Research Matters Issue 9 Summer 2008

ISSUE 9 Summer ‘08

WIT wins Informatics Commercialisation Award

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Welcome from the Head of Research Transfer of knowledge from higher education institutes into the market place has been identified as an important issue in the development of a world class research environment and a key priority in the Government’s Strategy for Science Technology & Innovation 2006 – 2013.

In this edition of WIT’s Research Matters we highlight the increase in commercialisation activity at the Institute, growing links with companies in the region and enhancements of WIT’s expertise base to support innovation and technology transfer.

The Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) won the coveted Enterprise Ireland Informatics Commercialisation Award in 2007, demonstrated emerging technologies at international conferences such as the Mobile World Congress 2008 and was nominated for the ICT Excellence Award. Through a joint venture with a Scottish based enterprise, the group has also developed technology that is set to change the experience of tourists who visit local heritage sites.

The media has recently focused on the prevalence of mental health issues in the workplace, and it has also highlighted the ongoing challenges posed by adult literacy problems in Ireland. WIT researchers in the Department of Nursing here call for a national strategy on workplace mental health, and researchers in the Literacy Development Centre highlight a more holistic approach to the understanding of literacy, both for adult learners and educators.

Knowledge management is a burgeoning area of research and in two separate articles it is assessed in relation to its potential for enhancing business performance and its role within the construction industry. In this issue we also read of WIT’s research in the area of breast cancer, biomass fuels and social justice, work which is vital in the advancement of medical, ecological and social knowledge.

We are also delighted to congratulate the newest recipients of doctoral awards from the Institute. Six students are profiled within, and their research spans a range of disciplines such as science, music, business and health sciences. As the Institute grows, so does its researchers.

Dr. Willie Donnelly Head of Research & Innovation

Editorial Board

TSSG commercial activity goes from strength to strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3-4 Investigating cancer-related fatigue and depression in breast cancer patients . . . . . . . . . .4 WIT’s Wood Energy Group at the cutting edge of biomass research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Dr. Paula Carroll (School of Health Sciences)

€300k funding for delivery of health and safety training in the construction industry . . .5

Ms. Philomena Carton (Research Support Unit)

‘Tap and go’ technology now at WIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Mr. Fergus Hogan / Dr. Sinead Conneely (School of Humanities)

Working for mental health – disability policy in the workplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Dr. Willie Donnelly (Head of Research)

Strategic relationship formed between AOL and WIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

Mr. David Kane (WIT Luke Wadding Library) Ms. Kathryn Kiely (Industry Services Manager)

FlexRay system research at the WIT Automotive Control Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

Pursuing social justice at WIT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

Building knowledge in the construction industry – WIT and Sisk collaborate . . . . . . . . . .9 WIT PhD Graduates 2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10-12 Redressing regional imbalances at the RIKON research group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 Putting theory into practice: the professional development of literacy educators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14-15 WIT secures funding to enhance technology transfer capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Dr. Mohamed Medjaou (School of Engineering)

“Knowing is not enough: we must apply”(Goethe) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

Ms. Geraldine Mernagh (School of Education)

WIT research funding awards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17

Dr. Cormac O’Raifeartaigh (School of Science)

WIT at Chinese conferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Dr. Susan Whelan (School of Business) Edited by Ms. Jenny O’Connor (School of Humanities)

Nubiq wins investment driven pitching competition in Silicon Valley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

ONE way to enhance business growth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Recent WIT conferences & publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19-23

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TSSG commercial activity goes from strength to strength

Mr Barry Downes, Executive Director – Innovation, TSSG accepting award from Mr Gearóid Mooney, Commercialisation Director, Informatics, Enterprise Ireland

In October last, WIT’s Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG) won the Enterprise Ireland Informatics Commercialisation Award 2007, adding another accolade to the string of successes enjoyed by the group in recent years.

The award was presented by Micheál Ahern T.D, Minister for Innovation Policy, to Barry Downes of the TSSG, at the Enterprise Ireland Technology Showcase in Dublin. “The TSSG has been pursuing a range of spin-in opportunities, where we attract companies to locate in Waterford in order to collaborate with us, and spin-out opportunities where we establish new companies to commercialise our success. We are delighted to receive this award from Enterprise Ireland as support for us and for ICT innovation in the South East of Ireland,” said Barry Downes.

The showcase event also included demonstrations of the latest TSSG technology innovations developed by academic researchers, which are now expected to be snapped up by investors in the advanced technology industry.

Presenting the award, Minister Ahern said “the TSSG is to be congratulated on this success, not just in winning the Commercialisation Award, but for bringing the fruits of research to the marketplace. The TSSG at Waterford IT has demonstrated real innovation in the commercialisation space through the formation of a true joint venture with entrepreneurs to create

new companies, which are now contributing to the local economy of Waterford. This innovative spirit is one of the core pillars of the Government’s Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation.”

More recently, Zolk C, a partnership enterprise between Inverness-based Zolk, and Aceno, a WIT spinout, secured the prestigious UK Museums & Heritage Awards for Excellence.

During the launch of the new Culloden Battlefield Visitor Centre in Scotland, a world first in technological learning solutions for the interpretation of tourism and heritage sites was presented - a personal digital assistant (PDA) device triggered by satellite technology.

Via a GPS-triggered electronic guide, visitors to the Centre will experience the Battle of Culloden where more than 1300 men were killed during the conflict between Bonnie Prince Charles’ Jacobites and the Duke of Cumberland’s forces, outside Inverness in 1746. Some of the features provided will include video and audio clips, fact-file data, character accounts, archaeological evidence, and real-life sound effects which will be triggered automatically as visitors walk across the historic moor. This will create an interactive experience for the visitor, which will not detract from the authenticity of the site.

To add to these successes, Nubiq Ltd (www.nubiq.com) was selected as a finalist for the Irish Technology Leadership Group’s (ITLG) Irish Times Innovation Award that was held at Stanford University in March. Based in Palo Alto, California, the ITLG is a group of Irish and Irish American senior executives who are

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Continued from Page 3 committed to ensuring that Ireland remains a strategic area of investment and opportunity for US technology companies. The judging panel, consisting of the ITLG Board, Enterprise Ireland, Invest Northern Ireland, IDA Ireland and the Irish Times, nominated Nubiq based on its innovation and vision for overseas growth. In May, Nubiq was also shortlisted for the ICT Excellence Award. Currently in its eighth year, the ICT Excellence Awards is now a firmly established landmark event in the Information and Communications Technology calendar and is one of Ireland’s most prestigious and respected award competitions in the ICT sector.

The TSSG also played a very active role this year in the largest commercial telecommunications conference and exhibition in the world – the Mobile World Congress 2008 (formerly called 3GSM). The conference was held in Barcelona in February and had over 55,000 visitors.

The TSSG had demonstrations at a number of separate stands at the event, which highlighted their newest and most exciting innovations: At the Ireland stand which was hosted by Enterprise Ireland, an IMS ARCS internet telephony demonstration was held. Also at this stand were displays by the FeedHenry and Nubiq technologies.

At the Intel stand, an IMS-stream demonstrated advanced mobile IMS services.

FeedHenry presented groundbreaking Web 2.0 technology at the Oracle stand.

Nubiq presented the latest in Mobile 2.0 at their own stand in conjunction with Enterprise Ireland.

Nubiq also presented at the dotMobi Mobile Advisory Group (www.advisorygroup.mobi) stand.

For more information contact: Mr. Barry Downes E-mail: bdownes@tssg.org

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Investigating cancer-related fatigue and depression in breast cancer patients

Breast cancer is the most common cancer amongst females in Ireland, with the overall incidence predicted to reach 4,700 cases per year by 2020. However, earlier diagnosis and improved treatments have led to a reduction in mortality for women diagnosed with breast cancer. As a result, women with breast cancer now survive longer and have to deal with the longterm consequences of cancer and its treatment. In light of these changes, there has been a growing interest in the quality of life of breast cancer survivors.

Symptoms such as fatigue and depression are now emerging as important dimensions of cancer patient care. The Cancer Research Group at WIT has recently undertaken a study which will address the issue of cancer-related fatigue and depression amongst former breast cancer patients. The project entitled “An analysis of cancer related fatigue in breast cancer survivors” is funded by a Strand 1 technological sector grant. This ongoing quantitative correlation research study aims to provide systematic research on the prevalence and pathogenesis of cancer-related fatigue and depression in women breast cancer survivors.

Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is now reported as one of the most common symptoms, affecting approximately 70 - 100% of the cancer patient population. CRF can be defined as a subjective state of overwhelming sustained exhaustion leading to a decreased capacity for work that is not relieved by rest. CRF differs from the type of fatigue that healthy individuals may experience, as it is

more intense and longer lasting.

Irrespective of this impact, fatigue is rarely assessed and treated by health care professionals as the aetiology and treatments available remain unclear. This can have a direct impact on the cancer survivor’s quality of life, as effective management interventions are restricted.

The preliminary findings of the project revealed that approximately one third of breast cancer survivors reported more severe fatigue, which was associated with higher levels of depression than the general population. Cancer survivors had a significant decrease in the mean level of cortisol, a hormone related to stress, compared to the control population. This indicates that cortisol plays a role in the pathophysiology of fatigue, resulting in endocrine changes that may cause or contribute to cancer-related fatigue. It is envisaged that this research study will contribute to management strategies used in clinical practice, which will inevitably aid clinicians and patients in their recognition and assessment of these symptoms. Most importantly, these findings will have health, education and policy implications and may contribute towards the development of more supportive health systems.

The research team is comprised of Dr. Martina Gooney, Dr. Paula Lane, Dr. Orla O’Donovan, Ms. Suzanne Denieffe and Ms. Louise Murphy who are working in collaboration with Mr. Gordon Watson and Prof. Arnold Hill (WRH and RCSI respectively).

For more information contact: Dr. Martina Gooney E-mail: mgooney@wit.ie

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WIT’s Wood Energy Group at the cutting edge of biomass research In Ireland, the utilisation of biomass as an energy source has undergone little development until very recently. Only a small percentage of the total primary energy requirements are supplied as renewable energy sources (2%), of which approximately half is wood. This makes wood the most important renewable energy source in Ireland in terms of its contribution to primary energy requirements.

For the last two years the Wood Energy Research Group at WIT, in collaboration with the National Council for Forest Research and Development (Coford), has been working towards developing a quality wood fuel supply chain. Part of the research focuses on the harvesting, processing and storage of forest biomass for energy production in Ireland, and includes public demonstrations and workshops. The group was co-founded

by Mr. Tom Kent and Dr. Eleanor Owens, and currently incorporates a total of nine personnel from the forestry and analytical science sections of the Department of Chemical and Life Sciences at WIT. This research also investigates a number of chemical and physical parameters relevant to fuel quality and burner efficiency across different wood species and from different

geographical locations: moisture content, bulk density, ash content, energy values, total chlorine levels, major and minor elements. Storage trials (various covering treatments) that examine the length of time required to dry wood to acceptable moisture content are currently in place at forest sites around Ireland. In one specialised experiment site, moisture loss is determined by using large metal bins placed on weigh cells and the drying rate is examined in relation to measured meteorological variables at the site. This work will continue throughout 2008.

A set of European standards is currently being developed for the terminology, fuel classification, sampling, physical testing and chemical analysis of all types of solid biofuel likely to be used within the European Union. This is a pan European

approach with 5 working groups developing technical specifications in all areas. Dr. Eleanor Owens of WIT has been appointed by NSAI (National Standards Authority of Ireland) as the Head of the Irish delegation for Committee 335 (Solid Biofuels) and a delegate on WG5 (chemical analysis). The group has been successful in securing grants from a number of sources: Leonardo da Vinci Pilot Project; WESST – Wood Energy Supply Systems Training; Council of Directors Technological Sector Research Strand 1 and Forest Service (Dept of Agriculture).

