Dublin Research Articles

Incidence of congenital cytomegalovirus infection in Ireland: Implications for screening and diagnosis

BackgroundCongenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) causes serious intrauterine infection and is the leading cause of sensorineural hearing loss. In the absence of routine screening, asymptomatic infections, which constitute approximately 90% of all cCMV cases, remain undiagnosed; however many clinical abnormalities manifest later in childhood. ObjectivesThe aims of the present study were to determine, for the first time, the incidence of cCMV infection in a large maternity hospital in Dublin city and the optimal sampling method for neonatal screening. Study designA pilot screening study of asymptomatic infants born was conducted over a 12-month period. Mothers were consented and neonates screened for evidence of CMV infection (n=1044). Urine or saliva was tested for the presence of CMV DNA and reactive results were confirmed with follow-up testing and clinical evaluation. ResultscCMV incidence in the asymptomatic neonates screened was 0.19%. An overall cCMV incidence was extrapolated based on the total number of live-births and data from those infants routinely screened for cCMV during the study period, and estimated as 0.23%. Neonatal urine collection proved prohibitive to mass screening. However, testing of saliva for CMV DNA was rapid, sensitive and suitable for screening. Furthermore, in a low prevalence population, pooling of patient samples proved effective and cost-efficient. ConclusionsThe present study concluded that there is a significant burden of undiagnosed cCMV infection in Ireland. The introduction of neonatal CMV DNA testing of saliva is viable, and could be considered as part of the national newborn screening programme, following a cost-benefit analysis.

Smart Traffic Analytics in the Semantic Web with Star-City: Scenarios, System and Lessons Learned in Dublin City

This paper gives a high-level presentation of STAR-CITY, a system supporting semantic traffic analytics and reasoning for city. STAR-CITY, which integrates (human and machine-based) sensor data using variety of formats, velocities and volumes, has been designed to provide insight on historical and real-time traffic conditions, all supporting efficient urban planning. Our system demonstrates how the severity of road traffic congestion can be smoothly analyzed, diagnosed, explored and predicted using semantic web technologies. Our prototype of semantics-aware traffic analytics and reasoning, illustrated and experimented in Dublin Ireland, but also tested in Bologna Italy, Miami USA and Rio Brazil works and scales efficiently with real, historical together with live and heterogeneous stream data. This paper highlights the lessons learned from deploying and using a system in Dublin City based on Semantic Web technologies.

“No Messing Allowed”: The Enactment of Childhood in Urban Public Space from the Perspective of the Child

A gradual tendency towards children being less present at play in the public spaces of Western cities has been noted in the literature. Drawing on a study that examined children's experience of their everyday walks through public space, this paper argues that while they have a sense of belonging along their routes, children indicate that playful behavior is constrained. Fifty-two children aged 9–11 living in Dublin City, Ireland participated in a survey and a smaller group of 20 children contributed qualitative data through photography and interviews. This paper concludes that reinstating play in the street requires a reconsideration of how to support playful activity in public space.

Dublin Ireland: a city addressing challenging water supply, management, and governance issues

Kelly-Quinn, M., S. Blacklocke, M. Bruen, R. Earle, E. O'Neill, J. O'Sullivan, and P. Purcell. 2014. Dublin Ireland: a city addressing challenging water supply, management, and governance issues. Ecology and Society 19(4): 10. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06921-190410

CityWatch: exploiting sensor data to manage cities better

ABSTRACTPersistent urbanisation of our planet places a continuous strain on cities’ resources and the quality of service delivery. While increasing city infrastructure might help alleviate this problem, the scale and complexity of future cities mean that this approach is unsustainable. Cities, however, are becoming increasingly instrumented with a myriad of sensors, both fixed and mobile. While a number of systems aim to exploit such sensors to gather information and to provide a real‐time view of the city, existing approaches are application‐specific, hindering their scalability and reuse. Using the city of Dublin (Ireland) as a testbed, this paper describes our iterative consultation process with city stakeholders to design CityWatch, an urban‐scale data sensing and dissemination framework. In particular, it presents the resulting design of two prototype applications, the requirements on the overall framework, an initial implementation, and discusses the early results of ongoing trials. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Integrated decision support systems for improving emergency department performance in Irish hospitals

In addition to the system’s complexity and uncertainty, healthcare managers face many challenges, including the increasing levels of demand and patient expectations at the time of more budget constraints enforced on healthcare service in Ireland. The delivery of a better patient care requires effective decision making especially in planning of healthcare resources. For an emergency department (ED) of a leading university hospital in the south of Dublin City, a decision support application for resource planning considering multiple performance indicators was developed. A comprehensive discrete event simulation model was used to identify the most significant variables and key factors that affect the ED performance. Combining this model with Taguchi orthogonal arrays and data envelopment analysis in an integrated manner helps to improve decision-making procedure in terms of systematic scenarios’ selection and evaluation. The developed system is used for resource planning and also to assess risks due to the shortage of medical staff of the emergency department. Results show the importance of balancing doctor numbers employed within ED in order to maintain reasonable patient throughput time.

