Digital Commons Network^™

''It’S A Win-Win Situation” – Intergenerational Learning In Preschool And Elder Care Settings: An Irish Perspective, Carmel Gallagher, Anne Fitzpatrick

Articles

This paper explores the level and sustainability of intergenerational practice in early years and elder care settings in Ireland. The paper is based on a small-scale research study involving interviews with sta in ve organizations and builds on ndings from previous research conducted for the TOY project (http://www.toyproject.net). The paper examines the pedagogies involved as well as the community context of intergenerational practice in early years and elder care settings. The ndings highlight that sustainable intergenerational practice is facilitated by strong pedagogies that support active and relational learning across the life course and by being embedded in robust community networks.

Carefree Masculinities In Ireland: Gender Conservatism And Neo-Liberalism, Niall Hanlon

Articles

No abstract provided.

Social Care Students’ Learning In The Practice Placement In Ireland, Fiona Mcsweeney, David Williams

Articles

The practice placement is a central component of social care education, being seen as where students develop their practice skills, self-awareness and apply theoretical knowledge. This research reports on social care students’ experiences of their practice placements, in particular how learning was achieved and what helped learning. An interpretivist approach was used in line with the acceptance of the individuality of students’ experiences. A volunteer sample of seventeen students were interviewed individually at the end of their final year in college. The interview transcripts were thematically analysed. Four themes were identified: the need for a balance between autonomy and doing …

An Yb3+-Ho3+ Codoped Glass Microsphere Laser In The 2.0Μm Wavelength Regions, Angzhen Li, Jibo Yu, Meng Zhang, Xiaosong Lu, Jiquan Zhang, Elfed Lewis, Gerald Farrell, Pengfei Wang

Articles

In this letter, an Yb 3+ -Ho 3+ codoped sol-gel silica microsphere lasing at around 2.0 μm is reported. The gain microsphere is fabricated by overlaying the 1.0 mol% Yb 3+ -0.2 mol% Ho 3+ codoped sol-gel solution on the surface of a pure silica microsphere and is then heated using a CO 2 laser. Using a traditional fiber taper-microsphere coupling method, we observe the single- and multi-mode microsphere laser outputs around 2.0 μm using a 980 nm laser diode as a pump source, with a low threshold pumping power of 14.7 mW. The ability to fabricate sol-gel codoped silica …

A High-Temperature Humidity Sensor Based On A Singlemode-Side Polished Multimode-Singlemode Fiber Structure, Xianfan Wang, Ke Tian, Libo Yuan, Elfed Lewis, Gerald Farrell, Pengfei Wang

Articles

A relative humidity (RH) sensor based on a simple singlemode-side polished multimode-singlemode (SSPMS) fiber hybrid structure is investigated, which is capable of working over a relatively high-temperature range, at which many RH sensors based on moisture sensitive material coatings cannot operate. The beam propagation method is used to analyze the light transmission characteristics within the side polished multimode fiber (SPMMF) structure. Experimental results show that the SPMMF surface roughness has a significant influence on the sensor's humidity sensing performance, as a result of the adsorption and desorption of water molecules along the side polished surface. A higher surface roughness results …

A High Sensitivity Temperature Sensor Based On Balloon-Shaped Bent Smf Structure With Its Original Polymer Coating, Ke Tian, Gerald Farrell, Elfed Lewis, Xianfan Wang, Haidong Liang, Pengfei Wang

Articles

A high sensitivity optical fibre temperature sensor is demonstrated based on a balloon-shaped bent single-mode (BSBS) fibre structure where the fibre retains its original protective polymer coating. The BSBS fibre structure can be simply realized by bending a coated straight singlemode fibre into the balloon shape using a section of silica capillary tube. By adjusting the bending radius of the balloon-shaped fibre section, a modal interferometer between the core mode and the coating mode can be effectively implemented at a suitable bending radius. Considering the intrinsically high thermo-optical coefficient and thermal expansion coefficient of the polymer coating, the BSBS fibre …

Memories Of Television In Ireland: Separating Media History From Nation State, Edward Brennan