For more information contact: Mr. Tom Kent E-mail: tkent@wit.ie Dr. Eleanor Owens E-mail: eowens@wit.ie

€300k funding for delivery of health and safety training in the construction industry WIT is one of seven partners from five countries that is currently taking part in an EU funded research project under the Socrates Minerva Action.

The network of partners (including Universities in France, Turkey, and Cyprus) secured funding for research work valued at over €300,000. This research recognises that construction is the largest industry in the world, with an estimated 111 million people employed worldwide. It is also the most dangerous industry, with higher levels of mortality and instances of ill health than any other. As a result, it is imperative to address health and safety issues in the construction industry.

The aim of the research is to look at the application of multiple intelligence (MI) profiling within virtual classes that deliver health and safety training. To date, members of the group have presented papers at conferences in Manchester, Belfast, and Nicosia (Cyprus) on this aspect of the research. It is proposed that two phases of virtual

classes be developed, focusing on the risk of falls from high building structures.

While the delivery of virtual classes is not necessarily a new application of technology as part of learning, attempting to integrate MI into the delivery of a virtual class is a new application of e-learning. The first phase of development will be tested on a target audience from the construction industry and the results and conclusions will feed into the development of the second phase. The anticipated outcome of the research is the development of an educational resource using MI profiling that is directly focused on health and safety in the construction industry.

A dedicated website, http://www.virtualclassescentre.com,

has been developed as the central repository for developed content and virtual classes. It also facilitates dissemination of the project outcomes.

By applying the multiple intelligence philosophy to the design of virtual classes, the foundation will be laid for the rigorous application of such standards. A pilot module will be developed and deployed to measure the effectiveness of the framework and refinement will take place based on the evaluation. Key in the pilot module is the use of a core graphic of a building containing a number of hazards that the participant can use to navigate through the module. This new approach is set to change the way that health and safety concerns are dealt with in the construction industry.

For more information contact: Mr. John Wall E-mail: jwall@wit.ie or Mr. Mannix Carney E-mail: mcarney@wit.ie

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FlexRay system research at the WIT Automotive Control Group (consisting of car manufacturers such as Audi, BMW and Mercedes) with current and future needs in mind.

l-r (Mr. Rob Shaw, Mr. Richard Murphy, Mr. Brendan Jackman, Mr. Frank Walsh) of the Automotive Control Group Automotive electronic control systems have come a long way since the first fuse was used and one of the latest trends is the implementation of x-bywire applications. These systems replace mechanical systems such as steering columns and brakes with electronic controls. Networks have been introduced in cars as the number of functions controlled by electronic devices has increased (e.g. electric windows, traction control, and air conditioning).

If each function was to be physically hardwired around the car, having its own section of wire, this would rapidly increase the weight and build cost of

each vehicle. By using networks, many functions can use the same section of wire, thereby reducing overall cost and increasing fuel efficiency. With many different functions sending and receiving data on the same wire, a software protocol is needed to differentiate between the different signals and messages. Bosch developed the CAN (Controller Area Network) protocol which is widely used within the automotive industry to fulfil this need.

With the continued development of modern vehicles and increased emphasis on safety, it is clear that CAN will not be able to meet all future requirements. This is why a new protocol called FlexRay was developed by the FlexRay consortium

The Automotive Control Group at WIT is currently involved in two projects that explore the potential of the FlexRay system. The first project concerns the development of a framework designed to convert a CAN-based system to a FlexRay-based system, highlighting any financial benefits gained from using the new protocol. This research is being carried out by Mr. Richard Murphy in conjunction with Sumitomo Electrical Wiring Systems Europe, a major manufacturer of wiring harnesses for the automotive industry. Richard has recently returned to WIT after spending three months with Sumitomo in Swansea. The second research project involves simulating a FlexRay-based system to improve reliability and performance. This research is being carried out by Mr. Robert Shaw who has obtained Strand 1 funding to complete the project.

For more information contact: Mr. Richard Murphy E-mail: rmmurphy@wit.ie Mr. Frank Walsh E-mail: fwwalsh@wit.ie or Mr. Brendan Jackman E-mail: bjackman@wit.ie

‘Tap and go’ technology now at WIT Payment technology has evolved from cash to cashless payment by first using a magnetic stripe on a card, and then a computer chip embedded in the card.

Contactless payment is one of the latest generation of technologies to emerge and comes in various forms, most notably as a contactless smart card. This “smart” or “proximity” card is essentially a radio-frequency (RFID) enabled card and is soon to be implemented across the WIT campus. ‘Tap and go’ is a contactless payment technology that allows users to pay for low-value goods by simply touching their cards against an electronic reader. Such transactions have the advantage of being faster and more convenient and are credited with reduced maintenance costs.

Research and development conducted at Waterford Institute of Technology’s CTRC (Card Technology Research Centre) has led to the development of a vending reader system that can be retrofitted on vending machines in two possible formats: ‘value on card’ and ‘value on server’. This research project is now in the trial phase and involves two vending machines that are currently operational in WIT. The production phase comes next, with a planned deployment throughout the campus.

The ‘value on server’ format is more suitable for campus cards: in this case, the vending machines are networked via ethernet and share the campus network, and the value or user account resides in the server database. The current deployment uses this format. The ‘value on card’ format

is usually suitable for standalone vending machines, whereby the user account is stored on the card itself. The reader system developed in the CTRC, which accepts radio-frequency enabled WIT cards and retrofits easily into most vending machines, is based on an embedded ARM9 processor running the Linux operating system. It communicates with a user interface consisting of a card reader and an LCD display. The reader system also interacts with the VMC (Vending Machine Controller) via an MDB/ICP standard protocol. A TCP/IP stack with SSL (Secure Layer Socket) allows a secure ethernet connection to the server to retrieve account balances. The user interface is housed inside a front panel and provides messages to the user such as card balance, item cost/amount debited and new balance.

The WIT card is shown in close proximity to the ‘tap and go’ vending reader developed in the CTRC Potential markets for this technology are significant, particularly in a campus environment. The standalone operation (‘value on card’) will also become increasingly relevant as more and more dispensed goods become automated for consumer convenience.

This research project, developed in the CTRC was funded by OneCard Solutions and conducted by Project Leader Mr. Mohamed Medjaou (School of Engineering), and Mr. Pat Cluney (Campus Services).

For more information contact: Mr. Mohamed Medjaou E-mail: : mmedjaou@wit.ie

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Pursuing social justice at WIT launched two nationally commissioned reports. The first of these, Listening to children: Children’s stories of domestic violence by Máire O’Reilly and Fergus Hogan, was commissioned by the Office of the Minister for Children and was the first research of its kind in Ireland.

Children, some as young as five, were placed at the core of the research, and asked about their experiences of living with domestic violence and of the support services available to them.

Ms. Maire O’Reilly and Mr. Fergus Hogan at the launch of ‘Listening to children: Children’s stories of domestic violence’ The Centre for Social and Family Research was launched in 2003 with an inaugural lecture by Thomas Moore, the world renowned author of Care of the Soul. According to Fergus Hogan, one of the founding members of the Centre, Thomas Moore’s sensitivity to understanding ourselves in the world has remained a strong influence in the work of the Centre: “The Centre brought together the teaching and research strengths of staff members in Social and Legal Studies at the Department of Applied Arts, with a vision and purpose as a practice-minded research group committed to the pursuit of social care and social justice.”

The first phase of developing a multidisciplinary research team involved establishing three key aims: to increase postgraduate student numbers, to develop strong research links with key Government Departments through commissioned research projects and to develop international research collaborations that would develop thematic clusters within the Centre.

Kealy, Jane McGrath and Claire Nolan graduated with a Masters of Arts for their research on Strand 1-funded projects. Claire Kealy's research, Racism in Contemporary Ireland, Jane McGrath's study, Fathering from Prison and Claire Nolan's project, Children’s experiences of shared parenting arrangements in post nuclear Irish families all investigated social issues vital to the understanding of individual and family experiences in a modern Ireland.

Since then the Centre has won national and international recognition for its contribution to social science research.

Mr. Jonathan Culleton, co-ordinator of postgraduate students at the Centre believes that its strength is the way that colleagues work together to compete for postgraduate scholarships and research commissions: “During the first four years as a research team we won ten postgraduate research scholarships, mainly through the Strand 1 process.

These awards have been very significant in our development. Working on the proposals allows us to share our various strengths and helps to strengthen our research capacity. In addition, our success in awards such as these draws high quality students to WIT to study social science at postgraduate level.”

A further development that has emerged through this interdisciplinary collaboration is the housing of five distinct research clusters by the Centre.

Máire O’Reilly who jointly coordinates the Centre with Fergus Hogan, explains how this development, while seemingly a natural progression, was also strategically led: “As the Centre grew and attracted more staff wanting to develop their research skills and make a contribution to the research, we have strategically channelled our energies and capacity. The Centre has established five clusters Men’s Lives and Masculinities; Child Centred Research; Race, Ethnicity and Migration; Criminal Justice and Family Law, and Theology and Religious Studies.”

Last autumn, three of the Centre's postgraduate research scholars - Claire

Last semester was a particularly productive one for the Centre, which

Launching the report, Mr. Brendan Smith TD, Minister for Children highlighted the Centre’s ethical methods of interviewing children about very difficult aspects of their childhoods: “In presenting the children’s voices so respectfully, yet clearly in this study, the researchers have shown us that it is possible to include children and their points of view and experiences in the development of policy.

My challenge now is to ensure that the findings of this research are used to inform future developments in this area.”

The second report - Men, Sex and Crisis Pregnancy by Mr. Fergus Hogan and Dr. Harry Ferguson, Professor of Social Work Research at the University of West of England, Bristol - was commissioned by the Crisis Pregnancy Agency and is a qualitative study of men’s experiences and roles in unplanned and crisis pregnancies. This report continues the Centre’s research focus on men’s lives and masculinities, established through its 2004 study. This was also written by Mr. Fergus Hogan and Dr. Harry Ferguson and was commissioned by the Family Support Agency at the Department of Social and Family Affairs.

For more information contact: Mr. Fergus Hogan E-mail:fhogan@wit.ie

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Working for mental health – disability policy in the workplace An ongoing study by the Department of Nursing in Waterford Institute of Technology aims to investigate employers’ views on disability policy and the employment of people with enduring mental health problems. Over the past ten years there has been increased clinical and policy interest in the correlation between employment and mental health, both in terms of the well-being of populations in general and of people with psychological and psychiatric problems in particular. Specific attention has been drawn to the relationship of unemployment to the social exclusion of people with mental health problems.

The European Commission recently issued a Green Paper on Mental Health, indicating that people with mental health problems have the highest rates of unemployment amongst all people with disabilities and calling for more research to be carried out in this area. Preliminary findings of the study identified depression as the most common mental health problem encountered in workplaces in the South East. The larger companies surveyed were more likely to employ someone who had a mental health problem and were also more likely to offer support services. Twenty-two percent of employers reported that although they were aware that some of their employees experience mental health problems, they were unaware of the types of problems encountered.

In recent years there have been a number of developments in Ireland that highlight the importance of mental health policies. These developments include the reform of mental

health legislation with the launch of the Mental Health Act in 2001, the establishment of a Mental Health Commission in 2002 and the publication of a new policy document on the future shape of mental health services – A Vision for Change - in 2006. There is currently a paucity of literature in Ireland on employment and mental health, particularly in relation to employers’ views of mental health in their workplaces. The only major study recently conducted in Ireland on mental health and social exclusion looks at the attitudes of both employers and employees to mental health issues, and at the experiences of employers in responding to the mental health needs of their workforce (NESF, 2007). However, there is currently no strategic policy plan in place in Ireland regarding mental health problems in the workplace, but only a set of recommendations for employers.

