Digital Commons Network^™

Technology Enhanced Learning: Students' Views, Eileen O'Donnell, Mary Sharp

Conference Papers

User feedback is very important in all areas of computer science especially in the development of computer applications. Hence, student feedback on the use of technology enhanced learning in higher education in Ireland is relevant to the quality of the learning resources to be created by learning designers and academics in the future. The book “Student Reactions to Learning with Technologies: Perceptions and Outcomes” (Moyle & Wijngaards, 2012) was published by IGI Global in October 2011. This book includes contributions from various authors who are interested in students’ feedback regarding how technology has impacted on their educational experience. This book …

Integrating Current State And Future State Value Stream Mapping With Discrete Event Simulation: A Lean Distribution Case Study, Amr Mahfouz, John Crowe, Amr Arisha

Conference Papers

In response to global recession and increased competition, organizations have tried to become more efficient by decreasing costs and streamlining operations. To achieve this, the philosophy of lean management has gained in popularity. The main obstacle organizations face when implementing lean is deciding which activities to implement lean principals on. A well known lean practice, value stream mapping, is a very effective tool in mapping the current and future state of an organizations lean activities. Limitations in calculating variability information that describe system variations and uncertainty means more powerful analytical tools are needed. Simulation offers a more thorough analysis of …

Reflections On Contemporary Currents In Writing Center Work, Andrea A. Lunsford, Lisa Ede

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

Video Quality Prediction For Video Over Wireless Access Networks (Umts And Wlan), Asiya Khan

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Transmission of video content over wireless access networks (in particular, Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) and Third Generation Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (3G UMTS)) is growing exponentially and gaining popularity, and is predicted to expose new revenue streams for mobile network operators. However, the success of these video applications over wireless access networks very much depend on meeting the user’s Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. Thus, it is highly desirable to be able to predict and, if appropriate, to control video quality to meet user’s QoS requirements. Video quality is affected by distortions caused by the encoder and the wireless …

Video Supports The Lecturing Star, Audrey Martin

Conference Papers

This paper examines the potential of pedagogically designed video demonstrations in supporting lecture and tutorial notes in the Spatial Information Sciences. In the Department of Spatial Information Sciences (DSIS) in the Technological University Dublin (DIT) Land Surveying is taught across a wide variety of disciplines. Typically such modules have an equal weighting between written examination and field based project learning. To accommodate this highly practical subject area, 50 % of contact time is normally dedicated to field exercises whereby students, in groups of no more than five, receive demonstration on diverse surveying instrumentation and subsequently complete practical project work as …

Aligning Learning Outcomes With Professional Competencies In Geomatics Education, Audrey Martin, Eugene Mcgovern

Conference Papers

The Geomatics industry is a highly specialised field incorporating advanced technical instrumentation and complex measurement systems which form part of local, national and international Spatial Information Systems. As spatial information forms the basis for many aspects of construction, architecture, planning and development, the knowledge and skills required by the qualified Geomatics professional are varied. The professional surveyor must attain the required academic standard and satisfy professional criteria.

The BSc in Geomatics in the Technological University Dublin (DIT)is the only programme inIrelandproducing Geomatics professionals. It is accredited by a number of professional bodies including the Society of Chartered Surveyors (SCS) and …

Minimal Analytical Characterisation Of Engineered Nanomaterials Needed For Hazard Assessment In Biological Matrices, Hans Bouwmeester, Hugh Byrne, Alan Casey, Gordon Chambers

Articles

Background: This paper presents the outcomes from a workshop of the European Network on the Health and Environmental Impact of Nanomaterials (NanoImpactNet) held in June 2008. During this workshop 45 experts in the field of safety assessment of engineered nanomaterials from academia, non-profit organizations and industry addressed a list of essential metrics of engineered nanomaterials that need to be characterized as a minimum.

