Smoothness and covariance structure modelling in Bayesian machine learning models

Bayesian additive regression trees (BART) is a Bayesian tree-based model which can provide high predictive accuracy in both classification and regression problems. Within the Bayesian paradigm, regularisation is achieved by defining priors which ensure that each tree contributes modestly to the overall ensemble, thereby enhancing generalisation. Consequently, BART has proven to be very useful in a wide array of applications. However, the standard BART model is limited in certain respects. This thesis introduces some novel extensions to the BART framework to address certain key shortcomings. The inherent lack of smoothness, which is intrinsic to the piecewise-constant nature of the decision trees, is the motivation behind two of our proposals. The first involves the incorporation of Gaussian processes while the second uses penalised splines in the terminal nodes. Both of these novel approaches yield demonstrable improvements from the points of view of predictive accuracy and uncertainty calibration in extensive simulations and real-world applications. Another drawback of the standard BART model is that it is designed for predicting univariate outcomes. We introduce a third extension to embed BART in the seemingly unrelated regression framework to deal with multiple outcomes and model the covariance structure arising from their joint distribution. The method is applied in a causal setting in order to determine the cost-effectiveness of a novel medical intervention. The incorporation of penalised splines is designed to introduce smoothness to BART’s predictions. Concurrently, the extension to model multivariate outcomes within a seemingly unrelated regression framework enhances BART by structuring the covariance among responses. The synthesis of Gaussian processes with BART exemplifies this dual enhancement, simultaneously facilitating smooth predictive surfaces and capturing structured dependency, although the latter is within the feature space

Composing America: Patriotism, Mythology, and Piety in the Film Scores of John Williams

John Williams has been associated with the sound of Classical Hollywood Cinema (1933–58) since his popular neoclassical scores of the 1970s seemed to revive the central European tradition represented by composers such as Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold (among others). Alongside this popular European romantic style, however, Williams’s scores often reference a diverse array of American musical idioms. When scoring American-centric narratives, or specific genres, Williams seems to rely on three distinct idioms, each with their own specific histories and associations both within and outside of their films. For westerns (The Cowboys), Coplandesque pastoralism serves to glorify landscape and maintain a myth of the West in ways reminiscent of Copland’s ballets of the 1940s. For political dramas (JFK) or war epics (The Patriot) the use of dignified brass fanfares, marches, and calls summon metatextual links to ceremony and the military to endow images with an earnestness and a patriotic air. In historical dramas (Lincoln) a hymn-inspired vocabulary generates a sense of the reverential or noble. Taken together, these idioms form a lingua franca of American-associated sounds, demonstrating how Williams cultivates the musical legacies and traditions of his homeland, while referencing European compositional practices. Three chapters investigate the histories of each of these idioms and their manifestations across a selection of Williams-scored films. By tracing the lineage of each idiom, exemplifying their associative rigidity, and revealing how Williams adapts them, this thesis not only showcases Williams’s own nationalistic mode, but additionally highlights issues arising from the pervasiveness of this style in a broader Hollywood context

Fossil fuel industry influence in higher education: A review and a research agenda

The evolution of fossil fuel industry tactics for obstructing climate action, fromoutright denial of climate change to more subtle techniques of delay, is undergrowing scrutiny. One key site of ongoing climate obstructionism identified byresearchers, journalists, and advocates is higher education. Scholars haveexhaustively documented how industry-sponsored academic research tends tobias scholarship in favor of tobacco, pharmaceutical, food, sugar, lead, andother industries, but the contemporary influence of fossil fuel interests onhigher education has received relatively little academic attention. We reportthe first literature review of academic and civil society investigations into fossil fuel industry ties to higher education in the United States, United Kingdom,Canada, and Australia. We find that universities are an established yet under-researched vehicle of climate obstruction by the fossil fuel industry, and that universities' lack of transparency about their partnerships with this industry poses a challenge to empirical research. We propose a research agenda of topi-cal and methodological directions for future analyses of the prevalence and consequences of fossil fuel industry–university partnerships, and responses to them

Estimating the proportion of modern contraceptives supplied by the public and private sectors using a Bayesian hierarchical penalized spline model

