Dublin docklands. The urban fabric as cultural heritage

Introduction

Since the 1980s there have been major policies and projects for the redevelopment of Dublin Docklands. These projects were mainly aimed at profitable development of office, commercial and residential space, without a sound plan that would preserve the identity or community of the area. The recent shift in policies and urban design principles in the Dublin Docklands Area Master Plan 2008 shows that policy makers have acknowledged that mistakes were made in the last decades of the 20th century. The current map of the Dublin Docklands Area Master Plan 2008 gives us useful information about these changes. The Ringsend/ Irishtown area, which has kept a great part of its urban form and community identity throughout centuries, is described as an ‘area of protection of residential and services amenities’ (DDDA, 2008, map A). Meanwhile, the area of the Grand Canal Docks, recently developed, is described with the objective ‘to seek the social, economic and physical development or rejuvenation
within an area of mixed use of which residential and enterprise facilities would be the predominant uses’ (DDDA, 2008, map A). This classification shows that recent development has been unable to achieve the cohesion and complexity of existing neighbourhoods, revealing flaws not only in policy, but also in the built environment and approaches to urban design.

The shift towards the consideration of more community participation reveals a need to understand the tradition and past of these communities, while the urban fabric of small plots in the existing neighbourhoods, therefore, seems to have a very important role in the conservation of identity of place and providing the opportunity for difference within regularity. On the other hand, the new fabric of residential block developments in the docklands denies the possibility of developing a sense of community, and by providing only regularity, does not leave space for difference.

This paper will address questions related to urban morphology and town analysis in the case of Ringsend and Irishtown. This will provide a tool to learn from the past and perhaps find new models of development that might be less detrimental for the heritage of cities and urban communities. One of the ideas of this paper is to adhere to the new tendency in conservation policies to provide a broader analysis of urban areas, not only considering individual monuments in cities, but also analysing the significance of urban morphology and intangible heritage. It forms part of an OPW Post- Doctoral Fellowship in Conservation Studies and Environmental History.1 Research has been carried out in different areas of urban history of Dublin’s southern waterfront, including infrastructure history and a thorough analysis of the letters of the Pembroke Estate of the 19th century, which included the areas of Ringsend and Irishtown. However, this paper focuses on the study of urban form of the area and its significance to Dublin’s heritage.

Implications of climate change for the fishes of the British Isles

Recent climatic change has been recorded across the globe. Although environmental change is a characteristic feature of life on Earth and has played a major role in the evolution and global distribution of biodiversity, predicted future rates of climatic change, especially in temperature, are such that they will exceed any that has occurred over recent geological time. Climate change is considered as a key threat to biodiversity and to the structure and function of ecosystems that may already be subject to significant anthropogenic stress. The current understanding of climate change and its likely consequences for the fishes of Britain and Ireland and the surrounding seas are reviewed through a series of case studies detailing the likely response of several marine, diadromous and freshwater fishes to climate change. Changes in climate, and in particular, temperature have and will continue to affect fish at all levels of biological organization: cellular, individual, population, species, community and ecosystem, influencing physiological and ecological processes in a number of direct, indirect and complex ways. The response of fishes and of other aquatic taxa will vary according to their tolerances and life stage and are complex and difficult to predict. Fishes may respond directly to climate-change-related shifts in environmental processes or indirectly to other influences, such as community-level interactions with other taxa. However, the ability to adapt to the predicted changes in climate will vary between species and between habitats and there will be winners and losers. In marine habitats, recent changes in fish community structure will continue as fishes shift their distributions relative to their temperature preferences. This may lead to the loss of some economically important cold-adapted species such as Gadus morhua and Clupea harengus from some areas around Britain and Ireland, and the establishment of some new, warm-adapted species. Increased temperatures are likely to favour cool-adapted (e.g. Perca fluviatilis) and warm-adapted freshwater fishes (e.g. roach Rutilus rutilus and other cyprinids) whose distribution and reproductive success may currently be constrained by temperature rather than by cold-adapted species (e.g. salmonids). Species that occur in Britain and Ireland that are at the edge of their distribution will be most affected, both negatively and positively. Populations of conservation importance (e.g. Salvelinus alpinus and Coregonus spp.) may decline irreversibly. However, changes in food-web dynamics and physiological adaptation, for example because of climate change, may obscure or alter predicted responses. The residual inertia in climate systems is such that even a complete cessation in emissions would still leave fishes exposed to continued climate change for at least half a century. Hence, regardless of the success or failure of programmes aimed at curbing climate change, major changes in fish communities can be expected over the next 50 years with a concomitant need to adapt management strategies accordingly.