Results: The group discussed the need to systematically study sets of engineered nanomaterials to generate a dataset that allows for the establishment of dose-response data related to specific metrics of engineered nanomaterials. Concomitantly the availability of analytical …

Exploring Lecturers Self Perception Of Change In Teaching Habits, Roisin Donnelly

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

How Can We Nurture And Develop Creativity In First Year Design Students, Kerry Meakin

Theses

This research paper investigates the perceptions of first year third level design students regarding their creative thinking and use of creative strategies, while studying a first year design based curriculum in an Institute of Technology in Dublin. The research was conducted in a three-phase, sequential project. The first phase, questioned twenty seven students by issuing anonymous questionnaires to gather data on their methods of incubating design ideas, if they experienced any levels of anxiety when doing so, and their satisfaction levels in their design and creative abilities. Literature was reviewed to discover the attributes of those we perceive as creative …

Obtaining Speech Assets For Judgement Analysis On Low-Pass Filtered Emotional Speech, John Snel, Charlie Cullen

Conference papers

Investigating the emotional content in speech from acoustic characteristics requires separating the semantic con- tent from the acoustic channel. For natural emotional speech, a widely used method to separate the two channels is the use of cue masking. Our objective is to investigate the use of cue masking in non-acted emotional speech by analyzing the extent to which filtering impacts the perception of emotional content of the modified speech material. However, obtaining a corpus of emotional speech can be quite difficult whereby verifying the emotional content is an issue thoroughly discussed. Currently, speech research is showing a tendency toward constructing …

On Improving Electrooculogram-Based Computer Mouse Systems: The Accelerometer Trigger, Johnalan Keegan, Edward Burke, James Condron, Eugene Coyle

Conference Papers

Eye tracking is a well-established method of computer control for profoundly paralysed people (Anson et al., 2002). Cameras are commonly used to track eye movements (Morimoto et al., 2005) but one alternative is the bioelectrical signal known as the electrooculogram (EOG). There are some EOG mouse control systems that facilitate the use of GUI applications, but certain actions, which are straightforward using a conventional mouse, remain impossible. Unless the eyes are tracking a target, they move in saccades (jumps), making it impossible to voluntarily trace out smooth trajectories with one's gaze, as would be required to draw a smooth curve. …

Carlingford Visitor Survey, 2011, Kevin Griffin, Elizabeth Kennedy-Burke, Jane Fitzgerald, Sheila Flanagan, Maeve Morrissey

Reports / Surveys

No abstract provided.

Beck Halstrøm (Sweden), Jennifer Manning, Thomas M. Cooney

Case Study

No abstract provided.

User Profile Construction In The Twin Personality-Based Recommender System, Alexandra Roshchina, John Cardiff, Paolo Rosso

Conference Papers

The information overload experienced by peo- ple who use online services and read user- generated content (e.g. product reviews and ratings) to make their decisions has led to the development of the so-called recommender systems. We address the problem of the large increase in the user-generated reviews, which are added to each day and consequently make it difficult for the user to obtain a clear picture of the quality of the facility in which they are interested.

In this paper, we describe the TWIN (“Tell me What I Need”) personality-based recom- mender system, the aim of which is to select …

An Online Framework For Supporting The Evaluation Of Personalised Information Retrieval Systems, Catherine Mulwa, Luca Longo, Seamus Lawless, Mary Sharpe, Vincent Wade

Conference papers

Scope - Personalised Information Retrieval (PIR) has been gaining attention because it investigates intelligent ways for enhancing content delivery. Web users can have personalised services and more accurate information. Problem - Several PIR systems have been proposed in the literature; however, they have not been properly tested or evaluated. Proposal – The authors propose a generally applicable web-based interface, which provides PIR developers and evaluators with: i) implicit recommendations on how to evaluate a specific PIR system; ii) a repository containing studies on user-centred and layered evaluation studies; iii) recommendations on how to best combine different evaluation methods, metrics and …

Oxygen Rich Titania: A Dopant Free, A Dopant Free, High Temperature Stable, And Visible-Light Active Anatase Photocatalyst, Vinodkumar Etacheri, Michael Seery, Steven Hinder, Suresh Pillai

Articles

The simultaneous existence of visible light photocatalytic activity and high temperature anatase phase stability up to 900 ° C in undoped TiO 2 is reported for the fi rst time. These properties are achieved by the in-situ generation of oxygen through the thermal decomposition of peroxo-titania complex (formed by the precursor modifi cation with H 2 O 2 ). Titania containing the highest amount of oxygen (16 H 2 O 2 -TiO 2 )retains 100% anatase phase even at 900 ° C, where as the control sample exists as 100% rutile at this temperature. The same composition exhibits a six-fold …

