Digital Commons Network^™

Classical And Quantum Particle Dynamics In Univariate Background Fields, T Heinzl, A Ilderton, B King

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Development Of Kinect Based Teleoperation Of Nao Robot, Chunxu Li, Chenguang Yang, Peidong Liang, Angelo Cangelosi, Jian Wan

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

A Video Game Design Based On Emotiv Neuroheadset, Rijin Raju, Chenguang Yang, Chunxu Li, Angelo Cangelosi

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Vacuum Birefringence In High-Energy Laser-Electron Collisions, B King, N Elkina

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Visual Odometry And Mapping In Natural Environments For Arbitrary Camera Motion Models, George Terzakis

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

This is a thesis on outdoor monocular visual SLAM in natural environments. The techniques proposed herein aim at estimating camera pose and 3D geometrical structure of the surrounding environment. This problem statement was motivated by the GPS-denied scenario for a sea-surface vehicle developed at Plymouth University named Springer. The algorithms proposed in this thesis are mainly adapted for the Springer’s environmental conditions, so that the vehicle can navigate on a vision based localization system when GPS is not available; such environments include estuarine areas, forests and the occasional semi-urban territories. The research objectives are constrained versions of the ever-abiding problems …

Modeling Of Healthcare Systems: Past, Current And Future Trends, Amr Arisha, Wael Rashwan

Conference papers

Increasing demand for healthcare services, due to changes in demographic shifts and constraints in healthcare funding, make it harder to manage effective, sustainable healthcare systems. Many healthcare modeling exercises have been undertaken with the aim of supporting the decision-making process. This paper reviews all of the 456 articles published by the Winter Simulation Conference over the past 48 years (1967-2015) on the subject of modeling and healthcare system simulation, and analyzes the relative frequency of approaches used. A multi-dimensional taxonomy is applied to encompass the modeling techniques, problem applications and decision levels reported in the articles. One of the most …

An Integrated Approach Of Multi-Objective Optimization Model For Evaluating New Supporting Program In Irish Hospitals, Wael Rashwan, Heba Habib, Amr Arisha, Garry Courtney, Sean Kennelly

Conference papers

Hospitals are witnessing an inexorable growth in emergency admissions, which results in overcrowding and a poorer patient experience. The Acute Medicine Program (AMP) is one of the programs developed by the Irish health authority aimed at improving patient experience. To review the AMP intervention, this study applies a model that integrates three analytical approaches: simulation, multivariate factor analysis and multi-objective optimization. The simulation identified 14 different factors affecting five responses that were used to develop a Design of Experiments (DoE). Multivariate factor analysis used the DoE to determine the factors creating ‘bottlenecks’, such as downstream resources. The multi-objective optimization model, …

Evidence-Based Accountability Audits For Cloud Computing, Thomas Rübsamen

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics Theses

Cloud computing is known for its on-demand service provisioning and has now become mainstream. Many businesses as well as individuals are using cloud services on a daily basis. There is a big variety of services that ranges from the provision of computing resources to services such as productivity suites and social networks. The nature of these services varies heavily in terms of what kind of information is being out-sourced to the cloud provider. Often, that data is sensitive, for instance when PII is being shared by an individual. Also, businesses that move (parts of) their processes to the cloud are …

Dodging Marshmallows: Simulations To Teach Ethics, Justin Weidman, Dawan Coombs

Faculty Publications

Students had just participated in an experiential learning exercise where they played dodgeball using marshmallows. But the unique context of the game introduced ethical dilemmas that integrated ethics education into a technical education classroom setting.