The Irish Mental Health Commission, in a discussion paper entitled “A Vision for a Recovery Model in the Irish Mental Health Services”, advocated a recovery model in which open employment is central to the rehabilitation of people with enduring mental health problems. The mental health policy document A Vision for Change proposes that Irish health services and employment agencies co-ordinate their efforts in relation to employing people with mental health problems. The lack of a specific mental health policy regarding employment means that there is no coherent national strategy to support people with mental health problems that wish to seek or retain work. As such, the emphasis for developing supportive employment environments necessarily rests on employers. It is anticipated that this research study will contribute to the development of a policy on employment and mental health in Ireland.

For more information contact: Dr. John Wells E-mail:jwells@wit.ie

Strategic relationship formed between AOL and WIT

l-r: Ms. Heather Roche, Director of Performance and Customer Experience, AOL Broadband, Dr. Thomas O'Toole, Head of WIT School of Business, Prof. Kieran R. Byrne, Director of WIT, Mr. Alain Meric, Executive Director Member Services, AOL Broadband, Ms. Linda Ferguson, Director of HR & Communications, AOL Broadband, Mr. Brian Barry, Director of Finance, AOL Broadband, Mr. Paul Barry, Head of School of Science.

AOL and WIT have recently initiated two new projects which further solidify their ongoing strategic relationship - a Higher Diploma in Business in Management and a Scholarship Scheme. AOL Waterford manages the customer support function for AOL’s UK customer base of 2.3 million. Established in 1998, AOL Waterford now employs in excess of 700 staff. The Higher Diploma in Business in Management is run as an executive programme over two years and is designed to enable some of the next generation management team to emerge from within AOL.

Some of the participants of the diploma, now in their second year, have already been promoted within AOL. The programme aims to develop future management potential and is designed to capitalise on the internal human resource competencies of the firm. It is run by the Department of Graduate Business, which runs all of the executive programmes and taught postgraduate programmes for the School of Business at WIT. The Course Leader is Mr. Ray Ryan, Lecturer in Management Accountancy.

The Higher Diploma was developed in response to a needs assessment conducted

by the company. It identified what was needed from future managers and where the skills gaps were. AOL and WIT designed the management diploma bearing these criteria in mind. This ensured that the programme would provide postgraduates with the necessary competencies for management in the future. The programme was developed in a co-partnering way, pooling the resources and knowledge of both organisations at all stages in programme design and validation, including reflection on how best to assess practising managers. Many of the students will progress from this management development programme to one of the School’s postgraduate leadership programmes. FÁS has provided substantial funding towards the fees of eligible participants.

AOL has also announced a scholarship scheme for first year WIT students in business and computing valued at €20,000 per annum. Ten high performing Leaving Certificate students from across the region will benefit from this scheme each year.

The company is seeking high performing managers and computer scientists of the next generation while supporting its current employees with learning portfolios that will enable them to maximise their potential.

For more information contact: Dr. Thomas O’Toole E-mail: totoole@wit.ie

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Building knowledge in the construction industry – WIT and Sisk collaborate

Pictured at the focus group which was recently facilitated by WIT are (from l-r): Mr. Dan Brosnan (Sisk), Mr. Brian Graham (WIT), Mr. Declan Gahan (Sisk), Mr. Dave Cotter (Sisk), Mr. Joe O’Sullivan (Sisk), Mr. Tom Wall (Sisk) and Mr. Mannix Carney (WIT).

As part of a wider study that aims to develop an integrated model of Knowledge Management (KM) for leading Irish construction organisations, an opportunity for collaboration has emerged between WIT and Sisk. Accounting for almost a quarter of economic activity in 2006, the construction industry has been a key driver of the phenomenal growth experienced in Ireland over the past decade.

During this period many of the leading Irish construction companies have experienced rapid expansion and have moved away from being ‘building companies’ towards employing core professional and management staff to lead teams of outsourced contractors.

The industry is now facing a number of challenges: the introduction of fixed price government contracts, increased competition from foreign-based firms, over reliance on the housing market and a predicted slowdown in construction output in the coming years. Coupled with this is an increase in the use of complex, knowledge-intensive procurement routes, where the experience of a contractor can prove vital in securing contracts. It is recognised that construction organisations now need a more structured, coherent approach to Knowledge Management (KM).

The government-led Forum for the Construction Industry view KM as strategically important for the future of the industry, while both Engineers Ireland and the Construction Information Technology Alliance (CITA) view it as central to their activities. Mr. Declan Gahan, an experienced project manager with Sisk, decided to explore the application of KM practices within Sisk for his dissertation for WIT’s part-time blended-learning MSc in Construction Project Management (MScCPM) programme. Mr. Brian Graham and Dr. Ken Thomas in the Department of Construction & Civil Engineering at WIT are currently exploring the

implementation of Knowledge Management practices and technologies in the leading Irish construction companies. Part of this research involves collaboration with Ireland’s leading construction company, Sisk, whose turnover is in excess of €1.2 billion.

In recent years, key growth areas for Sisk have been the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical devices sectors, leading to the establishment of a dedicated Pharma division. Much of the company’s work in this area involves the construction of highly complex cleanroom facilities which are generally delivered through the management contracting route. Due to the need to manage knowledge in a more formal manner within Sisk’s Pharma division, an action research approach was chosen.

Action research is based on a collaborative, cyclical process between researcher and practitioner, with the aim of solving real problems and generating new knowledge.

Forming the basis of Mr. Declan Gahan’s MSc dissertation, the first phase of the research has recently been completed.

This involved interviewing key staff within the Pharma division to identify recurring problems in the construction of

cleanroom projects. Subsequently, a focus group was facilitated in WIT, whereby members of the Pharma division management team shared knowledge and experiences gained on various cleanroom projects. The focus group was captured on video and analysed to extract the relevant knowledge. Early feedback from the participants suggests that such a structured forum would be beneficial to the work of the division on a biannual basis, and a number of recommendations have also been presented to Sisk’s Board of Directors for the implementation of KM. Sisk is currently in the process of implementing an intranet and it is anticipated that this will act as a focal point for sharing knowledge between project teams within the Pharma division and the wider organisation. The next cycle of the research will involve a review of a recently completed cleanroom project and an examination of how best to document and structure the captured knowledge.

There is no single KM solution. Rather, it is concerned with the creation and subsequent management of an environment which encourages knowledge to be created, shared, learned, enhanced, organised and utilised for the benefit of the organisation and its customers. Two of the main disciplines to have embraced KM are information systems and human resource management, an integration of these having the greatest potential for advances in the field. Despite significant research on KM in construction in recent years, it is considered to be a recent and evolving practice for construction organisations. The project-based, temporal nature of the industry has hindered the development of effective KM solutions for large, geographically dispersed construction organisations.

For more information contact: Mr. Brian Graham Email: bgraham@wit.ie

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WIT PhD Graduates 2007 Vanessa Murphy PhD scholarship to complete her PhD. The thesis focused on identifying the mechanisms responsible for heavy metal binding to a number of locally derived seaweeds.

Dr. Vanessa Murphy was conferred with her PhD in October 2007, having completed her research under the joint supervision of Dr. Peter McLoughlin and Dr. Helen Hughes as part of the Estuarine Research Group. Dr. Murphy was awarded a prestigious IRCSET (Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology)

Reduction of heavy metal pollution in the environment is particularly important because of the threat that these materials pose to plant and animal life. Seaweeds have been shown to be extremely efficient biosorbents for the remediation of metal contaminated waters, and have the ability to bind significant quantities of metal from both dilute and concentrated solutions. Metal binding to the seaweeds was examined by various techniques including a novel Atomic Force Microscopy analysis protocol developed within the scope of this work.

Dr. Murphy’s PhD research resulted in a number of peer-reviewed publications in the journals Water Research and Chemosphere, as well as various

presentations at national and international conferences. Vanessa has also received a number of accolades including WIT’s Advanced Scholar Award from the School of Science and the Merck, Sharp & Dohme award for her final year degree results.

Dr. Murphy is currently undertaking postdoctoral research in the Department of Chemical and Life Sciences in WIT. Her new research area involves the extraction and characterisation of novel antimicrobial compounds from seaweeds.

For more information contact: Dr. Peter McLoughlin E-mail: pmcloughlin@wit.ie Dr. Helen Hughes E-mail: hhughes@wit.ie

Patrick J McCormack PhD Having retired from music teaching, and finding that he had time to devote to composition, Dr. Patrick J McCormack was accepted as an MA student at Waterford Institute of Technology. Under the supervision of Dr. Eric Sweeney, Dr. McCormack developed his interest in styles of music composition from the 1950s.

Although styles and structures of composition in music of this era are heterogeneous and as a result, often difficult to identify, there are elements of a more traditional style to be found in the eventual submission, such as binary, ternary, and composed forms.

Tempo variation, containing slow and fast exchange between sections, has also been explored in this study.

A varied repertoire of compositions was created for this PhD, and was overseen

by Dr. Sweeney. All works required full analysis of structure and style, plus introductory explanations and individual summaries. During the

annual New Music Week, some of Dr. McCormack’s compositions were performed.

For more information contact: Dr. Eric Sweeney E-mail: esweeney@wit.ie

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WIT PhD Graduates 2007 Kieran O’Mahoney PhD results of his work in interferometric measurements.

Dr. Kieran O’Mahoney received his PhD in October 2007 for research undertaken within the Optics Research Group under the supervision of the late Mr. Dónal Flavin and latterly of Dr. Claire Keary and Dr. P J Cregg of WIT in conjunction with Prof. Julian Jones of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

His PhD thesis, “Fourier transform spectroscopic demodulation of fibre Bragg grating arrays”, reported the

Specifically Dr. O’Mahoney employed a technique for delay calibration and spectroscopic measurement called the Hilbert Transform technique, pioneered

by Dónal Flavin, which offered such exceptional resolution that it was adopted as a standard by NIST in Boulder, Colorado. Dr. O’Mahoney extended this technique to fibre Bragg grating arrays. On being fed with a broadband light source, these reflect only a narrow band of light, the wavelength being dependent on strain and temperature. Using the Hilbert Transform technique, Dr. O’Mahoney was able to make high-resolution measurements of the reflected wavelength fluctuations, thus enabling temperature and strain sensing. The likely applications of this research are significant – it will allow reliable and fast monitoring of the structural health of aircraft wings, buildings and bridges.

Dr. O’Mahoney’s work was funded by Enterprise Ireland under the Proof of Concept Commercialisation Fund.

Elements of the work were carried out at Aston University in Birmingham and at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, and Dr. O’Mahoney’s work has been presented at national and international conferences.

Dr. O’Mahoney has recently returned to the Optics Research Group at WIT to undertake post-doctoral research with Dr. Sergey Sergeyev on an Enterprise Ireland funded project to develop a smart gain control system for highconcentration erbium doped fibre / waveguide optical amplifiers for telecom and distributed sensor networks.

For more information contact: Dr. Claire Keary E-mail: ckeary@wit.ie

Ray Griffin PhD Many people in government, industry and academia share a concern for the continued well-being and development of multinational subsidiaries in Ireland.

Indeed it is widely recognised, not least by the IDA, that we need to know more about how subsidiary general managers currently go about the strategic task of sustaining and growing their local operations. In addition, Ireland has an international reputation for being highly skilled at attracting and sustaining MNC subsidiary development. While the ‘attracting’ part of Irish expertise has been catalogued and replicated internationally, the ‘sustaining’ part is still not well understood.

