Cybermetrics 2021 and University Rankings

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In every ranking, the first thing we need to address are the ranking criteria, i.e. publications, student numbers/member of staff, employability etc.

UL is ranked 1st in Ireland for employability of his graduates. The average in Ireland is around 65% and UL scores more than 70% according to the latest data.

Taking into account the good ratio of staff to students, around 1700 staff to 17.000 students and the relatively small classes (ratio of teaching staff to number of students per course), UL is scoring very well in many metrics.

Submission by Zero Waste Alliance Ireland on the National Air Pollution Control Programme

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Pollution, including air pollution, is one of the principal environmental risks to human health in the world. Even in relatively wealthy Europe, exposure to air pollution was responsible for an estimate of more than 410,000 early deaths in 2016 alone. Children are particularly at risk; and research undertaken last year has shown that air pollution is linked to significantly higher rates of death among people infected with Covid-19.
Our Principal Concerns and suggestions on air pollution are given here.

Mentoring and its Secrets

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What I am trying to do with students is to give them guidelines to start writing an article as soon as possible when they start their PhD. Writing a paper makes them seeing the wider picture but it also guides them better into new experiments that they need to carry out. And the second thing that I always encourage them is to take part at the end of Year 1 of their PhDs at an international conference and present as a lecture (not as a poster!) their work. This experience makes them more confident in their work and confidence is a fundamental virtue in research.

The effects of cooking salmon sous-vide on its antithrombotic properties, lipid profile and sensory characteristics

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Let me introduce this paper to you: it’s a collaboration between UL, LIT, SIT and St. Angela’s Food Technology Centre in Sligo. 

The first author of the paper is an (ex-)MSc student of mine; with Shane who is a chef, we had decided to study the sous-vide cooking methods and its impact on sensory and nutritional value of salmon.

I met Maria Dermiki when she worked for a short period in UL before moving to SIT but we kept communication alive and Maria introduced me to Shelley. With Maria and Shelley, we did this amazing work on sensory properties in Sligo’s St Angela’s Food Technology Centre.

Katie and Sushanta are our longstanding collaborators in LIT and Ronan has now finished his PhD with me and he is post-docing now at UPenn.