Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Pro-Environmental Diversification Of Pasture-Based Dairy And Beef Production In Ireland, The United Kingdom And New Zealand: A Scoping Review Of Impacts And Challenges, Maria Markiewicz-Keszycka, Aileen Carter, Donal O'Brien, Maeve Henchion, Simon Mooney, Paul Hynds

Articles

Grass-fed dairy and beef products are valued by consumers for their unique nutrient profile, enhanced animal welfare and lower environmental footprint compared to conventional produce derived from animals reared indoors on higher volumes of concentrate feeds (O'Callaghan et al., Reference O'Callaghan, Vázquez-Fresno, Serra-Cayuela, Dong, Mandal, Hennessy, McAuliffe, Dillon, Wishart, Stanton and Ross2018; Moscovici Joubran et al., Reference Moscovici Joubran, Pierce, Garvey, Shalloo and O'Callaghan2021). For the current study, pasture-based production of dairy and beef is defined as a system within which cattle graze freely outdoors on green pasture for ≥6 months per year, using grazed grass as the primary feed …

Going Green, Dermot Kehily

Articles

No abstract provided.

A Risk Assessment Based Model For Assessing The Environmental Sustainability Of Tourism And Recreation Areas, Peter Roe

Doctoral

Assessing the environmental quality of tourism and recreation areas is considered fundamental to the sustainable management of these resources. However, existing methodologies for such assessments rely on sets of environmental data that are often poorly linked and difficult to interpret and integrate in a holistic manner. Risk assessment is a concept that has developed to the point where it has the potential to address current limitations in environmental assessment methodologies. This thesis presents a new model for the application of risk assessment to the management and assessment of environmental sustainability in the tourism and recreation sector. This model was applied …

In Vitro Enabling Technologies For Use In The Aquatic Environment, Colm J. O'Dowd

Doctoral

O’Dowd, C., Mothersill, C.E., Cairns, M.T., Austin, B., Lyng, F.M., McClean, B. and Murphy, J.E.J. Assessing the mitochondrion as a biomarker of fish tissue damage using g radiation as a stress model in vitro.

There is an ever-increasing need for biomarkers to identify toxic stress in the aquatic environment. Such techniques need to be accurate, expeditious, ethical and economical. Typically, in vitro based platforms fit these criteria however many of these systems often undergo ‘assay drift’ and consequently do not fully represent the real-life situation.

In recent years, there has been growing interest in the mitochondrion and its (dys)function …

Highly Visible Light Active Tio2-Xnx Heterojunction Photocatalysts, Vinodkumar Etacheri, Michael Seery, Steven Hinder, Suresh Pillai

Articles

Nitrogen doped anatase-rutile heterojunctions are successfully synthesized through an ethylene-diaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) modified sol-gel process.An FT-IR study of EDTA modified TiO2 gel confirms the existence of an ionic intermediate (as indicated by a Δν value of 233 cm-1).Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Raman spectroscopy are employed to study the phase evolution, phase purity, and crystallite size of samples. Formations of O-Ti-N and N-Ti-N bonds in calcined samples are confirmed using XPS and FT-IR spectro- scopy. AllEDTAmodified samples show significantly higher visible light photocatalytic activity than the unmodified sample. The most active nitrogen doped heterojunction obtained at 400C …

An Assessment Of Epiphytic Lichens, Lichen Diversity And Environmental Quality In The Semi-Natural Woodlands Of Knocksink Wood Nature Reserve, Enniskerry, County Wicklow, Lenka Mulligan

Masters

This research work adapted and applied a recently developed method for assessing epiphytic lichen species diversity to the Irish semi-natural woodlands of Knocksink Wood Nature Reserve, Enniskerry, County Wicklow. The study focused on the differences that arise in relation to acidophilous oak woodland (Blechno-Quercetum petraeae) versus ash-hazel woodland (Corylo-Fraxinetum). The research also addressed differences in relation to the mixed oak-ash-hazel woodland located in Knocksink Wood and the neighbouring woodland at the Powerscourt Waterfall. The frequency of occurrence of lichen species on a defined portion of tree bark was used as an estimate of diversity and to evaluate the degree of …

Silver Doped Titanium Dioxide Nanomaterials For Enhanced Visible Light Photocatalysis, Michael Seery, Reena George, Suresh Pillai, Patrick Floris

Articles

This paper presents a systematic study on two different preparation methods for titanium dioxide with silver. The silver can be incorporated by irradiating the reaction mixture during preparation to reduce silver ion to silver metal or by direct calcination of the sol–gel material to decompose silver nitrate to silver. Of the two methods, we found the latter produces a more effective photocatalytic material (6–50% improvement in catalytic efficiency), which is attributed to the fact that the silver is homogeneously dispersed throughout the material. The efficiency of the materials were examined using a Q-Sun solar simulator (visible light) and in Dublin …