National University of Ireland, Maynooth
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Reading the Creative Industries With Deleuze: How Creative Are the Creative Industries?
No full textThis article develops a definition of creativity that is informed by the work of Gilles Deleuze, Dan Harris, Susan Luckman, and others. We explore its application in the context of the creative industries in Australia. Through our empirical interviews conducted as part of an Australian Research Council–funded project called Vital Arts, we delve into the multifaceted nature of creativity, which we argue is not always accounted for in the bureaucratic organization, categorization, and funding of the creative industries. We outline the measurements used by key governmental, nongovernmental, and policymaking bodies in Australia to categorize and fund the creative industries. These metrics reveal blind spots in how the creative industries are institutionally organized and treated when considering the Deleuzian ontology of creativity that actually motors creative work. We argue that many creative jobs and industries exist outside traditional bureaucratic definitions and categories, and through the concepts of affect, becoming, the major and the minor, as well as fabulation, from Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy, we explore these dynamics further
Domino Dancing: Mutuality of Obligation and Determining Employment Status in Ireland
No full textIt has taken a while, but what has been described as the first ‘gig economy’ case has been decided by the Irish Supreme Court. Although the case did not involve the use of a platform to organise work, it did require the Supreme Court to rule on the question of the employment status of pizza delivery drivers, all of whom were labelled as ‘independent contractors’ in the contracts between the company and the drivers. The case was taken by Revenue, which contended that the drivers, in fact, should have been classified as employees for tax purposes. The Supreme Court took the opportunity to present a long and detailed judgment on the correct approach to determining employment status, and, in particular, on the role of ‘mutuality of obligations’ in this consideration, with an extensive review of case law from the UK. This analysis discusses the case, with a particular emphasis on the view taken by the Court on mutuality of obligations in the context of ‘casual work’
Purpose definition as a crucial step for determining the legal basis under the GDPR: implications for scientific research
No full textThe General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union, which became applicable in 2018, contains a new accountability principle. Under this principle, controllers (ie parties determining the purposes and the means of the processing of personal data) are responsible for ensuring and demonstrating the overall compliance with the GDPR. However, interpretive uncertainties of the GDPR mean that controllers must exercise considerable judgement in designing and implementing an appropriate compliance strategy, making GDPR compliance both complex and resource-intensive. In this article, we provide conceptual clarity around GDPR compliance with respect to one core aspect of the law: the determination and relevance of the purpose of personal data processing. We derive from the GDPR’s text concrete requirements for purpose specification, which we subsequently apply to the area of secondary use of personal data for scientific research. We offer guidance for correctly specifying purposes of data processing under different research scenarios. To illustrate the practical necessity of purpose specification for GDPR compliance, we then show how our proposed approach can enable controllers to meet their compliance obligations, using the example of the overarching GDPR principle of lawfulness to highlight the relevance of purpose specification for the identification of a suitable legal basis
‘Childhood here was a fleeting thing’: A study of childhood, rurality and poverty in County Donegal, 1850-1950
No full textThis thesis considers what life was like for children growing up in the often ‘forgotten’ county
of Donegal during a century of intense demographic change from c. 1850 to 1950. Donegal
during this period showcased high fertility but low marriage rates, high death rates in some
categories, high migration and decreasing population size, all of which was typical of Ireland’s
unusual demographic profile. This thesis considers the way, if any, that this century of change
impacted or influenced the lives of children growing up in rural Ireland, through the Donegal
case study. This study is both a social history and a local history which focuses on the
experiences of children in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Ireland, which have, until recently,
been largely overlooked by historians. Donegal is situated on the north-western periphery of
Ireland, and these children essentially lived on the ‘outer edge’ of Irish life. This thesis adopts
a lifecycle approach, considering aspects of birth, life and death within childhood. The term
‘child’ has been understood historically, culturally and theoretically in different ways in the
modern age, but in this thesis childhood includes antenatal experience up to the age of sixteen.
As part of the lifecycle approach, this thesis utilises an intersectional analysis which considers
gender, religion and poverty, among other factors. The thesis begins with a discussion of
motherhood, pregnancy and birth, which are essential in any study of childhood, alongside
attitudes towards pregnancy and infancy. The next three chapters consider the daily lives of
children growing up in rural Ireland, by highlighting their experiences of education, labour and
leisure. Finally, childhood ill-health and death are analysed, bringing the childhood lifecycle to
an end. This thesis ultimately provides a rich social history of rural Irish childhoods by
highlighting both the idiosyncratic nature of childhood in County Donegal, a predominantly
rural county on the north-western seaboard of Ireland, and the experience of growing up in
rural Ireland more generally
Ireland’s gypsum and brick field: a study of the social and industrial development of a mining community, 1800-2010
No full textThe mining community, together with the gypsum and brick clay deposits, occupies a
small district in the north-east of the Republic of Ireland. The field extends for 12km
southwards from Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, to east of Kingscourt, Co. Cavan, reaching
the Kilmainhamwood area of north Meath. The manufacturing headquarters of each industry
is in the latter region, but Kingscourt is regarded as the ‘capital’.
The study investigates and relates the nexus of the community and its industries over
time; it explains the continuum of developments resulting from this relationship; and
acknowledges the local, national, and international events as they contribute to the context and
history of the industries. Herein lies the challenge of the thesis.