Articles

This article emerges from a broader project that explores the history of television in Ireland using audience life story interviews. It argues that a dominant narrative persists in the history of television in the Republic of Ireland. Based in institutional sources this narrative is ideologically narrow although it tells a story of cultural liberation. A key example of its ideological limitation lies in the way that Irish people’s experience of British television transmissions has been forgotten. The reason for this lies in historical methods rather than conscious bias. Nevertheless, historical methods themselves can promote limited visons of reality that promote …

The Run Of Ourselves: Shame, Guilt And Confession In Post-Celtic Tiger Irish Media, Marcus Free, Clare Scully

Articles

This article examines the emergence of the themes of shame and guilt in Irish print and broadcast media in the wake of Ireland’s 2008 economic collapse. It considers how the potential search for explanation of the crisis as a manifestation of unregulated banking and development sectors was displaced onto a confessional discursive pattern in which emphasis was placed on rampant borrowing and consumption as reflective of collective narcissism and acquisitive greed. Hence the logic that ‘hubris’ led inevitably to a national fall from grace and the corresponding resurgence of postcolonial shame; and the interplay between cultural nationalist and neoliberal discourses …

Nurturing ‘Buds Of Development’: From Outcomes To Opportunities In Early Childhood Practice, Noirin Hayes, Katarina Filipovic

Articles

The current future-focused, outcomes driven early childhood policy climate presents a danger that early years pedagogy will lose sight of the ‘present’ child. Increasingly policy support for early childhood education is built around an emphasis on preparing children for school and positioning it as a key element in enhancing society through preparing future citizens to become productive members of society. The measurable outcomes discourse, in emphasising product, renders invisible the critical contribution of the processes of everyday practice to children’s development. To challenge and counteract the strong outcome discourse early years professionals must have confidence in their pedagogy. However, research …

Developing Meaningful Higher Education Evaluation Systems: Putting China In Context, Ellen Hazelkorn, Lu Liu

Articles

This paper firstly reviews how issues of accountability and transparency have become some of the key drivers of government policy over recent years. It finds that the drive for greater higher education accountability and transparency has encouraged the growth of an international evaluation industry. It secondly discusses issues related to different types of policy and evaluation instruments across Europe, as well as the importance of rankings. It finds that traditional approaches have relied on collegiality, expert judgment, and peer review, and there is a growing focus on indicator-led systems in the belief that indicators are value-free and statistically robust so …

The Roles Of Social Entrepreneurs In Rural Destination Development, Ziene Mottiar, Karla Boluk, Carol Kline

Articles

This paper examines the relevance of social entrepreneurs in our consideration of rural destination development, which represents an important tool for rural revitalization. While many peripheral rural areas face significant challenges in terms of sustaining communities and attracting tourists, it is often social entrepreneurs, as much as traditional entrepreneurs, who are involved in developing new ideas, products and activities, as well as envisioning a future for the area. This study, which is based on cross-case analysis resulting from nine semi-structured interviews carried out in rural areas in Ireland, South Africa and USA, identifies key roles that social entrepreneurs play in …

Interculturalism In Higher Education In Ireland: An Analysis From A Strategy, Policy And Practice Perspective, Brid Ni Chonaill

Articles

Education is instrumental in preparing students to participate in increasingly diverse Irish, European and global societies, with higher education having a part to play in the process. Issues around migration and cultural diversity have gained less attention in the higher education sector in Ireland than at primary and post primary level with a few notable exceptions. Higher education is regarded as having a “critical role” to play in terms of “enriching Ireland’s cultural life, nurturing our understanding of our own national identity and that of other cultures and belief systems” [1]. Influenced by developments at European Union level, the approach …

Efficacy Of Limonene Nano Coatings On Post-Harvest Shelf Life Of Strawberries, Rajiv Dhital, Nathalie Becerra-Mora, Dennis G. Watson, Punit Kohli, Ruplal Choudhary

