The Boolean: Snapshots of Doctoral Research at University College Cork
The Boolean is an online postgraduate journal whose aim is to highlight the exciting and diverse range of doctoral research carried out at University College Cork for a general audience. There are over 1000 doctoral students registered at UCC, conducting research in almost every field of academia. The Boolean provides these students with a forum to describe their research and share their passion and curiosity with the general public and wider university community. Journal submissions are in the form of short papers, which are evaluated according to intelligibility and coherence for non-technical readers during the peer-review process.
Acknowledgments by The Boolean Team 2023-24
Copyright (c) 2024 Zoë Williams https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Introduction by Dr. Orla Lynch, Dean of Doctoral Studies
Copyright (c) 2024 Dr. Orla Lynch https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Can Rights of Nature Contribute to Enhanced Environmental Protection in Ireland?
Several sectors of Irish society have put forward rights of nature as a way to further enhance environmental protection in the country and help curb environmental degradation. In light of rights of nature developments in other jurisdictions, this piece presents rights of nature in their social, economic, and legal context, and summarises their reception by legal scholars. This portrayal will provide a basis for analysing the two main Irish rights of nature legal propositions and assess, albeit in preliminary fashion, whether these initiatives – if enacted – would further enhance environmental protection in Ireland.
Local participative environmental governance
Copyright (c) 2024 Julian Suarez https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
From Fluids to Pharmaceuticals: How Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Transforms Drug Design
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a powerful tool that helps scientists and engineers understand how fluids behave and move, whether in the air, liquids, or biopharmaceutical manufacturing processes. This technology, which uses computer simulations to replicate real-world scenarios, plays a critical role in various industries, including medicine and drug development. By creating virtual experiments on computers, CFD allows researchers to gain insights into the interaction of biological components for drug production at different scales, from small laboratory experiments to large-scale manufacturing processes and fast-track process optimisation. The strategy and implementation of CFD for a bioreactor system has been explained in this article.
Copyright (c) 2024 vishal kumar singh https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Night Owl Effect in the Premier League
A novel dataset of all the fixtures in the English Premier League’s 2021/2022 season is used to analyse the impact which kick-off time has on home advantage. Results show that late kickoffs significantly increase home advantage. During late kick-offs, home teams are significantly more likely to win fixtures and win fixtures by greater margins compared to early kick-offs. Furthermore, away teams are significantly less likely to keep clean sheets in middle-of-the-day and late kick-offs compared to early kick-offs. The night owl effect is proposed as a term to refer to this finding where late kick-offs facilitate increased home advantage.
Copyright (c) 2024 Daragh O'Leary https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Nutrition for Female Menopausal Cancer Survivors: Developing Ireland’s First Resource
Women diagnosed with a hormone-receptor positive (HR+) breast or gynaecological cancer are not routinely prescribed hormone replacement therapy to alleviate menopausal symptoms due to the risk of causing cancer recurrence. Many of these women use herbal or botanical supplements, diet and lifestyle interventions to provide relief. Through an extensive literature review, national focus groups with menopausal female cancer survivors, consultation with an established public and patient involvement panel, and the creation of a national review panel of medical and healthcare professionals, Ireland’s first evidence-based resource is in development for female menopausal cancer survivors.
Copyright (c) 2024 Katie Johnston, Dr Samantha Cushen, Professor Aoife Ryan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Milking Cows Less Often Might Benefit Farmers (And Possibly Cheese)
Most dairy farms milk cows twice-a-day, but interest in once-a-day milking systems is increasing. This article discusses the background and benefits that are leading some farms to consider a change to a reduced milking frequency. Also, until recently, only limited work had been done to explore how dairy products are impacted by milking frequency. Some recent investigations completed at UCC and Teagasc on cheese now provides some reassuring evidence. Going further still, this research also suggests that reducing milking frequency might offer some unique opportunities for cheese production in the future.
