Digital Commons Network^™

Accessible Design Is Mediated By Job Support Structures And Knowledge Gained Through Design Career Pathways, Sarah Andrew, Garreth W. Tigwell

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Digital designers often do not make their work accessible (e.g., websites failing criteria set by the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), and accessible design research discusses many solutions to address this problem (e.g., teaching accessibility within university design and technical courses). However, prior research in this area typically does not acknowledge whether recommendations and resources to support accessible design are suitable for all digital designers due to different training pathways and job support structures (e.g., large-company vs. rural and self-employed designers or designers who learned their skills outside of formal education settings). We interviewed 20 digital designers from rural and …

Overview Of The Irish Brewing And Distilling Sector: Processing Inputs Supply And Quality Requirements, Ekene C. Umego, Catherine Barry-Ryan

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For any brewing and distilling establishment, the supply and quality of processing inputs is a major determinant in its production output. Accessibility and availability of brewing and distilling inputs drives productivity and quality of products. The Irish brewing and distilling sector have shown increased sales and production output, with a growth rate of 4% between 2014 and 2019. The brewing industry in the republic of Ireland has seen a 22% increase in the number of micro-breweries since 2014, and its total output now stands at 8.3 m hectolitres. The distilling industry witnessed an increase from four to thirty-eight in the …

Emerging Technologies For The Production Of Nanocellulose From Lignocellulosic Biomass, Dileswar Pradhan, Amit Jaiswal, Swarna Jaiswal

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Nanocellulose is a unique and promising natural nanomaterial and has gained significant attention due to its applications in several important areas. Thus, researchers are continuously looking for the most efficient, sustainable, economically viable, and environmentally friendly production technologies to fulfil its growing demand. Conventional production technologies, which include various physical, chemical, and physicochemical methods, are currently inadequate for this purpose and have several limitations such as long processing time, high energy consumption, low recovery of nanocellulose, and many others. To overcome these shortcomings, scientists have investigated the prospect of utilizing emerging processing technologies such as microwave irradiation, deep eutectic solvent, …

Postprandial 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Response Varies According To The Lipid Composition Of A Vitamin D3 Fortified Dairy Drink, Aislinn F. Mccourt, Steven L. Mulrooney, Graham O'Neill, E. Dolores O'Riordan, Aifric M. O'Sullivan

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In-vitro evidence suggests that the lipid component of foods alters vitamin D absorption. This single-blinded, cross-over postprandial study examined the effect of changing the lipid component of a 20 µg vitamin D3 fortified dairy drink on postprandial 25(OH)D concentrations. Participants consumed one dairy drink per visit: a non-lipid, a pre-formed oleic acid micelle, an olive oil and a fish oil dairy drink. There was a significant time*drink*baseline status effect on 25(OH)D concentrations (p = 0.039). There were no time*drink, time or drink effects on 25(OH)D in vitamin D sufficient participants (>50nmol/L). However, there was an effect of time …

Staff Stress And Interpersonal Conflict In Secondary Schools—Implications For School Leadership, Patrick Bruce, Carol Bruch, Victor Hrymak, Niamh Hickey, Patricia Mannix Mcnamara

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The importance of school leadership and workplace stress is a recurring theme in educationbased research. The literature reports that workplace stress in teaching is a difficult matter to resolve, with mixed outcomes from interventions. The aim of this initial scoping study was to report on the experiences of school leaders with interpersonal conflict (IPC), a known cause of this workplace stress. Accordingly, a sample of twelve school leaders working in Irish post primary schools were recruited to participate in this study using semi-structured interviews. All twelve participants reported experiencing workplace stress and linked other people as a source of this …

Review Of Analytical Techniques For Arsenic Detection And Determination In Drinking Water, Abhijnan Bhat, Tony O'Hara, Furong Tian, Baljit Singh Dr.

