Continuous non-destructive monitoring of cell health using impedance based interdigitated electrode structured sensors

This article examines some preliminary tests which were performed in order to evaluate the best electrode configuration (width and spacing) for cell culture analyses. Biochips packaged with indium tin oxide (ITO) interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) were used to perform impedance measurements on A549 cells cultured on the surface of the biochip. Several tests were carried out using a 10 mM solution of Sodium Chloride (NaCl), cell medium and the cell culture itself to characterize some of the configurations already fabricated in the facilities at Tyndall National Institute.

A new world a new American foreign policy: the Carter administration, Nicaragua, and the legacy of the Vietnam War, 1977-1981

The impact of the Vietnam War conditioned the Carter administration’s response to the Nicaraguan revolution in ways that reduced US engagement with both sides of the conflict. It made the countries of Latin America counter the US approach and find their own solution to the crisis, and allowed Cuba to play a greater role in guiding the overthrow of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle. This thesis re-evaluates Carter’s policy through the legacy of the Vietnam War, because US executive anxieties about military intervention, Congress’s increasing influence, and US public concerns about the nation’s global responsibilities, shaped the Carter approach to Nicaragua. Following a background chapter, the Carter administration’s policy towards Nicaragua is evaluated, before and after the fall of Somoza in July 1979. The extent of the Vietnam influence on US-Nicaraguan relations is developed by researching government documents on the formation of US policy, including material from the Jimmy Carter Library, the Library of Congress, the National Security Archive, the National Archives and Records Administration, and other government and media sources from the United Nations Archives, New York University, the New York Public Library, the Hoover Institution Archives, Tulane University and the Organization of American States. The thesis establishes that the Vietnam legacy played a key role in the Carter administration’s approach to Nicaragua. Before the overthrow of Somoza, the Carter administration limited their influence in Nicaragua because they felt there was no immediate threat from communism. The US feared that an active role in Nicaragua, without an established threat from Cuba or the Soviet Union, could jeopardise congressional support for other foreign policy goals deemed more important. The Carter administration, as a result, pursued a policy of non-intervention towards the Central American country. After the fall of Somoza, and the establishment of a new government with a left wing element represented by the Sandinistas, the Carter administration emphasised non-intervention in a military sense, but actively engaged with the new Nicaraguan leadership to contain the potential communist influence that could spread across Central America in the wake of the Nicaraguan revolution.

Uniformly convergent finite element methods for singularly perturbed parabolic partial differential equations

This thesis is concerned with uniformly convergent finite element methods for numerically solving singularly perturbed parabolic partial differential equations in one space variable. First, we use Petrov-Galerkin finite element methods to generate three schemes for such problems, each of these schemes uses exponentially fitted elements in space. Two of them are lumped and the other is non-lumped. On meshes which are either arbitrary or slightly restricted, we derive global energy norm and L2 norm error bounds, uniformly in the diffusion parameter. Under some reasonable global assumptions together with realistic local assumptions on the solution and its derivatives, we prove that these exponentially fitted schemes are locally uniformly convergent, with order one, in a discrete L∞norm both outside and inside the boundary layer. We next analyse a streamline diffusion scheme on a Shishkin mesh for a model singularly perturbed parabolic partial differential equation. The method with piecewise linear space-time elements is shown, under reasonable assumptions on the solution, to be convergent, independently of the diffusion parameter, with a pointwise accuracy of almost order 5/4 outside layers and almost order 3/4 inside the boundary layer. Numerical results for the above schemes are presented. Finally, we examine a cell vertex finite volume method which is applied to a model time-dependent convection-diffusion problem. Local errors away from all layers are obtained in the l2 seminorm by using techniques from finite element analysis.

Systematic delay-driven power optimisation and power-driven delay optimisation of combinational circuits