Professional perspectives on decision making about the long-term care of older people

With the increasing pressure on social and health care resources, professionals have to be more explicit in their decision making regarding the long-term care of older people. This grounded theory study used 19 focus groups and nine semi-structured interviews (99 staff in total) to explore professional perspectives on this decision making. Focus group participants and interviewees comprised care managers, social workers, consultant geriatricians, general medical practitioners, community nurses, home care managers, occupational therapists and hospital discharge support staff. The emerging themes spanned context, clients, families and services. Decisions were often prompted by a crisis, hindering professionals seeking to make a measured assessment. Fear of burglary and assault, and the willingness and availability of family to help were major factors in decisions about living at home. Service availability in terms of public funding for community care, the availability of home care workers and workload pressures on primary care services influenced decision 'thresholds' regarding admission to institutional care. Assessment tools designed to assist decision making about the long-term care of older people need to take into account the critical aspects of individual fears and motivation, family support and the availability of publicly funded services as well as functional and medical needs.

A Shared Future? Exclusion, Stigmatization, and Mental Health of Same-Sex-Attracted Young People in Northern Ireland

For more than a decade the Peace Process has fundamentally changed Northern Irish society. However, although socioreligious integration and ethnic mixing are high on the political agenda in Northern Ireland, the Peace Process has so far failed to address the needs of some of the most vulnerable young people, for example, those who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Public debates in Northern Ireland remain hostile to same-sex-attracted people. Empirical evidence from the annual Young Life and Times (YLT) survey of 16-year-olds undertaken by ARK shows that same-sex-attracted young people report worse experiences in the education sector (e.g., sex education, school bullying), suffer from poorer mental health, experience higher social pressures to engage in health-adverse behavior, and are more likely to say that they will leave Northern Ireland and not return. Equality legislation and peace process have done little to address the heteronormativity in Northern Ireland.

Getting off the escalator? A study of Scots out-migration from a global city region

Something new is happening to reverse the historical trend of skilled Scots moving to London for career progression. The Scottish population of London and the South East is falling and this despite Scots enjoying continued occupational success within the South East labour market. The authors ask why Scots are leaving the UK's main escalator region and then investigate how these migration changes can best be theorised relative to literature on the mobility of the 'new service class'. Building on Fielding's escalator region hypothesis, the authors report on recent research on longer distance flows out of the UK's main escalator region. They advance the critique of the escalator region hypothesis set out by Findlay et al and ask why people would leave a global city offering good opportunities for occupational mobility. Demographic regime change provides only a partial answer. Other explanations can be found in the changing mobilities of the new service class as they engage in what Smith has defined as 'translocal' and 'transnational' urbanism. The authors argue that Scotland's changing relationship with London and the South East may be representative of a wider set of changes in migration linkages between regional economies and global cities.

The feeding dynamics of broiler chickens

Contrary to a commonly held belief that broiler chickens need more space, there is increasing evidence that these birds are attracted to other birds. Indeed, commercially farmed birds exhibit a range of socially facilitated behaviours, such as increased feeding and preening in response to the presence of other birds. Social facilitation can generate feedback loops, whereby the adoption of a particular behaviour can spread rapidly and suddenly through the population. Here, by measuring the rate at which broiler chickens join and leave a feeding trough as a function of the number of birds already there, we quantify social facilitation. We use these measurements to parameterize a simulation model of chicken feeding behaviour. This model predicts, and further observations of broiler chickens confirm, that social facilitation leads to excitatory and synchronized patterns of group feeding. Such models could prove a powerful tool in understanding how feeding patterns depend on broiler house design.

