and undesirable changes in food products. It is important to outline the effects of non-thermal techniques on food chemistry and the associated degradation mechanisms with the treatment of foods. Oxidation is one of the key mechanisms responsible for undesirable effects induced by non-thermal techniques. Degradation of key macromolecules largely depends on the processing …

Misogyny Detection In Social Media On The Twitter Platform, Elena Shushkevich

Doctoral

The thesis is devoted to the problem of misogyny detection in social media. In the work we analyse the difference between all offensive language and misogyny language in social media, and review the best existing approaches to detect offensive and misogynistic language, which are based on classical machine learning and neural networks. We also review recent shared tasks aimed to detect misogyny in social media, several of which we have participated in. We propose an approach to the detection and classification of misogyny in texts, based on the construction of an ensemble of models of classical machine learning: Logistic Regression, …

Aspects Of Quantum Theory In General Relativity And Cosmology, Eamon Mccaughey

Doctoral

After a brief introduction to Cosmology some quantum aspects of General Relativity and cosmology are presented. The radial motion of a massive particles in the ergosphere of the Kerr Black Hole is considered. Screening of Hawking radiation and shielding of the Penrose process is examined in the context of the region of negative energy inside the ergosphere. Tunnelling of such particles between the boundaries of the classically forbidden region will be considered and the transmission coefficient determined. The evolution of Primordial black holes in standard and Loop Quantum Cosmology is reviewed. A stability analysis of Einstein’s universe in both classical …

Identifying And Disentangling Interleaved Activities Of Daily Living From Sensor Data, Eoin Rogers

Doctoral

Activity discovery (AD) refers to the unsupervised extraction of structured activity data from a stream of sensor readings in a real-world or virtual environment. Activity discovery is part of the broader topic of activity recognition, which has potential uses in fields as varied as social work and elder care, psychology and intrusion detection. Since activity recognition datasets are both hard to come by, and very time consuming to label, the development of reliable activity discovery systems could be of significant utility to the researchers and developers working in the field, as well as to the wider machine learning community.

This …

Liposomal Encapsulation Of Silver Nanoparticles To Enhance Nanoparticle Cytotoxicity And Modulate Induced Inflammatory Responses In Vitro, Azeez Yusuf

Doctoral

High concentrations of silver nanoparticles (AgNP) are increasingly present as active ingredient in everyday consumable products for antibacterial purposes causing increased human exposure and high risk of adverse effect development. In this thesis, AgNP were encapsulated in dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine (DPPC)-based liposome (forming Lipo-AgNP), to enhance intracellular delivery and associated cytotoxicity, and suppress AgNP-induced inflammation. It was noted that as a result of the encapsulation, Lipo-AgNP induced significantly reduced cell viability of THP1 monocytes and THP1 differentiated macrophages (TDM) at a notably lower dose than that of uncoated AgNP. The induced cytotoxicity was shown to result in an increased level of …

Multivariate Statistical Methodologies Used In In-Vitro Raman Spectroscopy: Simulations And Applications For Drug And Nanoparticle Interactions, Mark Edward Keating

Doctoral

Raman spectroscopy is a growing technology in the fields of in-vitro drug and nanoparticle screening. The label free capability provided by vibrational spectroscopy, as well as the ability of the technique to probe the chemical nature of samples, makes it a good candidate for use in these fields. Crucial to the progress of these methods is the development and validation of robust and accurate multivariate statistical analysis protocols. In this thesis, both established and novel methods are examined using both real and simulated datasets. In particular, simulated datasets are used to validate and assess the accuracy of these methods in …

3d Growth Substrates In Mammalian Cell Culture In Vitro, Their Effects On Cellular Function And Response, Mahmoud Gargotti

Doctoral

Three-dimensional (3D) cell culture systems have gained increasing interest in drug discovery and tissue engineering due to a number of advantages in providing more physiologically relevant information and potentially more predictive data for in vivo tests. Extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins have been developed over in recent years to simulate a natural microenvironment for cells cultured in vitro. Conventional cell culture or 2D cell culture form monolayers of cells on a solid surface, which is typically polystyrene or glass, whereas a 3D culture system employ a porous growth matrix on which the cells grow. The transition from cell culture on a …

Microwave Synthesis And Characterisation Of Zinc Sulfide Nanomaterials For Photocatalytic And Anti-Bacterial Applications, Damian W. Synnott

Doctoral

This thesis is focused on the development of a novel ambient pressure microwave synthesis of ZnS based materials for photocatalytic and anti-bacterial technologies. Chapter 1 introduces the problems with anti-biotic resistant bacteria and the impact that these species are causing within healthcare systems. One of the approaches to tackling these problems is the development of self-cleaning materials to replace the harsh cleaning agents currently in use to sterilize the surfaces of buildings and materials used in healthcare environments. Chapter 1 also introduces semiconductors, semiconductor photocatalysis and the mechanism of action, improving photocatalytic action and how to semiconductor photocatalysts have been …

Fluid-Dynamic Models Of Geophysical Waves, Alan Compelli

Doctoral

Geophysical waves are waves that are found naturally in the Earth's atmosphere and oceans. Internal waves, that is waves that act as an interface between uids of dierent density, are examples of geophysical waves. A uid system with a at bottom, at surface and internal wave is initially considered. The system has a depth-dependent current which mimics a typical ocean set-up and, as it is based on the surface of the rotating Earth, incorporates Coriolis forces. Using well established uid dynamic techniques, the total energy is calculated and used to determine the dynamics of the system using a procedure called …

The Potential Of Raman Spectroscopy In The Diagnosis Of Premalignant Oral Lesions, Ola Ibrahim

Doctoral

Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Technological University Dublin, School of Physics December 2017.

