Digital Commons Network^™

An Analysis Of Eastern European Liner Shipping During The Period Of Transition, Heidi Rebecca Cottam

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Transition in Europe is one of the most important transformations in modern history. This research investigates the impact of economic and political transition on the liner sector of post-Soviet Europe. Former socialist shipping corporations have begun to offer services under market conditions and left behind the rigid leeway of central planning (Cottam and Roe 2007). Extensive adjustments in ownership, organisation, fleets and markets have transpired. Successful transformation of the maritime industries has a major influence upon the speed and route of economic development in transition countries (Von Brabant 2011). Despite this, liner shipping has received very little attention from academia. …

How Do Organisations Engage In Marketing Strategy Making? A Problemistic Search Perspective, Sarah Browne, Katrina Lawlor, Pamela Sharkey Scott, Laura Cuddihy

Conference papers

Despite the importance of marketing strategy making (MSM) we understand little of how strategy making actually occurs within organisations. Departing from the common focus - on the tools and techniques of strategy– we apply a strategy as practice (SAP) lens to our exploration of MSM. We adopt a problemistic search perspective and utilise an in-depth case study to explore individual’s interactions in developing strategic marketing initiatives. We uncover a three-stage pattern in solution search within MSM; identification of the problem situation and postponing response, to problem recognition and acceptance, to a collective problem solving stage, which we label pre implementation …

From Russia With Love, Scott Sheridan

Illinois Wesleyan University Magazine, 2002-2017

An ongoing collaboration between Illinois Wesleyan and Russian scholars inspires new research and surprising cultural insights.

Improving With Age, Nancy Steele Brokaw

Illinois Wesleyan University Magazine, 2002-2017

Retired professor D. Paul Miller reveals what keeps him going strong at 94.

The Student Perspective: Can The Use Of Technologies Transform Learning?, Eileen O'Donnell

Books/Book Chapters

This chapter explores students’ perspectives on the transformations that the use of technology has brought to higher education. The use of technologies in higher education facilitates flexible learning environments but the benefits to students who engage with these technologies will only be realised if the design is pedagogically sound. The pedagogic approach employed by lecturers when designing their e-learning platforms or learning management systems has the capability to transform learning. The author’s discipline is Information Technology and Business Information Systems; from experience and case studies there is ample evidence to suggest that the use of technology does not always necessarily …

Strategic Discourse Across Organizational Meetings:Towards A Systems Perspective., Brendan K. O'Rourke, Martin Duffy

Conference Papers

Strategic Discourse across Organizational meetings: Towards a Systems Perspective Abstract This paper presents a tentative theoretical conception of how organizational meetings may be viewed as a system rather than as individual events. Perspectives from process metaphysics(Langley and Tsoukas, 2010), meso-discourse analysis (Alvesson and Karreman, 2000, 2011) and systems thinking (von Bertalanffy, 1969) are adopted, to explore and expand the theoretical resources available to conceptualise a ‘system of meetings’. The primary data draws from 130+ hours of recorded meeting proceedings, spanning 58 meeting events, from multiple sub-groups within a medium sized company.

The Forgotten Ones: Child Sex Trafficking In Post-Communist Romania, Sarah K. Moir

Honors Projects

Child sex trafficking is a global issue, and much can be learned about the causes by analyzing the histories of certain countries. The historical analysis of this paper focuses on Romania: the devaluation of children throughout Romanian history led to a situation where Romanian children were easily victimized. I begin by examining the place of children within the haphazard and inadequate educational system in Romania since the mid-19th century and into the 20th century. This neglect continued under communism, when education was more inclusive but it was dominated by ideological indoctrination rather than actual academics. Combined with economic factors, emigration …

Choice, Coercion, Capabilities And Conflict: Multilingualism, Human Development And Peacekeeping In A Globalized World, Megan R. Thompson

Honors Projects

The development of English into an international lingua franca is not an inevitable result of globalizing forces. Instead, the “triumph” of the English language and the consequent decline of the world’s linguistic diversity cannot be viewed in isolation of its parallel history of conquest, violence, power and exploitation. Today, the languages privileged by the powerful—not only English, but also other dominant languages or standard varieties of those languages—determine access to social, economic and political mobility. This fact renders any discussion of language “choice” irrelevant—when a choice yields the sacrifice of basic human capabilities on one hand and the denial of …

Peer Tutors And The Conversation Of Writing Center Studies, Melissa Ianetta, Lauren Fitzgerald

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

Announcements

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

Iwca Information

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

Review: The Successful High School Writing Center: Building The Best Program With Your Students, Catherine Oriani

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

Review: Writing Centers And The New Racism: A Call For Sustainable Dialogue And Change, Harry Denny

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

Announcements

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

Iwca Information

The Writing Center Journal

No abstract provided.