With the proliferation of mobile wireless communication and embedded systems, the energy efficiency becomes a major design constraint. The dissipated energy is often referred as the product of power dissipation and the input-output delay. Most of electronic design automation techniques focus on optimising only one of these parameters either power or delay. Industry standard design flows integrate systematic methods of optimising either area or timing while for power consumption optimisation one often employs heuristics which are characteristic to a specific design. In this work we answer three questions in our quest to provide a systematic approach to joint power and delay Optimisation. The first question of our research is: How to build a design flow which incorporates academic and industry standard design flows for power optimisation? To address this question, we use a reference design flow provided by Synopsys and integrate in this flow academic tools and methodologies. The proposed design flow is used as a platform for analysing some novel algorithms and methodologies for optimisation in the context of digital circuits. The second question we answer is: Is possible to apply a systematic approach for power optimisation in the context of combinational digital circuits? The starting point is a selection of a suitable data structure which can easily incorporate information about delay, power, area and which then allows optimisation algorithms to be applied. In particular we address the implications of a systematic power optimisation methodologies and the potential degradation of other (often conflicting) parameters such as area or the delay of implementation. Finally, the third question which this thesis attempts to answer is: Is there a systematic approach for multi-objective optimisation of delay and power? A delay-driven power and power-driven delay optimisation is proposed in order to have balanced delay and power values. This implies that each power optimisation step is not only constrained by the decrease in power but also the increase in delay. Similarly, each delay optimisation step is not only governed with the decrease in delay but also the increase in power. The goal is to obtain multi-objective optimisation of digital circuits where the two conflicting objectives are power and delay. The logic synthesis and optimisation methodology is based on AND-Inverter Graphs (AIGs) which represent the functionality of the circuit. The switching activities and arrival times of circuit nodes are annotated onto an AND-Inverter Graph under the zero and a non-zero-delay model. We introduce then several reordering rules which are applied on the AIG nodes to minimise switching power or longest path delay of the circuit at the pre-technology mapping level. The academic Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tool ABC is used for the manipulation of AND-Inverter Graphs. We have implemented various combinatorial optimisation algorithms often used in Electronic Design Automation such as Simulated Annealing and Uniform Cost Search Algorithm. Simulated Annealing (SMA) is a probabilistic meta heuristic for the global optimization problem of locating a good approximation to the global optimum of a given function in a large search space. We used SMA to probabilistically decide between moving from one optimised solution to another such that the dynamic power is optimised under given delay constraints and the delay is optimised under given power constraints. A good approximation to the global optimum solution of energy constraint is obtained. Uniform Cost Search (UCS) is a tree search algorithm used for traversing or searching a weighted tree, tree structure, or graph. We have used Uniform Cost Search Algorithm to search within the AIG network, a specific AIG node order for the reordering rules application. After the reordering rules application, the AIG network is mapped to an AIG netlist using specific library cells. Our approach combines network re-structuring, AIG nodes reordering, dynamic power and longest path delay estimation and optimisation and finally technology mapping to an AIG netlist. A set of MCNC Benchmark circuits and large combinational circuits up to 100,000 gates have been used to validate our methodology. Comparisons for power and delay optimisation are made with the best synthesis scripts used in ABC. Reduction of 23% in power and 15% in delay with minimal overhead is achieved, compared to the best known ABC results. Also, our approach is also implemented on a number of processors with combinational and sequential components and significant savings are achieved.

The politics of hazard: imminent critique and deconstruction of ecological modernisation in Ireland

This dissertation sets out to provide immanent critique and deconstruction of ecological modernisation or ecomodernism.It does so, from a critical social theory approach, in order to correctly address the essential issues at the heart of the environmental crisis that ecomodernism purports to address. This critical approach argues that the solution to the environmental crisis can only be concretely achieved by recognising its root cause as being foremost the issue of material interaction between classes in society, and not simply between society and nature in any structurally meaningful way. Based on a metaphysic of false dualism, ecological modernisation attributes a materiality of exchange value relations to issues of society, while simultaneously offering a non- material ontology to issues of nature. Thus ecomodernism serves asymmetrical relations of power whereby, as a polysemic policy discourse, it serves the material interests of those who have the power to impose abstract interpretations on the materiality of actual phenomena. The research of this dissertation is conducted by the critical evaluation of the empirical data from two exemplary Irish case studies. Discovery of the causal processes of the various public issues in the case studies and thereafter the revelation of the meaning structures under- pinning such causal processes, is a theoretically- driven task requiring analysis of those social practices found in the cognitive, cultural and structural constitutions respectively of actors, mediations and systems.Therefore, the imminent critique of the case study paradigms serves as a research strategy for comprehending Ireland’s nature- society relations as influenced essentially by a systems (techno- corporatist) ecomodernist discourse. Moreover, the deconstruction of this systems ideological discourse serves not only to demonstrate how weak ecomodernism practically undermines its declared ecological objectives, but also indicates how such objectives intervene as systemic contradictions at the cultural heart of Ireland’s late modernisation.

Non-product related environmental process and production methods (NPR-PPMs): a view from international trade law and international environmental governance

The primary aim of this thesis is to analyse legal and governance issues in the use of Environmental NPR-PPMs, particularly those aiming to promote sustainable practices or to protect natural resources. NPR-PPMs have traditionally been thought of as being incompatible with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). However, the issue remains untouched by WTO adjudicatory bodies. One can suggest that WTO adjudicatory bodies may want to leave this issue to the Members, but the analysis of the case law also seems to indicate that the question of legality of NPR-PPMs has not been brought ‘as such’ in dispute settlement. This thesis advances the argument that despite the fact that the legal status of NPR-PPMs remains unsettled, during the last decades adjudicatory bodies have been scrutinising environmental measures based on NPR-PPMs just as another expression of the regulatory autonomy of the Members. Though NPR-PPMs are regulatory choices associated with a wide range of environmental concerns, trade disputes giving rise to questions related to the legality of process-based measures have been mainly associated with the protection of marine wildlife (i.e., fishing techniques threatening or affecting animal species). This thesis argues that environmental objectives articulated as NPR-PPMs can indeed qualify as legitimate objectives both under the GATT and the TBT Agreement. However, an important challenge for the their compatibility with WTO law relate to aspects associated with arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination. In the assessment of discrimination procedural issues play an important role. This thesis also elucidates other important dimensions to the issue from the perspective of global governance. One of the arguments advanced in this thesis is that a comprehensive analysis of environmental NPR-PPMs should consider not only their role in what is regarded as trade barriers (governmental and market-driven), but also their significance in global objectives such as the transition towards a green economy and sustainable patterns of consumption and production.