Agriculture, settlement and society in Early Medieval Ireland

During the early medieval period, Ireland was politically organised into a large number of very small kingdoms. Unlike much of Western Europe, it had not been incorporated into the Roman Empire, and as a consequence, settlement remained exclusively rural in character until the Viking period. Extensive documentary, archaeological, zooarchaeological and macro-plant evidence provides a detailed reconstruction of the livestock and arable economy of the period. Cattle ownership formed the basis of wealth as well as being an indicator of status in society, and this is reflected in its clear dominance of the livestock economy during this period. From the eighth century onwards, however, cereal production appears to grow in importance as subsistence farming gave way to the production of agricultural surplus. This is reflected in cereal diversification and in the construction of watermills and more efficient grain-drying kilns. At the same time, settlement underwent significant changes and the relative importance of cattle in some areas began to decline.

EU Cross-Border Cooperation and Conflict Transformation in the Basque and Irish Border Regions

Comparative research on violent conflict in the Basque Country and Ireland has yielded a sizable body of published academic work. Less well explored is the relationship between conflict transformation and cross-border cooperation in that specific comparative context. This paper provides a comparative examination of Third (not for profit) sector cross-border cooperation as conflict transformation in the Basque (France/Spain) and Irish (UK/Ireland) border regions. To what extent does cross-border cooperation contribute to peacebuilding in the two last violent ethnonationalist conflicts in Western Europe? The comparison is based on the premise that the EU played a different role in both cases. In the Irish case, the EU contributed to the institutionalization of a peace process that included cross-border cooperation between third sector organizations among the policy instruments contributing to conflict transformation. In the Basque case, the unilateral renunciation of violence by ETA (Euskadi eta Askatasuna) in 2010 did not generate the consistent involvement of the EU in a comparable institutional peace process. However, some third sector organizations used EU instruments for cross-border economic, social and cultural cooperation between France and Spain in order to reinforce their cross-border networks, which indirectly impacted on conflict transformation. The effectiveness of this cross-border cooperation for conflict transformation is assessed comparatively. To what extent does this increase in cross-border cooperation “from below” connect to wider institutional and social processes of conflict transformation in Ireland and the Basque Country? Crucially, does the strengthening of cross-border relations on shared issues mollify or sharpen existing identity cleavages? Also considered is the sustainability of such cooperation in these regions in light of the less favourable post-2004 EU funding environment, and the post-2008 economic and political turmoil affecting the relevant EU member states, especially Ireland and Spain.

Potential impacts of climate change on agriculture and food safety within the island of Ireland

Climate and other environmental change presents a number of challenges for effective food safety. Food production, distribution and consumption takes place within functioning ecosystems but this backdrop is often ignored or treated as static and unchanging. The risks presented by environmental change include novel pests and diseases, often caused by problem species expanding their spatial distributions as they track changing conditions, toxin generation in crops, direct effects on crop and animal production, consequences for trade networks driven by shifting economic viability of production methods in changing environments and finally, wholesale transformation of ecosystems as they respond to novel climatic regimes.

Hybrid time dependent/independent solution for the He i line ratio temperature and density diagnostic for a thermal helium beam with applications in the scrape-off layer-edge regions in tokamaks

Spectroscopic studies of line emission intensities and ratios offer an attractive option in the\r\ndevelopment of non-invasive plasma diagnostics. Evaluating ratios of selected He I line\r\nemission profiles from the singlet and triplet neutral helium spin systems allows for simultaneous\r\nmeasurement of electron density (ne) and temperature (Te) profiles. Typically, this powerful\r\ndiagnostic tool is limited by the relatively long relaxation times of the 3S metastable term of helium\r\nthat populates the triplet spin system, and on which electron temperature sensitive lines are based.\r\nBy developing a time dependent analytical solution, we model the time evolution of the two spin\r\nsystems. We present a hybrid time dependent/independent line ratio solution that improves the\r\nrange of application of this diagnostic technique in the scrape-off layer (SOL) and edge plasma\r\nregions when comparing it against the current equilibrium line ratio helium model used at\r\nTEXTOR.

A decision support system for managing irrigation in agriculture

In this paper, an automatic Smart Irrigation Decision Support System, SIDSS, is proposed to manage irrigation in agriculture. Our system estimates the weekly irrigations needs of a plantation, on the basis of both soil measurements and climatic variables gathered by several autonomous nodes deployed in field. This enables a closed loop control scheme to adapt the decision support system to local perturbations and estimation errors. Two machine learning techniques, PLSR and ANFIS, are proposed as reasoning engine of our SIDSS. Our approach is validated on three commercial plantations of citrus trees located in the South-East of Spain. Performance is tested against decisions taken by a human expert.

Do spectral gamma ray data really reflect humid-arid palaeoclimates? A test from the Palaeogene Interbasaltic weathered horizons at the Giant’s Causeway, N.Ireland

Since 1999, the rapid, inexpensive and non-destructive use of Th/K and Th/U ratios from spectral gamma ray measurements have been used as a proxy for changes in palaeo-hinterland weathering. This model is tested here by analysis of in situ palaeoweathering horizons where clay mineral contents are well-known. A residual palaeoweathered horizon of Palaeogene laterite (developed on basalt) has been logged at 14 locations across N. Ireland using spectral gamma ray detectors. The results are compared to published elemental and mineralogical data. While the model of K and U loss during the early stages of weathering to smectite and kaolinite is supported, the formation (during progressively more advanced weathering) of gibbsite and iron oxides has reversed the predicted pattern and caused U and Th retention in the weathering profile. The severity (duration, humidity) of weathering and palaeoweathering may be estimated using Th/K ratios as a proxy. The use of Th/U ratios is more problematic should detrital gibbsite (or similar clays) or iron oxides be detected. Mineralogical analysis is needed in order to evaluate the hosts for K, U and Th: nonetheless, the spectral gamma ray machine offers a real-time, inexpensive and effective tool for the preliminary or conjunctive assessment of degrees of weathering or palaeoweathering.