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Arsenic occurs in the natural environment in four oxidation states: As(V), As(III), As(0) and As(−III). The behavior of arsenic species changes depending on the biotic or abiotic conditions in water. In groundwater, arsenic is predominantly present as As(III) and As(V), with a minor amount of methyl and dimethyl arsenic compounds being reported. Global intake of As(III) and As(V) via drinking water and food has dramatically increased in recent years. The commonly used term inorganic arsenic includes both As(III) and As(V) species and constitutes the highest toxicological risk associated with arsenic in water compared to the organic arsenic species. Inorganic arsenic …

Disruptive Technologies In Smart Farming: An Expanded View With Sentiment Analysis, Sargam Yadav, Abhishek Kaushik, Mahak Sharma, Shubham Sharma

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Smart Farming (SF) is an emerging technology in the current agricultural landscape. The aim of Smart Farming is to provide tools for various agricultural and farming operations to improve yield by reducing cost, waste, and required manpower. SF is a data-driven approach that can mitigate losses that occur due to extreme weather conditions and calamities. The influx of data from various sensors, and the introduction of information communication technologies (ICTs) in the field of farming has accelerated the implementation of disruptive technologies (DTs) such as machine learning and big data. Application of these predictive and innovative tools in agriculture is …

Fairness And Inclusion For Users Of Surface Transport—An Exploratory Thematic Study For Irish Users, Ajeni Ari, Maria Chiara Leva, Lorraine D'Arcy, Mary Kinahan

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This paper explores the conditions of public transport with respect to user accessibility, design of infrastructure, and safety from a gendered perspective. Our investigation aims to understand the factors that direct a citizen’s choice of whether or not to use public transport. Our discussion is focused on gender disparities among user experiences, so we confine our focus to that of women’s perspectives and their experiences with public transport use. A framework for our discussion was formed with consideration of the theoretical aspects of fairness, justice, and gender in transport, as well as user statistics. We identified several spaces where public …

Cook Like A Boss Online: An Adapted Intervention During The Covid-19 Pandemic That Effectively Improved Children’S Perceived Cooking Competence, Movement Competence And Wellbeing, Lynsey Hollywood, Johann Issartel, David Gaul, Amanda Mccloat, Elaine Mooney, Clare Elizabeth Collins, Fiona Lavelle

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The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated physical inactivity, poor dietary intake and reduced mental wellbeing, contributing factors to non-communicable diseases in children. Cooking interventions are proposed as having a positive influence on children’s diet quality. Motor skills have been highlighted as essential for performance of cooking skills, and this movement may contribute to wellbeing. Additionally, perceived competence is a motivator for behaviour performance and thus important for understanding intervention effectiveness. Therefore, this research aimed to assess the effectiveness of an adapted virtual theory-based cooking intervention on perceived cooking competence, perceived movement competence and wellbeing.

Cell Death Induced In Glioblastoma Cells By Plasma-Activated-Liquids (Pal) Is Primarily Mediated By Membrane Lipid Peroxidation And Not Ros Influx, Sebnem Gunes, Zhonglei He, Evanthia Tsoukou, Sing Wei Ng, Daniela Boehm, Beatriz Pinheiro, Paula Bourke, Renee Malone, Patrick J. Cullen, Wenxin Wang, James Curtin

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Since first identified in 1879, plasma, the fourth state of matter, has been developed and utilised in many fields. Nonthermal atmospheric plasma, also known as cold plasma, can be applied to liquids, where plasma reactive species such as reactive Oxygen and Nitrogen species and their effects can be retained and mediated through plasma-activated liquids (PAL). In the medical field, PAL is considered promising for wound treatment, sterilisation and cancer therapy due to its rich and relatively long-lived reactive species components. This study sought to identify any potential antagonistic effect between antioxidative intracellularly accumulated platinum nanoparticles (PtNPs) and PAL. We found …

Role Of Courts In Ensuring Water Justice In India: Brasilia Declaration On Water Justice And Beyond, Gayathri D. Naik