Under the supervision of Dr. Thomas O’Toole, Head of the WIT School of Business, and assisted by Professor Julian Birkinshaw of London Business School, Dr. Griffin’s doctoral work examined an important element of that ‘sustaining’ agenda- the ability of

This research interest grew out of Dr. Griffin’s research Masters completed at UCC under James Fairhead and Professor Sebastian Green. Dr. Griffin currently lectures in Strategic Management in the Department of Management and Organisation at WIT, having started his research work while lecturing in International Business at DIT.

subsidiary managers to meaningfully strategise about their businesses. Titled, “Heterarchy and the subaltern of subsidiary strategy: Deconstructing subsidiary manager’s stories”, Dr. Griffin’s dissertation revisits the accepted wisdom that subsidiary managers operate in a heterarchy as opposed to a hierarchy.

For more information contact: Dr. Thomas O’Toole E-mail: totoole@wit.ie

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WIT PhD Graduates 2007 Karen Tambling PhD of cyano compounds. Although highly toxic, cyano compounds, both inorganic (cyanides) and organic (nitriles), occur naturally in the environment with natural sources including plants, bacteria and fungi. However, a significant amount of these compounds are of anthropogenic origin and are created by industry through the production of chemicals and synthetic fibres and the wastes of coal gasification and coking, steel, electroplating and mining industries.

Dr. Karen Tambling recently obtained her PhD, having completed her research under the supervision of Dr. Catherine O’Reilly of the Department of Chemical and Life Sciences at WIT with partfunding from Enterprise Ireland.

Dr. Tambling’s research was in the area of bioremediation and focused on the isolation of novel microorganisms with the ability to tolerate / degrade a range

Previously, research in this area has focused on the degradation of cyanide and nitriles using fungal species. The aims of this study were to isolate a novel bacterium with the ability to tolerate / degrade various cyano compounds including metal cyanide complexes which to date had not undergone extensive investigation. Dr. Tambling successfully isolated eleven novel bacterial strains on the basis of their growth in the presence of cyano compounds. These strains were then

identified by employing molecular techniques and were found to comprise of eight different genera and five different families of bacteria. The bacteria were subsequently analysed in relation to their growth characteristics, the mechanism by which they tolerated / degraded the cyano compounds, the determination of plasmid content and antibiotic and metal resistance.

This research has expanded the list of microorganisms known to be capable of degrading cyano compounds and results indicate that these strains have potential for use in the bioremediation of cyano compound bearing wastes.

During the course of her PhD studies, Dr. Tambling’s work was presented at conferences both nationally and internationally and she is currently employed as a Technical Officer in the Department of Chemical and Life Sciences at WIT. For more information contact: Dr. Catherine O’Reilly E-mail: coreilly@wit.ie

Jean Mc Ardle PhD Dr. Jean Mc Ardle received a joint honours degree in Sport Science and Irish Studies at St. Mary’s Strawberry Hill in London before completing a Master of Arts in Irish Studies and Sport Sociology at Queens University, Belfast. She has now become the first recipient of a PhD from the recently formed School of Health Sciences at WIT. Dr. McArdle is also a lecturer and assistant course leader on the WIT Recreation and Leisure degree.

Dr. McArdle’s thesis is a significant body of work that examines in particular the revised curriculum for national schools in Ireland. Entitled “All Work and No Play: The Revised Primary Physical Education Curriculum: A Sociohistorical Analysis”, the thesis documents and assesses the policy directives which led to the formation and implementation of the revised curriculum, and examines the existing national structures that govern teacher education and continuing professional development.

It also strove to provide a close examination of existing extra-curricular sporting programmes available within the primary sector. The result is a piece of work that ties together many vital threads necessary for the fundamental examination of physical education in the Irish primary school sector.

Dr McArdle’s two external examiners were Professor Sandra Stroot from Ohio

State University in the United States and Dr Deirdre Brennan from the University of Ulster at Coleraine, both of whom are highly respected and published researchers and lecturers in this field. In her report, Professor Stroot commented, “I thoroughly enjoyed reading this document and only imagine the amount of work it has taken to compile this massive amount of information. Policy is crucial in the world of education as it is necessary for accountability. I see this work as a starting point to set the context for opportunity and accountability to occur in primary physical education in Ireland”.

For more information contact: Dr. Sean Connor E-mail: sconnor@wit.ie

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Redressing regional imbalances at the RIKON research group to contribute to knowledge in both academic and practical domains as it will offer particular insight into the independent business actions and regional support measures that can promote and foster virtual network activity in the rural business environment.

Learning Networks Best Practice A project that is currently underway involves the assessment of a new learning vehicle for tourism enterprises, with an overarching objective of developing a ‘best practice’ model for the development and sustainability of a successful tourism learning network; such a model will provide Fáilte Ireland with a foundation on which to build future learning initiatives.

Despite the criticality of rural development, few business researchers have focused on the actual mechanics of rectifying regional imbalances. This motivated three researchers at WIT to form the RIKON (Rural development, Innovation, Knowledge, and Organisational Networks) research group in the Spring of 2007. Their overarching purpose is to address regional imbalances by developing an integrated model outlining how rural communities can develop economically and socially, and how they can successfully sustain their communities within a ‘knowledge’ economy. Members of the Centre for Entrepreneurship, Dr. Mary T. Holden, Dr. Felicity Kelliher, and Dr. Patrick Lynch, who each received their doctoral ‘hats’ in 2006, have identified that innovation, entrepreneurship, learning, knowledge transfer, and collaborative networks are key enabling factors in a rural community’s economic and social development.

The RIKON group has been very successful in its first few months of operation – expanding from its three core members to include six postgraduate researchers. This expansion was due to the group’s success in securing research funding from the TSR Strand I programme and Fáilte Ireland. RIKON has also attracted over €200,000 in research funding, including WIT Behest Cluster funding awarded in 2008.

The current strategic themes of the RIKON research group are: Innovation and Business Strategy Ms. Alice Denton’s research masters will make a unique contribution to a very significant gap in innovation and business strategy literature, by creating a model of strategic innovation practices that can be used by Irish firms operating within the tourism industry.

Building Customer Loyalty Ms. Martina Donnelly’s study examines the relationship between customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, value and customer experience. Despite the considerable amount of research on developing customer loyalty, researchers have had only limited success in explaining how loyalty can be built from scratch. Literature in the area suggests that a customer’s experience of the service has a major impact on customer loyalty.

Virtual Learning Ms. Josephine Matthews’ research utilises the Fáilte Ireland Tourism Learning Network, created though a collaboration between Fáilte Ireland and the School of Business, in order to evaluate the virtual learning opportunities in the small business tourism sector. This research is expected

Dynamic Management Capabilities Addressing a matter of direct and practical relevance to industrial practitioners, Ms. Sarah Nolan’s research masters explores the link between dynamic management capabilities required by SMEs to compete in a continually changing business environment and the performance implications of such management strategies. This is a salient issue, and few research projects have addressed it.

Rural Entrepreneurship Mr. David Power’s research examines how to build successful rural entrepreneurial communities; in particular, he is studying the effect of an entrepreneur’s social embeddedness within the local community and how his/her network both inhibits and enhances the entrepreneurial process.

David’s research focus has not been addressed empirically until now and so, this project will substantially contribute to knowledge and practice on rural entrepreneurship.

For more information contact: Dr. Patrick Lynch E-mail: plynch@wit.ie

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Putting theory into practice: the professional development of literacy educators Literacy) in Canada. This approach establishes the importance of enabling teachers to draw on their classroom activity to create or consolidate educational theory.

The Relationship between Theory and Practice The BA degree programme is delivered as an in-service programme, so that all of the participants are simultaneously studying while working in the field. Therefore much of the expertise acquired by the participants has been significantly gained in the workplace by observation, mentoring and networking with other, more experienced practitioners, as well as participating in training programmes.

The 1997 OECD International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) revealed that 1 in 4 Irish adults had functional literacy difficulties. This issue had, up until then, been mainly tackled by volunteers and part-time staff. A major contribution to tackling this problem has been the work of the Literacy Development Centre (LDC) in developing and delivering the first and only professional qualification for adult literacy teachers in Ireland. This qualification is recognised by the Department of Education and Science.

The two groups interviewed to date shared the perspective that the theoretical course work had made a substantial difference to how they felt about themselves as practitioners. Teachers described how much of their time is spent working at an intuitive level. They know things but are unsure how they know them. The theory provided them with a language to describe their classroom activities, giving them the ability to articulate their practice with peers and locate it in the wider educational context.

This significantly enhanced their own sense of professionalism, as well as enabling them to engage in dialogue with policy makers and providers on a more equal basis.

A second strategic response to the literacy problem in Ireland is the Centre’s research remit to evaluate, through an actionresearch project, how the theory explored in the BA in Adult Education programme is put into practice by adult literacy teachers in the classroom. Using an ethnographic approach informed by New Literacy Studies, two focus groups were interviewed. The aim was to investigate the ways that practitioners understand the relationship between the theory and practice of literacy with specific reference to their work in the adult literacy centres around the country.

Internationally, literacy practice is only now emerging as a recognised field of research with the potential to contribute to a greater understanding of human development, including the process of learning, both lifelong and lifewide. The LDC’s research to date has examined leading areas, for example literacy in the workplace, within the family and within higher education, with a view to interrogating mainstream assumptions about literacy. The research context discussed in this article draws on the work, for example, of RaPAL (Research and Practice in Adult Literacy) in the U.K. and RiPAL (Research in Practice in Adult

Ms. Margaret O’Brien The professional development of the students can be described as a movement from a trial and error modus operandi to a more reflective approach, as a result of studying on the BA in Adult Education.

Holistic approaches Public policy is underpinned by an understanding of literacy as that which enables people to participate in the workforce and increases Ireland’s economic competitiveness. The LDC takes the broader view that literacy is more than technical encoding and decoding skills. Any definition of literacy must be informed by issues of social justice, equality and democracy in everyday life. It demands a holistic view of literacy which takes into account the social, personal and cultural realities of the person with literacy difficulties.

Ms. Geraldine Mernagh

The students on these programmes are working in complex environments, often paid as unqualified teachers and usually on short-term contracts (with all the uncertainty that this implies). They have to negotiate between their own deepening understanding of literacy and the demands of their own workplace, which is often led by the economic skills model of literacy.

For example, interviewees from the focus groups spoke of the tension between their own understanding of what constitutes progress in their adult literacy students and what is viewed by management as

Teachers also acknowledged how the coursework changed the way they interpreted their practice. A number of teachers described trying out new methods of teaching on a trial and error basis.

However, the theoretical insights gained on the BA degree programme enabled them to understand their practice on a more meaningful level. It gave them greater ownership of the process and allowed them to extend their range of teaching practices in a more systematic way.

Ms. Geraldine Mernagh and Ms. Margaret O’Brien are lecturers in Literacy Studies in Ireland’s only Literacy Development Centre, in Waterford Institute of Technology. The Centre also houses the WIT/National Adult Literacy Agency (NALA) Accreditation Project. It is substantially funded by the Department of Education and Science and is managed by a partnership between WIT and NALA. The Project is unique in that it is the only literacy partnership between a third-level institution, WIT, and a state agency, NALA, in Ireland.

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Putting Theory into Practice: The Professional Development of Literacy Educators continued progress. Progress is usually understood as moving up a level in FETAC or something similarly tangible and measurable. The teachers understand that progress can often be much more subtle and subjective: perhaps greater confidence and an increase in personal agency which is gained through a broad range of learning programmes.

be useful in examining other areas of education which encourage reflective practitioners. We would like to hear from any other colleagues who are interested in how practitioners put their learning into practice and how it is complicated by the dynamics of economic, political and social forces in the workplace.

The insights provided by this research will

The next phase of this research project will

map methodologies which are particularly successful at tackling adult literacy difficulties.

