Digital Commons Network^™

Autobiographical Traces In Chantal Akerman’S Jeanne Dielman And Meetings With Anna, Stephen Carruthers

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

This article explores two seminal films Akerman wrote and directed early in her career, Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975) and Les Rendez-vous d’Anna (Meetings with Anna) (1978), in the context of her later autobiographical writings, Une famille à Bruxelles (1998) and Ma mère rit (2013) (My Mother Laughs). While scripted many years earlier, the two films address themes later developed in Ma mère rit and Une famille à Bruxelles, notably Akerman’s intense relationship with her mother and the trauma of the Shoah. The article outlines the key elements of the two films and autobiographical works and …

Confirmation Report: Modelling Interlocutor Confusion In Situated Human Robot Interaction, Na Li

Reports

Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is an important but challenging field focused on improving the interaction between humans and robots such to make the interaction more intelligent and effective. However, building a natural conversational HRI is an interdisciplinary challenge for scholars, engineers, and designers. It is generally assumed that the pinnacle of human- robot interaction will be having fluid naturalistic conversational interaction that in important ways mimics that of how humans interact with each other. This of course is challenging at a number of levels, and in particular there are considerable difficulties when it comes to naturally monitoring and responding to the …

Engineering Students Emotional Intelligence And Neuro-Linguistics Programming (Nlp) As Developmental Tool, Ahlem Khefacha, Beatrix Séllei

Research Papers

This article investigates the strengths and weaknesses of engineering students' emotional intelligence (EI) and the possibility of using neurolinguistics programming (NLP) as a developmental tool. Students' emotional intelligence was assessed using the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-I) with 5 points Likert scale. Firstsemester engineering students were approached by part of a broader study at the Budapest University of Technology during 2018-2022. In the article, we describe the emotional intelligence profile of more than 3600 students in various fields of engineering. NLP professionals around the world filled out the second questionnaire. We got answers from 35 professionals based in Tunisia, Hungary, …

Exploring The Link Between Spatial And Communication Skills In Engineering Students, John William Lynch, Manjeera Vinnakota, Sheryl Sorby, Tj Murphy, Kelsey Shannon

Research Papers

Industry leaders rarely remark that the technical skills of engineering students are lacking; however, they frequently indicate that new engineers should be better prepared in communication skills, particularly written communication skills. In contrast, the visualization ability, or spatial skills, of engineering majors are typically excellent. Prior research has demonstrated that spatial ability is a significant predictor for graduating from STEM fields, particularly in engineering. This paper is part of a larger project that is exploring whether these two phenomena – poor written communication skills and well-developed spatial skills – are linked. In other words, is there a negative correlation between …

Teamwork Skills Development In Engineering Education: A Holistic Approach, Callum Kimpton, Nicoleta Maynard

Research Papers

Engineering is a profession grounded in teamwork with the need for engineering students and professionals to possess the ability to integrate their work efforts seamlessly and effectively towards a common goal. This in turn necessitates the need for a comprehensive, tailored, and relevant overarching conceptual framework to be constructed to ensure that our subsequent generations of engineers are equipped to efficiently tackle existential societal problems including anthropogenic climate change and the multi-faceted nature of sustainable development. This paper motivates, details, and presents a conceptual framework for implementing successful engineering teams in tertiary engineering projects. The emergent conceptual framework presented is …

Civil And Architectural Engineering Students’ Conceptualization Of Good Engineering And Its Implications For Ethics Education, Madeline Polmear

Research Papers

The ways in which students conceptualise what it means to do good engineering illuminates their values and priorities and shapes their understanding of ethics in engineering. The present study is part of a larger project that is exploring civil and architectural engineering students’ understanding of ethical and societal responsibility and its development via formal and informal learning. Data collection and analysis are ongoing in the larger project, and the present study focuses on eight semi-structured interviews with civil and architectural engineering students at one university in Belgium. The analysis was designed to address how civil and architectural students conceptualise good …