Copyright (c) 2024 Richard Page https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Controlling Electron Spin to Realise a Greener Future
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector is consuming an ever-increasing amount of electricity. Most electronic devices are composed of billions of transistors, which are made of materials called semiconductors. Semiconducting devices can be engineered to hold properties that suit the device’s function. One relatively unexplored property is electron spin, which, if it can be controlled, may be manipulated to increase the efficiency of semiconducting devices, particularly regarding data transfer and storage. I want to examine whether spin polarisation (the degree to which the spin of electrons aligns with a given direction) can be controlled. This is achieved by understanding the electron-scattering processes by which electrons change their spin polarisation in time. The ultimate potential impact of this research is leaner, greener telecommunications and computing. “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.” — Albert Einstein
Copyright (c) 2024 Kevin Sewell https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Mixing Materials for Integrated Photonic Innovation
Photonics, an ever-growing field since the invention of lasers in the 1960s, has been applied in wide-ranging applications such as optical communications, sensing, imaging and more. Photonic integrated circuits (PIC) are the next step to take this technology and shrink it onto a semiconductor chip, leading to more compact, cheaper, and lower power consumption solutions. However, integrated photonics faces the challenge of lacking a single material platform that encompasses all the desired properties, unlike its more mature electronic integrated circuit counterpart which uses silicon with a standardised fabrication process known as complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS). To overcome this limitation, researchers are exploring hybrid and heterogeneous integration techniques. By combining the strengths of different photonic platforms, such as III-V materials for light emission, silicon for strong light guidance, silicon-nitride for visible light guiding, and lithium niobate for its modulating capabilities, integrated photonic technologies can harness the collective advantages and unlock new possibilities. “Light brings us the news from the universe.” — Sir William Bragg
Copyright (c) 2024 Owen Moynihan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
International Law & the Sustainable Development Goals
Law and policy are essential tools to tackle ongoing and emerging environmental challenges and are critical to the fulfilment of sustainable development. Adopted by all 193 United Nations (UN) Member States, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, also known as the 2030 Agenda) act as the 21st-century framework for sustainable development. This doctoral project seeks to investigate the interactive dynamics between international law and the SDGs to discern the potential of this relationship to strengthen, reinforce, and facilitate the realisation of existing and emerging obligations in international law.
Copyright (c) 2024 Niamh Guiry https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
WindValue, End-of-Life Decisions for Wind Farms
Wind farms have an estimated lifespan of twenty to twenty five years, and as they age, their value decreases, potentially becoming a liability. This article discusses a research project that aims to develop a decision support tool for wind farm owners. The tool will help estimate financial outcomes and assess risk profiles for different options such as repowering, life extension, or decommissioning. Additionally, the project will explore challenges and opportunities related to co-investment between local communities and wind farm owners.
Copyright (c) 2024 Dorcas Mikindani https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Introduction by Professor Ruth Ramsay, Dean of Graduate Studies
Copyright (c) 2022 Stephen Murphy; Ruth Ramsay https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Fibre, A Forgotten Key to a Thriving Diet
Fibre is an often-overlooked nutrient in the debate of what constitutes a healthy diet for optimal health and the prevention of chronic disease. This article aims to introduce fibre as an important dietary component to a general audience. It discusses current and recommended dietary fibre intakes and addresses the often termed “fibre gap” observed in Western-style diets. We highlight sources of dietary fibre focusing on both whole foods and isolated and synthetic fibre ingredients that are entering the food supply. The potential benefits and consumer acceptability of reformulated food staples containing isolated fibre ingredients are discussed including their unique sensory characteristics. By reflecting on the diets of our ancestors and current non-industrialised societies our article highlights the significant changes in our diet that may have altered the gut microbiomes of Western consumers with subsequent deleterious health outcomes. Discussing the current work of the Microbe Restore project, we illustrate how our research design aims to address important questions. Can a typical Western/Modern Irish diet be reformulated to achieve ancestral fibre levels without affecting the acceptability of staple foods? What are the subsequent health outcomes of such a high-fibre diet on the modern overweight/obese consumer? Finally, we highlight how the outcomes of the Microbe Restore project may aid in shaping future food design, dietary recommendations, and the potential impact of food reformulation with isolated fibres on societal health by increasing population dietary fibre intakes.
Copyright (c) 2022 Sarah Kate Walsh https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Impact of Light Based Technologies in the Future of Healthcare
There has been an increasing interest in light-based technologies offering cheap, fast and noninvasive disease detection and treatment. In 2016, the market of light-based technologies represented >64% of the total medical imaging market ($90.7 billion in total) and more than twice the radiological imaging market that included X-Ray, ultrasound, magnetic resonant imaging and others. Light-based technologies have steadily increased with the mobile and home healthcare, as well as wearable devices dominating the market to monitor quality of sleep, sports performance, and blood oxygenation in general (including COVID-19 cases). Given the importance of light in the future of healthcare, this paper covers how light-based technologies are used to find diseases early (screening) and accurately (diagnostics) in both whole body (systemically with screening tests) or localized parts of the body (during surgery).