For more information contact: Ms. Margaret O’Brien E-mail: maobrien@wit.ie or Ms. Geraldine Mernagh E-mail: gamernagh@eircom.net

WIT secures funding to enhance technology transfer capacity Dr. Michael Whelan has recently taken up a position as Technology Transfer Manager at WIT. Michael who spent most of his career so far in the US is originally from Co. Wicklow. He received a Bachelor in Electrical Engineering from Dublin Institute of Technology, completed a Masters in Computer Science in Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey and a PhD is Electrical Engineering in the State University of New York.

from l-r: Ms. Philomena Carton, Senior Administrator, Dr. Michael Whelan, Technology Transfer Manager, Ms. Kathryn Kiely, Industry Services Manager.

Capturing, protecting and commercialising ideas and knowhow is fundamental to ensuring Ireland’s competitive position in the global economy. The challenge of effectively transferring technologies from the bench to the corporate boardroom is one which cannot be done in isolation. It requires the collaboration and investment of many parties including researchers in our universities and institutes of technology, and industry, government and private funders.

As part of the National Development successful in its bid to Enterprise Ireland Plan (NDP) the Government has and signed a contract in October 2007 committed to strengthening the valued at €670,000. This funding will commercialisation functions within the strengthen technology transfer Higher Education Institutes. The resources and expertise available to WIT ultimate goal of this investment is to researchers and industry collaborators. upgrade the country’s performance in Welcoming the investment Kathryn the management and commercialisation Kiely, Industry Services Manager said of ideas from publicly funded and ‘this is a very significant enhancement collaborative research. To this end to WIT’s research support Enterprise Ireland has been charged infrastructure. Management of with managing a €30m investment over intellectual property and the period of the NDP to strengthen commercialisation of research is a technology transfer capacity and help complex and time consuming process.

Irish companies benefit from publicly Access to professional expertise and funded research. training in addition to enhanced collaboration with enterprise will make Emanating from the increase in research a huge difference in ensuring our investment and commercialisation research has maximum impact’. activity at WIT, the Institute was

He has extensive experience in the ICT industry having spent much of his career in R&D organisations such as Siemens and Philips Electronics. He has also worked extensively with investors in identifying and evaluating new business startups as either investment or acquisition opportunities.

Commercialising the results of a research programme led to his moving to Philips Media as Vice President and Chief Technology Officer. Most recently he has been an independent technology and management consultant with clients primarily in the Publishing and Media segment including Hearst, CNBC, and Primedia with a practice scope covering mergers and acquisitions, due diligence investigations, contract negotiations and dispute resolution, and large scale digital systems design and performance evaluation.

Philomena Carton also joined the team as Senior Administrator in the Technology Transfer Unit. Qualified with a BA in Business Information Systems, she has held a number of positions in the Institute supporting research management and administration in addition to enterprise development training and support programmes.

For more information contact: Dr. Michael Whelan E-mail: mwhelan@wit.ie Ms. Philomena Carton E-mail: pcarton@wit.ie

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“Knowing is not enough: we must apply”(Goethe) The way that an organisation manages its knowledge may be related to the way that it manages its performance. In fact, there may be an opportunity to leverage experience, mechanisms and metrics from the existing performance management system rather than starting from scratch. Knowledge Management (KM) is perceived to be less tangible and to have softer dimensions than performance management, yet its value, from potential to realisation, is ambiguous. This ambiguity led to the preparation and presentation of a paper by Zeta Dooly and colleagues from WIT at the European Conference of Knowledge Management (ECKM) in Barcelona on the 6th and 7th of September last. It seeks to bridge the gap between the harder dimensions of performance management (PM) and the softer dimensions of KM. knowledge resources can be informed by KM is an emerging discipline that is PM research and she presented detailed relevant in many domains but as yet findings from a single case study there are uncertain links between actual conducted in a multinational company KM activity and business performance. subsidiary. The study was exploratory in This pervasiveness across domains was nature and overall the investigation evident at the conference; papers sought to examine the nature of KM spanned pharmaceutical, automotive, within the service sector in Ireland by technology, mining, water service, exploring Knowledge Management construction and retail industries. The Activities (KMAs). KMAs are grouped into conference had global relevance seven categories: knowledge scanning, representatives from Brazil, Russia, identification, organisation, Australia, Canada, Lebanon, India, US and dissemination, transfer, acquisition and many European countries presented creation. Ms. Dooly proposed that KMAs papers and participants included are all activities that are implemented for academics, practitioners and policy the purpose of managing individual and makers. organisational knowledge. The paper Ms. Dooly’s paper argued that the advanced the understanding of KM, process of managing an organisation’s particularly with respect to external

accreditation as a vehicle for promoting KM. Also highlighted was the corporate impact and parent-subsidiary relationship, and the identification of drivers and complexity of KM. This research could form the basis for developing or testing PM frameworks in other settings.

By adopting an existing performance management (PMS) framework, the links between PM and KM were investigated.

Essentially the paper suggested that there is merit in mapping a KM initiative using a basic PMS framework. This can help to establish whether the degree of integration shown between the PMS elements appears robust enough to support desired KM performance outcomes in a specific context. Without the monitoring and measuring of aspects of knowledge in an organisation, opportunities may be lost, key employees may leave the company and competitiveness may be eroded.

For more information contact: Ms. Zeta Dooly E-mail: zdooly@tssg.org

Nubiq wins investment driven pitching competition in Silicon Valley

The Nubiq team meets Mr. Micheal Martin at recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

In December 2007 Irish mobile Web services company, Nubiq Ltd., received first place in a pitching competition to a panel of five local venture capital firms in Silicon Valley.

The event, organised by Enterprise Ireland, put the five participating Web2.0 companies through their paces and judged their ability to endure a “Dragon’s Den” like test.

Nubiq received the award for their two minute business pitch, which was followed by a four minute questions and answers session.

Commenting on the prize, Helene Haughney, CEO of Nubiq, said, “This is a very encouraging outcome for Nubiq.

The mobile web space is really heating up and investors are looking to capitalise on what has been dubbed ‘the next big thing’. It is great to get positive feedback from such reputable venture capitalists.”

The innovation driven group was greeted by Mr. Michael Collins, Irish Ambassador to the United States, who welcomed them to California and supported their endeavours in Silicon Valley. Also commenting on the award,

Dr. Maggie Daleo, Senior Vice President of New Media Entertainment and Telecoms at Enterprise Ireland, said, “Nubiq is a prime example of the exciting new mobile technologies coming out of Ireland. Their dynamic technology will re-define the mobile content discovery industry”.

Nubiq Ltd. is a spin-out campus company from 3CS, a research and innovation centre attached to WIT. Nubiq develops software solutions that enable communities to use mobile technology in their business and social lives. It is also an active member of the dotMobi Advisory Group, an accredited independent not-for-profit organisation forum. It has been a busy few months for this up and coming mobile web services start up company - it recently announced a partnership with O2 Ireland and launched a new version of their mobile website creation service, Zinadoo.com.

For more information contact: Ms. Hélène Haughney E-mail: hhaughney@nubiq.com Web: www.nubiq.com

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WIT research funding awards The academic year September 2007 to date has proven to be very successful for WIT in terms of research funding awards.

In the nine month period September 07 – May 08 the Institute secured more than 58 new research projects. It also signed research contracts during this time period valued in excess of €15.4m. Outlined below are brief details on just some of these awards.

Higher Education Authority (HEA) Programme for Research in Third Level Institutes (PRTLI) – Cycle 4 The TSSG was successful in winning HEA PRTLI Cycle 4 funding for a new research programme: “Serving Society: Management of Future Communications Networks and Services”. The programme includes academic partners in the University of Limerick (the Interaction Design Centre) and NUI Maynooth (the Hamilton Institute and the Department of Sociology). It also includes international partners in Fraunhofer FOKUS (Berlin, Germany), and in I2R and NTU (Singapore).

The total recurrent funding for WIT is just over €2 Million to support the programme itself, plus an additional €3.2 Million for a new building on the Institute’s Carriganore campus.

EU FP7 In the first ten months of the EU 7th Framework Programme, approximately €48.7m was awarded to Irish applicants which included higher education, industry, research organisations and public bodies. Irish Higher Education remained the primary beneficiary with 64.75% being awarded to Irish universities and institutes of technology. WIT continues to maintain its well established position in EU Framework projects and was awarded more than €2.8m under the first call.

Figure 1- Awards to Irish HEIs first ten months EU FP7

Enterprise Ireland – Applied Research Enhancement Programme The Pharmaceutical & Molecular Biotechnology Research Centre (PMBRC) at WIT was recently successful in its proposal (valued at €1.24m) which was submitted to Enterprise Ireland under the Applied Research Enhancement Programme. The programme of work which runs over a 4 year period, has the strong support of companies in the South East region such as Eirgen Pharma, Merck Sharp Dohme and Genzyme. This builds on the PMBRC’s many other funding successes this year such as €399,000 secured under the TSR Strand 3 programme and the investment of €300,000 under Enterprise Ireland’s Equipment Grant 2007.

HEA Research Facilities Enhancement Scheme 2008 WIT secured €3.235m under the HEA Research Facilities Enhancement Scheme. This investment provides funding to refurbish approximately 1000m2 of accommodation to cater for an expansion of research activities in pharmaceutical and life sciences, optics and telecommunications. In addition the funds provide for the purchase of strategic items of equipment to support research in all of these areas.

Dept of Agriculture & Food – Research Stimulus Fund Dr. Eddy Fitzgerald in the Department of Chemical & Life Science is collaborating with Teagasc on a study to investigate the productivity of white clover-based grassland under different management regimes for dairy production and to measure the impacts of these systems on nitrate losses to groundwater. WIT’s share of the total project which will run for 3.5 years is €85,000.

The Irish Sports Council Recognising the growing level of research activity in the area of health and sports science at the Institute, the Irish Sports Council has contracted researchers from WIT’s School of Health Sciences to undertake a study evaluating the impact of the Women’s Mini- Marathon on public health. The contract value of this study is €52,000.

Irish Research Council for Humanities & Social Sciences (IRCHSS) In May 2008 Mr. Patrick Delaney, postgraduate student at WIT’s School of Health Sciences was awarded one of the prestigious postgraduate research scholarships from the IRCHSS to study ICT and social networks, the new leisure phenomenon of the 21st Century.

Technological Research Sector Programme – Strand 1 – Science & Technology Seven postgraduate scholarship awards were secured under this year’s programme totaling €322,000. The range of disciplines for these scholarships includes biofuel technology, molecular ecology, vascular health, optics and wireless communications.

For more information contact: The WIT Research Support Unit E-mail: research@wit.ie

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ONE way to enhance business growth The Business Ecosystem paradigm refers to an economic community of interacting organisations and individuals i.e. the organisms of the business environment. This community cooperates in order to produce goods and services of value to their customers. By applying the concept of “ecosystem”, a greater understanding of the factors that influence the cooperation, competition and evolution of the participating organisations can be formed. Consequently, the term Digital Business Ecosystem (DBE) refers to the technology that can support businesses in the creation of new relationships that enable opportunities and growth.

In such an environment, a means for enabling the negotiation of service supply in a co-operative manner is a vital, binding element of the ecosystem. Current negotiation platforms, such as Business-toBusiness (B2B) electronic marketplaces and Internet trading platforms are centrally managed and are too expensive for small businesses to develop and maintain.

The ONE (Open Negotiation Environment) project is funded by the EU under the Sixth Framework Programme and intends to provide organisations in the service industry (especially small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs)) with user-friendly negotiation tools that endeavour to optimise their negotiation processes. The system will allow small organisations to collaborate in order to dynamically provide a package of services to meet customer needs. This will help SMEs to extend their portfolio of services, thus increasing their ability to fulfil more complex customer demands.