The effects of Z-score Neurofeedback on procedural learning

The effects of Z-score Neurofeedback on procedural learning

Ireland, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation

Ireland, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation John Doyle Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction, Dublin City University In this introduction to Irish Studies in International Affairs I share the normal duty of presenting the papers with two other colleagues—Mervyn O’Driscoll and Jamie Walsh of University College Cork, who organised the symposium on disarmament and non-proliferation, hosted in Academy House, Dublin, in March 2014, from which nine of the first twelve papers in this issue are drawn. As organisers of the event I will leave the honour of introducing those papers to their piece, which follows, but will add my own thanks to all the symposium participants for making their papers available for publication in this year’s volume. This allows the journal to deal comprehensively with a topic that has been explored frequently in individual papers over the years, indicating an ongoing Irish interest in the matter.1 The range of topics covered by the seminar papers and the expertise involved is impressive, and the human dimension of the debate could not be captured more appropriately than by the inclusion of the testimony by Ms Setsuko Thurlow, survivor of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb attack. We are again grateful to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for its support for the symposium itself, and for its on-going support for the journal. I would like to thank in particular the then Minister of State at the department, Joe Costello, TD, for speaking at the symposium and for making his contribution available for inclusion in the journal. In addition to the papers directly related to the symposium, three additional papers on disarmament and non-proliferation are included in this volume. A paper by Mervyn and Jamie argues that the Irish contribution to the first Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, in 1975, was important in establishing the credibility of the treaty as an instrument of international law. Saira Bano of the University of Calgary offers a clear and critical analysis of the Indian government’s successful negotiation of international acceptance of its nuclear trade deal with the US, despite its not being a signatory to the NPT, and argues that the deal undermines international Irish Studies in International Affairs, Vol. 25 (2014), 1–3. doi: 10.3318/ISIA.2014.25.18 1 See, for example, Duncan Smith, ‘Perspectives on the revival of the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty regime in the wake of President Barack Obama’s Prague speech’, Irish Studies in International Affairs 21 (2010), 179–96; Lorna Gold and Eileen Connolly ‘Development and the United Nations: achievements and challenges for the future’, Irish Studies in International Affairs 17 (2006), 61–75; John Doyle ‘Irish diplomacy on the UN Security Council 2001–2: foreign policy-making in the light of day’, Irish Studies in International Affairs 15 (2004), 73–102. non-proliferation efforts. Diana O’Dywer (Dublin City University) in turn offers a reflection on Ireland’s role in the Cluster Munitions Convention, questions the dominant narrative of the importance of civil society activism in concluding that convention and raises a critical mirror to popular perspectives on the Irish state’s role. After the large collection of papers on disarmament, the second section of this year’s volume explores three heretofore under-analysed aspects of the history of Ireland’s diplomacy. Kevin McCarthy offers a very perceptive insight into Eamon de Valera’s relationship with Robert Briscoe, a fellow Fianna Fáil member and Ireland’s only Jewish TD for almost 40 years, and how that interacted with Ireland’s developing position on the question of Palestine and the state of Israel. In a historical reflection on some Irish domestic political events of 2014, McCarthy, whose paper was written before the very public debates on the contemporary crisis in the Department of Justice emerged, comments on how ‘de Valera’s personal ecumenism propelled him to intercede’ in relation to ‘conservative immigration decisions of a reactionary Department of Justice’. Michael Kennedy contributes a fascinating analysis of the case of Andrija Artuković, the Minister of the Interior in the Nazi puppet creation the Nezavisna Država Hrvatska (Independent State of Croatia), who gained entry to Ireland after the Second World...

Making a case for behaviour based learning strategies in supporting students' academic performance

The aim of this article is to raise the profile of time and resource management interventions, not just as part of the delivery of Student Learning Development Services but as a core strategy, supported with interventions and resources that can be systematically evaluated, to help students (both undergraduate and postgraduate) maximise academic and employment potential. This opinion piece puts forward a case for Student Learning Development practitioners to design and deliver interventions aimed at improving students' self-regulated learning skills. The case is illustrated by examples from research on self-regulated learning (e.g. Pintrich, 2004) and from reports on graduate employment figures (e.g. OECD Heckmann, 2013) and employers' perceptions of graduates' employability skills (e.g. Council for Industry and Higher Education, Archer and Davison, 2008). There are also examples of interventions delivered by the Student Learning Development Service, Trinity College Dublin Ireland to help students improve self-efficacy and time management skills. The aim of this opinion piece is to stimulate discussion and ideas as to how educationalists and, in particular, professionals working in Student Learning Development Services in third level environments, can help students to develop these behavioural skills to enhance both their academic and employment potential.

