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Developing artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has become a business of power. AI innovation is increasingly centralized in a few large companies – mainly, Google, Facebook, and Apple.1 Specialized data scientists - the backbone of these institutions - understand how AI functions, further creating a power dynamic between the layperson and the corporatized specialist. In the age of COVID-19, we have all become more reliant on technology companies and innovations to fulfill the needs of our new digital lives. We have little choice but to trust them in developing the AI technologies of the future. non-peer-reviewed

Student Summer Research Awards, University College Dublin, Ireland, 28 September 2021 An abundance of literature is being published reporting the negative mental health sequelae of the COVID-19 pandemic. This surge in mental health problems will likely present to primary care over the coming months. Initiatives are being proposed nationally and internationally to tackle this problem. It is of utmost importance for general practitioners to have interventions in place which can improve care of these mental illnesses. This research aims to undertake a scoping review of the literature to examine interventions which could be implemented in general practice post COVID-19 to improve care of mental health disorders arising from the pandemic.

peer-reviewed The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has engulfed the world since December 2019. Since then, many studies have focused on the impact that lifestyle and dietary intake of nutrients have on immune system and respiratory tract infections. The supplementation of several nutrients, including omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA), such as eicosapentaenoic (EPA) and docosahexaenoic (DHA) acids,has recently been proposed as a support towards optimal immune function[1]. The authors of the aforementioned article proposed a daily intake of 250 mg EPA and DHA, based on recommendations for optimal immune function, according to global, regional and national guidelines

With a mandatory mask rule now in effect in shops, shopping centres and other indoor settings, people's attention is drawn to how they will face this latest sartorial challenge. With supplies of surgical masks and N95s best left to healthcare professionals and essential workers, what other coverings are available? And with guidance on how to wear face masks to be found elsewhere, how has the fashion industry turned face masks into the latest must-wear fashion accessory?

Blog post reflecting on Ireland’s National Marine Planning Framework through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic

The 6th Workshop on Noisy User-generated Text (W-NUT 2020), Virtual Workshop,19 November 2020 In this paper, we describe our approach in the shared task: COVID-19 event extraction from Twitter. The objective of this task is to extract answers from COVID-related tweets to a set of predefined slot-filling questions. Our approach treats the event extraction task as a question answering task by leveraging the transformer-based T5 text-to-text model. According to the official evaluation scores returned, namely F1, our submitted run achieves competitive performance compared to other participating runs (Top 3). However, we argue that this evaluation may underestimate the actual performance of runs based on text-generation. Although some such runs may answer the slot questions well, they may not be an exact string match for the gold standard answers. To measure the extent of this underestimation, we adopt a simple exact-answer transformation method aiming at converting the well-answered predictions to exactly-matched predictions. The results show that after this transformation our run overall reaches the same level of performance as the best participating run and state-of-the-art F1 scores in three of five COVID-related events. Our code is publicly available to aid reproducibility

Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell's 1970’s hit "Big Yellow Taxi" had the immortal lines: "don’t it always seem to go/That you don’t know what you got/'Til its gone". With our favourite watering holes absent from our lives since mid-March - and perhaps some not reopening after a five-month hiatus until mid-August - these lyrics may resonate with many in how much we have taken our pubs for granted. When regular pub-goers do take their first tentative steps towards a socially distanced rendezvous with their local pub, it’s a reunion that may be quietly savoured by some, but one that’s postponed by others, punters and publicans alike.

#DISSCovid Virtual Conference, June 18th, 2021

The purpose of this study is to explore the feasibility of Visual Programming (VP) and Generative Design (GD) in assisting employers review open plan office layouts against Ireland’s HSE guidelines implemented in May 2020 in response to Covid-19. The pandemic has affected all areas of life with workplace standards requiring a complete overhaul. This study will attempt to ascertain compliance with natural ventilation and social distancing requirements through the completion of an experimental research study, utilising Computational Design (CD) tools. A GD study will be undertaken to provide the designer with numerous office layout design solutions to evaluate and evolve. The findings will be examined through a semi structured focus group study with industry professionals. All visual programming algorithms shall be repeatable and adaptable to be utilised on an individual project’s unique situations. The author hopes this study will show that in theory, computational compliance checking, and computational design can be a viable workflow for designers.

When Covid-19 restrictions have finally been lifted, the walk and talk meetings made increasingly popular by iconic names such as Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg could become a new feature of organisational cultures right across the nation.