A Multimodal Measurement Of The Impact Of Deepfakes On The Ethical Reasoning And Affective Reactions Of Students, Vivek Ramachandran, Cécile Hardebolle, Nihat Kotluk, Touradj Ebrahimi, Reinhard Riedl, Patrick Jermann, Roland Tormey

Research Papers

Deepfakes - synthetic videos generated by machine learning models - are becoming increasingly sophisticated. While they have several positive use cases, their potential for harm is also high. Deepfake production involves input from multiple engineers, making it challenging to assign individual responsibility for their creation. The separation between engineers and consumers may also contribute to a lack of empathy on the part of the former towards the latter. At present, engineering ethics education appears inadequate to address these issues. Indeed, the ethics of artificial intelligence is often taught as a stand-alone course or a separate module at the end of …

Interconnectedness Of Geometric, Linguistic, And Algebraic Thinking In Student Performance Measures: An Association Rules Approach, Bence Sipos, Brigitta Szilágyi

Research Papers

Assessing student performance is crucial in education for evaluating knowledge acquisition and competency development. Traditional grading systems often overlook the interconnectedness of learning domains, which can provide valuable insights into student understanding. This study investigates the associations between geometric, linguistic, and algebraic thinking and their impact on student performance measures and grading using association rules. We analyzed a dataset comprising student responses to geometric, linguistic, and algebraic questions by applying association rule mining techniques. The extracted rules were used to evaluate question similarity, revealing deeper insights into student performance and problem-solving strategies. Our findings demonstrate significant interconnectedness between geometric, linguistic, …

Exploring Racialized Ideologies About Latino/A/X Engineering Students In The United States Southwest Region, Joel Alejandro Mejia

Research Papers

Although efforts in the United States (U.S.) to improve the participation and representation of minoritized populations in engineering have increased, there is a stagnant representation of Latinos/as/xs in engineering spaces. Given that a historical context of engineering education for Latinos/as/xs in the U.S. is limited in the engineering education research literature, this paper provides a description of the historical educational landscape of Latinos/as/xs in the U.S. Southwest region and connects that sociohistorical context to the current realities of Latinos/as/xs in the region through their testimonios. The U.S. Southwest is home to the largest Latino population in the U.S., who also …

Keywords In Unesco Websites: The Role Of Image In Destination Marketing, Ninfa Pagano

International Journal of Islands Research

Online communication plays a vital role in tourist image formation and travel choices in the digital era. In this way, institutional communication performs a central role in tourism, influencing the market through text and keywords choice on websites. This study aims to analyse online communication by focusing on tourism discourse, i.e. English language as a specialised and promotional discourse in tourism, with a special emphasis on Dann’s rhetorical strategy of keywords. The present study explores the communication used in UNESCO websites and its contribution to tourist destination image formation through corpus-based Discourse Analysis. The focus on a selected number of …

A Framework For Confusion Mitigation In Task-Oriented Interactions, Na Li, Robert J. Ross

Conference papers

Confusion is a mental state that can be triggered in task-oriented interactions and which can if left unattended lead to boredom, frustration, or disengagement from the task at hand. Previous work has demonstrated that confusion can be detected in situated human-robot interactions from visual and auditory cues. Therefore, in the next step, we propose appropriate interaction structures in this study, which should be used to mitigate confusion. We motivate and describe this dialogue mechanism through an information state-style dialogue framework and policies, and also outline the approach we are taking to integrate such a meta-conversational goal alongside core task-oriented considerations …

Representation Of Pre-Christian Baltic Religion In The Balts’ Road Tourism Route In Lithuania And Latvia, Michael Strmiska

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The Balts’ Road tourism route in Latvia and Lithuania is an interesting example of how religious tourism may be packaged within a framework of cultural heritage tourism. The Balts’ Road offers travellers insight into the medieval Baltic world before the coming of Christianity. In this context, pre-Christian religious beliefs and practices constitute but one dimension of the historical tableau that the tourism route is intended to conjure. This article examines the manner in which the pre-Christian Baltic religion is represented on the Balts’ Road, displaying a certain ambivalence that seems related to the past religious history and current religious power …