Weaver, Thomas, James B.Greenberg, William L.Alexander & AnneBrowning-Aiken (eds). Neoliberalism and commodity production in Mexico. xi, 354 pp., maps, figs, tables, bibliogrs. Boulder: Univ. Press of Colorado, 2012. $65.00 (cloth)

Journal of the Royal Anthropological InstituteVolume 19, Issue 4 p. 898-898 Reviews Thomas Weaver, James B. Greenberg, William L. Alexander & Anne Browning-Aiken (eds). Neoliberalism and commodity production in Mexico. xi, 354 pp., maps, figs, tables, bibliogrs. Boulder: Univ. Press of Colorado, 2012. $65.00 (cloth) Ronaldo Munck, Ronaldo Munck Dublin City UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Ronaldo Munck, Ronaldo Munck Dublin City UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 04 November 2013 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.12071_16Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume19, Issue4December 2013Pages 898-898 RelatedInformation

A decision support tool for sustainable planning of urban water systems: Presenting the Dynamic Urban Water Simulation Model

Population growth, urbanisation and climate change represent significant pressures on urban water resources, requiring water managers to consider a wider array of management options that account for economic, social and environmental factors. The Dynamic Urban Water Simulation Model (DUWSiM) developed in this study links urban water balance concepts with the land use dynamics model MOLAND and the climate model LARS-WG, providing a platform for long term planning of urban water supply and water demand by analysing the effects of urbanisation scenarios and climatic changes on the urban water cycle. Based on potential urbanisation scenarios and their effects on a city's water cycle, DUWSiM provides the functionality for assessing the feasibility of centralised and decentralised water supply and water demand management options based on forecasted water demand, stormwater and wastewater generation, whole life cost and energy and potential for water recycling. DUWSiM has been tested using data from Dublin, the capital of Ireland, and it has been shown that the model is able to satisfactorily predict water demand and stormwater runoff.

Portable X-Ray Fluorescence as a Rapid Technique for Surveying Elemental Distributions in Soil

ABSTRACT Case studies from two sites demonstrate how concentration distributions of hazardous contaminants can be rapidly measured and visualized using portable XRF (X-ray fluorescence) coupled with geostatistical interpolation tools. In this study, lead is used as an exemplar due to its well-known detrimental effect on human health through long-term exposure. A portable Thermo Scientific NITON X-ray fluorescence (XRF) instrument was used for real-time in-situ concentration measurements, which were linked to GPS coordinates of the sampling locations. A 52 point mixed sampling density survey was performed at a site near Maynooth, Co. Kildare, and a second 58 survey undertaken at Dublin City University (DCU). At Maynooth, high concentrations of Pb (above 110 mg/kg) were found close to the site where a local canal meets a road. At the DCU site, results indicate high Pb concentrations (above 160 mg/kg) near a busy main road. Geostatistical techniques were used to generate concentration prediction and critical threshold contour surfaces for both sites. Linked with GPS coordinates for each sampling location, this technology enables the distribution of multiple elements to be mapped over wide areas in a relatively short time. Supplemental materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Spectroscopy Letters to view the supplemental file.

Audience responses to environmental fiction and non-fiction films

Abstract Having been closely involved with developing a textual analysis strategy for examining ecology within Hollywood fiction, it has become necessary to test some of the hypotheses and assertions embedded in such analysis and explore how actual audiences perceive and decode ecocinema. Consequently in this small pilot study of communications students at Dublin City University, using pilot survey/questionnaires, discussion groups and the Q-methodology, we have tried to tease out the relative benefits and usage of such methods with the aim of producing some tentative findings, which will be explored and tested across further studies over the next few years. In particular this article focuses on comparing audience perspectives using non-fictional as against fictional evocations of an environmental agenda.