Data Mining By Grid Computing In The Search For Extrasolar Planets, Oisin Creaner [Thesis]

Doctoral

A system is presented here to provide improved precision in ensemble differential photometry. This is achieved by using the power of grid computing to analyse astronomical catalogues. This produces new catalogues of optimised pointings for each star, which maximise the number and quality of reference stars available. Astronomical phenomena such as exoplanet transits and small-scale structure within quasars may be observed by means of millimagnitude photometric variability on the timescale of minutes to hours. Because of atmospheric distortion, ground-based observations of these phenomena require the use of differential photometry whereby the target is compared with one or more reference stars. …

Advancing Vibrational Spectroscopy For Cellular And Sub Cellular Analysis: Raman Spectroscopy As A Novel In Vitro Nanotoxicological Assessment Protocol, Esen Efeoglu

Doctoral

This work is designed to establish a ‘High content Nanotoxicological Screening method’ using in vitro Raman microspectroscopy. The undeniable increase of nanotechnology based products has brought challenges in terms of determining their toxicological properties. Considering the total time and cost of screening nanomaterials by conventional methods, the need for a rapid, label-free technique which will provide a wide range of information on multiple parameters is unquestionable. This study investigated the applicability of Raman microspectroscopy as a High Content Screening technique to clarify cell-nanoparticle interaction by determining the localisation of the nanoparticles and consequent effects in these localised areas in terms …

Advancing Vibrational Spectroscopy For Cellular And Sub Cellular Analysis: Raman Spectroscopy As An In Vitro Chemotherapeutic Screeening And Assessment Protocol, Zeineb Farhane

Doctoral

Vibrational spectroscopy, including Raman micro-spectroscopy, has attracted considerable attention over the last few years, as a powerful, non-invasive tool for clinical applications, especially in cancer diagnosis, in vivo and ex vivo. As a molecular fingerprinting technique with optical resolution, Raman micro-spectroscopy is able to monitor biochemical processes, drug uptake, efficacy and mode of action and mechanisms of interaction of chemotherapeutic drugs at a subcellular level. In vitro applications may be more strategically achievable, and can help guide drug design and discovery, and eventually evaluate To this end, different lung cell lines were used and Raman micro-spectroscopy was coupled to valuable …

Analysis Of An Adhesion Promoter For Rubber To Metal Bonding, Killian Barton

Doctoral

The intermolecular and intramolecular changes induced by thermal stress in an industrial rubber to metal coupling agent (the ‘green molecule’ or GM) are the subject of this thesis. The GM was analysed in-situ in a model application environment using vibrational spectroscopy. NMR spectroscopy was used in order to analyse the solution chemistry of the compound and how this changed as a result of thermal stress. The interaction of the GM and the substrate was analysed using a range of surface analysis techniques including XPS, AFMIR and EDX. An example of a complex substrate, the zinc phosphate conversion coating, was analysed …

Compositional Changes For Reduction Of Polymerisation-Induced Shrinkage In Holo, Dervil Cody, Mohesh Moothanchery, Emilia Mihaylova, Vincent Toal, Svetlana Mintova, Izabela Naydenova

Doctoral

Polymerisation-induced shrinkage is one of the main reasons why many photopolymer materials are not used for certain applications including holographic optical elements and holographic data storage. Here, two compositional changes for the reduction of shrinkage in an acrylamide-based photopolymer are reported. A holographic interferometric technique was used to study changes in the dynamics of the shrinkage processes occurring in the modified photopolymer during holographic recording in real time. Firstly, the effect of the replacement of the acrylamide monomer in the photopolymer composition with a larger monomer molecule, diacetone acrylamide, on polymerisation-induced shrinkage has been studied. A reduction in relative shrinkage …

Investigation Of Photopolymer-Based Holographic Optical Elements For Solar Applications, Hoda Akbari

Doctoral

The aim of this research was to explore the potential of photopolymer Holographic Optical Elements (HOE) for use in the collection of light from a moving source, such as the sun, and its direction into a fixed detector/convertor for application in solar concentrators. In order to increase the acceptance angle and the wavelength range of operation of the holographic device, low spatial frequency holographic recording was explored. The challenge was to record high diffraction efficiency HOEs at this spatial frequency, since it requires a material with relatively fast monomer diffusion. The acrylamide-based photopolymer developed at the Centre for Industrial and …

Investigating The Efficacy Of Algorithmic Student Modelling In Predicting Students At Risk Of Failing In The Early Stages Of Tertiary Education: Case Study Of Experience Based On First Year Students At An Institute Of Technology In Ireland., Geraldine Gray

Doctoral

The application of data analytics to educational settings is an emerging and growing research area. Much of the published works to-date are based on ever-increasing volumes of log data that are systematically gathered in virtual learning environments as part of module delivery. This thesis took a unique approach to modelling academic performance; it is a first study to model indicators of students at risk of failing in first year of tertiary education, based on data gathered prior to commencement of first year, facilitating early engagement with at-risk students.

The study was conducted over three years, in 2010 through 2012, and …

Building A Scalable Global Data Processing Pipeline For Large Astronomical Photometric Datasets, Paul F. Doyle

Doctoral

Astronomical photometry is the science of measuring the flux of a celestial object. Since its introduction in the 1970s the CCD has been the principle method of measuring flux to calculate the apparent magnitude of an object. Each CCD image taken must go through a process of cleaning and calibration prior to its use. As the number of research telescopes increases the overall computing resources required for image processing also increases. As data archives increase in size to Petabytes, the data processing challenge requires image processing approaches to evolve to continue to exceed the growing data capture rate. Existing processing …