Medieval Irish vision literature: a genre study

This dissertation examines medieval literary accounts of visions of the afterlife with an origin or provenance in Ireland from the perspective of genre, analysing their structural and literary characteristics both synchronically and diachronically. To this end, I have developed a new typology of medieval vision literature. I address the question in what manner the internationally attested genre of vision literature is adapted and developed in an Irish literary milieu. I explore this central research question through an interrogation of the typological unity of the key texts, both in formal arrangement and in the eschatological themes they express. My analysis of the structure and rhetoric of these narratives reveals the primary role of identity strategies, question-and-answer patterns and exhortation for their narrative cohesion and didactic function. In addition, I was able to make a formal distinction at text-level between the adaptation of the genre as an autonomous unit and the adaptation of thematic motifs as topoi. This further enabled me to nuance the distribution of characteristic features in the genre. My analysis of the spatial and temporal aspects of the eschatological journey confirms a preoccupation with personal eschatology. It reveals a close connection between the development of the aspects of graded access and trial in the genre and a growing awareness of an interim state of the soul after death. Finally, my dissertation provides new editions, translations and analyses of primary sources. My research breaks new ground in the hitherto underexplored area of genre adaptation in Ireland. In addition, it contributes significantly to our understanding of the nature of vision literature both in an Irish and a European context, and to our knowledge of the transmission of eschatological thought in the Latin West. Discusses the visions of: Laisrén, Fursa, Adomnán, Lóchán, Tnugdal, Owein and Visio Sancti Pauli Redactions VI and XI.

Community workers' understandings and practices of resistance

This research is focused on Community Workers located in Southern Ireland, and their understandings and practices of resistance. It is an attempt to explore the ways in which community workers’ understandings and practices of resistance are formed and, in turn, inform their sense of identity and their responses to the wider context of community development work in Ireland today. This study is specifically located but also has wider application and relevance because of the extended international reach of neo-liberal and managerial rationalities, and their implications for politics, policy and practice. The study considers resistance in a number of inter-related ways: as a collective oppositional position (with negative and positive dimensions); a personal and/or professional value (associated with the ‘expansion of contention’); a strategy for negotiating unequal power relations (in a range of levels and spaces of power); an identity (in relation to the sustaining of ‘reflexive subjectivities’); a set of practices, (which take into account the interplay between economic, political and cultural influences); and an educational process through which practitioners assess and enact personal and professional agency. Critical theorisations of community development and of the Irish state over time, trace the ways in which neo-liberalism and managerialism has inflected community development practice and the positions of community workers and communities in that process. The study draws on James C. Scott, Gramsci, Barnes and Prior, among others, which enabled the interrogation of resistance in relation to everyday practices through engaging with ‘hidden transcripts’ and spaces. The method chosen was focus group discussions with three groups of community workers located in different counties in Southern Ireland. This method facilitated a deep discourse analysis of practitioners’ encounters with resistance in the field of community work. Key findings relate to the various interpretations of the role of resistance, practices of resistance (including current restrictions), the value of resistance work and the conditions that may be conducive to practising resistance.

Raman spectroscopy in pharmaceutical analysis

A wide and versatile range of analytical techniques are routinely used, indeed are necessary, in pharmaceutical analysis. Over the past decade Raman spectroscopy has increasingly come to the fore as a valuable member of the arsenal of methods used, from both a fundamental and applied perspective, for the interrogation of solid, liquid and solution phase samples. Advances have occurred not only in instrumentation but also in fundamental techniques and applications. The method holds substantial potential for the investigation of, what are normally considered, problematic or challenging areas of analysis. The aforementioned areas include – but are, definitely not limited too reaction kinetics, pharmaceutical drug discovery, detection of counterfeit/adulterated/illegal drugs, trace analysis and uses for on-line pharmaceutical process manufacturing. This, the first of several articles on the use of Raman spectroscopic techniques in pharmaceutical analysis, provides an introductory overview of the theory of the technique.

