Predicting Intake of Applications for First Registration in the Property Registration Authority

The motivation for this dissertation is rooted in a real business need. The Property Registration Authority is the state organisation tasked with maintaining a register of land ownership on the island of Ireland. The PRA currently faces a series of challenges; a high level of staff retiring and the inherent loss of knowledge associated with this trend, a lack of recruitment in recent years and a large increase in lodgement of applications for first registration as a result of legislation. The organisation therefore requires a reliable system for predicting future intake. Prior to this project, there has also been a lack of understanding of the factors that influence intake, and that go much of the way to explaining the peaks and troughs in intake levels that have been seen over recent years. Therefore, this dissertation seeks to identify the factors that influence intake of applications for first registration, and to ascertain if these features may be used to build models to predict future intake. To answer these questions, an exercise in data analytics has been designed and implemented, following the industry standard CRISP-DM methodology. As part of this process, a review of contemporary literature has been carried out, on the subjects of the Irish property market, the factors that influence the level of demand for registration, and modelling approaches applied to variable selection and predictive modelling. Using the insights gleaned from this research, a varied dataset has been sourced, assembled, explored and prepared which includes property registration data, house sale data and economic indicator data. The final dataset has been used to build a series of predictive models, and after evaluation the results show the Random Forest model to be the most effective. A further finding is that the combined outcome of all of the models indicates that the number of houses sold is the single most important factor in predicating volume of applications for registration. The series of experiments conducted and the body of research analysed have presented several valuable insights into the housing market and the factors that influence it, the modelling techniques that can be applied to intake prediction and the key prediction factors that influence intake. The overall conclusion of the study is that the null hypothesis has been rejected and that intake of ‘first registration’ applications in the Property Registration Authority can be predicted through analysis of historical intake data and external factors. However, it is acknowledged that further work will be required to develop a data gathering and analysis process that can be operationalised in the PRA context

Compensating Whom For What? Reconsidering the Composition of Public Spending

This paper reports the preliminary work under way to analyse the composition of public spending in response to increased economic openness in the advanced industrial societies over recent decades. The compensation hypothesis predicts that public spending will rise in response to greater openness, especially trade competition. The globalization hypothesis predicts that public spending will be constrained by increased capital market openness. Our research design distinguishes between four aspects of public spending. First it considers spending targeted at producer as opposed to labour market interests. It further distinguishes between short-term transfer spending and longer-term investment spending, all of which have aspects of compensation spending to them. The principal focus of the research project is to analyse to what degree left-right partisanship makes a difference to spending effort, and to what degree the patterns vary between different varieties of capitalism. Drawing mainly on OECD data for the period since 1980, the modelling and analysis, using pooled time-series cross-sectional data with an error correction model, is as yet at a relatively early stage. Preliminary results suggest that neither trade nor capital market openness is associated with increase spending efforts in the manner anticipated by the compensation hypothesis. A number of lines of further inquiry are identified.

Eurig Scandrett (ed) (2020) Public Sociology as Educational Practice: Challenges, Dialogues and Counter-Publics

Public Sociology as Educational Practice frames, critically engages with and seeksto further the theory and practice of public sociology as popularised by publicsociologist, Michael Burawoy. Public sociology is about taking sociology outsidethe university, and using it to support ‘publics’ or communities to generateknowledge about society and how it can be changed. To readers of a journal aboutcommunity education this aim will likely sound familiar; the explicit and implicitlinks between arguments for public sociology and the dialogical pedagogy of PauloFreire are clear throughout the book

