Relevance of anatomy to medical education and clinical practice: perspectives of medical students, clinicians, and educators

Introduction: Against a backdrop of ever-changing diagnostic and treatment modalities, stakeholder perceptions (medical students, clinicians, anatomy educators) are crucial for the design of an anatomy curriculum which fulfils the criteria required for safe medical practice. This study compared perceptions of students, practising clinicians, and anatomy educators with respect to the relevance of anatomy education to medicine. Methods: A quantitative survey was administered to undergraduate entry (n = 352) and graduate entry students (n = 219) at two Irish medical schools, recently graduated Irish clinicians (n = 146), and anatomy educators based in Irish and British medical schools (n = 30). Areas addressed included the association of anatomy with medical education and clinical practice, mode of instruction, and curriculum duration. Results: Graduate-entry students were less likely to associate anatomy with the development of professionalism, teamwork skills, or improved awareness of ethics in medicine. Clinicians highlighted the challenge of tailoring anatomy education to increase student readiness to function effectively in a clinical role. Anatomy educators indicated dissatisfaction with the time available for anatomy within medical curricula, and were equivocal about whether curriculum content should be responsive to societal feedback. Conclusions: The group differences identified in the current study highlight areas and requirements which medical education curriculum developers should be sensitive to when designing anatomy courses.

Between respectability and disgrace: schismogenesis and the regeneration of inequality, stigma and social exclusion in Limerick

The thesis examines cultural processes underpinning the emergence, institutionalisation and reproduction of class boundaries in Limerick city. The research aims to bring a new understanding to the contemporary context of the city’s urban regeneration programme. Acknowledging and recognising other contemporary studies of division and exclusion, the thesis creates a distinctive approach which focuses on uncovering the cultural roots of inequality, educational disadvantage, stigma and social exclusion and the dynamics of their social reproduction. Using Bateson’s concept of schismogenesis (1953), the thesis looks to the persistent, but fragmented culture of community and develops a heuristic ‘symbolic order of the city’. This is defined as “…a cultural structure, the meaning making aspect of hierarchy, the categorical structures of world understanding, the way Limerick people understand themselves, their local and larger world” (p. 37). This provides a very different departure point for exploring the basis for urban regeneration in Limerick (and everywhere). The central argument is that if we want to understand the present (multiple) crises in Limerick we need to understand the historical, anthropological and recursive processes underpinning ‘generalised patterns of rivalry and conflict’. In addition to exploring the historical roots of status and stigma in Limerick, the thesis explores the mythopoesis of persistent, recurrent narratives and labels that mark the boundaries of the city’s identities. The thesis examines the cultural and social function of ‘slagging’ as a vernacular and highly particularised form of ironic, ritualised and, often, ‘cruel’ medium of communication (often exclusion). This is combined with an etymology of the vocabulary of Limerick slang and its mythological base. By tracing the origins of many normalised patterns of Limerick speech ‘sayings’, which have long since forgotten their roots, the thesis demonstrates how they perform a significant contemporary function in maintaining and reinforcing symbolic mechanisms of inclusion/exclusion. The thesis combines historical and archival data with biographical interviews, ethnographic data married to a deep historical hermeneutic analysis of this political community.

Prophets of the beast: the modernist esotericism of D.H. Lawrence and W.B. Yeats

This thesis analyses the influence of the esoteric tradition on D.H. Lawrence and W.B. Yeats’ thought and examines both authors’ writings in light of the antidemocratic political religions that emerged during and after their respective careers. While a number of extant studies investigate the connection between modernism and the occult and a number of critics have discussed the importance of antidemocratic politics to modernism, this study is unique in its emphasis on the relationship between modernist esotericism and antidemocratic politics, and in its insistence that the interconnection between the two constitutes a fundamental part of both authors’ world-views. This study calls for the development of a multivalent understanding of modernism, which appears as neither a “cultural movement identifiable with bourgeois, capitalist, paternalist, ethnocentrist, phallocentrist, and logocentrist ideologies” (Surette 5) nor entirely the opposite; Romantic, feministic, primitivistic and countercultural. Rather, modernism will be shown to have encompassed both of these ideological orientations, effectively operating on a double front in its crusade to establish a new age. This complexity is visible in both Lawrence and Yeats’ work, as both authors advocate a return to traditional structures while simultaneously endeavouring to usher Western civilisation into a new modern paradigm. Although they primarily grounded their writings in a mythico-pastoral discourse that masked the practical implications of their revolutionary agendas, both authors possessed an attraction to Futurist thought and, albeit rarely, showed an awareness that the change they envisioned could not be brought about without a radical intervention in the political and economic sectors – an intervention that would necessarily take place through the medium of the “machine” from which they were often so adamant to distance themselves. This fusion of technophilic and Arcadian thought-currents – dubbed “archeofuturism” by the French right-wing intellectual Guillaume Faye – constitutes the central focus of this discussion of Lawrentian and Yeatsian thought.

