National University of Ireland, Maynooth
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The dawn and twilight of Old Irish scholarship
No full textEven though the publication of Johann Kaspar Zeuss’s monu-mental Grammatica Celtica (Zeuss 1853) marks the beginning of the modern, scientific study of the Old Irish language, short excerpts of the most important textual witnesses of Old Irish, the so-called Old Irish glosses, preserved in 8th–9th-century manuscripts on the European Continent, had appeared in print since the early 18th century. This article gives an overview of these early publications from the 18thand early 19th century by Johann Georg von Eckhart, Domenico Vallarsi, Lodovico Antonio Muratori, and Vittorio Amedeo Peyron, and assesses their role as early trailblazers inthe study of Old Iris
Financial literacy practices on family farms.
No full textFinancial literacy has attracted significant interest in the past two decades with researchers predominantly
focusing on two dimensions of its conceptualisation; knowledge and application. This paper answers calls for
research on how context shapes financial literacy in Micro, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs) using a
practice framework drawn from established literacy theory. Financial literacy practices manifest in events and
are influenced and shaped by social, cultural, temporal, technological, historical and institutional circumstances.
This context-driven approach facilitates the examination of financial literacy in MSMEs where the owner-manager’s financial literacy is entwined with that of the enterprise’s practices. Using in-depth longitudinal case
studies, we show how social and financial literacy practices on family farms are intrinsically interlinked and
frame the timing of financial activities, the roles and tasks people undertake, the location where these activities
occur, and how they are articulated. Institutional power relationships manifest in the disconnect between farm
level financial literacy practices, many of which are informal and idiosyncratic, and those required by banks and
government agencies. This power divide leads to frustration and sometimes apparent indifference to conducting
more formal financial literacy practices. Temporality also emerges as a critical contextual factor. We identify the
important moments in the farming calendar when farmers are focused on the financial aspects of the farm and
propose that educational programmes aimed at improving the farmers’ financial literacy could be more effectively targeted using a social practice lens
Aspergillus fumigatus mitogen-activated protein kinase MpkA is involved in gliotoxin production and self-protection
No full textAspergillus fumigatus is a saprophytic fungus that can cause a variety of human diseases known as aspergillosis. Mycotoxin gliotoxin (GT) production is important for its virulence and must be tightly regulated to avoid excess production and toxicity to the fungus. GT self-protection by GliT oxidoreductase and GtmA methyltransferase activities is related to the subcellular localization of these enzymes and how GT can be sequestered from the cytoplasm to avoid increased cell damage. Here, we show that GliT:GFP and GtmA:GFP are localized in the cytoplasm and in vacuoles during GT production. The Mitogen-Activated Protein kinase MpkA is essential for GT production and self-protection, interacts physically with GliT and GtmA and it is necessary for their regulation and subsequent presence in the vacuoles. The sensor histidine kinase SlnASln1 is important for modulation of MpkA phosphorylation. Our work emphasizes the importance of MpkA and compartmentalization of cellular events for GT production and self-defense
Adapting (to) Non-Motherhood: Ulrike Kofer’s Film What We Wanted (2020)
No full textAustria’s entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 2020 Academy Awards was a drama by director Ulrike Kofler called Was Wir Wollten (What We Wanted, 2020). Kofler’s film tells the story of a childless couple, Alice and Niklas, who decided to take a holiday to recover from yet another failed attempt to conceive via IVF. However, their plans for a restful break are disrupted by the family next door, whose beautiful children serve as a constant reminder of what is lacking in their life. The film is based on a short story by Swiss writer Peter Stamm, and this chapter focuses on how that written text was adapted for the big screen. In particular, it considers how Alice’s ambivalent stance towards motherhood, which is already present in Stamm’s narrative, is expressed in visual and cinematic form in Kofler’s film. This chapter argues that both the film and its narrative source text offer a more nuanced view of the story of childlessness and non-motherhood than that which is often presented in the media and society
Divine Immutability and the Variability of Creation: A Thomistic Reconciliation
No full textAbstract included in Introduction
‘Bearing witness to negativity’: towards just futures of education
No full textContemporary educational discourse is filled with references to ‘the future’ and ‘the futures of education.’ In September 2024, the United Nations (UN) will host a Summit of the Future, billed as a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity to enhance cooperation on critical challenges and address gaps in global governance’ (United Nations Citation2024, n.p.). This event is happening on the heels of a number of major education-focused futures-oriented initiatives, including the UN 2022 Transforming Education Summit (United Nations Citation2023), which took place at UN Headquarters in September 2022, the publication of a landmark UNESCO report on the futures of education in 2021 (ICFE Citation2021) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) Future of Education and Skills 2030 project (OECD Citation2019). Whereas futures-thinking is not a novel feature of global educational governance, the scale and unprecedented nature of recent technological, political, and socio-ecological change has heightened the urgency for radical reimaginings of education. Numerous megatrends, crises and developments – including the evolution of artificial intelligence and digital technologies, the acceleration of the climate crisis, the growth of authoritarian populism and civil unrest, the outbreak or intensification of war in many parts of the world and the mass displacement of people – are having a profound effect on education systems at local, national and global levels