A Qualitative Exploration Of Oral Communciations Apprehension, Marann Byrne, Barbara Flood, Dan Shanahan

Articles

Prior research has identified communication apprehension, or fear of communicating, as a major factor which inhibits an individual’s willingness to communicate and his/her capability to develop effective communication skills. While many prior studies have measured oral communication apprehension of students, there has been little qualitative exploration of the phenomenon. This study was conducted by interviewing first-year business and accounting students at a higher education institution in Ireland who were identified as encountering varying levels of oral communication apprehension. The experiences of the students in communicating in different contexts are analysed and the impact of factors such as fear of peer …

Quality Of Service Optimisation Framework For Next Generation Networks, Frank Gerd Weber

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Within recent years, the concept of Next Generation Networks (NGN) has become widely accepted within the telecommunication area, in parallel with the migration of telecommunication networks from traditional circuit-switched technologies such as ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) towards packet-switched NGN. In this context, SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), originally developed for Internet use only, has emerged as the major signalling protocol for multimedia sessions in IP (Internet Protocol) based NGN. One of the traditional limitations of IP when faced with the challenges of real-time communications is the lack of quality support at the network layer. In line with NGN specification work, …

Evolution Of Grasping Behaviour In Anthropomorphic Robotic Arms With Embodied Neural Controllers, Gianluca Massera

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

The works reported in this thesis focus upon synthesising neural controllers for anthropomorphic robots that are able to manipulate objects through an automatic design process based on artificial evolution. The use of Evolutionary Robotics makes it possible to reduce the characteristics and parameters specified by the designer to a minimum, and the robot’s skills evolve as it interacts with the environment. The primary objective of these experiments is to investigate whether neural controllers that are regulating the state of the motors on the basis of the current and previously experienced sensors (i.e. without relying on an inverse model) can enable …

Working Paper Of Reflections In The Eyes Of A Dying Tiger: Looking Back On Ireland's 1987 Economic Crisis, Brendan O'Rourke, John Hogan

Books/Book Chapters

This work examines the discourses about previous Irish crises , in radio chat interviews with a former finance minister and an economists, during the current Irish economic crise.

Mobispatial: Open Source For Mobile Spatial Interaction, Junjun Yin, James Carswell

Conference papers

This paper describes our Mobile Spatial Interaction (MSI) prototype MobiSpatial, which benefits from location and orientation aware smartphones and existing open source spatial data initiatives to facilitate user interaction with the geospatial query process. We utilize today’s ubiquitous mobile device as the central computing platform to calculate a mobile user’s visibility shape at his/her current location. MobiSpatial uses this shape as a query “window” in a spatial database to perform line-of-sight, field-of-view and 360º Isovist visibility searches. These visibility based spatial queries reduce the risk of “information overload” by exploiting “hidden query removal” functionality to retrieve only those objects that …

An Evaluation Of The Performance Of Network Rtk Gnss Services In Ireland, Audrey Martin, Eugene Mcgovern

Conference Papers

The national Geodetic infrastructure for the island of Ireland has developed rapidly to a fully GNSS compatible coordinate reference system - Irish Transverse Mercator (ITM) which is realised through a Continuously Operating Reference System (CORS) network of active GNSS stations. The National Mapping Authority’s CORS network provides data for post processing and streamed raw data for real-time network (NRTK) solutions. This NRTK raw data is currently being used by both Leica and Topcon to provide independent NRTK solutions. A second CORS network, known as VRS Now Ireland, with both RINEX and NRTK capabilities, was established in 2008 by Trimble and …

Vision, Falls And Fear Of Falling In An Older Irish Population: Findings From The Irish Logitudinal Study On Aging (Tilda), E. Duggan, C. Finucane, H. Cronin, G. Savva, James Loughman, R. A. Kenny

Other

No abstract provided.

