National University of Ireland, Maynooth
Maynooth University ePrints and eTheses ArchiveNot a member yet
18158 research outputs found
Sort by
Foreign national prisoners, discrimination and race relations in Irish prisons
No full textRecent reports have highlighted the discriminatory treatment endured by foreign national prisoners (FNPs) in particular Irish prisons, but one key voice has been relatively absent from the discourse to date – the perspectives of the prisoners themselves. This article aims to complement these “top-down” perspectives with a comprehensive “bottom-up” analysis rooted in the experiences of 82 FNPs and explore the extent to which they were subject to racism, discrimination and differential treatment by prison staff and fellow inmates across eight Irish prisons. The article begins by outlining the methodology of the qualitative study. It then presents our findings in two parts. The first part focuses on FNPs’ personal views of their relationships with staff in Irish prisons. The second part explores the extent to which these FNPs interact with Irish prisoners and prisoners from other jurisdictions. The article reveals that forming relationships with staff and fellow inmates is challenging for certain FNPs due to racial prejudice, language barriers and segregation based on nationality
Security, Emotions and Radical Right Populism: Beyond a ‘Flaunting of the Low’?
No full textThe rise of exclusionary populism is widely regarded as one of the most significant phenomena in today’s political world. Despite this, the relationship between populism and security remains under-explored in the literature, including the affective power of populist security narratives. Against this background, this paper conducts a comparative analysis of radical right populist discourse in response to two recent shocking crimes in France and Ireland. The different expression given to security concerns in the two countries, such as a much less antagonistic ‘flaunting of the low’ in France, is suggestive of a more contingent and institutionally mediated relationship between security and populism than the existing literature would suggest
An Examination Of Nazi Propaganda Directed At Women Of The Neutral States, 1933-45
No full textThis thesis examines the gender dimensions of Nazi propaganda in six key neutral states:
Argentina, Ireland, Spain and Portugal (states that remained neutral throughout the Second
World War) and the United States and Brazil (states which abandoned their neutrality in 1941
and 1942 respectively). Women and the Third Reich has been the focus of important historical
investigations. However, these studies have predominantly adopted a national approach or have
been concerned with states that came under Nazi occupation. Nazi foreign policy and
propaganda have also been the topics of historical inquiry, but studies dedicated to examining
the gender dimensions of both are lacking. This thesis attempts to bridge these seemingly
separate historical fields of study. It aims to do so by arguing that the gender messages and
networks that emanated from the Third Reich to neutral states formed part of Nazi attempts to
use soft power projections to gain influence abroad. The extent to which women in the neutral
states served as targets of Nazi propaganda is examined along with the response Nazi efforts
received. The analysis then moves to focus on how women served as the subjects of the Nazis’
message, seeking to influence neutral opinions about the regime, its ideological and later
wartime adversaries. Finally, the thesis explores women’s involvement in the dissemination of
Nazi propaganda and, thereby, the furtherance of the regime’s foreign policy interests. The
findings in this thesis contribute to our understanding of Nazi attitudes and policies towards
women as well as Nazi soft diplomacy by showing that the Nazis’ used women to improve
their international reputation. Six politically diverse neutral states have been chosen to show
that their efforts in this regard were not confined to states within their sphere of influence or to
bilateral encounters but were also employed along multilateral lines and to states across the
political divide
Learning by Ear: Multimodal listening and the Embodiment of Irish Traditional Music and Dance
No full textIn Irish traditional music and dance, listening to other encultured performers is understood as being vital in embodying key stylistic and aesthetic traits of the tradition. In this sense, listening forms part of the broader processes of learning by ear and includes in-person experiences, listening to recorded music, and in more recent times 'cross-modal' listening on platforms such as YouTube - which also provide contextualising visual information. Perhaps because traditional music is conceptualised as being an aural art form, and because diAerent combinations of sensory information are present in each of the previously mentioned examples, 'listening' and 'watching' are often described as constituent parts of absorption, which can have the eAect of separating the senses. As recent thought on listening has shown, any real-life listening event is multimodal, where auditory, visual, haptic and other sensory input combine in informing a coherent experience. Rather than being reactive, the listeners' internal model of this experience is predicted, based on their prior experiential knowledge of the same sensory input. As such, listening experiences are not universal and are instead shaped by individual enculturation. For musicians and dancers in particular, this process of embodiment is inherently multimodal and so creates a heightened association between sound (gesture) and physical gesture. From this, it follows that even 'monomodal' sources such as audio recordings, are listened to from a multimodal perspective, one which positively correlates with the experiential knowledge of the listener
Climate Driven Trends in Historical Extreme Low Streamflows on Four Continents
No full textUnderstanding temporal trends in low streamflows is important for water management and ecosystems. This work focuses on trends in the occurrence rate of extreme low‐flow events (5‐ to 100‐yearreturn periods) for pooled groups of stations. We use data from 1,184 minimally altered catchments in Europe,North and South America, and Australia to discern historical climate‐driven trends in extreme low flows (1976–2015 and 1946–2015). The understanding of low streamflows is complicated by different hydrological regimes in cold, transitional, and warm regions. We use a novel classification to define low‐flow regimes using air temperature and monthly low‐flow frequency. Trends in the annual occurrence rate of extreme low‐flow events(proportion of pooled stations each year) were assessed for each regime. Most regimes on multiple continents did not have significant (p < 0.05) trends in the occurrence rate of extreme low streamflows from 1976 to 2015;however, occurrence rates for the cold‐season low‐flow regime in North America were found to be significantly decreasing for low return‐period events. In contrast, there were statistically significant increases for this period in warm regions of NA which were associated with the variation in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Significant decreases in extreme low‐flow occurrence rates were dominant from 1946 to 2015 in Europe and NA for both cold‐ and warm‐season low‐flow regimes; there were also some non‐significant trends. The difference in the results between the shorter (40‐year) and longer (70‐year) records and between low‐flow regimes highlights the complexities of low‐flow response to changing climatic condition