Community-Based Internet Usage Policy Development, Mashael Alhawsah

Students Learning with Communities

The Internet is a tool for learning and obtaining a vast amount of information, but it is a tool which also has associated problems. The number of risks associated with the internet has been increasing both in number and in danger. As a result, protection measures must be developed to minimize the risks. One of the most important groups of such measures are Internet Usage Policies. An Internet Usage Policy addresses the problem by providing a set of guideline to be followed which minimize the risks. This dissertation investigates the development of Internet Usage Policy with the assistance of the …

Comparison Of Road Safety Behaviour Of Rented Dublin Bike Users With That Of Owner Cyclists, Eileen Deegan

Students Learning with Communities

Cycling is a unique way of travelling and exercising. The Irish Heart Foundation recommends thirty minutes of exercise most days in the week to maintain a healthy heart (IHF, 2008). The introduction of the Dublin-bike scheme by Dublin city Council in connection with JCDecaux on the 13th of September 2009 has encouraged and allowed more people to cycle around the city of Dublin. Since their introduction, Dublin-bikes have grown rapidly in popularity. By the 31st of December 2009 24,016 people had subscribed to the scheme (Dublin City Council, 2009). On the 16th of August 2010, The Irish Times published that …

The Use Of Knowledge Management Techniques To Aid Learning Retention In On-Line Learning Environments, Frank O'Reilly

Students Learning with Communities

The focus of this research is e-Learning and Knowledge Management and the synergies between them. While they are both very distinct and different domains, they share the twin goals of delivering personal advancement and improving performance through the acquisition of new skills. They both set about to achieve these goals by means of knowledge sharing and knowledge transfer. However, both disciplines suffer from poor reputations due to low success rates – sometimes perceived, but often real. In particular, e-Learning has failed to live up to the promise it was said to show when it emerged as the successor to Computer-Based …

Applications Of Electronic Structure Theory To Problems In Unimolecular Dissociation And Inorganic And Biochemical Systems, Jia Zhou

Wayne State University Dissertations

In this dissertation, ab initio classical trajectory calculations have been carried out to study the dissociation of acetone radical cation, pentane-2,4-dione radical cation, and 1,3-cyclobutanedione radical cation. For acetone radical cation and pentane-2,4-dione radical cation, MP2 with bond additivity corrections generates a better potential energy surface at low cost and is thus used for molecular dynamics calculations. The dissociation of acetone radical cation is found to favor the loss of the newly formed methyl group in agreement with the experiments. The branching ratios of methyl loss were also calculated with different amount of excess energy and of specific mode excitation. …

Longissimus Muscle Fatigue And Injury Response Due To Electrical Stimulation With Varied Work/Rest Ratios, Peter Wawrow

Wayne State University Dissertations

LONGISSIMUS MUSCLE FATIGUE AND INJURY RESPONSE DUE TO ELECTRICAL STIMULATION WITH VARIED WORK/REST RATIOS

BY

PETER WAWROW

May 2011

Advisor: John Cavanaugh, MD

Major: Biomedical Engineering

Degree: Doctor of Philosophy

The estimated yearly cost of lost-time work injuries and illnesses is $140 billion. The average cost of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) exceeds all other claims. These injuries persist in spite of ergonomic interventions addressing known risk factors. Work/rest ratios have not received a significant amount of attention, particularly in low back disorders, and it is hypothesized that the lack of adequate rest within a work cycle may contribute to muscle fatigue …

Study Of Turbulence-Radiation Interaction In Hypersonic Turbulent Boundary Layers, L. (Lian) Duan, A. M. Feldick, M. P. Martín, M. F. Modest, D. A. Levin

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In the paper, we conduct direct numerical simulations (DNS) to investigate the effect of turbulence-radiation interaction (TRI) in hypersonic turbulent boundary layers, representative of the Orion crew exploration vehicle (CEV) at peak heating condition during reentry. The radiative transfer equation (RTE) is solved using the tangent slab approximation. 1 The RTE solver is line-by-line (LBL) accurate, making use of a developed efficient spectral database 2 for spectral modeling. A multi-group full-spectrum correlated-k-distribution (FSCK) method 3 is used to reduce the number of RTE evaluations while preserving LBL accuracy. A nondimensional governing parameter to measure the significance of TRI is proposed, …