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Water being a scarce resource, questions of its allocation and distribution, coupled with concerns of its depletion have troubled policy makers, legislators, and judges alike. While, over the years there has been significant development on the discussion surrounding the rights-duty paradigm of water resources, by establishing the obligation of states, discussion surrounding a certain value-based approach to guide the minds of important stakeholders in creating and enforcing policy has gained far less traction comparatively. It is in this context that this paper explores an alternative justice-based approach to water, drawing from the works of Amartya Sen on capabilities and more …

Violence Everywhere: How The Current Spectacle Of Black Suffering, Police Violence, And The Violence Of Judicial Interpretation Undermine The Rule Of Law, David B. Owens

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No abstract provided.

Taxing Creativity, Xuan-Thao Nguyen, Jeffrey A. Maine

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The recent sell offs of song catalogs by Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks, Neil Young, and Mick Fleetwood for extraordinarily large sums of money raise questions about the law on creativity. While patent and copyright laws encourage a wide array of creative endeavors, tax laws governing monetization of creative works do not. The Songwriters Capital Gains Equity Act, in particular, solidifies creativity exceptionalism, exacerbates tax inequities among creators, and perpetuates racial disparities in the tax Code. This Article asserts that the law must encourage creativity from all creators. It is time to eliminate tax exceptionalism for musical compositions or expand its …

The Injustice Of 1.5°C–2°C: The Need For A Scientifically Based Standard Of Fundamental Rights Protection In Constitutional Climate Change Cases, Andrea K. Rodgers, Lauren E. Sancken, Jennifer Marlow

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In 2015, signatories to the Paris Agreement agreed to the goal of keeping global temperature rise this century to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5°C. Although the adoption of the Paris Agreement was in many ways a political triumph, seven years later many climate advocates are presenting the Paris target to judicial bodies as the de facto legal standard for fundamental rights protection in climate change cases. Yet, the history leading up to the signatories’ ultimate adoption of the Paris Agreement target suggests that the target is …

Modeling Through, Ryan Calo

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Theorists of justice have long imagined a decision-maker capable of acting wisely in every circumstance. Policymakers seldom live up to this ideal. They face well-understood limits, including an inability to anticipate the societal impacts of state intervention along a range of dimensions and values. Policymakers cannot see around corners or address societal problems at their roots. When it comes to regulation and policy-setting, policymakers are often forced, in the memorable words of political economist Charles Lindblom, to “muddle through” as best they can.

Powerful new affordances, from supercomputing to artificial intelligence, have arisen in the decades since Lindblom’s 1959 article …

Chapter Eight - Technology And The Law: The Automobile (By James Willard Hurst), Bj Ard, William J. Novak

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In this chapter we are going to talk about some of the automobile effects that it has had. Upon the law, and some of the effects that the law has had upon the automobile. We could undoubtedly open up some worthwhile lines of thought, if we talked about the automobile in relation to, certain brooder problems of which it is a part: for example, the effects of the internal combustion the growth engine, or of all types of communication. But we shall have enough on our hands if we stick to the automobile, and even so in the limits of …

Potential Interactions Between Metal-Based Phenanthroline Drugs And The Unfolded Protein Response Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress Pathway, Tadhg O'Leary, Pauraic Mccarron, Michael Devereux, Steve Meaney

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The unfolded protein response has recently been implicated as a mechanism by which 1,10-phenanthrolinecontaining coordination compounds trigger cell death. We explored the interaction of two such compounds —one containing copper and one containing manganese—with endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. Pretreatment with anisomycin significantly enhanced the cytotoxic activity of both metal-based compounds in A2780, but only the copper-based compound in A549 cells. The effects of pretreatment with tunicamycin were dependent on the nature of the metal center in the compounds. In A2780 cells, the cytotoxic action of the copper compound was reduced by tunicamycin only at high concentration. In contrast, in A549 …

An Improved Wild Horse Optimization Algorithm For Reliability Based Optimal Dg Planning Of Radial Distribution Networks, Mohammed Hamouda Ali, Salah Kamel, Mohamed H. Hassan, Marcos Tostado-Véliz, Hossam Zawbaa

