Belfast's Traditional Music Scene: A Narrative of Change and Development

Today Belfast is home to a vibrant traditional music scene. There have never been more sessions, concerts, classes or lectures devoted to traditional music in the north's biggest city. A complex system of promoters, performers and listeners has emerged in a city that is growing in confidence as it moves away from the dark days of the Troubles. But how does this system function? While Dowling (2014) has examined the development of traditional music-making in Belfast as it shifted from a pre-conflict to conflict ridden environment, little research has been carried out into the reasons behind the boom in traditional music-making in a post-conflict setting.

This paper examines the impact upon the traditional music scene of the first wave of students to arrive in Belfast after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. These musicians, such as Donal O'Connor, Ruadhrai O'Kane and Aidan Walsh have had a lasting impact upon the lives of musicians native to Belfast, helping to bring traditional music to new venues and audiences.

The work of Belfast-based music schools with varying remits, such as Belfast Trad., and the Andersonstown School of Traditional and Contemporary Music, is also examined for the purpose of illustrating how both adults and young people are being educated about their musical heritage.

The Modern Ordinary: Changing culture of living in Egypt’s traditional quarters at the turn of the twentieth Century

Having experienced social and political structures of the 19th century Europe, Western- educated Egyptian elite used public institutions to force legislative structures and procedures that ruled out traditional housing forms and spatial systems. This essay detects direct and indirect impact of these changes that informed the spatial change of modern living in Egypt in the first quarter of the twentieth century. It offers analysis of socio-spatial practices and change in ordinary Cairenes’ modes of everyday living, using social routine and interaction to explain spatial systems and changing house forms during the first quarter of the 20th century. In doing so, the essay utilized archival documents, accounts, formal decrees, and novels of the time as well as conducting survey of house forms and spatial organizations in Old Cairo.

Analysis of electric vehicle charging using the traditional generation expansion planning analysis tool WASP-IV

Electric vehicles (EV) are proposed as a measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in transport and support increased wind power penetration across modern power systems. Optimal benefits can only be achieved, if EVs are deployed effectively, so that the exhaust emissions are not substituted by additional emissions in the electricity sector, which can be implemented using Smart Grid controls. This research presents the results of an EV roll-out in the all island grid (AIG) in Ireland using the long term generation expansion planning model called the Wien Automatic System Planning IV (WASP-IV) tool to measure carbon dioxide emissions and changes in total energy. The model incorporates all generators and operational requirements while meeting environmental emissions, fuel availability and generator operational and maintenance constraints to optimize economic dispatch and unit commitment power dispatch. In the study three distinct scenarios are investigated base case, peak and off-peak charging to simulate the impacts of EV’s in the AIG up to 2025.

Human rights and traditional values

A series of ‘traditional values’ resolutions, passed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2009, 2011, and 2012, were the result of a highly controversial initiative spearheaded by Russia. Do these ‘traditional values’ underpin human rights? If not, why are religious traditions or, indeed, any traditional values worth preserving at all? Why are they valuable from the point of view of adherents to that tradition? Should the larger society take into account the fact that a practice is based on tradition in deciding whether or not to override it in the name of human rights? Put more technically, in what does the normativity of tradition lie, for adherents and non-adherents of that tradition? These are the questions that this essay explores, in the context of the recent debates over the scope and meaning of human rights stimulated by the Human Rights Council Resolutions. Much of the support for the Resolutions comes from what can broadly be called the global South. In several books, particularly Human Rights, Southern Voices, and General Jurisprudence: Understanding Law from a Global Perspective William Twining has explored the question of how to reconcile human rights norms and belief systems embedded in the global South (including ‘traditional values’), and in doing so has drawn particular attention to intellectuals from that part of the world, in particular Francis Deng, Yash Ghai, Abdullahi An-Na’im, and Upendra Baxi. I suggest that those concerned to recognize the legitimate concerns that significant sections of the global South have about the human rights project, concerns reflected in the ‘traditional values’ Resolutions would do well to pay more attention to the ‘Southern voices’ on whom Twining rightly focuses attention.

Possibility of designing catalysts beyond the traditional volcano curve: A theoretical framework for multi-phase surfaces

The current theory of catalyst activity in heterogeneous catalysis is mainly obtained from the study of catalysts with mono-phases, while most catalysts in real systems consist of multi-phases, the understanding of which is far short of chemists' expectation. Density functional theory (DFT) and micro-kinetics simulations are used to investigate the activities of six mono-phase and nine bi-phase catalysts, using CO hydrogenation that is arguably the most typical reaction in heterogeneous catalysis. Excellent activities that are beyond the activity peak of traditional mono-phase volcano curves are found on some bi-phase surfaces. By analyzing these results, a new framework to understand the unexpected activities of bi-phase surfaces is proposed. Based on the framework, several principles for the design of multi-phase catalysts are suggested. The theoretical framework extends the traditional catalysis theory to understand more complex systems.