ONE supports the DBE vision by providing organisations with an open, non-centrally controlled negotiation environment. This enables organisations to dynamically create contract agreements for the supply of an integrated selection of services as a cooperation of organisations. The environment supports non-technical users within businesses to specify strategies and rules for negotiating terms of service delivery. The ONE solution will comprise an open source downloadable negotiation

modelling tool and a user-friendly web interface. The modelling tool will allow business users to design their own negotiation models including structured negotiations, (i.e. auctions, tenders), etc., or unstructured negotiations of the user’s own design. The user-friendly web interface will enable users to choose from existing negotiation models to configure the model to meet their needs and to run and manage their chosen online negotiation. ONE will also provide intelligent tools that have the ability to learn from previous negotiation strategies and to advise on current strategies. The ONE network of negotiators is effectively a peer-to-peer (P2P) environment, i.e. there is no hierarchy and all participants have equal capabilities.

In contrast to most commercial negotiation environments where some negotiation feature is implemented and the network of intermediaries/ suppliers is static and centrally regulated, the ONE platform aims to provide an open negotiation platform integrating small to medium sized enterprises into the business ecosystem. It distinguishes itself from the traditional online negotiation systems, such as e-Bay, by supporting all types of negotiations (eBay only supports auctions), allowing users to define their own negotiation processes and providing a decentralised environment where each user is a peer and does not rely on a centralised negotiation facilitator. The impact of such decentralisation is that users do not incur the cost of centralised operations and management. In addition, it

WIT at Chinese conferences In September 2007, Mr. Jim Clarke of TSSG represented WIT as a keynote speaker and chairperson at two recent conferences in China. The Embedded Software Quality Assurance Testing (ESQAT-CHINA) Seminar is an ECfunded project focused on capacity building for Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that develop embedded software.

The overall objective of the ESQAT-CHINA project is to forge sustainable business relationships between European and Chinese (SME) Embedded Software Developers. It also works to facilitate access for European software companies to Chinese domestic markets and to promote new business in software testing and qualification control. TSSG successfully organised keynote speakers

Mr. Clarke (WIT) with the Mr. Zhang Jianguo, Director of Division of American, Oceanian & European Affairs, China Science & Technology Exchange Centre, Ministry of Science and Technology.

for the ESQAT-CHINA Beijing seminar event from high profile organisations such as Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens and Collis.

Also in September, Jim was invited to

The ONE consortium pictured at a project meeting in Waterford, June 2007 will be available as an open-source project, thus providing SMEs with a secure, free, technological environment through which they can create strategic alliances to pursue business opportunities and growth.

The ONE project has recently completed the first year of its 30 month duration. Within this short period, the project has established the requirements of a user group of small businesses in Italy and implemented the first prototype of a set of design tools which allow the users to create, advertise and run their own negotiations. These first outputs were subject to a highly successful review by the European Commission in early November, 2007. As part of the exploitation plans of the project in the next 18 months, the prototype will be demonstrated to some of the small business communities in Ireland, and in Waterford in particular, in order to gain some valuable feedback on product relevance and possible future requirements.

For more information: Ms. Claire Fahy E-mail: cfahy@tssg.org Web: www.one-project.eu make a keynote address to the EU/China FASSBINDER conference. The FASSBINDER project is funded by the European Commission with the aim of developing strategic alliances and partnerships between European industry and software associations in the Software and Services Space in China and India.

Jim’s presentation was entitled “The Irish story: Factors that foster technological success - the importance of political influence and security”. In addition to presenting some of the most important policy decisions that have contributed to key successes in technology innovation, the keynote also focused on ICT Security.

The conference was a great success and reinforced WIT’s continuing links with Chinese third-level institutes.

For more information: Mr. Jim Clarke E-mail: jclarke@tssg.org

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Recent WIT conferences & publications CRIPREDE conference Policy makers, regional and local authorities, representatives of enterprise support agencies and academics from all over Ireland and the European Union converged on Kilkenny on the 11th and 12th October to attend the Developing Competitive Knowledge-based Regional Economies international conference.

The conference was the closing public event of the CRIPREDE (Creating an RTD Investment Policy for Emerging and Developing Economies) project. The CRIPREDE project, funded under the EU FP6 Regions of Knowledge 2 programme, was managed by the Centre for Entrepreneurship at the WIT School of Business and consisted of six partners from across the EU – Saxion Universities, The Netherlands; University of Siegen, Germany; Cumbria County Council, United Kingdom; University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom; the Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, Latvia; and the University and Research Centre Novo Mesto, Slovenia.

Over 175 delegates, national, regional and local authorities, policy makers, enterprise support agencies, academics and practitioners, representing many states and regions across the EU, attended the conference. One of the major achievements of the project was the development of a practical, usable paradigm for regional growth called the Adaptive Model for Regional Development.

This model offers concrete suggestions for future progress and for this reason, the conference received major press coverage

Left to right: Mr. Stephen Blair, Director, Southern & Eastern Regional Assembly; Dr. Tom O’Toole, Head of School of Business, WIT; Mr. Martin Cullen TD, Minister for Social & Family Affairs; Mr. Kjell-Erik Bugge, Saxion University, The Netherlands and Dr. Bill O’ Gorman, Head of Research, Centre for Entrepreneurship, School of Business, WIT.

Dr. Bill O’Gorman, Head of Research, Centre for Entrepreneurship, School of Business, WIT; Mr. John McGuinness, TD, Minister for Trade and Commerce; Professor Andreas Pinkwart, Minister of Innovation, Science, Research and Technology; Deputy Prime Minister of the German State of North-Rhine Westphalia and Professor Kieran R. Byrne, Director, WIT. both nationally and internationally.

Dr. Bill O’Gorman, the CRIPREDE project leader, commenced proceedings by calling upon Mr. John McGuinness TD, Minister for Trade and Commerce to deliver the opening address. Minister McGuinness stated that regional development was an important catalyst in furthering the development of Ireland’s economy. The Minister also linked CRIPREDE’s work to the government’s 2002 Spatial Strategy, which has as its goal the balanced development of regions throughout Ireland. In this regard he felt that the conference was being held at an important juncture in the history of the South East region. The Minister went on to inform conference delegates of the necessity and importance for the South East in pursuing the development of a knowledge-based economy, especially as much of its traditional industry base was susceptible to competition from lower cost economies.

The Minister also stated that he perceived this conference to be an extremely important catalyst in developing the growth of regional and national economies across the EU. Professor Kieran Byrne, Director of WIT, in his address to conference delegates, welcomed Professor Dr. Andreas Pinkwart, Deputy Prime Minister of North-Rhine Westphalia, and other international dignitaries to the conference. Professor Byrne stated that the development of regions is essential to the development of strong sustainable national economies. A prerequisite to this development is to understand how stakeholders within regions interact, cooperate and collaborate with each other. This, Professor Byrne said, is one of the most important outputs from the CRIPREDE project. He further stated that in order for regions to reach their fullest potential they must become unified

behind a common regional goal, and provided examples of regions around the world that have managed to achieve this goal. Professor Byrne concluded his address by reiterating the importance of the CRIPREDE project and the CRIPREDE Adaptive Model for the development of regions and in particular, in bringing the regional stakeholders together in the South East of Ireland to develop a unified vision and a set of objectives for the region, under the umbrella of the Spirit of Enterprise Forum.

Dr. Stefan Weiers, Policy Officer, Regions of Knowledge and Research Potential, and scientific officer for the CRIPREDE project within the Commission, emphasised the importance of the CRIPREDE Adaptive Model to the development of RTD investment policies and implementation strategies within regions across the EU. During his lunchtime address, Mr. Martin Cullen TD, Minister for Social & Family Affairs, spoke about the importance of developing regions and sub-regions within national economies. He stressed the fact that the success of a national economy is very much dependent upon the strengths of its regional economies. At the end of his address, Minister Cullen launched the Developing Competitive Knowledge-based Regional Economies in Europe book. This is a publication from the CRIPREDE project outlining the construction and use of the CRIPREDE Adaptive Model. This publication also provides snapshots of the successes of each of the regions comprising the CRIPREDE consortium as a result of using the Adaptive Model within their respective regions.

For more information: Dr. Bill O’Gorman E-mail: wogorman@wit.ie www.criprede.com

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Recent WIT conferences & publications International Manufacturing Conference In August 2007, the 24th International Manufacturing Conference (IMC 24) was hosted by the Department of Engineering Technology at Waterford Institute of Technology. The theme of this year’s conference was “Manufacturing – Focus On The Future” and 130 papers were presented by delegates from 13 countries over 3 days.

Originally called The Irish Manufacturing Conference, the initiative was started by a group of Irish Universities (North & South) in 1984 to provide a forum for new postgraduate researchers. The conference very quickly attracted overseas delegates and soon became the International Manufacturing Conference.

The number of participating colleges also expanded to include some of the Institutes of Technology.

The IMC aims to provide an opportunity for researchers and practitioners of manufacturing to interact via formal paper presentations and social gatherings. It especially seeks to encourage young and inexperienced authors from around the world to present their work in an open and

critical, but supportive, environment.

A number of papers at the conference envisaged two possible futures for manufacturing - the continuing shift of manufacture from the developed to developing economies and a rapid increase in world demand for products, due to the rise in wealth in the developing economies. In both cases, the focus on high-value manufacture, based on research and development, was considered very relevant in relation to the survival of manufacture in the developed world.

The first keynote speaker Dr. Sumanjit Singh, former Head of Joining Technology in R&D with Audi Germany, responsible for the first application of self-piercing rivets in the Audi A8 and now a freelance consultant, addressed the international perspective. Dr. Singh raised a number of interesting philosophical questions relating to the ethics of manufacturing, ranging over issues of environment, energy, exploitation of labour and value.

Mr. Christy Hayes, Managing Director of NN Euroball Ireland Ltd., who has vast experience as a practitioner in

engineering management in Ireland and especially in the interface between research and industry, discussed Irish industry. Specifically he proposed that links to academia would be vital to future prosperity, in Ireland in particular, and cited the link between his company and Waterford Institute of Technology as a model.

The 130 papers presented covered the expected range of topics, from process design and control, to machining and materials, to supply chain management and environmental topics. There was, however, a significant increase this year in the number of papers on micro/nano manufacture, micro fluidics and medical devices Overall the conference was considered an outstanding success, exceeding the organisers’ expectations in terms of delegate and paper numbers. IMC 23 took place at UU Jordanstown and IMC 25 will be hosted by DIT.

For more information: Mr. Joe Phelan E-mail: jphelan@wit.ie

Books WIT book lauded as ‘essential reading’ Dr. Thomas O’Toole, Head of the WIT School of Business, published the second edition of his book (coauthored with Professor Bill Donaldson) in 2007 with John Wiley & Sons, Chicester: England. Strategic Market Relationships, from strategy to implementation, addresses how organisations originate, sustain and develop relationships with customers, suppliers, competitors and other stakeholders from a strategic perspective.

The book maps business relationship choices from strategy to implementation.

Strategic Market Relationships is written for students studying relationship strategy, management or marketing on advanced undergraduate, MBA and other postgraduate courses.

Relationships between businesses have always been part of our economic landscape. Strategic alliances, joint ventures and research and development co-operation are commonplace in

industries as diverse as electronic communications and hospitality. The power and prevalence of relationships means that they are at the centre of decision making in organisations.

Deciding on the extent of cooperation is a major strategic issue. Cooperating to compete is not only a feature of decisions concerning competitor and customer interaction but also supply chain, and managed relationships with other stakeholders such as employees, financial markets, government and interest groups.

Organisations have to manage multiple and overlapping relationships. No one firm has all the knowledge and resources it needs to compete in its own control.

Companies that can combine resources across organisations and accelerate learning across organisational boundaries are likely to have a winning strategy for the future. Close strategic market relationships require a managerial approach that seeks collaboration rather than confrontation,

joint involvement rather than unilateral action and an acknowledgment of interdependence rather than independence.