Characterisation of European Marine Sites: Essex Estuaries European Marine Site Occasional Publication of the Marine Biological Association 17

This report provides an overview of water and sediment quality within the Essex Estuaries European Marine Site (EMS) and examines evidence for their influence on biological condition. Site characterisation has been accomplished by review of published literature and unpublished reports, together with interrogation of summary data sets for tidal waters provided by EA.

Ecohydrodynamics of cold-water coral reefs: A case study of the Mingulay Reef complex (western Scotland)

Ecohydrodynamics investigates the hydrodynamic constraints on ecosystems across different temporal and spatial scales. Ecohydrodynamics play a pivotal role in the structure and functioning of marine ecosystems, however the lack of integrated complex flow models for deep-water ecosystems beyond the coastal zone prevents further synthesis in these settings. We present a hydrodynamic model for one of Earth's most biologically diverse deep-water ecosystems, cold-water coral reefs. The Mingulay Reef Complex (western Scotland) is an inshore seascape of cold-water coral reefs formed by the scleractinian coral Lophelia pertusa. We applied single-image edge detection and composite front maps using satellite remote sensing, to detect oceanographic fronts and peaks of chlorophyll a values that likely affect food supply to corals and other suspension-feeding fauna. We also present a high resolution 3D ocean model to incorporate salient aspects of the regional and local oceanography. Model validation using in situ current speed, direction and sea elevation data confirmed the model's realistic representation of spatial and temporal aspects of circulation at the reef complex including a tidally driven current regime, eddies, and downwelling phenomena. This novel combination of 3D hydrodynamic modelling and remote sensing in deep-water ecosystems improves our understanding of the temporal and spatial scales of ecological processes occurring in marine systems. The modelled information has been integrated into a 3D GIS, providing a user interface for visualization and interrogation of results that allows wider ecological application of the model and that can provide valuable input for marine biodiversity and conservation applications.

Teachers' and teacher educators' lives: the role of emotion

This paper reports research which focuses on ways of enhancing understandings by teachers of the key role that emotions play in their personal professional growth. It combines the narrative, autobiographical accounts of teachers attending part-time masters degree programmes in England (Continuing Professional Development and School Improvement) and Northern Ireland (Personal and Social Development) with an interrogation of the underlying values which affect the practices of their tutors. It reveals the effects of powerful and often unacknowledged interaction between personal biography and professional and social contexts upon teachers in schools and higher education.

Components of the peptidome and transcriptome persist in lin wa pi: the dried skin of the Heilongjiang brown frog Rana amurensis as used in Traditional Chinese Medicine

Although the ancient practice of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) utilizes predominantly herbal ingredients, many of which are now the subject of intense scientific scrutiny, significant quantities of animal tissue-derived materials are also employed. Here we have used contemporary molecular techniques to study the material known as lin wa pi, the dried skin of the Heilongjiang brown frog, Rana amurensis, that is used commonly as an ingredient of many medicines, as a general tonic and as a topical antimicrobial/wound dressing. Using a simple technology that has been developed and validated over several years, we have demonstrated that components of both the skin granular gland peptidome and transcriptome persist in this material. Interrogation of the cDNA library constructed from the dried skin by entrapment and amplification of polyadenylated mRNA, using a "shotgun" primer approach and 3'-RACE, resulted in the cloning of cDNAs encoding the precursors of five putative antimicrobial peptides. Two (ranatuerin-2AMa and ranatuerin-2AMb) were obvious homologs of a previously described frog skin peptide family, whereas the remaining three were of sufficient structural novelty to be named amurins 1-3. Mature peptides were each identified in reverse phase HPLC fractions of boiling water extracts of skin and their structures confirmed by MS/MS fragmentation sequencing. Components of traditional Chinese medicines of animal tissue origin may thus contain biologically active peptides that survive the preparation procedures and that may contribute to therapeutic efficacy.

