Energy-aware dynamic route management for THAWS

In this research we focus on the Tyndall 25mm and 10mm nodes energy-aware topology management to extend sensor network lifespan and optimise node power consumption. The two tiered Tyndall Heterogeneous Automated Wireless Sensors (THAWS) tool is used to quickly create and configure application-specific sensor networks. To this end, we propose to implement a distributed route discovery algorithm and a practical energy-aware reaction model on the 25mm nodes. Triggered by the energy-warning events, the miniaturised Tyndall 10mm data collector nodes adaptively and periodically change their association to 25mm base station nodes, while 25mm nodes also change the inter-connections between themselves, which results in reconfiguration of the 25mm nodes tier topology. The distributed routing protocol uses combined weight functions to balance the sensor network traffic. A system level simulation is used to quantify the benefit of the route management framework when compared to other state of the art approaches in terms of the system power-saving.

The ways in which new public management ideas impact upon the administrative culture of 'street-level' bureaucrats and professionals working within Irish social policy

The conventional meaning of culture is ‘widely shared and strongly held values’ of a particular group or society (Bradley and Parker, 2006: 89). Culture is not a rigid concept; it can be influenced or altered by new ideas or forces. This research examines the ways in which one set of ideas in particular, that is, those associated with New Public Management, have impacted upon the administrative culture of 'street-level' bureaucrats and professionals within Irish social policy. Lipsky (1980: 3) defined 'street-level' bureaucrats as ‘public service workers who interact directly with citizens in the course of their jobs, and who have substantial discretion in the execution of their work’. Utilising the Competing Values Framework (CVF) in the analysis of eighty three semi-structured interviews with 'street-level' bureaucrats and professionals, an evaluation is made as to the impact of NPM ideas on both visible and invisible aspects of administrative culture. Overall, the influence of NPM is confined to superficial aspects of administrative culture such as; increased flexibility in working hours and to some degree job contracts; increased time commitment; and a customer service focus. However, the extent of these changes varies depending on policy sector and occupational group. Aspects of consensual and hierarchical cultures remain firmly in place. These coincide with features of developmental and market cultures. Contrary to the view that members of hierarchical and consensual culture would pose resistance to change, this research clearly illustrates that a very large appetite for change exists in the attitudes of 'street-level' bureaucrats and professionals within Irish social policy, with many of them suggesting changes that correspond to NPM ideas. This study demonstrates the relevance of employing the CVF model as it is clear that administrative culture is very much a dynamic system of competing and co-existing cultures.

The student bullying of teachers in Irish second level schools: exploring the influence of historical low state intervention in education on the development of contemporary policy responses in Ireland

The student bullying of teachers (SBT) is a distinct and complex form of bullying with a multiplicity of diverse, changeable and intersecting causes which is experienced by and affects teachers in a variety of ways. SBT is both a national and an international phenomenon which is under-recognised in academic, societal and political spheres, resulting in limited conceptual understanding and awareness of the issue. This study explores teachers’ experiences of SBT behaviours in Irish second level schools as well as teachers’ perceptions regarding training, policies and supports in Ireland to address the issue. Specifically, the study seeks to explore the influence of historical low State intervention in education on contemporary policies and supports to deal with SBT in Ireland. A mixed methods approach involving a survey of 531 second level school teachers and 17 semi-structured interviews with teachers, Year Heads and representatives from teacher trade unions and school management bodies was employed to collect and analyse data. Findings indicate that SBT behaviours are prevalent in many forms in Irish second level schools. The hidden nature of the phenomenon has simultaneously contributed to and is reinforced by limited understanding of the issue as well as teachers’ reluctance to disclose their experiences. Findings reveal that teachers perceive the contemporary policies, training and support structures in Ireland to be inadequate in equipping them to effectively deal with SBT. State intervention in addressing SBT behaviours to date, has been limited, therefore many teachers are forced to respond to the issue based on their own initiatives and assumptions rather than from an informed critically reflective approach, supported by national guidelines and sufficient State investment. This has resulted in a piecemeal, un-coordinated and ad-hoc approach to SBT in Irish schools both in terms of teachers’ management of SBT behaviours and with respect to the supports extended to staff. The potential negative consequences of SBT behaviours on teachers’ wellbeing and professional performance and thus, on the education system itself, underlines the need for a strategic, evidence-based, resourced and integrated approach which includes, as a pivotal component, consultation with teachers, whose contribution to the process is crucial.