Articles

Strawberries are highly demanded fruits because of their color, nutritional values and appearance. The aim of this study was to develop and characterize alginate and limonene liposomes as edible coating materials and to determine their efficacy in shelf life extension and maintaining quality parameters of ‘Chandler’ strawberries. Alginate solution (1.5% w/v) and Limonene liposomes prepared from 80% lecithin and 20% PDA were used as edible coating materials. Fungal decay percentage, total yeast and mold counts, headspace atmosphere analysis, total soluble solids, pH, titratable acidity, total anthocyanin content and total phenolics were analyzed to assess fruit quality during 14 days at …

Interactions For Language Learning In And Around Virtual World, Ciara R. Wigham, Luisa Panichi, Susanna Nocchi, Randall Sandler

Articles

“… the new forms of interaction made possible by virtual worlds remain, to a significant degree, unexplored.” (Peterson, 2011: 78) “… immersion and interaction are necessary conditions of worldhood. Without them, virtual worlds would not be worlds at all.” (Zabel, 2014: 417) Since the mid-1990s, the pedagogical opportunities offered by three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds (VWs) have generated a considerable amount of interest and dialogue among educators and educational researchers across a variety of disciplines. The potential of VWs for language learning and teaching did not go unnoticed by the CALL community: language educators and researchers began to explore and to …

‘Prochainement: Arizona Jim Contre Cagoulard’: Framing The Future Of The Front Populaire In Jean Renoir’S Le Crime De Monsieur Lange (1936), Barry Nevin

Articles

Gilles Deleuze remarks that Jean Renoir’s entire œuvre displays the most fundamental operation of time, constantly holding the embodied past and the potential creation of a genuinely new future in tension. Although he fails to address Le Crime de Monsieur Lange, the film that cemented Renoir’s association with the Front populaire, Deleuze tantalisingly remarks that this dialectic stems partly from Renoir’s attitude towards the Front populaire. How Deleuze’s framework allows spectators to interpret this film as an expression of Renoir’s own ambivalence regarding the future of the Front populaire has yet to be sufficiently addressed. Drawing on Ida, …

Permissible Accommodation Or Impermissible Endorsement? A Proposed Approach To Religious Exemptions And The Establishment Clause, Gary J. Simson

Articles

In this Article, I propose an approach for deciding the limits that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause places on state and federal legislatures and courts when they create religious exemptions and there is no federal constitutional compulsion on them to do so. Although the Supreme Court’s much-anticipated decision last Term in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission ultimately decided very little, it featured a clash of interests that make it a useful vehicle for illustrating those limits.

Suppose, for example, that after losing in the Colorado courts, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop had decided not to seek review in …

Astonishingly Excellent Success Or Sad! Loser! Failure: Why President Trump’S Legal Narratives “Win” With Some Audiences And “Lose” With Others, Cathren Page

Articles

While President Trump is often called a liar and various commentators have analyzed his rhetorical approach, little has been said about storytelling's role in his wins and losses. Trump’s narratives about legal issues enjoy wild success with his supporters, amuse some critics, and terrify others. Thus far into his presidency, his legal narratives have often failed with courts. With nearly sixty-three million American voters backing Trump, scholars and students of persuasion cannot ignore his successes. However, with over sixty-five million Americans voting against him and various court’s ruling against him, scholars and students of persuasion also cannot ignore his failures. …

Thermal Modeling And Experimental Evaluation Of Five Different Photovoltaic Modules Integrated On Prototype Test Cells With And Without Water Flow, Vivek Tomar, G.N. Tiwari, T.S. Bhatti, Brian Norton

Articles

An analytical model of temperature dependent electrical and thermal efficiency of mono-crystalline (m-Si), polycrystalline (p-Si), amorphous silicon thin film (a-Si), cadmium telluride thin film (CdTe) and copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) photovoltaic modules integrated on five prototypes identical insulted test cells is developed with and without surface water flow. This model helps in ascertaining the influence of temperature on their performance of building integrated photovoltaic-thermal (BiPVT) system. The theoretically calculated results are experimentally validated in outdoor ambient environment. The electrical & thermal efficiencies are calculated for both high and low mass flow rate of water, ṁw. Daily average electrical efficiency …

Simultaneous Measurement Of Displacement And Temperature Based On Baloon - Shaped Bent Smf Structure Incorporating An Lpg, Ke Tian, Wenlei Yang, Gerald Farrell, Elfed Lewis, Xianfan Wang, Pengfei Wang