Safeguarding: A case for intelligent risk management

‘Risk’ in social work is typically read as risk-of-bads, and specifically extreme bads. This paper develops the implications of the logical objection to attempts to predict low frequency extreme events (such as child homicides). Our argument is that if we focus on these low probability high cost outcomes—these heart wrenching, but unpredictable, tragedies—we take social work away from the good that it can do, leave it open to inappropriate disapprobation, and, in terms of outcomes, do less well by the vulnerable. This point is reinforced by discussion of developments in other academic fields, and by further examination of the logic (and the morality) of protection under uncertainty. We explore the implications for the way social work should be evaluated. A proper academic understanding of risk, and decision making under uncertainty, has, we argue clear practical implications.

A comparative study of domestic, European and international job-related relocation

This paper explores a number of relocation outcomes for geographically mobile employees in the following three regions: Germany as the home country and destination for domestic assignments (n = 115), Western Europe (n = 116) and other countries (n = 236). The satisfaction with various aspects of the post-relocation environment, the perception of change between the pre- and post-relocation environment and the attachment to the post-relocation environment at various levels were compared between the three groups. For the European and international sub-samples differences in the ideal country and future plans were also investigated. The group that stood out most clearly was the domestic sub-sample. It emerged as the group least satisfied with their job or task characteristics, perceived significantly fewer changes in the environment and was comparatively eager to leave the site they were currently working at and the job they were currently employed in. The sometimes proposed redefinition of intra-European assignments as ‘quasi-domestic’ relocation appears to be inappropriate.

Methadone as Social Control: Institutionalized Stigma and the Prospect of Recovery

Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is an intervention used to treat opioid (heroin) dependence. Several investigators have found that MMT is effective in reducing heroin use and other behaviors; however, a disproportionate number of MMT clients leave treatment prematurely. Moreover, MMT outcome variables are often limited in terms of their measurement. Utilizing an integrated theoretical framework of social control and stigma, we focused on the experiences of methadone maintenance from the perspective of clients. We pooled interview data from four qualitative studies in two jurisdictions and found linkages between social control and institutional stigma that serve to reinforce "addict" identities, expose undeserving customers to the public gaze, and encourage clients to be passive recipients of treatment. We discuss the implications for recovery and suggest recommendations for change.

Fast automatic two-stage nonlinear model identification based on the extreme learning machine

It is convenient and effective to solve nonlinear problems with a model that has a linear-in-the-parameters (LITP) structure. However, the nonlinear parameters (e.g. the width of Gaussian function) of each model term needs to be pre-determined either from expert experience or through exhaustive search. An alternative approach is to optimize them by a gradient-based technique (e.g. Newton’s method). Unfortunately, all of these methods still need a lot of computations. Recently, the extreme learning machine (ELM) has shown its advantages in terms of fast learning from data, but the sparsity of the constructed model cannot be guaranteed. This paper proposes a novel algorithm for automatic construction of a nonlinear system model based on the extreme learning machine. This is achieved by effectively integrating the ELM and leave-one-out (LOO) cross validation with our two-stage stepwise construction procedure [1]. The main objective is to improve the compactness and generalization capability of the model constructed by the ELM method. Numerical analysis shows that the proposed algorithm only involves about half of the computation of orthogonal least squares (OLS) based method. Simulation examples are included to confirm the efficacy and superiority of the proposed technique.