The quality of diabetes care in the community: practice, policy and culture

Aim: Diabetes is an important barometer of health system performance. This chronic condition is a source of significant morbidity, premature mortality and a major contributor to health care costs. There is an increasing focus internationally, and more recently nationally, on system, practice and professional-level initiatives to promote the quality of care. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the ‘quality chasm’ around the organisation and delivery of diabetes care in general practice, to explore GPs’ attitudes to engaging in quality improvement activities and to examine efforts to improve the quality of diabetes care in Ireland from practice to policy. Methods: Quantitative and qualitative methods were used. As part of a mixed methods sequential design, a postal survey of 600 GPs was conducted to assess the organization of care. This was followed by an in-depth qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 31 GPs from urban and rural areas. The qualitative methodology was also used to examine GPs’ attitudes to engaging in quality improvement. Data were analysed using a Framework approach. A 2nd observation study was used to assess the quality of care in 63 practices with a special interest in diabetes. Data on 3010 adults with Type 2 diabetes from 3 primary care initiatives were analysed and the results were benchmarked against national guidelines and standards of care in the UK. The final study was an instrumental case study of policy formulation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 members of the Expert Advisory Group (EAG) for Diabetes. Thematic analysis was applied to the data using 3 theories of the policy process as analytical tools. Results: The survey response rate was 44% (n=262). Results suggested care delivery was largely unstructured; 45% of GPs had a diabetes register (n=157), 53% reported using guidelines (n=140), 30% had formal call recall system (n=78) and 24% had none of these organizational features (n=62). Only 10% of GPs had a formal shared protocol with the local hospital specialist diabetes team (n=26). The lack of coordination between settings was identified as a major barrier to providing optimal care leading to waiting times, overburdened hospitals and avoidable duplication. The lack of remuneration for chronic disease management had a ripple effect also creating costs for patients and apathy among GPs. There was also a sense of inertia around quality improvement activities particularly at a national level. This attitude was strongly influenced by previous experiences of change in the health system. In contrast GP’s spoke positively about change at a local level which was facilitated by a practice ethos, leadership and special interest in diabetes. The 2nd quantitative study found that practices with a special interest in diabetes achieved a standard of care comparable to the UK in terms of the recording of clinical processes of care and the achievement of clinical targets; 35% of patients reached the HbA1c target of <6.5% compared to 26% in England and Wales. With regard to diabetes policy formulation, the evolving process of action and inaction was best described by the Multiple Streams Theory. Within the EAG, the formulation of recommendations was facilitated by overarching agreement on the “obvious” priorities while the details of proposals were influenced by personal preferences and local capacity. In contrast the national decision-making process was protracted and ambiguous. The lack of impetus from senior management coupled with the lack of power conferred on the EAG impeded progress. Conclusions: The findings highlight the inconsistency of diabetes care in Ireland. The main barriers to optimal diabetes management center on the organization and coordination of care at the systems level with consequences for practice, providers and patients. Quality improvement initiatives need to stimulate a sense of ownership and interest among frontline service providers to address the local sense of inertia to national change. To date quality improvement in diabetes care has been largely dependent the “special interest” of professionals. The challenge for the Irish health system is to embed this activity as part of routine practice, professional responsibility and the underlying health care culture.

Inclusive education policy, the general allocation model and dilemmas of practice in primary schools