G.6. Workshop: Effective public health action – examples from childhood injury prevention<subtitle>Organised by: Dublin City University, Ireland and the EUPHA Sections on Child and adolescent public health and Injury prevention and safety promotion</subtitle>

G.6. Workshop: Effective public health action – examples from childhood injury prevention<subtitle>Organised by: Dublin City University, Ireland and the EUPHA Sections on Child and adolescent public health and Injury prevention and safety promotion</subtitle>

Small wind turbines in turbulent (urban) environments: A consideration of normal and Weibull distributions for power prediction

The urban terrain and the associated morphological complexities therein, present significant challenges for the deployment of small wind turbines. In particular, a considerable amount of uncertainty is attributable to the lack of understanding concerning how turbulence within urban environments affects turbine productivity. Current wind turbine power output measurements (particularly for small/micro wind turbines) are based on an average wind speed over an observation period; with limited accountability of the variability of wind speed within the observation time frame. This paper however, presents two models that can instead accurately consider such wind speed variation and how it affects the turbine, based solely on the observed mean wind speed and standard deviation within successive (10min) time intervals. These models are predicated on an appreciation of the industry standard metric, turbulence intensity (TI), in conjunction with the power curve of a 2.5kW wind turbine. Simple ‘look-up’ tables collating how the turbine's power curve is affected by varying TI are used so that a novel methodology for estimating the turbine's electrical performance is achievable. Ultimately, the two models presented afford an opportunity to provide an indicative real-world wind speed distribution based on the two standard measurements. The first approach is an adaptation of a model originally derived to quantify the degradation of power performance of wind farm turbines, using a Gaussian probability distribution to simulate turbulence (and more specifically, turbulence intensity (TI)). Such Gaussian modelling has potential however, for disproportionately high and asymptotic TI, associated, for example, with gusting within low mean wind speed observation windows. Furthermore, the approach requires an accurate turbine power curve. The second approach overcomes these limitations through the novel application of the Weibull Distribution, a widely accepted means to probabilistically describe wind speed. Both models are tested at an urban and suburban location in Dublin City, Ireland, where sonic anemometry is positioned at approximately 1.5 times the average height of buildings at the respective locations. Both observation sites represent two distinct urban landscapes. The instrumentation is positioned specific to their surrounding locations and, record the three dimensional wind vectors at a temporal resolution of 10Hz. The hypotheses presented here consider an idealised electrical performance of the turbine, with results suggesting that both approaches can replicate very accurately this idealised basis.

Questions to assess learning as a communicative routine for inclusion

In the context of rapid policy transformation from segregation to inclusion in the education of children with special educational needs in Ireland, a study was conducted to investigate the interplay between policy and principles of inclusion, resource teachers' and class teachers' interpretations of this and the manner in which policy and principle is enacted in their practice. Based on nine resource teachers and nine class teachers each paired in a particular school, interviews to elicit teachers' interpretations combined with observations to document the detail of practice generated data from which nine case studies were crafted. Findings revealed that teachers' interpretations and constructions of inclusive practice are grounded in the central tenets of communicative routines, attunement and coherence‐fragmentation. As such, the pedagogical practices central to facilitating inclusion are as follows: teachers' use of questions to assess learning and mediated talk; transactional teaching–learning interactions contributing to transformational teaching‐learning episodes; and optimal interfacing of resource teachers and class teachers. This article, by Órla Ní Bhroin of St Patrick's College, Dublin City University, focuses on teachers' use of questioning to assess learning as a communicative routine for inclusion.

Obituary of Patrick Gaffney

Patrick Gaffney was born in Cork, Ireland in 1934, and educated at the National University of Ireland, graduating with a BSc and first‐class honours in 1957. A year later, after working as a demonstrator, he was awarded an MSc, before moving to England, where he obtained a Diploma of Biochemistry at Reading University. After a research appointment with Lever Brothers, he went Ohio State University, where, in 1965, he was awarded a PhD for his work on fibrin polymerization. Patrick then obtained a postdoctoral fellowship in the American Red Cross Blood research laboratory, where he was an important member of the group that isolated hemoglobin Hammersmith, published in Nature in 1966. He then returned to the UK when he was appointed to the MRC staff at the abnormal hemoglobin research unit in the Department of Biochemistry of Cambridge University. In 1969, he left Cambridge after being appointed to the staff of the National Institute for Medical Research and the National Institute of Biological Standards and Control of the MRC at Mill Hill and South Mimms, where he remained until he retired in 1999. In the course of his long and distinguished career, he was awarded a DSc from the National University of Ireland in 1976 and an honorary MRCPath & FRCPath from the Royal College of Pathologists of England. He held visiting professorships at the University of Notre Dame in the USA, the University of Leuven in Belgium, the University of Dublin in Ireland, and Guys and St Thomas's in London. He was a founder member of the ‘Haemostasis Club’ and a member of the ISTH, the Biochemical Society, and the Atherosclerosis Discussion Group. He was on the committee of the ISTH and the chairman of various sub‐committees. He edited the Thrombosis Research for 13 years, and was on the Editorial Boards of Thrombosis and Haemostasis and Fibrinolysis for many years. He held two MRC project grants and a Wellcome project grant, and published over 200 original papers in peer‐reviewed journals, many in association with his PhD students and worldwide collaborators. Five of his papers were published in Nature and two in the Lancet, and many were published in the specialist journals Thombosis and Fibrinolysis. His major research interests were the standardization of the components of hemostasis and the molecular pathology of thrombosis, atherosclerosis and metastasis of malignant tumors. His work on developing and standardizing biochemical assays for the plasminogen activators underpinned many other studies on the basic mechanisms of thrombus formation and resolution and metastasis. Patrick was a staunch Catholic and had a long and happy marriage to Dianah, an Australian, with whom he had a large family and of whom he was immensely proud. He was a keen golfer and an avid Irish rugby supporter. He had a large group of local and international friends who all found his company both entertaining and stimulating. He was a genuinely good man of strong principles. He would not be involved in research utilizing tissue taken from human embryos. When he was bequeathed a house by a man who he had befriended, he gave a considerable amount of the proceeds to the church. Sadly, he developed malignant melanoma, and earlier this year faced up to his final illness with great courage, while always enquiring whether new treatments could cure his tumor. Patrick passed away on 1 March 2013. Patrick's unique sense of humor will also be sadly missed by his friends and colleagues. The author states that he has no conflict of interest.