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This paper introduces a novel technique for optimal distribution system (DS) planning with distributed generation (DG) systems. It is being done to see how active and reactive power injections affect the system’s voltage profile and energy losses. DG penetration in the power systems is one approach that has several advantages such as peak savings, loss lessening, voltage profile amelioration. It also intends to increase system reliability, stability, and security. The main goal of optimal distributed generation (ODG) is a guarantee to achieve the benefits mentioned previously to increase the overall system efficiency. For extremely vast and complicated systems, analytical approaches …

Examining The Size Of The Latent Space Of Convolutional Variational Autoencoders Trained With Spectral Topographic Maps Of Eeg Frequency Bands, Taufique Ahmed, Luca Longo

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Electroencephalography (EEG) is a technique of recording brain electrical potentials using electrodes placed on the scalp [1]. It is well known that EEG signals contain essential information in the frequency, temporal and spatial domains. For example, some studies have converted EEG signals into topographic power head maps to preserve spatial information [2]. Others have produced spectral topographic head maps of different EEG bands to both preserve information in The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Ludovico Minati . the spatial domain and take advantage of the information in the frequency domain [3]. …

First Long-Time Airborne Fungal Spores Study In Dublin, Ireland (1978–1980), Moisés Martínez-Bracero, Emma Markey, Jerry Hourihane Clancy, John Sodeau, David J. O'Connor

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Ambient fungal spores within the atmosphere can contribute to a range of negative human, animal and plant health conditions and diseases. However, trends in fungal spore seasonality, species prevalence, and geographical origin have been significantly understudied in Ireland. Previously unpublished data from the late 1970s have recently been collected and analysed to establish historical fungal spore trends/characteristics for Dublin. Historical spore concentrations were largely dominated by Alternaria, Ascospores, Basidiospores, Botrytis, Cladosporium, Erysiphe and Rusts. The main fungal spore season for Dublin commenced in April with the fructification of Scopulariopsis and Ganoderma. However, the vast majority of other spore types did …

Airborne Fungal Spore Review, New Advances And Automatisation, Moisés Martínez-Bracero, Emma Markey, Jerry Hourihane Clancy, Eoin Mcgillicuddy, Gavin Sewell, David J. O'Connor

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Fungal spores make up a significant portion of Primary Biological Aerosol Particles (PBAPs) with large quantities of such particles noted in the air. Fungal particles are of interest because of their potential to affect the health of both plants and humans. They are omnipresent in the atmosphere year-round, with concentrations varying due to meteorological parameters and location. Equally, differences between indoor and outdoor fungal spore concentrations and dispersal play an important role in occupational health. This review attempts to summarise the different spore sampling methods, identify the most important spore types in terms of negative effects on crops and the …

Impacts Of Covid-19 Lockdown On Private Domestic Groundwater Sample Numbers, E. Coli Presence And E. Coli Concentration Across Ontario, January 2020–March 2021: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis, T. Latchmore, S. Lavallee, Martin Boudou, K. Mcdermott, R. S. Brown, Paul Hynds, Anna Majury

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Approximately 1.5 million individuals in Ontario are supplied by private water wells (private groundwater supplies). Unlike municipal supplies, private well water quality remains unregulated, with owners responsible for testing, treating, and maintaining their own water supplies. The COVID-19 global pandemic and associated non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have impacted many environmental (e.g., surface water and air quality) and human (e.g., healthcare, transportation) systems over the past 15-months (January 2020 to March 2021). To date, the impact of these interventions on private groundwater systems remains largely unknown. Accordingly, the current study aimed to investigate the impact of a province-wide COVID-19 lockdown (late-March 2020) …