Potential Of The European Cultural Route Of Saints Cyril And Methodius For The Development Of Cultural Tourism, Peter Ivanič, Hilda Kramáreková, Alfred Krogmann, Henrich Grežo, Lucia Petrikovičová

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

The Cultural Route of Saints Cyril and Methodius was established in 2021 as a certified route within the program of Cultural Routes managed by the Council of Europe. The idea was to connect places with the Cyrillo-Methodian and Great Moravian traditions. The development of this cultural route is managed by the European Cultural Route of Saints Cyril and Methodius with a Permanent Secretariat in Zlín in the Czech Republic. The association currently has 23 members from 8 countries (CZ, SK, GR, SI, HU, BG, HR and IT). The Cultural Routes Program of the Council of Europe, which has been in …

Inéire: An Interpretable Nlp Pipeline Summarizing Inclusive Policy Making Concerning Migrants In Ireland, Arefeh Kazem, Arjumand Younus, Mingyeong Jeon, Muhammad Atif Qureshi, Simon Caton

Articles

Reaching marginal and other migrant communities to elicit their political views and opinions is a well-known challenge. Social media has enabled a certain amount of online activism and participation, especially in societies with abundant multicultural identities. However, it can be quite challenging to isolate the voice of the migrant in English-speaking countries, especially with an abundance of content in English on social media. In this paper, we pursue a case study of Ireland’s Twitter landscape, specifically migrant and native activists. We present a methodology that can accurately ( >80% ) isolate the Irish migrant voice with as little as 25 …

Technical Report: A Framework For Confusion Mitigation In Task-Oriented Interactions, Na Li, Robert J. Ross

Articles

Confusion is a mental state that can be triggered in task-oriented interactions and which can if left unattended lead to boredom, frustration, or disengagement from the task at hand. Since previous work has demonstrated that confusion can be detected in embodied situated interactions from visual and auditory cues, in this technique report, we propose appropriate interaction structures which should be used to mitigate confusion. We motivate and describe this dialogue mechanism through an information state-style policy with examples, and also outline the approach we are taking to integrate such a meta-conversational goal alongside core task-oriented considerations in modern data driven …

A Method For Generating A Non-Manual Feature Model For Sign Language Processing, Robert G. Smith Dr, Markus Hofmann Dr

Articles

While recent approaches to sign language processing have shifted to the domain of Machine Learning (ML), the treatment of Non-Manual Features (NMFs) remains an open question. The principal challenge facing this method is the comparatively small sign language corpora available for training machine learning models. This study produces a statistical model which may be used in future ML, rules-based, and hybrid-learning approaches for sign language processing tasks. In doing so, this research explores the emerging patterns of non-manual articulation concerning grammatical classes in Irish Sign Language (ISL). The experimental method applied here is a novel implementation of an association rules …

Reviving The Gobbet: Venerable Sophistication For Contemporary Media Literacy, Kevin Hora

Irish Journal of Academic Practice

This paper suggests that a technique for close textual reading used in history, the classics and theology for two almost two centuries, the gobbet, can be repurposed as a method of developing media literacy in higher education students in other disciplines. The gobbet is a bite-sized extract from a longer set text learners have studied that acts as an entry to the whole text, permitting critical, contextualised evaluation to take place. As a pedagogical tool, the gobbet can be a counterweight to discontinuous reading practices and abstracted information sources. It is highly effective for analysing contemporary media and discourse, in …

Softening Corners: How A Carefully Considered Hospitality Operation Impacted An Educational Institution, Jennie Moran

Dissertations

Enter quickly, as I am afraid of my happiness!