Articles

Abstract—A novel optical fibre sensor based on a balloon-shaped bent single-mode (BSBS) fibre structure incorporating a long-period grating (LPG) for simultaneous measurement of displacement and temperature is described and experimentally demonstrated. The sensor is fabricated by splicing a BSBS fibre structure formed Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with an LPG. Due to the interference dip which is formed by the BSBS fibre structure is sensitive to external displacement and temperature variation, while that formed by LPG only depends on temperature, displacement and temperature therefore can be unambiguously and simultaneously measured by this sensor. Experimental results show that this sensor offers a high …

In League? Destination Marketing Organisations And Football Clubs In The Virtual Space, Gerard Dunne, David Proctor, Sheila Flanagan

Articles

Logic dictates that Destination Marketing Organisations (DMOs), while representing many stakeholders, should leverage a location’s most visible assets to enhance the attractiveness of the destination at any given opportunity. This study examines the manner and extent to which four major European football franchises are mentioned and promoted on the official digital marketing platforms of their respective cities; Amsterdam, Barcelona, Manchester and Munich. A tailor made content analysis tool is used to conduct a systematic investigation of the virtual platforms over which the DMOs of these cities exert a modicum of control. The content of these platforms is scrutinised from three …

Discursive Constructions Of Professional Identity In Policy And Regulatory Discourse, Gerard Fealy, Josephine Mary Hegarty, Martin Mcnamara, Mary Casey, Denise O'Leary, Catriona Kennedy, Pauline O’Reilly, Rhona O’Connell, Anne-Marie Brady, Emma Nicholson

Articles

Aim

To examine and describe disciplinary discourses conducted through professional policy and regulatory documents in nursing and midwifery in Ireland.

Background

A key tenet of discourse theory is that group identities are constructed in public discourses and these discursively constructed identities become social realities. Professional identities can be extracted from both the explicit and latent content of discourse. Studies of nursing's disciplinary discourse have drawn attention to a dominant discourse that confers nursing with particular identities, which privilege the relational and affective aspects of nursing and, in the process, marginalize scientific knowledge and the technical and body work of nursing. …

Unpacking Action Research And Implementation Science: Implications For Nursing, Mary Casey, Denise O'Leary, David Coghlan

Articles

Aim

The aim of this study was to unpack the key concepts of action research and implementation science thereby enabling appropriate use of these methods in nursing.

Background

A key issue in action research is not so much the methodology employed to gather data/evidence but who decides the research agenda and who benefits from it. Implementation science is a way to ensure that evidence is translated into practice. The question arises as to how action research and implementation may be understood in relation to one another in nursing.

Design

Discussion Paper

Data sources

This discussion paper is based on our …

Developing And Sustaining Specialist And Advanced Practice Roles In Nursing And Midwifery: A Discourse On Enablers And Barriers, Gerard M. Fealy, Mary Casey, Denise O'Leary, Martin S. Mcnamara, Denise O'Brien, Laserina O'Conner, Rita Smith, Diarmuid Stokes

Articles

Aims and objectives

To collate, synthesise and discuss published evidence and expert professional opinion on enablers and barriers to the development and sustainability of specialist and advanced practice roles in nursing and midwifery.

Background

Expanded practice is a response to population health needs, healthcare costs and practitioners’ willingness to expand their scope of practice through enhanced responsibility, accountability and professional autonomy.

Design

This discursive paper is based on a rapid review of literature on enablers and barriers to the development and sustainability of specialist and advanced practice roles and is part of a wider policy analysis.

Methods

We analysed and …

Influence Of Atmospheric Clearness On Pdlc Switchable Glazing Transmission, Aritra Ghosh, Brian Norton, Tapas K. Mallick

Articles

Electrically activated switchable polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) is suitable for adaptive windows. A particular type requires 20V to become 71% transparent while in the absence of power it is 27% transparent. Glazing transmission changes with light incident angle. As the clearness of a sky changes the fraction changes alter of direct insolation (that has an azimuthally changing incident) and diffuse insolation (that has a largely constant incident). Thus, the effective overall incident angle determining the glazing transmittance also changes. In this work for the first time, the variation of PDLC glazing transmission with clearness index has been investigated.