Circadian Variation in the Response to Vaccination: A Systematic Review and Evidence Appraisal
No full textMolecular timing mechanisms known as circadian clocks drive endogenous 24h rhythmicity in most physiological functions, including innate and adaptive immunity. Consequently, the response to immune challenge such as vaccination might depend on the time of day of exposure. This study assessed whether the time-of-day of vaccination (TODV) is associated with the subsequent immune and clinical response by conducting a systematic review of previous studies. The Cochrane Library, Pubmed, Google, Medline and Embase were searched for studies that reported time-of-day of vaccination and immune and clinical outcomes, yielding 3,114 studies; 23 of which met the inclusion criteria. The global SARS-CoV-2 vaccination programme facilitated investigation of TODV and almost half of the studies included reported data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic. There was considerable heterogeneity in the demography of participants and type of vaccine and most studies were biased by failure to account for immune status prior to vaccination, self-selection of vaccination time, or confounding factors such as sleep, chronotype and shiftwork. The optimum TODV was concluded to be afternoon (five studies), morning (five studies), morning and afternoon (1 study), midday (1 study) and morning or late afternoon (1 study) with the remining 10 studies reporting no effect. Further research is required to understand the relationship between TODV and subsequent immune outcome, and whether any clinical benefit outweighs the potential effect of this intervention on vaccine uptake
Social consequences of planned relocation in response to sea level rise: impacts on anxiety, well-being, and perceived safety
No full textGovernments globally are adapting to sea level rise through a range of interventions to improve everyday lives of communities at risk. One prominent response is planned relocation, where people and communities are enabled to move from localities exposed to coastal erosion and inundation as a result of sea level rise. Managed retreat has significant social consequences including under-reported impacts on health, well-being and social identity. Here we adopt well-established measures of well-being and document the outcomes of planned relocation on well-being in the Volta Delta region of Ghana. Data from a bespoke survey for individuals (n = 505) in relocated and non-relocated communities demonstrate that planned relocation negatively impacts well-being and anxiety of those relocated when compared to a community that is equally exposed but has not moved. Individuals in the relocated community reported significantly lower levels of overall wellbeing, significantly higher levels of anxiety, and lower perceptions of safety, compared to non-relocated community members. These outcomes are explained as being related to the disruption of community connection, identities, and feelings of efficacy. Relocated community members reported significantly lower levels of attachment to the local area and home, significantly lower levels of community-based self-efficacy, and significantly lower levels of overall community-based identity. The results demonstrate that planned relocation to address sea level rise has multiple social consequences with outcomes for well-being that are not straightforwardly related to risk reduction
Vector time series modelling of turbidity in Dublin Bay
No full textTurbidity is commonly monitored as an important water quality index. Human activities, such as dredging and dumping operations,can disrupt turbidity levels and should be monitored and analysed for possible effects. In this paper, we model the variations of turbidity in Dublin Bay over space and time to investigate the effects of dumping and dredging while controlling for the effect of wind speed as a common atmospheric effect. We develop a Vector Auto-Regressive Integrated Conditional Heteroskedasticity (VARICH)approach to modelling the dynamical behaviour of turbidity over different locations and at different water depths. We use daily values of turbidity during the years 2017–2018 to fit the model. We show that the results of our fitted model are in line with the observed data and that the uncertainties, measured through Bayesian credible intervals,are well calibrated. Furthermore, we show that the daily effects of dredging and dumping on turbidity are negligible in comparison to that of wind spee
Staff Perspectives on Scaling the Impact and Influence of MU Research and Expertise on Public Policy (Working Paper March, 2024. No. 20)
No full textWhy this consultation, why now?
Governments worldwide are calling upon higher education institutions (HEIs) to demonstrate
more clearly their value to society as anchor institutions and the societal relevance and impact
of their research, scholarship, and expertise. Many are using national research funding agencies
to incentivise co-created research between academics and a wide range of beneficiaries.
The Irish Government is no exception. Irish HEIs are being asked to step up and play their role in
scoping impactful solutions to wicked and increasingly existential local, national, and global
public problems. Of course, a significant body of work has already been undertaken or is in train.
In this Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) (the Challenges, Public Service Fellowship and, Science
Policy Research programmes); the Irish Research Council (IRC) (New Foundations and COALESCE
programmes and ‘Roadmap on research for public policy’ (jointly with the Royal Irish Academic
(RIA)); and The Irish University Association (Campus Engage programme) have led the way. But
plans are afoot for the introduction of a new suite of interventions targeted at broadening and
deepening linkages between academic researchers and policy-makers - to be layered on top of
and to complement actually existing and already achieved knowledge exchange initiatives