Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Child Sexual Abuse: How Young People Tell, Rosaleen Mcelvaney

Conference papers

This paper explores the theme of disclosing sexual abuse experiences in adolescence. As children develop increasing autonomy and independence they also develop cognitive, social and emotional skills which facilitate the process of disclosing personal experiences they have struggled for in some cases many years to maintain secrecy. Decision making skills which enable the young person to consider alternative consequences to their behaviour, multiple outcomes and an appreciation of the diverse perspectives of others enables them to weigh up the relative advantages and disadvantages of disclosure. Increased empathy enables them to appreciate the vulnerability of other children to abuse yet also …

The International Protean Career: Considerations For Human Resource Management, Marian Crowley-Henry

Conference papers

This paper presents some career patterns from a research undertaking which qualitatively sampled highly educated Western foreign residents in the South of France. In the data collection, their individual career stories were relayed to the researcher from in-depth exploratory interviews. The very personal and individual nature of these careers is underlined in the research findings. The aim of this paper is to share some of the broader findings from the study, which invoke discussion on the wider concerns for career management within the HRM discipline in the future.

Economic, Environmental And Social Performance Of The Irish Tourism Sector: Towards Sustainability, Kevin Griffin, John Carty

Conference papers

Ireland is promoted a clean, green tourism destination, famous for it’s landscape, environment, natural habitats and biodiversity. However, is this image still realistic and is it an image that can be sustained as Ireland develops post 2006? This question is examined through the course of this paper and relevant tourism policies are drawn on to illustrate this issue further.

Over the past decade, Irish tourism has performed quite well and has made a strong contribution to the national economy[1]. An efficient government sector, a competitive air and maritime transport sector, a strong partnership between public and private sector, …

Making Space For Home... The Second Home, Deirdre Quinn, Nigel Morgan, Annette Pritchard

Conference papers

No abstract provided.

No Buts! - Researching Children's Consumption, An Exploration Of Conversation And Discourse Analytic Techniques, Olivia Freeman

Conference papers

Contemporary discussion of social research with children revolves around three trends (i) an emphasis on researching children’s ‘experiences’ rather than their ‘perspectives’, (ii) an emphasis on researching ‘with’ children rather than ‘on’ children or ‘for’ children and (iii) a conceptualisation of children as ‘social beings’ not ‘social becomings’. This paper poses questions about how qualitative data is analysed and posits a two-pronged CA/DA (conversation analysis/ discourse analysis) approach as a potential means to enhance richness in qualitative research in the area of children’s consumption phenomena. Drawing on a number of illustrations from an ongoing research project this paper seeks to …

Addressing The Challenges That Are Emerging In The Continued Increase In Ppp Use In The Republic Of Ireland, Louis Gunnigan, David Eaton

Conference papers

The Irish Government’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programme of pilot projects is now reaching its conclusion and PPP has become established as a key element in the strategy for provision of public sector facilities. Compiled through a literature review as part of a PhD level research project, this paper examines organisational culture differences between the public and private sectors and assesses the potential affect of these differences on the future development of the Irish PPP programme. By relating organisational culture differences to the emerging challenges relating to risk, value and innovation, it is evident that the lack of a partnering environment …

Natural English In Speaking And Listening Activities, Dermot Campbell, Marty Meinardi, Bunny Richardson, Yi Wang

Conference papers

DIT Speech Research Cluster will present recommendations for materials development based on the technologies and methodologies they are developing in the area of listening skills and the use of natural English in learning situations. The first speaker will address features of native speech flow which cause difficulties for EFL students (Brown, Cauldwell) and establish the need for improvements in the teaching of listening skills. She will give examples of elision, assimilation and weak forms, and how these can be made accessible for study using DIT’s slow-down technology, which gives students more time to study native speech features, without tonal distortion. …

Proximity In Context: An Empirically Grounded Computational Model Of Proximity For Processing Topological Spatial Expression., John D. Kelleher, Geert-Jan Kruijff, Fintan Costello

Conference papers

The paper presents a new model for context-dependent interpretation of linguistic expressions about spatial proximity between objects in a natural scene. The paper discusses novel psycholinguistic experimental data that tests and verifies the model. The model has been implemented, and enables a conversational robot to identify objects in a scene through topological spatial relations (e.g. ''X near Y''). The model can help motivate the choice between topological and projective prepositions.

Incremental Generation Of Spatial Referring Expressions In Situated Dialogue, John D. Kelleher, Geert-Jan Kruijff

Conference papers

This paper presents an approach to incrementally generating locative expressions. It addresses the issue of combinatorial explosion inherent in the construction of relational context models by: (a) contextually defining the set of objects in the context that may function as a landmark, and (b) sequencing the order in which spatial relations are considered using a cognitively motivated hierarchy of relations, and visual and discourse salience.

A Computational Model Of The Referential Semantics Of Projective Prepositions, John D. Kelleher, Josef Van Genabith

Conference papers

In this paper we present a framework for interpreting locative expressions containing the prepositions in front of and behind. These prepositions have different semantics in the viewer-centred and intrinsic frames of reference (Vandeloise, 1991). We define a model of their semantics in each frame of reference. The basis of these models is a novel parameterized continuum function that creates a 3-D spatial template. In the intrinsic frame of reference the origin used by the continuum function is assumed to be known a priori and object occlusion does not impact on the applicability rating of a point in the spatial template. …