Copyright (c) 2022 Marcelo Saito Nogueira https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
An Introduction To Monte Carlo-Tree (MC-Tree) Method
The article aims to introduce concepts in option pricing and risk management. Pricing and risk management is one of the fundamental problems in financial mathematics. Then readers may explore further to understand how to use mathematical models in pricing and risk management. More specifically, our research introduces a new method called Monte Carlo-Tree (MC-Tree), for option pricing and risk management with high accuracy.
Copyright (c) 2022 Yen Thuan Trinh https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Developing Potential in the Family Business - Learnings from a Queen Concert
Psychological Capital (Hope, Optimism, Resilience, Efficacy) is a powerful psychological resource to leverage the idiosyncratic potential of the family firm and to enhance performance through the attainment of goals. By developing Psychological Capital, the family firm can address critical issues which threaten sustainability, including reduced access to financial, human and social capital resources. The family firm is unique in terms of human capital due to the psychological attributes which are rooted in the duality of the organization, namely, family and business. As a result, the family business has a high dependency on the collaboration of both family and non-family members. This article demonstrates the benefit of developing Psychological Capital through lessons learned from a Queen concert.
Copyright (c) 2022 Catherine Duggan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Sustainable Healthy Diets: Missing Pieces of the Puzzle
Climate change has become a prominent topic in the media. There is clear evidence that an increase in greenhouse gases is causing global warming, above what is typical, which is resulting in more extreme weather events. It is estimated that the food system accounts for up to one-third of the total emissions produced globally, therefore, urgent changes are required. In addition, the food system is providing unhealthy diets for many. A sustainable diet must address environmental, social, economic, and health-related challenges. Dietary change is one solution to making diets more sustainable, including increases in fruit and vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds, and whole grains and decreases in ruminant meats and discretionary foods. Food-based dietary guidelines will be an important policy tool in communicating these changes to the population, however, to date the messages are inconsistent. Experimental data are lacking and will be required to fully assess the effectiveness and safety of sustainable diets. The MyPlanetDiet study will help address these gaps and make an important contribution to the development of sustainable guidelines both in Ireland and globally.
Copyright (c) 2022 Ursula Leonard https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
The Truth Behind Food and Cancer: Simple Explanations Based on Scientific Evidence
Background: Specialist oncology dietetic care is lacking in Ireland. This results in knowledge gaps that are filled by unreliable information from unqualified outlets such as the media and alternative-health providers, who promote complementary/alternative medicine (CAM). The aim of this resource is to provide cancer survivors with up-to-date, evidence-based information on cancer and nutrition Methods: Common myths about nutrition and cancer and the most popular CAM used by Irish cancer survivors were included1. National cancer organisations were also reviewed. To ensure readability, content was written according to the National Adult Literacy Agency recommendations, and peer-reviewed by other dietitians. Patient feedback was sought from patient advocates. Funding was secured from Breakthrough Cancer Research to print 20,000 copies for free distribution. Results: ‘The Truth Behind Food and Cancer: Simple Explanations based on Scientific Evidence’ is a coloured printed resource written by dietitians. It discussed popular diet-based CAM and food-avoidance patterns practiced by patients with cancer and provides an evidence-based response to myths and unproven dietary strategies. Conclusion: Following a restrictive dietary strategy can place vulnerable cancer patients at an even greater risk of malnutrition and its debilitating effects. Research shows that a significant number of cancer survivors turn to unproven dietary strategies in the absence of dietetic care or reliable resources.
Copyright (c) 2022 Clodagh Scannell https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Fermented foods of Sudan are a great source of affordable daily nutrition for many families and age groups all over the country. These foods include a diverse categorisation of starting ingredients and incur traditional methodologies of production which have been preserved for centuries. We used next generation sequencing (16S rRNA and 18S rRNA) to analyse 44 Sudanese Fermented foods in five major categories food types; sorghum, plant, meat, fish and dairy. Samples were collected in Khartoum, Sudan and analysed in Cork, Ireland. We found an extensive array of unique microorganisms in Sudanese fermented foods that extended over 1300 operational taxonomic units (bacterial identification) and many fungi. While many of these foods have healthy benefits for human health, harmful bacteria and fungi were also found owing to the preparatory methods of these types of food. Further research is required to isolate the microbiome of such foods and bring about health promoting effects of Sudanese Fermented Foods to light.
This is a collaborative project between Ireland and Sudan. therefore there are many authors.