For more information: Dr. Thomas O’Toole E-mail: totoole@wit.ie

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Recent WIT conferences & publications BOOKS

FINNEGAN, R.J. (2006) ‘The Library of William Ponsonby, 2nd Earl of Bessborough, 1704-93’, in Hermathena, Winter, pp 149-87

BUGGE, K.E., BLOKLAN, H., LIER, G., PECK, F., MULVEY, G., HILL, I., WELTER, F., KOLB, S. & O’GORMAN, B (2008) Adaptive Model for Creating an RTD investment policy for regions in emerging and developed economies, Oak Tree Press, Cork

GOULDING D., MELNIK S., CURTIN D., PIWONSKI T., HOULIHAN J., GLEESON J. P. & HUYET G. (2007) ‘Kramers' law for a bistable system with time delayed noise’, Physical Review E., 76 031128

FINNEGAN, R.J. (Ed.) (2007) A Tour in Ireland in 1775, by Richard Twiss, University College Dublin Press

HARRISON, M., MURPHY, R.P., MCCAFFREY, N., O'GORMAN, D., O'BRIEN, K., O'CONNOR, P.L. & MOYNA, N.M. (2007) ‘Effect of Acute Exercise on Postprandial Triglycerides and Cellular Microparticles’, Med Sci Sports Exerc, 39(5) S464-S465

O'TOOLE, T. & DONALDSON, B. (2007) Strategic market relationships: from strategy to implementation, 2nd Edition, Wiley, London, ISBN 0470028807

HEARNE, L. (2007) ‘Measuring Client Progression in Adult Guidance’, The Adult Learner: The Journal of Adult and Community Education in Ireland

RYAN, P. (2007) Paul Valéry et le dessin, Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang (Rostocker Romanistische Arbeiten, no. 11), 352 pp 57 ill

HEARNE, L. (2007) ‘Book Review: Kidd, J. (2006) Understanding Career Counselling; Theory, Research and Practice’, NCGE News, Iss.26

RYAN, P. (2007) ‘Paul Valéry Cahiers 1894 – 1914’, Vol. X, édition intégrale, établie, présentée et annotée sous la responsabilité de N. Celeyrette-Pietri et R. Pickering, Paris, Gallimard, pp 380

KELLIHER, F. (2007) ‘Small firm cooperative constructs: addressing industry power relationships’, Journal of Small Business & Enterprise Development, 14(3): pp 501-13

RYAN, P. (2007) ‘Paul Valéry Notebooks’, Volume 3, Translated by Paul Ryan, Brian Stimpson, Norma Rinsler, Frankfurt a. M. Lang, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften, 2007, pp. 621

LANIGAN, M. (2005) ‘Why Positive Access Policies in Higher Education Can Contribute to Active Citizenship’, The Adult Learner – the Journal of Adult and Community Education in Ireland 2005 – Citizenship & Participation, Aontas, Dublin

TYNAN, M., O’GORMAN, B. & FULLER-LOVE, N. (2008) Developing Enterprise Training for Women Entrepreneurs, Oak Tree Press, Cork BOOK CHAPTERS CLARKE, J. (2007) ‘Security and Dependability in the evolving service centric architectures’ in MIT Book At your service: Service Engineering in the Information Society Technologies Program, chpt 15 DOYLE, L. (2008) ‘Supply Chain Information Systems and Decision Support’, in: Adam, F. & Humphreys P. eds. Encyclopaedia of Decision Making and Decision Support Technologies, London: IDEA Group MCEVOY, E., MARSH, A., ALTRIA, K., DONEGAN, S. & POWER, J. (2008) ‘Capillary Electrophoresis for Pharmaceutical Analysis’ in Handbook of Capillary and Microchip Electrophoresis and Associated Microtechniques, Third Edition, J.P. Landers (Ed), Taylor & Francis O’GORMAN, B. & COONEY, T.M. (2007) ‘An Anthology of Enterprise Policy in Ireland’ in Irish Journal of Management, Blackhall Publishing, Dublin JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS BARRY, P. (2007) ‘On integer sequences associated to cyclic and regular graphs’, Journal of Integer Sequences, 10 Article 07.4.8 (Published electronically) BARRY, P. (2007) ‘Some observations on the Lah and Laguerre transforms of integer sequences’, J. Integer Sequences, 10 Article 07.4.6 (Published electronically) BARRY, P. (2007) ‘On a Family of Generalized Pascal Triangles defined by Exponential Riordan Arrays’, J. Integer Sequences, 10 (2007), Article 07.3.5 (Published electronically) BARRY, P. & FITZPATRICK, P. (2007) ‘On a one-parameter family of Riordan arrays and the weight distribution of MDS codes’, Journal of Integer Sequences, Article 07.9.8 (Published electronically) CREGG, P.J. & SVEDLINDH, P. (2007) ‘Comment on ‘Analytical results for a Bessel function times Legendre polynomials class integrals’’ J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 40 14029–14031, Institute of Physics (IOP)

LANIGAN, M. (2006) ‘Utilising Learning Journals in Mathematics Assessment’, Maths Stats and Operational Relations (MSOR) Connections, Vol 6 No. 4 (Available online from http://mathstore.ac.uk/newsletter/nov2006/pdf/38_learningjourn als.pdf) MCEVOY, E., DONEGAN, S., POWER, J. & ALTRIA, K. (2008) ‘The application of microemulsion liquid chromatography and microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography methods for the analysis of paracetamol and related impurities in suppositories’, Chromatographia, in press, DOI: 10.1365/s10337-008-0642-2 O'DRISCOLL, I., PIWONSKI, T., SCHLEUSSNER, C.F. , HOULIHAN, J., HUYET, G. & MANNING, R. J. , (2007) ‘Electron and hole dynamics of InAs/ GaAs quantum dot semiconductor optical amplifiers’ Applied Physics Letters, 91, 071111 MORAN, S. (2007) ‘What is science education for?’, School Science Review, 89(326) pp.97 102 MURPHY, V., HUGHES, H. & MCLOUGHLIN, P. (2007) ‘Cu(II) binding by dried biomass of red, green and brown macroalgae’, Water Research, Volume 41, Issue 4, February, pp 731-740 MURPHY, V., HUGHES, H. & MCLOUGHLIN, P. (2007) ‘Comparative study of chromium biosorption by red, green and brown seaweed biomass’, Chemosphere, Volume 70, Issue 6, pp 1128-1134 POPOV, S., RICCIARDI, S., FRIBERG, A.T. & SERGEYEV, S. (2007) ‘Mode suppression in a microcavity solid-state dye laser’, JEOS Rapid publications, 2, 07023 RICCIARDI, S., POPOV, S., FRIBERG, A.T. & SERGEYEV, S. (2007) ‘Thermally induced wavelength tunability of microcavity solid-state dye lasers’, Optics Express 15, pp 12971 RICCIARDI, S., POPOV, S., FRIBERG, A.T. & SERGEYEV, S. (2007) ‘Impact of cavity symmetry on mode suppression and increase of free spectral range in solid-state dye microlaser’, Chinese Optics Letters, 5, pp 651-653 RYAN, P. (2007) ‘Valéry: poetics and phenomenology’, Modern Language Review, Journal for the Modern Humanities Research Association, King’s College London, July, Vol. 102, No. 3, pp 688-702 SAEED, A., GUERINN, M., KHAN, I., KEANE, P., STACK, J., HAYES, P., TORMEY, P., MULHERN, M. & BEATTY, S. (2007) ‘Deferral of first review after uneventful phacoemulsification cataract surgery until 2 weeks: randomized controlled study’, J. Cataract Refract Surg. Sep, 33(9) pp 1591-6

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Recent WIT conferences & publications SERGEYEV, S., POPOV, S. & FRIBERG, A.T. (2007) ‘Polarization Dependent Gain and Gain Fluctuations in a Fiber Raman Amplifier’, J. Opt. A: Pure Appl. Opt. 9, pp 1119-1122 SERGEYEV, S. & POPOV, S. (2007) ‘Statistical model of migrationassisted upconversion in high-concentration EDFA’, JEOS - Rapid publications, 2, 07027 CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS DOOLY, Z., BYRNE, S. & MAHER, J. (2007) ‘KM and PM in a Subsidiary of a MNC’, Presented at European Conference of Knowledge Management, Barcelona, Spain DOYLE, L. (2008) ‘Big Links and Small Links in the Supply Chain and their Use of Information Technology’, Proceedings of the 9th IBIMA Conference on Information Management in the Modern Organisation, Marrakesh, Morocco FREEMAN, A. & DOYLE, L. (2007) ‘An Investigation into the Role of Information Systems Security in SMEs in the Southeast of Ireland’, Proceedings of the IADIS International Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, Lisbon, Portugal FREEMAN, A., STAPLETON, L. & BYRNE, G. (2007) ‘The Information Systems Development Process: Through an Anthropological Lens’, Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Information Systems Development - Challenges in Practice, Theory and Education, Galway, Ireland FREEMAN, A. STAPLETON, L. & BYRNE, G. (2008) ‘Systems Security Problems and Cultural Meanings in Control and Automation Systems: Empirical Evidence for Value Conflicts in Systems Engineering’, Proceedings of the 17th International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) World Congress, Seoul, Korea LANIGAN, M., (2007) ‘Where are the examinations? Using Learning Journals In Mathematics Assessment’, Case studies of Good Practices in Assessment of Student Learning in Higher Education, AISHE, Dublin MCGIBNEY, J., BALASUBRAMANIAM, S. & BOTVICH, D. (2007) ‘A combined biologically and socially inspired approach to mitigating ad hoc network threats’, 66th IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, Baltimore, 1-3 October, IEEE, pp 2010-2014 MCGIBNEY, J. & BOTVICH, D. (2007) ‘A service-centric approach to access control and monitoring based on distributed trust’, 3rd IBM CAS Software and Systems Engineering Symposium, Dublin, 24 October, CASCON (ACM Digital Library), pp 294-305 MCGIBNEY, J. & BOTVICH, D. (2007) ‘Distributed dynamic protection of services on ad hoc and p2p networks’, 7th IEEE International Workshop on IP Operations and Management, San Jose, 31 October – 2 November, Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) vol. 4786, pp 95-106 MCGIBNEY, J. & BOTVICH, D. (2007) ‘Establishing trust between mail servers to improve spam filtering’, 4th International Conference on Autonomic and Trusted Computing, Hong Kong, 11-13 July, Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) vol. 4610, pp 146-155 MURPHY, L. (2007) ‘The Relationship between Stress, Fatigue and Depression in Women Cancer Survivors’, in 8th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 79th November (Concurrent Paper Presentation) O’BYRNE, R., SERGEYEV, S., FLAVIN, D. & NIKOGOSYAN, D. (2007) ‘Strain characterization of fiber Bragg gratings inscribed by high intensity femtosecond UV pulses’, Paper ID: 01_032, Third European Workshop on Optical Fibre Sensors, Napoli, Italy, July 4-7