Impact Of Industrial Practices On The Microbial And Quality Attributes Of Fresh Vacuum-Packed Lamb Joints, Maria De Alba, Catherine M. Burgess, Katie Pollard, Camila Augusto Perussello, Jesus Maria Frias, Des Walsh, Joan Carroll, Emily Crofton, Carol Griffin, Christina Botinestean, Geraldine Duffy

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The impact of different industrial practices at lamb export abattoirs in Ireland on the microbial and quality attributes of fresh vacuum-packed (VP) lamb leg joints, including Clean Livestock Policy (CLP), fleece clipping, carcass chilling times and vacuum pack storage, at typical chill and retail display temperatures was investigated. Five separate slaughter batches of lamb (ranging in size from 38 to 60 lambs) were followed at two lamb export plants over a two-year period, accounting for seasonal variation. In general, fleece clipping resulted in significantly lower microbial contamination on the fleece than the use of CLP alone. Lamb from carcasses chilled …

Determining Realistic U-Values To Substitute Default U-Values In Epc Database To Make More Representative; A Case-Study In Ireland., Kumar Raushan, Ciara Ahern, Brian Norton

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Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) are the foremost source of information on the energy performance of the EU’s building stock. Inherent in all EPC methodologies are trade-offs between reproducibility, accuracy, assessor expertise and costs. During an assessment, where accurate building data acquisition would be excessively invasive or costly, nationally specified default values are used.

Default values are necessarily pessimistic to; avoid a better-than-merited rating, enable homeowners to know the advantage of energetic refurbishment, encourage homeowners to record upgrades informing EPCs, and propel assessors to seek-out information to provide an accurate rating.

This work reviews default U-value use across Europe and the …

Telehealth Delivery Of A Multi-Disciplinary Rehabilitation Programme For Upper Gastro-Intestinal Cancer: Restore@Home Feasibility Study, Louise Brennan, Fatemeh Sadeghi, Linda O'Neill, Emer Guinan, Laura Smith, Graine Sheill, Suzanne Doyle, Claire M. Timon, Deirdre Connolly, Jacintha O'Sullivan, John V. Reynolds, Juliette Hussey

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Advances in diagnosis and the treatment for upper gastro-intestinal (UGI) cancers have led to improved survival rates and, consequently, to a larger population of survivors of many types of UGI cancer [1,2]. Progress in survivorship care for UGI cancer remains poor, and many survivors experience ongoing negative physical and psychosocial impacts of treatment, which can have profound and long-term impacts on physical function and quality of life (QOL) [3,4]. At one year post-op, 40% of survivors report poor physical function, and significant reductions in walking distance, cardiorespiratory fitness and muscle strength are observed, along with a high prevalence of fatigue …

Charge Transfer Mediated Triplet Excited State Formation In Donor-Acceptor-Donor Bodipy: Application For Recording Of Holographic Structures In Photopolymerizable Glass, Tatsiana Mikulchyk, Safakath Karuthedath, Catherine S.P. De Castro, Andrey A. Buglak, Aimee Sheehan, Aaron Wieder, FréDéRic Laquai, Izabela Naydenova, Mikhail Filatov

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Donor–acceptor–donor BODIPY triads bearing anthracene or pyrene as electron donating subunits were prepared through a stepwise synthesis. Photoinduced electron transfer and formation of long-lived triplet excited states via spin–orbit charge transfer intersystem crossing (SOCT-ISC) was studied by steady-state and ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy and further supported by DFT computations. New BODIPYs were found to form triplet states and sensitize singlet oxygen in both polar and non-polar solvents which is unusual for photosensitizers operating via SOCT-ISC. BODIPY-anthracene triad (ABA) was used as a photosensitizer component in a photopolymerizable glass that was prepared by a four-step sol–gel process. ABA in combination with N …