The corresponding author is Catherine Stanton. The primary author is Amel Sami
Copyright (c) 2022 Amel Sami, Catherine Stanton, Imad Elimairi, Paul R Ross , Yasmeen Elyass , Marmar Elsiddig, Heyam Salih https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
“And then things clicked” – Developing a Measure of Asexual Identity Development
Asexuality is best defined as a lack of sexual attraction towards other people that is not explained by a physical or psychological disorder. Like homosexuality and bisexuality, asexuality is recognised as a minority sexual orientation, with approximately 1.05% of the population (70 million) believed to be asexual. Recent research suggests that asexual people experience heightened levels of anxiety and depression when compared to both their heterosexual (i.e., straight) and non-heterosexual (i.e., lesbian, gay and bisexual) peers. This may be as a result of negative attitudes held towards asexual people, and a lack of recognition of asexuality as a legitimate sexual orientation. My research comprises of the steps taken to develop a psychometric tool to identify aspects of asexual identity development and internalisation. This will provide a theoretical foundation to inform sex education as well as the application of theory and knowledge within clinical settings to better evaluate the processes contributing to such heightened levels of depression and anxiety amongst asexual individuals.
Copyright (c) 2022 Sinead Kelleher https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Ecomusicology and the Potential of Music and Sound for Environmental Education
Ecomusicology is an interdisciplinary field drawing together scholars from sciences and humanities who share a research interest in the overlapping of music, culture, and nature. Human and non-human animals constantly rely on sonic signals to relate with other animals and the environment. Considering this auditory connection, and the contribution that ecocritical music and music about places may have in nurturing a sentiment of environmental stewardship, I propose an applied environmental education methodology that relies on participatory music making and critical listening to foster environmental awareness.
Copyright (c) 2022 Luca Gambirasio https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Human-generated carbon emissions are the leading cause of climate change. There is a global commitment to reduce carbon emissions, in an effort to limit climate change effects. Many climate change solutions involve the mitigation of carbon emissions, mitigation alone is not enough. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) can live in the atmosphere for over 100 years. If we were to switch to 100% renewable energies, we would still damage the planet with the stagnant CO2 from the 1920’s. To combat climate change, we need a solution that can remove this carbon. One such solution is carbon capture, one of our best weapons in tackling climate change. The replacement of fossil fuel energy will not happen in the next few years, maybe not even for decades. Therefore, carbon capture is a promising ‘bridge’ technology, while we reach a sustainable level of green energy production. Carbon capture technology development has largely focused on singular processes (typically absorption, adsorption and membranes) capturing carbon from industrial exhaust systems. Recently, studies have delved into the idea of combining two or more of these technologies into one more efficient system and employing them in the industrial exhaust systems but also capturing carbon from the atmosphere. This project aims to develop a hybrid membrane and adsorption unit to capture carbon directly from the atmosphere. The aim is to provide the technology necessary to remove carbon from the atmosphere more effectively and cheaper than earlier technologies.
Copyright (c) 2022 Sean Ritchie https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Geoprivacy Protection of Agricultural Data
A major challenge of sharing spatially explicit agricultural and agri-environmental data is to identify the trade-off between field parcel confidentiality and spatial pattern preservation. In this study, the main drawback of point-based obfuscation was identified and the polygon-based obfuscation methods were designed and developed to overcome these issues.
Copyright (c) 2022 Parvaneh Nowbakht https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
A Reproductive Justice Approach to Abortion Access and Provision in Ireland after the Eighth Amendment
In this paper, I draw on ongoing ethnographic research on abortion care in Ireland. My research follows a reproductive justice framework to inquire whether pregnant people have the means and the accessibility to abortion care, and whether providers have the means to provide abortion care. I argue that my approach provides an innovative way of examining reproductive justice in Ireland through a feminist and intersectional lens. Moving away from the moral framing of abortion which has dominated the public construction of the issue in Ireland to date, the reframing of abortion as a reproductive justice opens up opportunities for a more balanced consideration of abortion provision as policy, practice and lived experience for both service users and service providers.
Copyright (c) 2022 Charlotte Waltz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Exercise to Combat Respiratory Muscle Wasting in Cancer
Cachexia is the term used to describe the progressive loss of muscle mass in association with severe disease. The primary resulting alteration observed in cachexia is a shift in the fundamental balance of muscle protein synthesis and muscle protein degradation. One of the diseases most commonly associated with cachexia is cancer, in which the prevalence rate is 50-80%. Furthermore, cachexia is estimated to be responsible for 20% of cancer deaths. Potentially contributing to this mortality rate is the wasting of the respiratory muscles. Despite this, relatively little research has investigated the impact of cancer cachexia on respiratory muscle wasting and dysfunction. Additionally, exercise provides promise in the implementation of a therapeutic intervention aimed at ameliorating the adverse effects of cancer cachexia.