Thomas Davis's education policies: theory and practice

This thesis explores the education policies of Thomas Davis. On the eve of the Great Famine Ireland was economically impoverished and politically dependent. The Irish people had a subservient mentality, were mainly uneducated and were unaware of their potential. He believed that education would develop a self-reliant, self-sufficient people; it would create a new generation of leaders and citizens necessary to transform Ireland into a prosperous, independent nation. This thesis explores his education philosophy which was political in orientation; he called for reform of university education so that it would educate leaders who were knowledgeable, patriotic and responsible. He formulated a curriculum which consisted of knowledge that would have direct use and application in public life; his curriculum included moral philosophy, oratory, philological studies and history. His contribution to the debate on the Queens Colleges bill, 1845, is explored including his public disagreement with Daniel O’Connell on the principle of multi-denominational education. This work also examines his policies on learning methodologies and teaching methods. It provides details of his thoughts on learning by experience, by observation, book learning and learning in the home. It focuses on the deficiencies evident in the system of teaching and learning that operated in Trinity College Dublin and it provides an analysis of his preferred method of instruction: Lyceum teaching. This thesis also explores his national curriculum in history and Irish culture which was designed to forge a sense of national identity, to win support for repeal and to develop the principle of nationality. He formulated a national curriculum to counteract the absence of national knowledge in the state schools, to provide the people with a positive self-image and ultimately to empower them to reclaim Ireland and to develop it. Davis knew the power of education and he used it as an instrument of political and social change.

Cryptographic coprocessors for embedded systems

In the field of embedded systems design, coprocessors play an important role as a component to increase performance. Many embedded systems are built around a small General Purpose Processor (GPP). If the GPP cannot meet the performance requirements for a certain operation, a coprocessor can be included in the design. The GPP can then offload the computationally intensive operation to the coprocessor; thus increasing the performance of the overall system. A common application of coprocessors is the acceleration of cryptographic algorithms. The work presented in this thesis discusses coprocessor architectures for various cryptographic algorithms that are found in many cryptographic protocols. Their performance is then analysed on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) platform. Firstly, the acceleration of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) algorithms is investigated through the use of instruction set extension of a GPP. The performance of these algorithms in a full hardware implementation is then investigated, and an architecture for the acceleration the ECC based digital signature algorithm is developed. Hash functions are also an important component of a cryptographic system. The FPGA implementation of recent hash function designs from the SHA-3 competition are discussed and a fair comparison methodology for hash functions presented. Many cryptographic protocols involve the generation of random data, for keys or nonces. This requires a True Random Number Generator (TRNG) to be present in the system. Various TRNG designs are discussed and a secure implementation, including post-processing and failure detection, is introduced. Finally, a coprocessor for the acceleration of operations at the protocol level will be discussed, where, a novel aspect of the design is the secure method in which private-key data is handled

Form-focused instruction in Irish-medium immersion education: a critical examination of teachers' perspectives and practices. A small-scale qualitative case study

It has been suggested that the less than optimal levels of students’ immersion language “persist in part because immersion teachers lack systematic approaches for integrating language into their content instruction” (Tedick, Christian and Fortune, 2011, p.7). I argue that our current lack of knowledge regarding what immersion teachers think, know and believe and what immersion teachers’ actual ‘lived’ experiences are in relation to form-focused instruction (FFI) prevents us from fully understanding the key issues at the core of experiential immersion pedagogy and form-focused integration. FFI refers to “any planned or incidental instructional activity that is intended to induce language learners to pay attention to linguistic form” (Ellis, 2001b, p.1). The central aim of this research study is to critically examine the perspectives and practices of Irish-medium immersion (IMI) teachers in relation to FFI. The study ‘taps’ into the lived experiences of three IMI teachers in three different IMI school contexts and explores FFI from a classroom-based, teacher-informed perspective. Philosophical underpinnings of the interpretive paradigm and critical hermeneutical principles inform and guide the study. A multi-case study approach was adopted and data was gathered through classroom observation, video-stimulated recall and semistructured interviews. Findings revealed that the journey of ‘becoming’ an IMI teacher is shaped by a vast array of intricate variables. IMI teacher identity, implicit theories, stated beliefs, educational biographies and experiences, IMI school cultures and contexts as well as teacher knowledge and competence impacted on IMI teachers’ FFI perspectives and practices. An IMI content teacher identity reflected the teachers’ priorities as shaped by pedagogical challenges and their educational backgrounds. While research participants had clearly defined instructional beliefs and goals, their roadmap of how to actually accomplish these goals was far from clear. IMI teachers described the multitude of choices and pedagogical dilemmas they faced in integrating FFI into experiential pedagogy. Significant gaps in IMI teachers’ declarative knowledge about and competence in the immersion language were also reported. This research study increases our understanding of the complexity of the processes underlying and shaping FFI pedagogy in IMI education. Innovative FFI opportunities for professional development across the continuum of teacher education are outlined, a comprehensive evaluation of IMI is called for and areas for further research are delineated.