Work-family characteristics as determinants of sickness absence: A large-scale cohort study of three occupational grades

This study examined the previously unexplored occupational grade-specific relationships of domestic responsibilities, the age of children, and work-family spillover, with registered sickness absence (>3 days' sick leave episodes, a mean follow-up of 17 months; n = 18,366 municipal employees; 76% women). The results showed that negative spillover from work into family life predicted a heightened rate of sickness absence spells among both women and men in all occupational categories (except upper white-collar men), but especially among blue-collar and lower white-collar employees. Furthermore, among all white-collar employees (except upper white-collar men), having young children (

Christian Gottlob Neefe and the Bonn National Theatre, with New Light on the Beethoven Family

When the Bonn stage was closed after the death of Elector Max Friedrich in 1784, the director of its theatre company, Gustav Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann, decided to leave the city to further his career elsewhere in the Rhinelands. During the next few years, he was kept informed about developments in Bonn by two of his erstwhile colleagues, Christian Gottlob Neefe and Nikolaus Simrock, whose correspondence paints a vivid picture of musical life in the city during the later 1780s. The new Elector, Maximilian Franz, permitted a visiting troupe to perform during Carnival each year, but repeatedly delayed the decision to re-establish a resident troupe. In 1787 Christoph Brandt, a singer in the Bonn Hofkapelle, attempted a home-grown initiative, perhaps to test the market for a new permanent company. Although this failed almost immediately, a single, well-attended public rehearsal of Monsigny’s Le Déserteur was given, in which Johann van Beethoven made what was probably his last stage appearance. In a letter dated 14 May 1787, Simrock rated his performance ‘zimlich gut’. In the event, a new Bonn troupe was not recruited until 1789, when it featured the young singer Magdalena Willmann. Neefe and his musical colleagues were relieved finally to be able to resume their theatrical careers.

London 2012 and Climate Change. Examining the potential impact of the current economic crisis in the environmental legacy of the Games

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) declares environmental protection to be the third dimension of the Olympic movement. That, in effect, means that nations wishing to host the Games have to present themselves as reliable practitioners of environmental sustainability (ES) in their applications. The greening of sports mega-events, and the hosting of Olympic Games in particular, is now reasonably well established. Yet evidence from the first decade of environmentally-conscious Olympics points to diverging patterns of achievement in the operationalisation of the IOC’s ‘third pillar’. As is now common knowledge, for example, Sydney 2000 was the first ‘Green Olympics’ in the history of the Games; yet four years later, Athens provided a stark contrast, and was the subject of highly critical assessment reports by environmental organisations. Yet Athens has not stopped the Bid Committee for the Beijing 2008 Games claiming that it would ‘leave the greatest Olympic Games environmental legacy ever’ (UNEP 2007: 26), while the London 2012 promotes the concept of the ‘One Planet Olympics’.

In this context and in light of the current global economic crisis, can we claim that London 2012 has the capacity to fulfil its environmental ambitions? This question is adopted in continuity with similar framed questions that have been posed in relation to the most recent Olympics and it is tackled by adopting an investigative model that is placed within discourses of ‘reflexive modernisation’.

Behavioural skeletons in GCM: autonomic management of grid components

Autonomic management can be used to improve the QoS provided by parallel/distributed applications. We discuss behavioural skeletons introduced in earlier work: rather than relying on programmer ability to design “from scratch” efficient autonomic policies, we encapsulate general autonomic controller features into algorithmic skeletons. Then we leave to the programmer the duty of specifying the parameters needed to specialise the skeletons to the needs of the particular application at hand. This results in the programmer having the ability to fast prototype and tune distributed/parallel applications with non-trivial autonomic management capabilities. We discuss how behavioural skeletons have been implemented in the framework of GCM(the Grid ComponentModel developed within the CoreGRID NoE and currently being implemented within the GridCOMP STREP project). We present results evaluating the overhead introduced by autonomic management activities as well as the overall behaviour of the skeletons. We also present results achieved with a long running application subject to autonomic management and dynamically adapting to changing features of the target architecture.
Overall the results demonstrate both the feasibility of implementing autonomic control via behavioural skeletons and the effectiveness of our sample behavioural skeletons in managing the “functional replication” pattern(s).