(Derrida, 2000, p.131)

This research project is an attempt to bridge the gap between the philosophical ideals of hospitality and the hospitality industry, by examining how a carefully considered hospitality operation impacted an educational institution over the course of eight years. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that the application of the philosophical ideals to a commercial hospitality setting yielded profoundly positive results. The primary research was compiled by the author conducting a case study of her own food business, Luncheonette which was located in the National College of …

Continuous Professional Development And Work Conditions For English-Language Teaching Practitioners In Ireland: Where Do We Go From Here?, Deborah Tobin, Cathryn Bennett

Irish Journal of Academic Practice

In Ireland, English-language schools have historically constituted a lucrative sector for their owners and the Irish exchequer. However, teachers of English as a foreign language have not reaped financial rewards on an equitable scale. Two online surveys were conducted in 2020 and 2021 to ascertain teachers’ attitudes to continuous professional development and to their workplace conditions in privately-run schools. Findings from both surveys reflect a highly skilled, highly qualified and highly motivated cohort with a strong commitment to engaging in continuous professional development and a keen sense of their own professionalism. However, this was not found to be reflected in …

Exploiting Association Rules Mining To Inform The Use Of Non-Manual Features In Sign Language Processing, Robert G. Smith

Other Resources

In recent years, the use of virtual assistants and voice user interfaces has become a latent part of modern living. Unseen to the user are the various artificial intelligence and natural language processing technologies, the vast datasets, and the linguistic insights that underpin such tools. The technologies supporting them have chiefly targeted widely used spoken languages, leaving sign language users at a disadvantage. One important reason why sign languages are unsupported by such tools is a requirement of the underpinning technologies for a comprehensive description of the language. Sign language processing technologies endeavour to bridge this technology inequality.

Recent approaches …

Identifying Online Child Sexual Texts In Dark Web Through Machine Learning And Deep Learning Algorithms, Vuong Ngo, Susan Mckeever, Christina Thorpe

Conference papers

Predators often use the dark web to discuss and share Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) because the dark web provides a degree of anonymity, making it more difficult for law enforcement to track the criminals involved. In most countries, CSAM is considered as forensic evidence of a crime in progress. Processing, identifying and investigating CSAM is often done manually. This is a time-consuming and emotionally challenging task. In this paper, we propose a novel model based on artificial intelligence algorithms to automatically detect CSA text messages in dark web forums. Our algorithms have achieved impressive results in detecting CSAM in …

Definition And Characteristic Features Of A ‘Cultural Flashpoint’: A Case Study Of Exploring Masculinities, A Controversial Gender And Education Programme In Ireland, Joan Hanafin, Paul Conway, Cormac O Beaglaoich, Jack Hanafin

Articles

The concept ‘cultural flashpoint’ (CF) has not been fully defined or described. The authors test this concept through the prism of a controversial gender-focused Irish school programme, Exploring Masculinities (EM). Adopting an instrumental case study methodology, they use media content analysis to develop a temporal trajectory of the CF, describe its shape, explicit and implied contentious themes, and its process. They identify characteristic features of a cultural flashpoint: (i) a focal issue, event and/or object; (ii) conflict; (iii) bounded time period; (iv) the involvement of exo- and multi-sectoral individuals and groups; (v) randomness, opaqueness and conflation among its expressions; and …

Applying Positional Encoding To Enhance Vision-Language Transformers, Xuehao Liu, Sarah Jane Delany, Susan Mckeever

Conference papers

Positional encoding is used in both natural language and computer vision transformers. It provides information on sequence order and relative position of input tokens (such as of words in a sentence) for higher performance. Unlike the pure language and vision transformers, vision-language transformers do not currently exploit positional encoding schemes to enrich input information. We show that capturing location information of visual features can help vision-language transformers improve their performance. We take Oscar, one of the state-of-the-art (SOTA) vision-language transformers as an example transformer for implanting positional encoding. We use image captioning as a downstream task to test performance. We …

Affare Fatto 2!, Susanna Nocchi, Silvia Bertoni

Books/Book Chapters

Taster. List of contents and first unit of a book for students of Italian as a foreign language.

Affare fatto! 2 is the second volume of a course aimed at learners of Italian who want to reach an intermediate level of competence in the language (B1/B1+ of the CEFR). The book offers material that can be used to attain competences in Italian for Business and for Professional Communication.