Research shows that “Engineering curriculum and activities at the K-12 level should be designed to expose students to [ethical considerations inherent in the practice of engineering], and as a result students should be aware of the importance of these issues in the field of engineering” (Moore, Glancy, Tank, Kersten, Smith, & Stohlmann, 2014). But how do STEM teachers teach students to think about ethical issues …

Student Voices: What Students Say They Do To Be Successful, Alyson E. King

Student Success

Since a post-secondary education tends to lead to improved life chances and opportunities, understanding the ways in which students at all levels of university are able to succeed is important not only for individuals, but also for the nation. In spite of the success of targeted first- year retention programs, most universities in Ontario have much lower degree completion rates. Few existing studies of university persistence and success focus on what students themselves say about how and why they are successful at persisting to graduation. This pilot study compared the strategies for success at university used by self-identified visible minority …

A Comparison Of The Mathematical Performance Of Mature Students And Traditional Students Over A 10-Year Period, Fiona Faulkner, Olivia Fitzmaurice, Olivia Hannigan

Journal Articles

Every student who enrols in a degree programme involving service mathematics in the University of Limerick in Ireland is given a mathematics diagnostic test. The diagnostic test was developed due to mathematics lecturers’ anxiety regarding students’ mathematical competency levels. Students receive the 40 question paper-based test in their first service mathematics lecture without prior notification. Initial analysis of students’ work revealed that many students were having difficulties with basic algebra and arithmetic in particular [Gill, O. 2006. “What Counts as Service Mathematics? An Investigation into the ‘Mathematics Problem’ in Ireland.” PhD diss., University of Limerick]. Further research highlighted the significant …

Towards Reusable Personas For Everyday Design, Ciaran O'Leary, Fredrick Mtenzi, Claire Mcavinia

Papers, presentations and other resources

Personas are artificial character based representations of user goals, attitudes, motivations and abilities which enable designers to focus their design efforts on key, targeted users. The success of personas in design is due to their capacity to enable designers to empathize with users and understand user goals. Persona development is rooted in the rigorous collection and analysis of data specifically related to the design project being undertaken. New design projects thus require the development of new personas. Since redevelopment is not always achievable attention has turned towards reuse of personas and the underlying data. This paper reports on ongoing research …

Policy Implications Of Irish Women's Experiences In Stem Education, Shannon Chance

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

No abstract provided.

Characterization Of Dielectric Barrier Discharge Atmospheric Air Plasma Treated Chitosan Films, Shashi Pankaj, Carmen Bueno-Ferrer, Luke O'Neill, B.K. Tiwari, Paula Bourke, Patrick J. Cullen

Articles

Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma is a novel non-thermal food decontamination technology. The effects of DBD plasma on the surface topography, chemical composition and crystal structure, film hydrophilicity, water vapor permeability and oxygen permeability of chitosan films have been examined. DBD plasma treatment increased the surface roughness of chitosan films with emergence of sharp protuberances. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy spectra confirm a significant increase in the oxygen containing groups in the chitosan film after plasma treatment. Significant increase in the film hydrophilicity was observed after plasma treatment. X-ray diffraction results showed that DBD plasma treatment do …

Artemisinin Production By Plant Hairy Root Cultures In Gas- And Liquid-Phase Bioreactors, Nivedita Patra, Ashok K. Srivastava

Articles

Key message

Alternative biotechnological protocol for large-scale artemisinin production was established. It featured enhanced growth and artemisinin production by cultivation of hairy roots in nutrient mist bioreactor (NMB) coupled with novel cultivation strategies.

Artemisinin is used for the treatment of cerebral malaria. Presently, its main source is from seasonal plant Artemisia annua. This study featured investigation of growth and artemisinin production by A. annua hairy roots (induced by Agrobacterium rhizogenes-mediated genetic transformation of explants) in three bioreactor configurations—bubble column reactor, NMB and modified NMB particularly to establish their suitability for commercial production. It was observed that cultivation of …

The Neural Dynamics Of Somatosensory Processing And Adaptation Across Childhood: A High-Density Electrical Mapping Study, Neha Uppal, John J. Foxe, John Butler, Frantzy Acluche, Sophie Molholm