Background: Inclusive education is central to contemporary discourse internationally reflecting societies’ wider commitment to social inclusion. Education has witnessed transforming approaches that have created differing distributions of power, resource allocation and accountability. Multiple actors are being forced to consider changes to how key services and supports are organised. This research constitutes a case study situated within this broader social service dilemma of how to distribute finite resources equitably to meet individual need, while advancing inclusion. It focuses on the national directive with regard to inclusive educational practice for primary schools, Department of Education and Science Special Education Circular 02/05, which introduced the General Allocation Model (GAM) within the legislative context of the Education of Persons with Special Educational Needs (EPSEN) Act (Government of Ireland, 2004). This research could help to inform policy with ‘facts about what is happening on the ground’ (Quinn, 2013). Research Aims: The research set out to unearth the assumptions and definitions embedded within the policy document, to analyse how those who are at the coalface of policy, and who interface with multiple interests in primary schools, understand the GAM and respond to it, and to investigate its effects on students and their education. It examines student outcomes in the primary schools where the GAM was investigated. Methods and Sample The post-structural study acknowledges the importance of policy analysis which explicitly links the ‘bigger worlds’ of global and national policy contexts to the ‘smaller worlds’ of policies and practices within schools and classrooms. This study insists upon taking the detail seriously (Ozga, 1990). A mixed methods approach to data collection and analysis is applied. In order to secure the perspectives of key stakeholders, semi-structured interviews were conducted with primary school principals, class teachers and learning support/resource teachers (n=14) in three distinct mainstream, non-DEIS schools. Data from the schools and their environs provided a profile of students. The researcher then used the Pobal Maps Facility (available at www.pobal.ie) to identify the Small Area (SA) in which each student resides, and to assign values to each address based on the Pobal HP Deprivation Index (Haase and Pratschke, 2012). Analysis of the datasets, guided by the conceptual framework of the policy cycle (Ball, 1994), revealed a number of significant themes. Results: Data illustrate that the main model to support student need is withdrawal from the classroom under policy that espouses inclusion. Quantitative data, in particular, highlighted an association between segregated practice and lower socioeconomic status (LSES) backgrounds of students. Up to 83% of the students in special education programmes are from lower socio-economic status (LSES) backgrounds. In some schools 94% of students from LSES backgrounds are withdrawn from classrooms daily for special education. While the internal processes of schooling are not solely to blame for class inequalities, this study reveals the power of professionals to order children in school, which has implications for segregated special education practice. Such agency on the part of key actors in the context of practice relates to ‘local constructions of dis/ability’, which is influenced by teacher habitus (Bourdieu, 1984). The researcher contends that inclusive education has not resulted in positive outcomes for students from LSES backgrounds because it is built on faulty assumptions that focus on a psycho-medical perspective of dis/ability, that is, placement decisions do not consider the intersectionality of dis/ability with class or culture. This study argues that the student need for support is better understood as ‘home/school discontinuity’ not ‘disability’. Moreover, the study unearths the power of some parents to use social and cultural capital to ensure eligibility to enhanced resources. Therefore, a hierarchical system has developed in mainstream schools as a result of funding models to support need in inclusive settings. Furthermore, all schools in the study are ‘ordinary’ schools yet participants acknowledged that some schools are more ‘advantaged’, which may suggest that ‘ordinary’ schools serve to ‘bury class’ (Reay, 2010) as a key marker in allocating resources. The research suggests that general allocation models of funding to meet the needs of students demands a systematic approach grounded in reallocating funds from where they have less benefit to where they have more. The calculation of the composite Haase Value in respect of the student cohort in receipt of special education support adopted for this study could be usefully applied at a national level to ensure that the greatest level of support is targeted at greatest need. Conclusion: In summary, the study reveals that existing structures constrain and enable agents, whose interactions produce intended and unintended consequences. The study suggests that policy should be viewed as a continuous and evolving cycle (Ball, 1994) where actors in each of the social contexts have a shared responsibility in the evolution of education that is equitable, excellent and inclusive.

Preserving patent policy space and securing access to medicines in developing countries: the role of states and pharmaceutical corporations

This thesis examines the tension between patent rights and the right to health and it recognizes patent rights on pharmaceutical products as one of the factors responsible for the problem of lack of access to affordable medicines in developing countries. The thesis contends that, in order to preserve their patent policy space and secure access to affordable medicines for their citizens, developing countries should incorporate a model of human rights into the design, implementation, interpretation, and enforcement of their national patent laws. The thesis provides a systematic analysis of court decisions from four key developing countries (Brazil, India, Kenya, and South Africa) and it assesses how the national courts in these countries resolve the tension between patent rights and the right to health. Essentially, this thesis demonstrates how a model of human rights can be incorporated into the adjudication of disputes involving patent rights in national courts. Focusing specifically on Brazil, the thesis equally demonstrates how policy makers and law makers at the national level can incorporate a model of human rights into the design or amendment of their national patent law. This thesis also contributes to the ongoing debate in the field of business and human rights with regard to the mechanisms that can be used to hold corporate actors accountable for their human rights responsibilities. This thesis recognizes that, while states bear the primary responsibility to respect, protect, and fulfil the right to health, corporate actors such as pharmaceutical companies also have a baseline responsibility to respect the right to health. This thesis therefore contends that pharmaceutical companies that own patent rights on pharmaceutical products can be held accountable for their right to health responsibilities at the national level through the incorporation of a model of civic participation into a country’s patent law system.