Fluctuating Temperature Modifies Heat-Mortality Association Around The Globe, Yao Wu, Bo Wen, Shanshan Li, Antonio Gasparrini, Shilu Tong, Ala Overcenco, Aleš Urban, Alexandra Schneider, Alireza Entezari, Ana Maria Vicedo-Cabrera, Antonella Zanobetti, Antonis Analitis, Ariana Zeka, Aurelio Tobias, Barrack Alahmad, Ben Armstrong, Bertil Forsberg, Carmen Íñiguez, Caroline Ameling, César De La Cruz Valencia, Chrisofer Åström, Danny Houthuijs, Do Van Dung, Dominic Royé, Ene Indermitte, Eric Lavigne, Fatemeh Mayvaneh, Fiorella Acquaotta, Francesca De’Donato, Francesco Sera, Gabriel Carrasco-Escobar, Haidong Kan, Hans Orru, Ho Kim, Iulian-Horia Holobaca, Jan Kyselý, Joana Madureira, Joel Schwartz, Klea Katsouyanni, Magali Hurtado-Diaz, Martina S. Ragettli, Masahiro Hashizume, Mathilde Pascal, Micheline De Sousa Zanotti Stagliorio Coélho, Noah Scovronick, Paola Michelozzi, Patrick J. Goodman, Paulo Hilario Nascimento Saldiva, Rosana Abrutzky, Samuel Osorio, Tran Ngoc Dang, Valentina Colistro, Veronika Huber, Whanhee Lee, Xerxes Seposo, Yasushi Honda, Michelle L. Bell, Yuming Guo

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Studies have investigated the effects of heat and temperature variability (TV) on mortality. However, few assessed whether TV modifies the heat-mortality association. Data on daily temperature and mortality in the warm season were collected from 717 locations across 36 countries. TV was calculated as the standard deviation of the average of the same and previous days’ minimum and maximum temperatures. We used location-specific quasi-Poisson regression models with an interaction term between the cross-basis term for mean temperature and quartiles of TV to obtain heat-mortality associations under each quartile of TV, and then pooled estimates at the country, regional, and global …

Regional Variations And Temporal Trends Of Childhood Myopia Prevalence In Africa: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Emmnuel Kobia Acquah, Daniel Ian Flitcroft, Prince Kwaku Akowuah, Gareth Lingham, James Loughman

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Purpose: To provide contemporary and future estimates of childhood myopia prevalence in Africa.

Methods: A systematic online literature search was conducted for articles on childhood (≤18 years) myopia (spherical equivalent [SE] ≤ −0.50D; high myopia: SE ≤ −6.00D) in Africa. Population-or school-based cross-sectional studies published from 1 Jan 2000 to 30 May 2021 were included. Meta-analysis using Freeman–Tukey double arcsine transformation was performed to estimate the prevalence of childhood myopia and high myopia. Myopia prevalence from subgroup analyses for age groups and settings were used as baseline for generating a prediction model using linear regression.

Results: Forty-two studies from 19 …

Quantum Mechanics And Control Using Fractional Calculus: A Study Of The Shutter Problem For Fractional Quantum Fields, Jonathan Blackledge

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The ‘diffraction in space’ and the ‘diffraction in time’ phenomena are considered in regard to a continuously open, and a closed shutter that is opened at an instant in time, respectively. The purpose of this is to provide a background to the principal theme of this article, which is to extend the ‘quantum shutter problem’ for the case when the wave function is determined by the fundamental solution to a partial differential equation with a fractional derivative of space or of time. This involves the development of Green’s function solutions for the space- and time-fractional Schrödinger equation and the time-fractional …

Hosting A Community-Based Local Electricity Market In A Residential Network, Aziz Saif, Shafi K. Khadem, Michael Conlon, Brian Norton

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This paper presents the potential of building a local electricity market (LEM) to boost the deployment of the local energy communities, centred around active customers with distributed energy resources (DERs). To conduct a comprehensive and detailed study on different cases with reduced computational burdens, this paper adopts a simplified modelling approach where the market and network model simulations are performed in a cascaded, decoupled fashion. This allows achieving the optimal LEM output for the energy community with different DER assets that are not bounded by the network constraints. The investigation involves quantifying the benefits brought by LEM to energy communities …