HydroPredict: Ensemble River Flow Scenarios for Climate Change Adaptation
No full textHydroPredict aims to advance understanding of how climate change will affect river flows and drought events over the coming decades. Using the latest climate models and emissions storylines, the research assessed the impacts of climate change on flow conditions and droughts across 37 river catchments. Higher greenhouse gas emissions are associated with large reductions in average summer and annual low flows. For winter, increases in average flows are projected. If ambitious greenhouse gas reductions are achieved, more moderate reductions in summer and low flows are projected by the middle and end of the century. Changes in meteorological droughts in Ireland are driven by a transition to wetter winters and drier summers, together with increased evapotranspiration losses during summer and late spring months, leading to more frequent spring and summer droughts. The magnitude of future drought changes depends on future greenhouse gas emissions, with the most substantial changes found for higher emissions. Results arising from this project highlight the importance of temperature increases and larger evapotranspiration losses to future changes in droughts. The eastern and midland regions are expected to experience the greatest increases in drought magnitude, frequency and duration
A qualitative interview study to determine barriers and facilitators of implementing automated decision support tools for genomic data access
No full textData access committees (DAC) gatekeep access to secured genomic and related health datasets yet are challenged to keep pace with the rising volume and complexity of data generation. Automated decision support (ADS) systems have been shown to support consistency, compliance, and coordination of data access review decisions. However, we lack understanding of how DAC members perceive the value add of ADS, if any, on the quality and effectiveness of their reviews. In this qualitative study, we report findings from 13 semi-structured interviews with DAC members from around the world to identify relevant barriers and facilitators to implementing ADS for genomic data access management. Participants generally supported pilot studies that test ADS performance, for example in cataloging data types, verifying user credentials and tagging datasets for use terms. Concerns related to over-automation, lack of human oversight, low prioritization, and misalignment with institutional missions tempered enthusiasm for ADS among the DAC members we engaged. Tensions for change in institutional settings within which DACs operated was a powerful motivator for why DAC members considered the implementation of ADS into their access workflows, as well as perceptions of the relative advantage of ADS over the status quo. Future research is needed to build the evidence base around the comparative effectiveness and decisional outcomes of institutions that do/not use ADS into their workflows
Social Innovation and the Financial Risk of EMNCs - The Contingent Role of Institutional Legitimacy
No full textThis paper examines the influence of social innovation on financial risk of emerging economy multinational corporations (EMNCs). Traditionally, research has focussed on Western MNCs’ and their financial performance implications. However, the growing involvement of EMNCs in social innovation—albeit in environments characterized by institutional voids—and its effects on financial risk necessitate an in-depth examination. Drawing on stakeholder theory, we explored how EMNCs balance their social innovation initiatives with financial risks. To this end, we first examine how social innovation reduces the financial risk of EMNCs. Second, we examine the association between excessive social innovation and EMNCs’ financial risk. In addition, borrowing insights from institutional theory, we assess the role played by institutional legitimacy in this process, acknowledging institutional legitimacy’s potential to mitigate the financial risks associated with social innovation in emerging economies. We test our hypotheses based on data drawn from 90 EMNCs in 14 emerging economies, applying a panel regression model with robust standard errors and a rigorous robustness propensity score matching test. Our findings show that social innovation reduces EMNC financial risk, and challenge the assertions made regarding the potential negative implications of excessive social innovation on financial risk. Our results also demonstrate the intricate moderating effects of institutional legitimacy in balancing social innovation, excessive social innovation, and EMNC financial risk. Finally, we proffer critical implications for managers and policymakers in emerging economies
Research Ethics in Researching Digital Life
No full textThis chapter examines in relation to researching digital life:
• the central principles of research ethics;
• ethics frameworks and a situational and reflexive approach to research ethics;
• researching vulnerable communities and sensitive issues, and power relations in research;
• the ethics of using ‘found data’ produced by others; and
• ethical considerations in producing data using digital media
Drought risk in Moldova under global warming and possible crop adaptation strategies
No full textThis study analyzes the relationship between drought processes and crop yields in Moldova, together with the effects of possible future climate change on crops. The severity of drought is analyzed over time in Moldova using the Standard Precipitation Index, the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index, and their relationship with crop yields. In addition, rainfall variability and its relationship with crop yields are examined using spectral analysis and squared wavelet coherence. Observed station data (1950-2020 and 1850-2020), ERA5 reanalysis data (1950-2020), and climate model simulations (period 1970-2100) are used. Crop yield data (maize, sunflower, grape), data from experimental plots (wheat), and the Enhanced Vegetation Index from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer satellites were also used. Results show that although the severity of meteorological droughts has decreased in the last 170 years, the impact of precipitation deficits on different crop yields has increased, concurrent with a sharp increase in temperature, which negatively affected crop yields. Annual crops are now more vulnerable to natural rainfall variability and, in years characterized by rainfall deficits, the possibility of reductions in crop yield increases due to sharp increases in temperature. Projections reveal a pessimistic outlook in the absence of adaptation, highlighting the urgency of developing new agricultural management strategies