Oral Communication Apprehension: An Exploration In Addressing Fear Of Public Speaking, Dan Shanahan

Teaching Fellowships

Several research studies have identified oral communication as a skill employers desire of their workforce, and so, accounting and business education programmes place considerable emphasis on the development of communication competencies among students. However, not all students appear to benefit as desired from communication skills development. Prior research indicates this may arise from a fear of communicating, commonly known as oral communication apprehension, a factor which inhibits his/her capability to develop effective communication skills.

Many prior studies have measured oral communication apprehension of students in different disciplines, and there has been some qualitative exploration of the phenomenon. This paper reports …

Critical Thinking, Critical Theory: Cross-School First Year Module In Critical Analysis, Tim Stott, Mary Ann Bolger, Noel Fitzpatrick, Niamh-Ann Kelly

Teaching Fellowships

The objective of the project was threefold. Firstly, to propose a first year module entitled “Developing Critical Skills”, to be available across Technological University Dublin (DIT), which would promote, through the analysis of cultural artefacts, the analytical and rhetorical skills of first year students across different disciplines. Secondly, to test and evaluate appropriate assessment procedures for such a module. Thirdly, to explore innovative methods of curriculum design process for interdisciplinary learning. The anticipated benefits of such a module were originally imagined to be the development of students who would possess critical competences with broad application, who would be reflective and …

Practice Makes Practice . . . Visible? Revealing Structures Of The Artistic Field By Articulating The Evasive Properties Inherent In Its Systems Of Production Through Art Practice, Naomi Elizabeth Sex

Other

This practice-led research project attempts to seek out and reveal the structures that frame the production of art practice, through and with art practice itself. With this premise in mind, the first phase of the study aims to use practice-led research by adopting quasi-ethnographic strategies firstly to explore the field of artistic production, and secondly in an attempt to activate, capture and contain tangible evidence that the artistic field is powered by persuasive informal discourse and practices that contribute to stringent and hierarchical rules of engagement. Entering the second phase of the project the contribution of this study is based …

Shared Ambitions Support Educators In Practitioner Action Research, Roisin Donnelly, Michael Russell, Nuala Harding

Papers, presentations and other resources

When teachers share ambitions for their practice, they are raising both their own awareness of their personal theory and articulating a shared conception of educational values. In contrast to traditional research methods modules which encompass a variety of methodologies, a new module has been collaboratively developed between two higher education institutions in Ireland to focus on action research, specifically requiring participants to engage in and document a research project linked to practice. Research methods as a subject can prove challenging for teacher-researchers especially in applying the concepts to their own practice-based projects. This module, aimed at practitioners in further and …

Supporting Lecturers In Writing And Publishing Educational Research, Roisin Donnelly, Martina Crehan

Other resources

Academic writing in the context of producing quality research articles is something which all academics engage in and there is evidence of increased attention to supporting the development of the writing and subsequent output of academics and research students. However, while scholarly writing is learnt in complex ways, critical thinking is an intrinsic part of such writing. In practice the teaching of critical thinking is difficult and there is a lack of discussion about what it means within the context of the writing process. Critical thinking can only be acquired with practice and this study describes a pedagogic intervention with …

Restaurant Selection In Dublin, Frank Cullen

Articles

The primary objective of this research was to investigate the selection process used by consumers when choosing a restaurant to dine. This study examined literature on consumer behaviour, restaurant selection, and decision-making, underpinning the contention that service quality is linked to the consumer’s selection of a restaurant. It supports the utility theories that consumers buy bundles of attributes that simultaneously combined represent a certain level of service quality at a certain price. The findings of the research displayed a preference by Dublin consumers for Italian and Chinese styled restaurants and identified quality of the food, type of food, cleanliness of …

Introduction To Sustainable Engineering Design By Derek Mowlds, Chairman, Cibse, Republic Of Ireland Region, Derek Mowlds

SDAR* Journal of Sustainable Design & Applied Research

No abstract provided.