Analysis Of Renewable Energy Potential In Malaysia., Adawati Yusof

Student Works (2010-2019)

Renewable energy sources are important for energy production in the world. The trend toward renewable energy sources is because they will never be exhausted even it is repeatedly use, contrary with the conventional fuels. Another important factor is that the emission of greenhouse gases and air pollutants is little or no production to the environment. Malaysia, developing countries in Southeast Asia is also in the process of using available resources and discovering its potential. The purpose of this report is to determine the potential of renewable energy sources available in Malaysia, as well as the current version of renewable energy. …

Spectacles, Molly Agnew

Theses

The goal of this paper is to outline the production of the film "Spectacles" from inspiration to completion. Also included in this paper are supplementary materials in order to further illustrate the processes used and decisions made during production. "Spectacles" explores the importance of free play and imagination in a child's life. The film takes place in a domestic environment. The story unfolds from multiple viewpoints: the viewpoint of the protagonist, a little girl named Gigi, the viewpoint of Gigi's mother, and then finally the viewers are given their own viewpoint. These separate perspectives were challenging to establish but were …

Spreadsheets Across The Curriculum, 3: Finding A List Of Mathematical Skills For Quantitative Literacy Empirically, H L. Vacher, Emily Lardner

Numeracy

What mathematical topics do educators committed to teaching mathematics in context choose for their students when given the opportunity to develop an educational resource explicitly to teach mathematics in context? This paper examines the choices made for the 55 modules by 40 authors in the General Collection of the Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum (SSAC) library. About half of the modules were made by authors from natural science, and about 60% of the other modules were by authors from mathematics. The modules are tagged with terms of a search vocabulary developed for the browse page of the collection. The four terms …

A Globalised Vulnerability: Re-Presenting The Labouring Body Of Ireland's Newly Industrialised Landscape, Mark Curran

Doctoral

Situated in the context of globalisation in the Republic of Ireland, this ethnographically informed practice-based thesis addresses the critical relationship between visual arts practice, curatorship, the historical representation of labour, industrialised space and contemporary global labour practices. Drawing on audio and visual ethnographic material generated in my fieldsite - the Hewlett-Packard Manufacturing and Research complex in Leixlip, Ireland, together with the resulting installation and publication titled The Breathing Factory, it further investigates the dissemination of such epistemologies, the term ‘re-representation' being deployed as a reflexive gesture in acknowledgement of such critical re-contextualisations.

Tempo Detection Using A Hybrid Multi-Band Approach, Mikel Gainza, Eugene Coyle

Articles

In this paper, a novel tempo detection system is presented, which suggests the use of a hybrid multiband decomposition. The model tracks the periodicities of different signal property changes that manifest within different frequency bands by using the most appropriate onset/transient detectors for each frequency band. In addition, the proposed system applies a novel method to weight tempo candidates. Each contribution is evaluated by comparing the presented system against existing approaches using three different databases that comprises 1638 songs. These databases include the two publicly available database of songs used in the tempo evaluation contest of ISMIR 2004. These songs …

What Difference Does It Make?- The Current Role And Potential Impact Social Enterprise Can Play In The Regeneration Of Disadvantaged Communities, Gerard Doyle

Articles

At European level there is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes a social enterprise (GHK, 2006). However, the number of definitions of what constitutes a social enterprise reflects the diverse understanding of what a social enterprise actually is. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) (2002) definition is widely used: A social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners. Social enterprises share a number of common characteristics: they are …

Blood Vessel Diameter Estimation System Using Active Contours, Jane Courtney, Ana Tizon

Conference Papers

The study and analysis of blood vessel geometry has become the basis of medical applications related to early diagnosis and effective monitoring of therapies in vascular diseases. This paper presents a new method to trace the outline of blood vessels from imperfect images and extract useful information about their dimensions in an automated manner. The system consists of a segmentation procedure that uses two Active Contours to detect blood vessel boundaries and a novel approach to measure blood vessel diameters directly as the distance between two points. We have succeeded in designing and implementing an automated, robust, measurement method that …

Crossings, Noel Brady

Books/Book Chapters

Chapter concentrates on the bridges of Dublin’s river Liffey; their importance to the vitality of the city, its commerce and people. It also highlights the importance of crossings in the city linking and opening up new paths to growth and development.