Kinestatin: a novel bradykinin B2 receptor antagonist peptide from the skin secretion of the Chinese toad, Bombina maxima

We have isolated a novel bradykinin B2-receptor antagonist peptide, kinestatin, from toad (Bombina maxima) defensive skin secretion. Mass spectroscopy established a molecular mass of 931.56 Da and a provisional structure: pGlu-Leu/Ile-Pro-Gly-Leu/Ile-Gly-Pro-Leu/Ile-Arg.amide. The unmodified sequence, -QIPGLGPLRG-, was located at the C-terminus of a 116-amino-acid residue open-reading frame following interrogation of a sequenced B. maxima skin cDNA library database. This confirmed the presence of appropriate primary structural attributes for the observed post-translational modifications present on the mature peptide and established residue 2 as Ile and residues 5/8 as Leu. Kinestatin represents a prototype novel peptide from amphibian skin.

Identification of three novel Phyllomedusa sauvagei dermaseptins (sVI-sVIII) by cloning from a skin secretion-derived cDNA library

The defensive skin secretions of many amphibians contain a wide spectrum of biologically active compounds, particularly antimicrobial peptides that act as a first line of defence against bacterial infection. Here we describe for the first time the identification of three novel dermaseptin-related peptides (dermaseptins sVI–sVIII) whose primary structures were deduced from cDNAs cloned from a library constructed from lyophilised skin secretion of the South American hylid frog, Phyllomedusa sauvagei. The molecular masses of each were subsequently confirmed by interrogation of archived LC/MS files of fractionated skin secretion followed by automated Edman degradation sequencing. The heterogeneity of primary structures encountered in amphibian skin antimicrobial peptides may in part be explained by individual variation—a factor essential for selective functional molecular evolution and perhaps, ultimately in speciation.

Chemical Sensing Using a Polymer Coated Long-Period Fiber Grating Interrogated by Ring-Down Spectroscopy

An etched long-period grating was used as a refractive index sensor for vapours of four volatile organic compounds, i.e. m-xylene, cyclohexane, trichloroethylene and commercial gasoline. The sensitivity to the vapours was further increased by solid-phase microextraction into a coating made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)/polymethyl-octylsiloxane (PMOS) co-polymer. By further amplification of the optical loss in an optical cavity made of two identical fiber-Bragg gratings and interrogation by phase-shift cavity ring-down spectroscopy we could detect and distinguish xylene (detection limit: 134ppm) from trichloroethylene (3300ppm), cyclohexane (1850ppm) and gasoline (10,500ppm).

Optical Fiber Sensing Based on Reflection Laser Spectroscopy

An overview on high-resolution and fast interrogation of optical-fiber sensors relying on laser reflection spectroscopy is given. Fiber Bragg-gratings (FBGs) and FBG resonators built in fibers of different types are used for strain, temperature and acceleration measurements using heterodyne-detection and optical frequency-locking techniques. Silica fiber-ring cavities are used for chemical sensing based on evanescent-wave spectroscopy. Various arrangements for signal recovery and noise reduction, as an extension of most typical spectroscopic techniques, are illustrated and results on detection performances are presented.

The Morality of Harm

In this article, we discuss the range of concerns people weigh when evaluating the acceptability of harmful actions and propose a new perspective on the relationship between harm and morality. With this aim, we examine Kelly, Stich, Haley, Eng and Fessler’s (2007) recent claim that, contrary to Turiel and associates, people do not judge harm to be authority independent and general in scope in the context of complex harmful scenarios (e.g., prisoner interrogation, military training). In a modified replication of their study, we examined participants’ judgments of harmful actions in these contexts by taking into account their explanations for their judgments. We claim that both in terms of participants’ judgments and rationales, the results largely confirm our hypothesis that actions involving harm and injustice or rights violation are judged to be authority independent and general in scope, which is a modification of Turiel’s traditional hypothesis.