Muddy Waters: Refining The Way Forward For The “Sustainability Science” Of Socio-Hydrogeology, Paul Hynds, Shane Regan, Luisa Andrade, Simon Mooney, Kevin O'Malley, Stephanie Dipelino, Jean O'Dwyer

Articles

The trouble with groundwater is that despite its critical importance to global water supplies, it frequently attracts insufficient management attention relative to more visible surface water sources, irrespective of regional climate, socioeconomic profile, and regulatory environment. To this end, the recently defined sub-discipline of "socio-hydrogeology", an extension of socio-hydrology, seeks to translate and exchange knowledge with and between non-expert end-users, in addition to involving non-expert opinion and experience in hydrogeological investigations, thus emphasising a "bottom-up" methodology. It is widely acknowledged that issues pertaining to groundwater quality, groundwater quantity, climate change, and a poor general awareness and understanding of groundwater occurrence …

A Belated Arrival: The Delayed Acceptance Of Musical Modernity In Irish Composition, Mark Fitzgerald

Articles

The chronic lack of investment in the capital needed to foster the development of music during the period of colonial governance in Ireland and the early years of the Free State, combined with Ireland’s peripheral position in relation to the centres of musical modernism, resulted in composers in Ireland adopting modernist ideas at a very late stage, particularly in comparison with the chronology of Irish literary modernism. Previous literature on the subject of Irish musical modernism has frequently obscured any clear sense of the real extent of this delay through the conflation of the concept of “modernism” with styles that …

Versatile Soliton Emission From A Ws2 Mode-Locked Fiber Laser, Bo Guo, Shi Li, Ya-Xian Fan, Pengfei Wang

Articles

Recently, few-layer tungsten disulfide (WS2), as a shining 2D material, has been discovered to possess both the saturable absorption ability and large nonlinear refractive index. Here, we demonstrate versatile soliton pulses in a passively mode-locked fiber laser with a WS2-deposited microfiber. The few-layer WS2 is prepared by the liquid-phase exfoliation method and transferred onto a microfiber by the optical deposition method. Study found, the WS2-deposited microfiber can operate simultaneously as a mode-locker and a high-nonlinear device. In experiment, by further inserting the WS2 device into the fiber laser, besides the dual-wavelength soliton, noise-like soliton pulse, conventional soliton and its harmonic …

Fabrication And Characterization Of A Magnetized Metal-Encapsulated Fbg Sensor For Structural Health Monitoring, Sagar Jinachandran, Huijun Li, Jiangtao Xi, B. Gangadhara Prusty, Yuliya Semenova, Gerald Farrell, Ginu Rajan

Articles

A novel means of metal packaging of a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor using stainless steel and tin, together with high temperature resistant samarium cobalt (SmCo) magnet is proposed in this paper. The inclusion of high temperaturecapable SmCo magnets enable the metal packaging of the FBG sensor with magnetic capabilities. This packaged sensor can be placed in direct contact with the substrate structures such as iron pipelines and other ferromagnetic components without any adhesives, making them easily detachable and reusable. This is a significant improvement compared with other commercial fiber optic sensors which are, surface attached using epoxies or welded …

K-Means And Hierarchical Cluster Analysis As Segmentation Algorithms Of Ftir Hyperspectral Images Collected From Cutaneous Tissue, Cassio Lima, Luciana Correa, Hugh Byrne, Denise Zezell

Articles

Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy is a rapid and label-free analytical technique whose potential as a diagnostic tool has been well demonstrated. The combination of spectroscopy and microscopy technologies enable wide-field scanning of a sample, providing a hyperspectral image with tens of thousands of spectra in a few minutes. In order to increase the information content of FTIR images, different clustering algorithms have been proposed as segmentation methods. However, systematic comparative tests of these techniques are still missing. Thus, the present paper aims to compare the ability of K-means Cluster Analysis (KMCA) and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) as clustering algorithms …

The Development Of Seals Committees, Linda Jellum

Articles

No abstract provided.