Quantifying the public/private-sector supply of contraceptive methods within countries is vital for effective and sustainable family-planning delivery. However, many low- and middle-income countries quantify contraceptive supply using out-of-date Demographic Health Surveys. As an alternative, we propose using a Bayesian, hierarchical, penalized-spline model, with survey input, to produce annual estimates and projections of contraceptive supply-share outcomes. Our approach shares information across countries, accounts for survey observational errors and produces probabilistic projections informed by past changes in supply shares, as well as correlations between supply-share changes across different contraceptive methods. Results may be used to evaluate family-planning program effectiveness and stability

Being before God: Fabro’s Thomistic approach to Kierkegaard’s Theological Anthropology

In this article, I uncover a point of contact between Cornelio Fabro’s philosophical theology and Søren Kierkegaard’s theological anthropology. I survey how Fabro’s metaphysical account of the human person as a created ‘synthesis’ between the infinite and finite, also invites a soteriological account of the call of Christian discipleship. My wider argument is that Fabro unearthed a structural feature in Kierkegaard’s theological approach to free creation from nothing, human subjectivity, suffering, and freedom that mapped on to Fabro’s philosophical theology of participation. In doing so, Fabro recovered the missing metaphysical and soteriological elements of Kierkegaard’s theological emphasis on the task and goal of selfhood beyond the atheistic existentialist stereotypes of God-denial, acosmic individualism, and self-annihilation. Often construed as polar opposites, I claim that Thomistic philosophy and Kierkegaard’s existential approach can be juxtaposed fruitfully as sharing an important point of departure with free creation from nothing. In short, Fabro’s creative link between Kierkegaard and Thomas Aquinas affords a unique theological development in post-Kantian approaches to the topic of existential freedom

Managing and responding to shifting paradigms in the health research landscape

Learnings from the Health Research Charities Ireland & Health Research Board Joint Funding Scheme

The Windsor Framework – guarantees, gaps and governance

This special issue of the Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly aims to uncover and examine the many layers of the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, as reformed by the Windsor Framework, focusing specifically on governance, fundamental rights and movement of people. It is the product of a workshop held in June 2023 at Maynooth University to mark the launch of the Maynooth Centre for European Law.1 While significant literature existed on some core aspects of the original Protocol, gaps remained and the ongoing political and legal developments necessitated a renewed analysis. This was exemplified by the Windsor Framework, which was adopted only three months before the workshop was held, and the restoration of Northern Ireland’s Executive in February 2024 while the articles herein were being finalised

Can dialogue help police officers and young Black adults understand each other? Key findings from a restorative process

Relationships between the police and minority ethnic communities are often characterised by tension, mistrust and a lack of understanding. It seems unlikely that the solutions lie in traditional approaches to police-community engagement. This article outlines the key findings from the first study to use restorative practices to facilitate dialogue between police officers and young Black adults in Europe. This occurred in a part of West Dublin, Ireland, where the police recently shot and killed a Black man. Observational and interview data suggest that the process enabled participants to speak and listen respectfully to each other and to understand how each other’s experiences shaped their perspectives on policing. These data suggest that restorative practices are a viable method for enabling dialogue that can play an educational role and provide a space safely to discuss and reflect upon views and experiences of belonging, policing and police-community relations. While there is sufficient evidence to justify seeking to scale-up dialogic processes, it remains unclear whether and how the contribution that dialogue can make at the individual and local level could translate into cultural change at the institutional level, or address underlying structural inequalities

Service user perspectives on recovery: the construction of unfulfilled promises in mental health service delivery in Ireland

Purpose The concept of personal recovery is now a key pillar of service delivery. It aims to support individuals to flourish and establish a new identity following an acute episode or diagnosis. This view of recovery is unique to each person on that journey. However, there has been a significant focus on measuring these experiences. This paper aims to explore the influence of social constructionism on the concept of recovery within an Irish context, seeking to understand the influence of language, discourse and power on service users’ experiences. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative, interpretivist methodology was adopted for this case study design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 service users. Thematic analysis was chosen as the method of analysis. Findings Personalising recovery did not always lead to the removal of biological symptoms, but with the appropriate supports, individual’s recovery journey was greatly enhanced. On the contrary, personal recovery places overwhelmingly responsibility on the individual to succeed, largely driven by neoliberal discourse. This focus on individualism and the pressure to succeed was further experienced when people sought to re-integrate into society and participate in normalised social order. Ultimately, for many service users, they viewed personal recovery as an unfulfilled promise. Research limitations/implications It is not a representative sample of service users within an Irish context. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore influence of social constructionism on the concept of personal recovery within a mental health service context