Articles

Young children are often hyperreactive to somatosensory inputs hardly noticed by adults, as exemplified by irritation to seams or labels in clothing. The neurodevelopmental mechanisms underlying changes in sensory reactivity are not well understood. Based on the idea that neurodevelopmental changes in somatosensory processing and/or changes in sensory adaptation might underlie developmental differences in somatosensory reactivity, high-density electroencephalography was used to examine how the nervous system responds and adapts to repeated vibrotactile stimulation over childhood. Participants aged 6–18 yr old were presented with 50-ms vibrotactile stimuli to the right wrist over the median nerve at 5 blocked interstimulus intervals (ranging …

Unique Characterization Of Materials With Memory, John Murrough Golden

Articles

In general, materials with linear memory constitutive relations are characterized by a relaxation function. This leads to a situation where the free energy for most materials with memory is not unique. There is a convex set of free energy functionals with a minimum and a maximum element. An alternative procedure is proposed which characterizes a material by the kernel of the rate of dissipation functional. Using some recent results, we find that a unique free energy and relaxation function may then be deduced. An example is given for discrete spectrum materials. Also, the new results are used to show that …

Irish Healthcare Staff - Smoking, Training And Activity In Treatment Of Tobacco Dependence - An Online Survey, Sheila Keogan, Annette Burns, Kate Babineau, Luke Clancy

Other Resources

INTRODUCTION Ireland has strong tobacco control legislation but must get smokers to stop if the national plan of having a smoking prevalence of 5% by the year 2025 is possible. Involving all healthcare staff in this effort is regarded as important. We surveyed the present situation. METHODS An online survey was conducted of 1257 healthcare staff; 520 nurses, 440 doctors, 297 dentists in 2014. The sample was accessed with the help of the Irish Nurses and Midwifes Organisation (INMO), Irish Medical Organisation (IMO) and the Irish Dental Association (IDA). The questionnaire addressed individual smoking habits and attitudes, training and practice …

Donald H. Stedman 50 Years Of Air Quality Instrument Inventions And Measurements (Presentation), Gary A. Bishop, Donald H. Stedman

Fuel Efficiency Automobile Test Publications

No abstract provided.

High-Mileage Light-Duty Fleet Vehicle Emissions: Their Potentially Overlooked Importance, Gary A. Bishop, Donald H. Stedman, Daniel A. Burgard, Oscar Atkinson

Fuel Efficiency Automobile Test Publications

No abstract provided.

A Corpus Of Annotated Irish Traditional Dance Music Recordings: Design And Benchmark Evaluations, Pierre Beauguitte, Bryan Duggan, John D. Kelleher

Conference papers

An emerging trend in music information retrieval (MIR) is the use of supervised machine learning to train automatic music transcription models. A prerequisite of adopting a machine learning methodology is the availability of annotated corpora. However, different genres of music have different characteristics and modelling these characteristics is an important part of creating state of the art MIR systems. Consequently, although some music corpora are available the use of these corpora is tied to the specific music genre, instrument type and recording context the corpus covers. This paper introduces the first corpus of annotations of audio recordings of Irish traditional …

Mental Workload In Medicine: Foundations, Applications, Open Problems, Challenges And Future Perspectives, Luca Longo

Conference papers

Mental workload is a design concept borrowed from Ergonomics with a significant adoption in the aviation and automobile industries. Nowadays, the consideration of this construct is also taking place in many modern clinical working environments for designing interacting and complex systems that impose ever greater cognitive demand on operators and less physical load. Measuring mental workload is essential for improving the interaction human-system, enhancing performance, reducing the operator’s error and increasing safety. However, defining, measuring, assessing mental workload and understanding how this impinges on performance are still open problems. This secondary research is firstly aimed at introducing the construct of …

Harnessing The Power Of Text Mining For The Detection Of Abusive Content In Social Media, Hao Chen, Susan Mckeever, Sarah Jane Delany

Conference papers

Abstract The issues of cyberbullying and online harassment have gained considerable coverage in the last number of years. Social media providers need to be able to detect abusive content both accurately and efficiently in order to protect their users. Our aim is to investigate the application of core text mining techniques for the automatic detection of abusive content across a range of social media sources include blogs, forums, media-sharing, Q&A and chat - using datasets from Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Kongregate, Formspring and Slashdot. Using supervised machine learning, we compare alternative text representations and dimension reduction approaches, including feature selection and …