Copyright (c) 2022 Ben Murphy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Embodying Colonial Ghosts in Postcolonial Italian Women's Writing
While Italian colonialism in Africa is an aspect of Italy’s history that has started to receive academic attention in the last three decades, it remains outside the collective memory of many Italians. In opposition to this lack of mainstream cultural awareness, a proliferation of literary works has been produced, predominantly by female writers with origins in Italy’s former colonies in East Africa, filling in the historical omissions and, importantly, providing a transnational voice to gendered experiences of colonial trauma. Many of these authors foreground the female corporeal experience of colonialism and its legacy. My PhD thesis explores the representation of gendered colonial trauma and its intergenerational transmission through the female body. I examine a range of literary texts by women writers with origins in Somalia and Ethiopia, dating from 2007 to the present. Their work ranges across contexts and languages (Italian and English), yet each narrates colonial history in a highly embodied way, providing an alternative discourse to the nostalgic, mythologising historiography offered by mainstream Italian literature from the post-war period to the present.
Copyright (c) 2022 Noreen Kane https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Quantum Control: Teaching Schrödinger’s cat to compute the impossible
Quantum mechanics has revolutionised the way we understand the world around us, and has already produced technologies that have had an enormous impact on our daily lives. From medical imaging such as MRI to the mobile device in your pocket, quantum physics has played a key role in their design and manufacture. As our understanding of quantum physics has matured, a second generation of quantum technologies are now becoming a reality. This second generation of quantum technology pushes even further the boundary of what is possible, from new sensors that measure beyond classical limits, to quantum computers that can solve problems no classical computer can. However, a major roadblock to developing these new technologies is fast and stable quantum control. Of the many quantum control techniques available, analytic techniques have several advantages. Our research has extended a class of analytic control methods called shortcuts to adiabaticty (STA) to control problems where STA could not be used before. Our new technique is called enhanced shortcuts to adiabaticity (eSTA), and offers new analytic control protocols that have applications across a wide range of practical quantum technologies, from quantum computers to quantum sensors and thermal devices.
Copyright (c) 2022 Chris Whitty https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Pre-eclampsia is a very common and potentially fatal pregnancy complication faced by millions of pregnant mothers worldwide every year. As well as affecting the mother, though, the disorder has been shown to have a harmful effect on the infant, including a negative influece on foetal brain development. Children born to a pregnancy affected by pre-eclampsia have a higher risk of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder, but, truthfully, we don't know why. This article describes the link between pre-eclampsia and foetal neurodevelopment - what we know and what we don't, and how our research is trying to uncover the mechanisms of the relationship between the two. Essentially, we are taking three approaches to this research question: growing neuron-like cells in the lab and modelling pre-eclampsia's effects on them; growing placental cells and stressing them in a way that mimics the placental pathology of pre-eclampsia; and analysing a large dataset from Finland which includes data on neurodevelopment from brain scans. Overall, these three strategies, little by little, are increasing our understanding of the elusive relationship between these two important disorders.
Copyright (c) 2022 Aaron Barron https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Planning For Sustainability: Future Retail Centre Locations
The concept of ‘sustainable retail development’ implies that retail centres should serve their communities economically and socially, while not degrading local environments. However, existing evidence shows that shopping malls often negatively impact both the core and peripheries of city regions from environmental, social, and economic perspectives. This paper adapts commuting data to estimate the hypothetical shopping-related emissions associated with travelling to-and-from retail centres. We perform this analysis at the Small Area level for Ireland’s five major city regions. Our results suggest that the environmental degradation from retail centres increases as distances from urban cores increase.
Copyright (c) 2022 Conor O'Driscoll, Frank Crowley, Justin Doran, Nóirín Mc Carthy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Nowadays the environmental concerns and the limited availability of fossil resources have resulted in the development of bioeconomy and biorefineries. It is crucial to adapt production processes within this context. In Ireland cheese whey and derivatives are some of the main wastes generated by the industry. This article aims at the possibility of using this dairy waste for production of interesting biochemicals and compounds using a microbe known as Kluyveromyces marxianus, which is a yeast adapted to live in milk.
Copyright (c) 2022 Carlos Belloch https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0