OSMANI, V., BALASUBRAMANIAM, S. & BOTVICH, D. (2007) ‘A Bayesian Network and Rule-base Approach Towards Activity Inference’, In Proc. of IEEE 66th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2007-Fall), doi:10.1109/VETECF.2007.67, pp. 254-258, Washington DC, USA OSMANI, V., BALASUBRAMANIAM, S. & BOTVICH, D. (2007) ‘SelfOrganising Object Networks using Context Zones for Distributed Activity Recognition’, In Proc. of Second International Conference on Body Area Networks (BodyNets'07), in cooperation with ACM SIGCHI, ISBN: 978-963-06-2193-9, id. 152, Florence, Italy OSMANI, V., BALASUBRAMANIAM, S. & BOTVICH, D. (2007) ‘Challenges for Human Activity Recognition’, 4th International Workshop on Managing Ubiquitous Communications and Services part of IM 2007, Multicon Lecture Notes, ISBN: 3-930736-07-01, pp. 201208, Munich, Germany POPOV, S., RICCIARDI, S., FRIBERG, A.T. & SERGEYEV, S. (2007) ‘Even-mode generation in microcavity dye laser’, International Conference on Coherent and Nonlinear Optics (ICONO/LAT’2007), May 28 – June 1, Minsk, Belarus) Reference No.: 809 POPOV, S., RICCIARDI, S., FRIBERG, A.T. & SERGEYEV, S. (2007) ‘Mode depletion in micro-sized solid-state dye laser’, Proceedings of The OSA Topical Conference on Nanophotonics, (NANO), June18-21, Hangzhou, China, pp. 116 POPOV, S., RICCIARDI, S., FRIBERG, A. T. & SERGEYEV, S (2007) ‘Oddmode depletion in microcavity solid-state dye laser’, International Conference on Nanoscience and Technology (ICN+T 2007), July 2 - 6, Stockholm, Sweden, NSP4-112 RICCIARDI, S., POPOV, S., FRIBERG, A.T. & SERGEYEV, S. (2007) ‘Tunable microcavity solid-state dye laser for biometrics applications’, International Conference on Coherent and Nonlinear Optics (ICONO/LAT’2007), May 28 - June 1, Minsk, Belarus, Reference No.: 811 RICCIARDI, S., POPOV, S., FRIBERG, A.T. & SERGEYEV, S. (2007) ‘Thermo-elastic tunability of microcavity solid-state dye laser’, Proceedings of The OSA Topical Conference on Nanophotonics, (NANO), June18-21, Hangzhou, China, pp 61 RICCIARDI, S., POPOV, S., FRIBERG, A.T. & SERGEYEV, S. (2007) ‘Thermoelastic wavelength tunability of microcavity solid-state dye laser’, International Conference on Nanoscience and Technology (ICN+T 2007), July 2 - 6, Stockholm, Sweden SERGEYEV, S., POPOV, S. & FRIBERG, A.T. (2007) ‘A new PMD measurement technique’, International Conference on Coherent and Nonlinear Optics (ICONO/LAT’2007), May 28 - June 1, Minsk, Belarus, Reference No.: 211 SERGEYEV, S. (2007) ‘A New Statistical Model of Upconversion in Erbium Doped Fibers’, International Conference on Coherent and Nonlinear Optics (ICONO/LAT’2007), May 28 - June 1, Minsk, Belarus, Reference No.: 216 WALSH, F., BALASUBRAMANIAM, S., BOTVICH, D., DONNELLY, W. & SERGEYEV, S. (2007) ‘Development of Molecular based Communication Protocols for Nanomachines’, Conference Nano-Net 2007, Catania, Italy

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Recent WIT conferences & publications CONFERENCES & SYMPOSIA BALASUBRAMANIAM, S., BOTVICH, D., WALSH, F., DONNELLY W. & SERGEYEV S. (2007) ‘Applying Compartmentalization techniques for Communication Protocol of BioNano/MEM Devices’ , 4th International Conference on Broadband Communications, Networks and Systems (Broadnets), Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, September BIRNEY, R., Ó HÉIGEARTAIGH, M. & BARRY, M. (2007) ‘Privacy Considerations in the Selection of Blogging Software’, Brief Paper presented at EdMedia World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, Vancouver, Canada COFFEY A.B., RYAN, D., (2007) “Effect of Gamma Sterilisation on the bulk properties of Medical Grade Polymers”, International Manufacturing Conference 24, Waterford Institute of Technology, August FOLEY, A., FRAMPTON, A., KELLIHER, F., LALLY, A. & WHELAN, S. (2007) ‘Examination of the operationalisation of the small firm learning network model in the Failte Ireland Mergo CBTLN Network’, 3rd Annual Conference on Tourism and Hospitality Research in Ireland, Dundalk Institute of Technology, June 12-13 GIBBON, C. & KELLIHER, F. (2007) ‘Removing the hero from crisis management’, Irish Academy of Management Conference proceedings, Queen’s University, Belfast, Sept 3-5 HANSEN, C. (2007) ‘Experiencing Materiality through Art and Experiment’, The Turn to Aesthetics, Hope University Liverpool (5th8th June) HANSEN, C. (2007) ‘Experimental Bronze Casting with Umha Aois’, Metalworking in Ireland, Historical Metallurgy Society Conference, Trinity College Dublin (15th-16th September) HANSEN, C. (2007) ‘Umha Aois/The Bronze Age 4,000 Years on – Experiment and Experience’, Experimental Archaeology Conference, University of Exeter (17th-18th November) HANSEN, C. (2007) ‘Phenomenology and Practical Knowledge in Contemporary Academic Contexts’, Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference 2007, University of York (14th- 16th December) HEARNE, L. (2007) ‘Measuring Client Progression in Longitudinal Tracking Systems in Adult Guidance’, IAEVG, Sept 4 - 6, Padua, Italy HEARNE, L. (2007) ‘Career Counselling Across the Lifespan’, IAC, July 11-12, UCC ION, M., TELESCA, L., MCGIBNEY, J. & BOTVICH, D. (2007) ‘An evolutionary multidimensional trust model for digital ecosystems’, 1st International Conference on Open Philosophies for Associative Autopoietic Digital Ecosystems, Rome, 26-27 November KEALY, A. & KELLIHER, F. (2007) ‘An exploratory investigation into Internet users’ perception regarding the data privacy policies of virtual companies operating in Ireland’, Accepted for inclusion in the proceeding of the European Conference on Information Management and Evaluation, Montpellier, France, Sept 20th-21st KELLIHER, F., HARRINGTON, D. & GALAVAN, R. (2007) ‘Spreading Leader Knowledge: A proposal for practitioner-academic partnership in disseminating leader knowledge’, Irish Academy of Management Conference proceedings, Queen’s University, Belfast, Sept 3-5 (Best Paper Award) LANIGAN, M., (2007) ‘Small-scale Educational Action Research Project: Assisting Adult Learners Develop Confidence In Mathematics - A Contemporary Approach To A Traditional Problem,’ ALM-14 (Adults Learning Mathematics), University of Limerick MCDONALD, D. (2007) ‘The Irish Music Manuscripts of Henry Hudson (1798-1889)’, Society for Musicology in Ireland Annual Conference, DIT, Dublin (11-13 May)

MCDONALD, D. (2007) ‘Henry Hudson (1798-1889), his Life, Music and Manuscripts’, American Conference of Irish Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston (10 November) McDonald, D. (2008) A Comparative and Contextual Study of the Irish Music Manuscripts of Henry Hudson (1798-1889), International Council for Traditional Music, DKIT, Dundalk (25 January) MCGIBNEY, J. & BOTVICH, D. (2007) ‘Collaborative strategies for reducing attacks on ad hoc network nodes’, 18th IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (CAMAD workshop), Athens, 7 September, IEEE MOLONEY, C. (2007) ‘Nature versus Nurture in Musical Creativity’, Human Persons and the God of Nature Conference, Oxford, UK MULHALL, C. (2007) ‘Semantics and the lemmatisation of idiomatic expressions: an analysis of bilingual Italian-English Dictionaries’, LangUE 2007, University of Essex, 13 July MURPHY, A. & GARAVAN, T. (2007) ‘A Conceptual Framework to Explain Adoption and Diffusion of a NHRD Standard: A Case Study of Ireland’, University Forum Human Resource Development Conference, Oxford Brooks University, 27th-29th June O’RIORDAN, C. & KELLIHER, F. (2007) ‘A study of the International management practices of an Irish SME: The case of FLI Environmental’, Irish Academy of Management Conference proceedings, Queen’s University, Belfast, Sept 3-5 WALSH, F., BALASUBRAMANIAM, S., BOTVICH, D., DONNELLY W. & SERGEYEV S. (2007) ‘Development of Molecular based Communication Protocols for Nanomachines’, 2nd International Conference on Nano-Networks (Nano-Net), Cantania, Sicily, Italy, September EXHIBITIONS BURKE, A., CUSSEN, C., HANSEN, C., et al (2007) ‘Spreagadh – An Exhibition inspired by the Umha Aois project’, Inis Oírr: Aras Éanna Arts Centre POSTERS BALASUBRAMANIAM, S., BOTVICH, D., WALSH, F., DONNELLY, W., SERGEYEV, S. & BUSH, S.F. (2007) ‘Applying Compartmentalization techniques for Communication Protocol of BioNano/MEM Devices’, IEEE Broadnets 2007, Releigh, North Caroline, Sept. 10-14, Poster GOONEY, M.A., MURPHY, L. & LANE, P. (2007) ‘Awakening Salivary Cortisol Response in Women Cancer Survivors’, in 9th World Congress of Psycho-oncology, Integrating the psychosocial to achieve quality cancer care, London 16-20th September, Poster HEARNE, L. (2007) ‘Measuring Client Progression in Longitudinal Tracking Systems: A Current Irish Research Study’, NAEGA, July 4-6, Manchester, Poster SCHADE, K. & SERGEYEV, S. (2007) ‘Extrinsic Fabry-Perot Interferometer-based Real Time Monitoring of Epoxy Curing’, Photonics Ireland 2007, Galway, Sept. 24-26, Poster SERGEYEV, S., POPOV, S. & FRIBERG, A.T. (2007) ‘A New PMD measurement technique with a fiber Raman amplifier’, Reference No: CI-6-TUE, CLE0 EUROPE, Munich, June 17-22, Poster YU, G. & BARRY, M. (2007) ‘E-Learning in Special Education: Applying the IMS Learning Design Specification’, Poster at Ed-Media 2007 World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, Vancouver, CA, June 25-29

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Staff in the Office Research and Innovation are based on the second floor of the Walton IT Building. Staff associated with ArcLabs Innovation Centre are based on the Carriganore campus. Contact details are as follows: Dr. Willie Donnelly Head of School of Research and Innovation Office: IT 2.11 Tel: +353 – 51 – 845596 or Internally: ext. 5596 Email: wdonnelly@wit.ie Ms. Kathryn Kiely Industry Services Manager Office: IT 2.08 Tel: +353 – 51 – 302034 or Internally: ext. 2034 Email: kkiely@wit.ie

Research Support Unit

Technology Transfer Unit

Ms. Susie Cullinane Projects Manager Research Support Unit Room IT.2.07 Tel: +353 - 51 - 306260 or Internally: ext. 6260 Email: scullinane@wit.ie

Dr. Michael Whelan Technology Transfer Manager Technology Transfer Unit Tel: +353 – 51 – 845592 or Internally: ext. 5592 Email: mwhelan@wit.ie

Ms. Eimear Cheasty Staff Officer Research Support Unit Room IT.2.10 Tel: +353 - 51 - 845503 or Internally: ext. 5503 Email: echeasty@wit.ie Ms. Rita Dalton Personal Assistant Research Support Unit Room IT 2.10 Tel: +353 - 51 - 845596 or Internally: ext. 5596 Email: rdalton@wit.ie Ms. Niamh Sullivan Administrative Assistant Research Support Unit Room IT 2.10 Tel: +353 - 51 - 845501 or Internally: ext. 5501 Email: nsullivan@wit.ie

Ms. Philomena Carton Senior Administrator Technology Transfer Unit Tel: +353 – 51 – 845591 or Internally: ext. 5591 Email: pcarton@wit.ie ArcLabs Innovation Centre, Carriganore Mr. Tom Corcoran Innovation Centre Manager Tel: +353 – 51 – 2975 or Internally: ext. 2975 Email: tcorcoran@wit.ie Ms. Mary Fearon Administrative Assistant Research and Innovation Centre Tel: +353 – 51 – 302900 or Internally: ext. 2900

Research Matters is published twice a year by the School of Research and Innovation in Waterford Institute of Technology.

Please address any comments or suggestions that you may have on this publication to: Kathryn Kiely, Industry Services Manager. Email: kkiely@wit.ie.

Edited by Jenny O’Connor.