Affare fatto! 2 can be used as a textbook in a university course, as a book for professionals who work in Italy or with Italian partners, and as a textbook for those …

Current Topics In Technology-Enabled Stroke Rehabilitation And Reintegration: A Scoping Review And Content Analysis, Katryna Cisek

Articles

Background. There is a worldwide health crisis stemming from the rising incidence of various debilitating chronic diseases, with stroke as a leading contributor. Chronic stroke management encompasses rehabilitation and reintegration, and can require decades of personalized medicine and care. Information technology (IT) tools have the potential to support individuals managing chronic stroke symptoms. Objectives. This scoping review identifies prevalent topics and concepts in research literature on IT technology for stroke rehabilitation and reintegration, utilizing content analysis, based on topic modelling techniques from natural language processing to identify gaps in this literature. Eligibility Criteria. Our methodological search initially identified over 14,000 …

Know An Emotion By The Company It Keeps: Word Embeddings From Reddit/Coronavirus, Alejandro García-Rudolph, David Sanchez-Pinsach, Dietmar Frey, Eloy Opisso, Katryna Cisek, John Kelleher

Articles

Social media is a crucial communication tool (e.g., with 430 million monthly active users in online forums such as Reddit), being an objective of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. One of them (word embeddings) is based on the quotation, “You shall know a word by the company it keeps,” highlighting the importance of context in NLP. Meanwhile, “Context is everything in Emotion Research.” Therefore, we aimed to train a model (W2V) for generating word associations (also known as embeddings) using a popular Coronavirus Reddit forum, validate them using public evidence and apply them to the discovery of context for specific …

Handbook Of Diversity And Intercultural Inclusivity For Hospitality At Tu Dublin, Fernanda Lima Rabelo, Ana Maria Vieira Fernandes, Mariia Perelygina

Other resources

This handbook is the final output of the research project Diversity & Intercultural Inclusion in Hospitality (D&ICIH), a TU Dublin’s EDI-funded project that aimed to understand the challenges, barriers, and cultural differences that migrant workers experiences in cafes, cafeterias, catering services and restaurants on university campuses experiences. The research also focused on exploring the gender dimension of how migrant women perceive hospitality work, combined with an intersectionality approach (with a focus on gender and socio-economic status) looking to identify multiple factors of advantages and disadvantages in work and life with in-depth and thematic interviews. The Handbook particularly focuses on two …

The Effects Of Disinformation Upon National Attitudes Towards The Eu And Its Institutions, Alex Murphy

Dissertations

This work explores the effects of misinformation and disinformation upon national attitudes towards the EU. Several nations, in particular the Russian Federation, have been working for decades to spread narratives that debase the political processes of healthy democracies around the world. There is strong evidence to show that extensive efforts have been made to disrupt the inner workings and overall membership of the EU, to support disruptive policies in the United States such that political deadlock is maintained indefinitely. These efforts are largely based on the spreading of misinformation and disinformation across social networks that have done very little to …

Ar/Vr Teaching-Learning Experiences In Higher Education Institutions (Hei): A Systematic Literature Review, Belen Bermejo, Carlos Juiz, David Cortes, Jeroen Oskam, Teemu Moilanen, Jouko Loijas, Praneschen Govender, Jenniifer Hussey, Alexander Lennart Schmidt, Ralf Burbach, Daniel King, Colin O'Connor, David Dunlea

Articles

During the last few years, learning techniques have changed, both in basic education and in higher education. This change has been accompanied by new technologies such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (AR). The combination of these technologies in education has allowed a greater immersion, positively affecting the learning and teaching processes. In addition, since the COVID-19 pandemic, this trend has been growing due to the diversity of the different fields of application of these technologies, such as heterogeneity in their combination and their different experiences. It is necessary to review the state of the art to determine the …

Integration Of Agile Development In Standard Labs, Felix Huening, Cindy Mund

Practice Papers

In addition to the technical content, modern courses at university should also teach professional skills to enhance the competencies of students towards their future work. The competency driven approach including technical as well as professional skills makes it necessary to find a suitable way for the integration into the corresponding module in a scalable and flexible manner. Agile development, for example, is essential for the development of modern systems and applications and makes use of dedicated professional skills of the team members, like structured group dynamics and communication, to enable the fast and reliable development. This paper presents an easy …