The significance of the study revolves on its primary achievement of providing the first
social account of the workings of these important minerals, while recognising their unique and
valuable contribution to the Irish construction industry and to export markets. The cast of
significant, entrepreneurial characters reveals the attraction of industrial enterprise - many of
whom emerge from the obscurity of the archives.
The methodology is governed by the nature of the primary sources and the trajectory
which they afford the work. Accordingly, the origins, chronology and progression of this
narrative, qualitative account, rests on the sequential grants of mineral leases and associated
literature. From 1800-1903, these leases were moulded by the Shirley family, the landlords
who owned and controlled the minerals. Their archival material was invaluable in providing a
social insight on industrial development and nineteenth century tenant society.
Following the milestone legislation of Wyndham’s land act in 1903, the leases were
mainly negotiated by mining companies with the Irish department of industry and commerce.
Launch days were major events for the thesis. They furnished the social, political, and
economic milieu, thus placing the industries in their contemporary surroundings.
Many sub-themes are also featured such as, rail transport; the role of turf; fertilizer; and
environmental concerns. They augment and embellish the central dynamic of the work. The
introduction of plasterboard manufacture in 1947 proved a revolutionary development in terms
of output, earnings and employment.
On the conclusion of the study (2010), both industries have become members of
conglomerate enterprises. The many benefits bestowed upon the community from the fountain
of employment are described. But social stability, which allows the local heritage to prosper, is
the paramount value
Investigating the Elaborated Relational Abilities Index as a Novel Measure of Cognitive Ability
No full textThe need to reconceptualise intelligence in functional terms becomes apparent when reviewing traditional intelligence theories and testing methodologies. Relational Frame Theory offers a functional understanding of the intelligence concept by proposing a definition of it in terms of a well-understood behavioural process known as derived relational responding. While a growing number of researchers from different fields are coming to similar conclusions, what is needed to complement the Relational Frame Theory account is a functionally understood assessment of derived relational responding proficiency. The current thesis represents an in-depth experimental and psychometric analysis of the most recent version of the Relational Abilities Index (RAI; Cummins et al., 2023). Firstly, it was examined in terms of its convergence with a widely-used proxy measure of intelligence, in what was an entirely exploratory analysis rather than an effort to establish convergent validity. Both the full RAI and all its subscales significantly correlated with performance on Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices. Moreover, the current thesis analysed the impact of four sociodemographic variables on RAI scores in order to quantify the assumed impact of environmental factors on relational responding proficiency. Of the variables examined, only parental education significantly predicted performance on the RAI, a finding that aligns with the literature on the importance of parental education levels on childhood cognitive functioning. Finally, the first-ever factor analysis of the RAI was conducted. The RAI’s current eight-factor model was found to be a poor fit, while better than the single-factor model. The implications of these findings for the further development of the RAI are discussed
Not a set of norms or a set of practices
No full textIn this paper, we consider the 'eliminativist' character of Hershovitz's non-positivist theory. Focusing on chapter 5 of Law Is A Moral Practice, we ask whether Hershovitz's theory takes full advantage of the explanatory advantages of viewing non-positivism in explicitly eliminativist terms
Book review: Transnational Narratives and Regulation of GMO Risks
No full textThe abstract is included in the text
A Digital Model for the Prologue Voltage Control Filter
No full textThe Prologue polyphonic synthesizer features a voltage control filter (VCF) employing an
original topology. This paper examines its circuit and extracts a flowchart, which yields a set
of analog filter equations. From these, the authors were able to develop a transfer function to
describe its ideal linear time-invariant form. Then a linear digital version of the filter to validate
the analysis was put forward. Noting that the filter operation within the synthesizer is fairly
nonlinear, modifications yielding a nonlinear model of the VCF are proposed. These were
compared with the outputs of the original analog filter, and it was found that they approximate
them consistently
Legal bases for effective secondary use of health and genetic data in the EU: time for new legislative solutions to better harmonize data for cross-border sharing?
No full textKey points
The secondary use of health and genetic data between different actors and countries can be medically and scientifically rewarding, but it requires a solid legal framework to enable responsible cross-border and cross-sector access to such data.
From an EU data protection law standpoint, such secondary use requires a legal basis under Article 6(1) and a permission under Article 9(2) of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). However, we argue that, in practice, a suitable legal basis is not always available to all stakeholders to process health and genetic data for secondary uses.
The EU has recently proposed a European Health Data Space (EHDS), which is the first common EU ‘data space’ in a specific area to emerge from the ‘European strategy for data’. Among other aims, the EHDS seeks to provide a consistent, trustworthy, and efficient system for reusing health and genetic data for research, innovation, policy-making, and regulatory activities (ie, secondary use). Yet, the EHDS does not account for the different phases in the data reuse lifecycle in a sufficiently encompassing manner, resulting in missing or insufficient GDPR legal bases for undertaking certain crucial processing operations.
As a result of the dependency on legislative acts and the varying nature of stakeholders involved, we find that there can be significant hurdles for secondary use, and some actors can even be excluded from participation entirely. Consequently, we advocate new data protection legislative solutions to harmonize data for cross-border sharing