Soil Nailing in Dublin Boulder Clay

Extensive areas of Dublin City are underlain by a very stiff to hard lodgement till, known locally as Dublin Boulder Clay. Over the past number of years there has been increasing use of soil nails mostly to support temporary slopes for excavations, road widening and cut and cover tunnels. Although guidance for nailing in stiff clays exists, the very high strength and stiffness of the Dublin soils mean that it is conservative to use these established techniques and further optimisation may be possible. This paper presents data from the Dublin Port Tunnel project for a large set of short term pullout tests carried out on nails from a slope some 12 m in height together with slope monitoring data. The significant influence of drilling technique is discussed. Optimisation of temporary soil nails in Dublin Boulder Clay is appraised. The relationship between bond strength and actual nail performance is discussed drawing on data from a heavily monitored slope. Measured data on the vertical and horizontal movements of the slope together with data from piezometers confirm the excellent behaviour of the soil nailed slopes.

Forensic anthropology and radiography in the examination of an unknown mummified hand

The medical museum collection of the UCD School of Medicine & Medical Science at University College Dublin (UCD) incorporates anatomy specimens, pathology specimens, and physical anthropology specimens. The medical museum collection is not open to the public but may be accessed by medical students, researchers, and academics upon request. The history of each of these collections is linked to the former site of the UCD Medical School at Earlsfort Terrace in Dublin City Centre, established there in the early twentieth century. The Medical School subsequently moved to the Belfield campus on the southern side of the city in 2006, now named UCD School of Medicine & Medical Science (UCD SMMS). The oldest identifiable specimens in the anatomy and physical anthropology collections date to the early twentieth century, while the pathology specimens are of a more recent date, probably mid-twentieth century. During the move from the Earlsfort Terrace campus, a few specimens were discovered which had lost some of their provenance due to old age and damaged catalog entries. One of these is the specimen of a severed hand which forms the subject of investigation in this paper. Specimen description

Using data envelopment analysis as a public transport project appraisal tool

The provision of a fast, frequent and modern public transport service operating from Dublin city centre to the airport has been a topic of great interest in recent times, in Ireland. Due to Ireland's poor financial situation, the choice of infrastructure investment has become more important than ever and hence, large expensive projects such as an underground Metro line called Metro North have been widely criticised. The main objective of this research is to investigate and identify the most efficient transport solution for the Dublin city centre-airport route. The Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART) (over ground heavy rail) spur and Metro North are explored along with a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) route and a Luas (tram) line. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was employed to identify the most efficient solution for the city centre-airport route and to establish the reasons for inefficiency.The findings of this research indicate that, when costs are included in the analysis, the BRT Airport is the most efficient option for the airport route providing the greatest value for money. Metro North and Luas Airport, at present, do not provide enough transportation benefits to justify their excessive cost over the BRT solution. The DART Spur is found to be the cheapest rail option but also the one with the fewest benefits. The findings and methods used in this research could be used in other public transport investment cases to ascertain the best case for investment and could be used in conjunction to cost benefit analysis. This research adds to the field of implementing DEA in the field of public transport investment analysis. While DEA has been applied to other areas of transport analysis few have compared different investment and mode options on one route.