Rethinking Amnesties: Atrocity, Accountability And Impunity In Post-Conflict Societies.

The notion of accountability that is propagated in transitional justice often appears limited to demands for the prosecution and imprisonment of those who have been involved in serious human rights violations. Amnesties, widely understood as the absence of punishment for wrongdoing, are in turn considered by many scholars and activists as an example par excellence of the kind of Faustian pacts which are made in the name of political expediency in transitions from conflict. Drawing from a range of interdisciplinary literature, as well as research completed by the authors in a number of societies with a violent past, this paper uses amnesties as a case-study to argue for a more rounded interrogation of the notion of accountability in transitional justice. The paper charts the various forms of intersecting accountability which both shape and delimit amnesties at key ‘moments’ concerning their remit, introduction and operation. The paper concludes that the legalistic view of amnesties as equating to impunity and retribution as accountability is inaccurate and misleading. It argues that a broader perspective of accountability speaks directly to the capacity for amnesties to play a more constructive role in post conflict justice and peacemaking.

Peptide IC-20, encoded by skin kininogen-1 of the European yellow-bellied toad, Bombina variegata, antagonizes bradykinin-induced arterial smooth muscle relaxation

The objectives were to determine if the skin secretion of the European yellow-bellied toad (Bombina variegata), in common with other related species, contains a bradykinin inhibitor peptide and to isolate and structurally characterize this peptide. Materials and Methods: Lyophilized skin secretion obtained from this toad was subjected to reverse phase HPLC fractionation with subsequent bioassay of fractions for antagonism of the bradykinin activity using an isolated rat tail artery smooth muscle preparation. Subsequently, the primary structure of the peptide was established by a combination of microsequencing, mass spectroscopy, and molecular cloning, following which a synthetic replicate was chemically synthesised for bioassay. Results: A single peptide of molecular mass 2300.92 Da was resolved in HPLC fractions of skin secretion and its primary structure determined as IYNAIWP-KH-NK-KPGLL-. Database interrogation with this sequence indicated that this peptide was encoded by skin kininogen-1 previously cloned from B. variegata. The blank cycles were occupied by cysteinyl (C) residues and the peptide was located toward the C-terminus of the skin kininogen, and flanked N-terminally by a classical -KR- propeptide convertase processing site. The peptide was named IC-20 in accordance (I = N-terminal isoleucine, C = C-terminal cysteine, 20 = number of residues). Like the natural peptide, its synthetic replicate displayed an antagonism of bradykinin-induced arterial smooth muscle relaxation. Conclusion: IC-20 represents a novel bradykinin antagonizing peptide from amphibian skin secretions and is the third such peptide found to be co-encoded with bradykinins within skin kininogens.

Developments in Performance Monitoring of Concrete Exposed to Extreme Environments

The performance of the surface zone of concrete is acknowledged as a major factor governing the rate of deterioration of reinforced concrete structures as it provides the only barrier to the ingress of water containing dissolved ionic species such as chlorides which, ultimately, initiate corrosion of the reinforcement. In-situ monitoring of cover-zone concrete is therefore critical in attempting to make realistic predictions as to the in-service performance of the structure. To this end, this paper presents developments in a remote interrogation system to allow continuous, real-time monitoring of the cover-zone concrete from an office setting. Use is made of a multi-electrode array embedded within cover-zone concrete to acquire discretized electrical resistivity and temperature measurements, with both parameters monitored spatially and temporally. On-site instrumentation, which allows remote interrogation of concrete samples placed at a marine exposure site, is detailed, together with data handling and processing procedures. Site-measurements highlight the influence of temperature on electrical resistivity and an Arrhenius-based temperature correction protocol is developed using on-site measurements to standardize resistivity data to a reference temperature; this is an advancement over the use of laboratory-based procedures. The testing methodology and interrogation system represents a robust, low-cost and high-value technique which could be deployed for intelligent monitoring of reinforced concrete structures.