Do Ravens Show Consolation? Responses to Distressed Others

Background: Bystander affiliation (post-conflict affiliation from an uninvolved bystander to the conflict victim) may represent an expression of empathy in which the bystander consoles the victim to alleviate the victim’s distress (‘‘consolation’’). However, alternative hypotheses for the function of bystander affiliation also exist. Determining whether ravens spontaneously offer consolation to distressed partners may not only help us to understand how animals deal with the costs of aggressive conflict, but may also play an important role in the empathy debate. Methodology/Principal findings: This study investigates the post-conflict behavior of ravens, applying the predictive framework for the function of bystander affiliation for the first time in a non-ape species. We found weak evidence for reconciliation (post-conflict affiliation between former opponents), but strong evidence for both bystander affiliation and solicited bystander affiliation (post-conflict affiliation from the victim to a bystander). Bystanders involved in both interactions were likely to share a valuable relationship with the victim. Bystander affiliation offered to the victim was more likely to occur after intense conflicts. Renewed aggression was less likely to occur after the victim solicited affiliation from a bystander. Conclusions/Significance: Our findings suggest that in ravens, bystanders may console victims with whom they share a valuable relationship, thus alleviating the victims ’ post-conflict distress. Conversely victims may affiliate with bystanders after a conflict in order to reduce the likelihood of renewed aggression. These results stress the importance of relationshi

When and Why Do Employers (Re)Hire Employees Beyond Normal Retirement Age?

Older workers are increasingly being encouraged to work beyond normal retirement age (NRA). Given that employers generally control opportunities for employees to work beyond NRA, better understanding their motivations, attitudes, and experiences in (re)hiring employees to work beyond NRA is vital. To date, however, research investigating employment beyond NRA has primarily focused on the perspective and experiences of employees. In this study, we analyzed data from a 2017 survey of 1,214 Dutch employers to examine whether workplace social norms, employers' concerns related to workforce aging, and structural organizational characteristics were related to whether or not they employed working retirees. We found that workplace norms about working beyond NRA, concerns about career opportunities for younger workers, and structural characteristics such as organizational size, sector, and proportion of female and older workers in the organization were significantly associated with whether or not organizations employed workers beyond NRA. In the second, exploratory, phase of our analysis, we investigated attitudes and approaches toward workers beyond NRA among those who had previously employed such workers. Most employers agree that they mainly (re)hire workers with unique knowledge or experience to work beyond NRA and that employees usually take the initiative in prolonging employment. Employers' opinions on whether employees working beyond NRA should accept a pay cut or block the progress of other employees are more mixed. Insights gained from the current research can help guide future research and policy to support longer working lives, from both employee and employer perspectives, even beyond normal retirement age.</p

Studies on native and modified peroxidases

The aim of the project was to chemically modify horseradish peroxidase (HRP) in an attempt to enhance the stability of the enzyme. Initially a colorimetric microassay for horseradish peroxidase was developed. Chemical modification of the enzyme was then carried out using various homo- and hetero- bifunctional crosslinking reagents in an attempt to improve the stability and hence the shelf life and range of applications of horseradish peroxidase. Stabilized derivatives were produced using bis-imidates and N-hydroxy bis-succinimide esters. Bis-imidates are amino specific homobifunctional crosslinking reagents. Successful crosslinking was seen using dimethyl suberimidate (molecular length = l.lnm), dimethyl adipimidate (0.77nm) and to a lesser extent for dimethyl pimelimidate (0.92nm). Increased thermostability was used as an index that crosslinking had occurred. Crosslinking prevents unfolding of the protein backbone and so a crosslinked enzyme should not unfold when heated. Thermostability was assessed by incubating native or modified enzyme at 72.5°C for 60 minutes. Enzyme activity of samples withdrawn onto ice over the 60 minute incubation period was determined using standard conditions to see if thermostability had been conferred by crosslinking. Although increased thermostability was seen for bis-imidate treated samples, after 60 minutes at 72.5°C modified samples were only slightly more active than native enzyme. N-hydroxysuccinimide esters were also used to modify HRP. Very successful results were seen with these homobifunctional reagents. Increased thermostability was seen to the level that modified samples only lost a small degree of activity after 60 minutes at 72.5°C. Characterization of modified HRP was carried out to determine the effects of modification on the properties and structure of the enzyme. In all cases there was no adverse effect on catalytic activity and no physical alterations to the enzyme were evident. Thus, chemically-stabilized derivatives of HRP have been produced