Politics, Power, PISA: a genealogy of mathematics education policy at second level in Ireland at the beginning of the 21st century

This thesis traces a genealogy of the discourse of mathematics education reform in Ireland at the beginning of the twenty first century at a time when the hegemonic political discourse is that of neoliberalism. It draws on the work of Michel Foucault to identify the network of power relations involved in the development of a single case of curriculum reform – in this case Project Maths. It identifies the construction of an apparatus within the fields of politics, economics and education, the elements of which include institutions like the OECD and the Government, the bureaucracy, expert groups and special interest groups, the media, the school, the State, state assessment and international assessment. Five major themes in educational reform emerge from the analysis: the arrival of neoliberal governance in Ireland; the triumph of human capital theory as the hegemonic educational philosophy here; the dominant role of OECD/PISA and its values in the mathematics education discourse in Ireland; the fetishisation of western scientific knowledge and knowledge as commodity; and the formation of a new kind of subjectivity, namely the subjectivity of the young person as a form of human-capital-to-be. In particular, it provides a critical analysis of the influence of OECD/PISA on the development of mathematics education policy here – especially on Project Maths curriculum, assessment and pedagogy. It unpacks the arguments in favour of curriculum change and lays bare their ideological foundations. This discourse contextualises educational change as occurring within a rapidly changing economic environment where the concept of the State’s economic aspirations and developments in science, technology and communications are reshaping both the focus of business and the demands being put on education. Within this discourse, education is to be repurposed and its consequences measured against the paradigm of the Knowledge Economy – usually characterised as the inevitable or necessary future of a carefully defined present.

Investigation of factors driving the costs of operating the 2020 Irish power system with large-scale wind generation

The main goal of this work is to determine the true cost incurred by the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in order to meet their EU renewable electricity targets. The primary all-island of Ireland policy goal is that 40% of electricity will come from renewable sources in 2020. From this it is expected that wind generation on the Irish electricity system will be in the region of 32-37% of total generation. This leads to issues resulting from wind energy being a non-synchronous, unpredictable and variable source of energy use on a scale never seen before for a single synchronous system. If changes are not made to traditional operational practices, the efficient running of the electricity system will be directly affected by these issues in the coming years. Using models of the electricity system for the all-island grid of Ireland, the effects of high wind energy penetration expected to be present in 2020 are examined. These models were developed using a unit commitment, economic dispatch tool called PLEXOS which allows for a detailed representation of the electricity system to be achieved down to individual generator level. These models replicate the true running of the electricity system through use of day-ahead scheduling and semi-relaxed use of these schedules that reflects the Transmission System Operator's of real time decision making on dispatch. In addition, it carefully considers other non-wind priority dispatch generation technologies that have an effect on the overall system. In the models developed, three main issues associated with wind energy integration were selected to be examined in detail to determine the sensitivity of assumptions presented in other studies. These three issues include wind energy's non-synchronous nature, its variability and spatial correlation, and its unpredictability. This leads to an examination of the effects in three areas: the need for system operation constraints required for system security; different onshore to offshore ratios of installed wind energy; and the degrees of accuracy in wind energy forecasting. Each of these areas directly impact the way in which the electricity system is run as they address each of the three issues associated with wind energy stated above, respectively. It is shown that assumptions in these three areas have a large effect on the results in terms of total generation costs, wind curtailment and generator technology type dispatch. In particular accounting for these issues has resulted in wind curtailment being predicted in much larger quantities than had been previously reported. This would have a large effect on wind energy companies because it is already a very low profit margin industry. Results from this work have shown that the relaxation of system operation constraints is crucial to the economic running of the electricity system with large improvements shown in the reduction of wind curtailment and system generation costs. There are clear benefits in having a proportion of the wind installed offshore in Ireland which would help to reduce variability of wind energy generation on the system and therefore reduce wind curtailment. With envisaged future improvements in day-ahead wind forecasting from 8% to 4% mean absolute error, there are potential reductions in wind curtailment system costs and open cycle gas turbine usage. This work illustrates the consequences of assumptions in the areas of system operation constraints, onshore/offshore installed wind capacities and accuracy in wind forecasting to better inform the true costs associated with running Ireland's changing electricity system as it continues to decarbonise into the near future. This work also proposes to illustrate, through the use of Ireland as a case study, the effects that will become ever more prevalent in other synchronous systems as they pursue a path of increasing renewable energy generation.