A rising e-channel tide lifts all boats? the impact of manufacturer multi-channel encroachment on traditional selling and leasing

Organizing and managing channels of distribution is an important marketing task. Due to the emergence of electronic commerce on the Internet, e-channel distribution systems have been adopted by many manufacturers. However, academic and anecdotal evidence both point to the pressures arising from this new e-channel manufacturing environment. Questions marks therefore remain on how the addition of this e-channel affects the traditional marketing strategies of leasing and selling. We set up several two-period dual-channel models in which a manufacturer sells a durable product through both a manufacturer-owned e-channel and an independent reseller (leaser) who adopts selling (leasing) to consumers. Our main results indicate that, direct selling cost aside, product durability plays an important role in shaping the strategies of all members. With either marketing strategy, the additional expansion of an e-channel territory may secure Pareto gains, in which all members benefit.

Women into Non-Traditional Sectors: Addressing Gender Segregation in the Northern Ireland Workforce

The horizontal segregation of the workforce along gender lines tends to assign women to lower paid, lower status employment. Consequently, schemes to address segregation have focused on preparing women to enter non‐traditional occupations through training and development processes. This article examines models to encourage women into non‐traditional employment, focusing on the Women into Non‐Traditional Sectors (WINS) project in Belfast, Northern Ireland. However, changing women to suit a hostile work environment assumes women to be the problem, whereas it is the barriers that women face in undertaking non‐traditional jobs that need to be changed. It is concluded, therefore, that while models such as WINS can be successful in assisting women into non‐traditional sectors, change processes to make workplaces more accessible are a more pressing and appropriate approach to de‐segregating the workforce.

Traditional Korean islanders encounters with the British navy in the 1880s: The Port Hamilton Affair of 1885-1887

This article deals with the encounters between a traditional Korean rural and island population and western military forces when the British navy occupied Geomundo, an archipelago known to them as Port Hamilton, for 22 months between 1885 and 1887. The paper first outlines the sometimes painful process of East Asian countries being opened up to trade and outside influences in the 19th century, a process sometimes urged upon them by naval weapons in this era of gunboat diplomacy. This provides the setting for the Port Hamilton Affair itself when in preparation for possible war with Russia, a British naval squadron steamed into Port Hamilton and took it without reference to the local people or their national government. After brief reference to the political consequences of this action, the focus is then on what the records from the occupation and earlier investigations by the British, who had long coveted the islands’ strategic harbour, reveal about the life of the islanders. The article considers both their traditional life, from a time rather before western travel accounts were written about the Korean mainland, and how the islanders fared under the British.

How using Technology Enhanced Learning could help modernise traditional large group teaching or Lecturing.

The efficiency of lecturing or large group teaching has been called into question for many years. An abundance of literature details the components of effective teaching which are not provided in the traditional lecture setting, with many alternative methods of teaching recommended. However, with continued constraints on resources large group teaching is here to stay and student’s expect and are familiar with this method.

Technology Enhanced Learning may be the way forward, to prevent educators from “throwing out the baby with the bath water”. TEL could help Educator’s especially in the area of life sciences which is often taught by lectures to engage and involve students in their learning, provide feedback and incorporate the “quality” of small group teaching, case studies and Enquiry Based Learning into the large group setting thus promoting effective and deep learning.

Utilisation of Glass Reinforced Plastics as Cost Effective Alternative to Traditional Materials in Access Panel Design for Waste Water Treatment Plants

Composites are fast becoming a cost effective option when considering the design of engineering structures in a broad range of applications. If the strength to weight benefits of these material systems can be exploited and challenges in developing lower cost manufacturing methods overcome, then the advanced composite systems will play a bigger role in the diverse range of sectors outside the aerospace industry where they have been used for decades.
This paper presents physical testing results that showcase the advantages of GRP (Glass Reinforced Plastics), such as the ability to endure loading with minimal deformation. The testing involved is a cross comparison of GRP grating vs. GRP encapsulated foam core. Resulting data gained within this paper will then be coupled with design optimization (utilising model simulation) to bring forward layup alterations to meet the specified load classifications involved.

‘Do you want to see my hornpipe?’: the traditional Irish dancing body at play in the work of Jean Butler and Colin Dunne’, in Anthony Shay and Barbara Sellers-Young (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Ethnicity, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, pp.41-65.

This chapter considers the radical reimaginings of traditional Irish step dance in the recent works of Jean Butler and Colin Dunne, in which the Irish step-dancing body is separated from its historical roots in nationalism, from the exhibitionism required by the competitive form, and from the spectacularization of the commercialized theatrical format. In these works the traditional form undergoes a critical interrogation in which the dancers attempt to depart from the determinacy of the traditional technique, while acknowledging its formation of their corporealities; the Irish step-dance technique becomes a springboard for creative experimentation. To consider the importance of the creative potential revealed by these works, this chapter contextualizes them within the dance background from which they emerged, outlining the history of competitive step dancing in Ireland, the “modernization” of traditional Irish dance with the emergence of Riverdance (1994), and the experiments of Ireland’s national folk theater, Siamsa Tíre.