Sentiment Classification Using Negation As A Proxy For Negative Sentiment, Bruno Ohana, Brendan Tierney, Sarah Jane Delany

Conference papers

We explore the relationship between negated text and neg- ative sentiment in the task of sentiment classification. We propose a novel adjustment factor based on negation occur- rences as a proxy for negative sentiment that can be applied to lexicon-based classifiers equipped with a negation detec- tion pre-processing step. We performed an experiment on a multi-domain customer reviews dataset obtaining accuracy improvements over a baseline, and we further improved our results using out-of-domain data to calibrate the adjustment factor. We see future work possibilities in exploring nega- tion detection refinements, and expanding the experiment to a broader spectrum of opinionated …

Understanding The Everyday Designer In Organisations, Ciaran O'Leary, Fredrick Mtenzi, Claire Mcavinia

Conference papers

This paper builds upon the existing concept of an everyday designer as a non-expert designer who carries out design activities using available resources in a given environment. It does so by examining the design activities undertaken by non-expert, informal, designers in organisations who make use of the formal and informal technology already in use in organisations while designing to direct, influence, change or transform the practices of people in the organisation. These people represent a cohort of designers who are given little attention in the literature on information systems, despite their central role in the formation of practice and enactment …

Can’T Count Or Won’T Count? Embedding Quantitative Methods In Substantive Sociology Curricula: A Quasi-Experiment, Malcolm Williams, Luke Sloan, Sin Yi Cheung, Carole Sutton, Sebastian Stevens, Libby Runham

Peninsula Medical School

This paper reports on a quasi-experiment in which quantitative methods (QM) are embedded within a substantive sociology module. Through measuring student attitudes before and after the intervention alongside control group comparisons, we illustrate the impact that embedding has on the student experience. Our findings are complex and even contradictory. Whilst the experimental group were less likely to be distrustful of statistics and appreciate how QM inform social research, they were also less confident about their statistical abilities, suggesting that through ‘doing’ quantitative sociology the experimental group are exposed to the intricacies of method and their optimism about their own abilities …

W429 - University-Wide Reports, Studies, Surveys, And Fact Books, University-Wide Reports, Studies, Surveys, And Fact Books

University Archives Finding Aids

No abstract provided.

Changes In The Eeg Amplitude As A Biomarker For Early Detection Of Alzheimer's Disease., Ali H. Al-Nuaimi, Emmanuel Jammeh, Lingfen Sun, Emmanuel Ifeachor

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

The rapid increase in the number of older people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other forms of dementia represents one of the major challenges to the health and social care systems. Early detection of AD makes it possible for patients to access appropriate services and to benefit from new treatments and therapies, as and when they become available. The onset of AD starts many years before the clinical symptoms become clear. A biomarker that can measure the brain changes in this period would be useful for early diagnosis of AD. Potentially, the electroencephalogram (EEG) can play a valuable role in …

W442-001 - Office Of Affirmative Action: Subject File, Office Of Affirmative Action

University Archives Finding Aids

No abstract provided.

Ross Allan Webb Papers - Accession 1135, Ross Allan Webb

Manuscript Collection

This collection consists of papers from Dr. Ross A. Webb (1923-2003), Historian Emeritus from Winthrop University. Significant research includes the history of Winthrop College, genealogy of Benjamin Helm Bristow, Webb’s history class notes, and preliminary drafts of his book The Torch is Passed. The files contain documents, commentary, correspondence, and articles describing the founding of Winthrop, its move from Columbia to Rock Hill, Founders Day, its coat of arms, an annual chronology of growth, the presidents, traditions, student life, campus activities, course curriculum, Board of Trustees records, administration & faculty, distinguished alumni, library services, athletics, organizations, publications, introduction of …