Open Journal Systems Trinity College Dublin
Not a member yet
823 research outputs found
Sort by
Do Social Resources Moderate the Negative Association Between Financial Hardship and Life Satisfaction in Ireland?
Full text linkFinancial hardship represents a significant stressor that can have detrimental consequences for individual well-being. Using a large sample from the European Social Survey (n=13,597), this study aims to confirm the negative association between financial hardship and life satisfaction for Ireland, and to test whether a set of personal social resources (social meetings, personal religiosity and political trust) moderate that negative association. The results confirm that financial hardship is negatively associated with life satisfaction. Social resources are directly associated with higher levels of life satisfaction. Meeting socially with others represents the largest effect on individual well-being and is significant in moderating the harmful effects of financial hardship for some individuals. Religiosity and political trust also have significant, positive associations with life satisfaction and are found to buffer against the harmful impact of financial hardship for some individuals. This study has important implications for understanding the correlates of subjective well-being in Ireland
Editor\u27s Foreword
No full textI am pleased to say that this issue of the TSMJ is one of the most diverse issues of the TSMJ thus far, not only because of the range of article types, but from the range of contributing authors from the various health science disciplines here in Trinity. Though some might assume that we only publish articles written by medical students, the TSMJ remains an inclusive open-access student journal covering all fields related to medicine and biomedical science, and it is encouraging to see a return to such.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly made original clinical research difficult for students, we have nonetheless continued to find ways to contribute. In this issue, we featured systematic reviews looking at the role of prophylactic vaccination against shingles in autoimmune patients undergoing biologic therapy and whether antibiotics or surgery should be first-line for acute uncomplicated appendicitis. Also featured is a brilliant full-cycle clinical improvement project report on the use of the ISBAR3 handover technique in a tertiary paediatric centre, which goes to show the value that medical students can have in contributing to clinical practice outside of primary research. For those interested in public health or immunopathology, we also have two detailed reviews looking at maternal mortality in Sweden, India, and Rwanda and at the role of Th17 lineage cells in the pathogenesis of COVID-19.
I am also pleased to see the return of the interview article which has been absent from the TSMJ for some time. Interviews are great for providing a concise and often personal view of hot topics in medicine. In this issue, our staff writers spoke to Anna Rafferty from Johnson & Johnson about their undergraduate women in STEM programme and Dr Ian Fraser—consultant radiation oncologist at the Hermitage Medical Clinic—about CyberKnife, the first fully robotic radiotherapy device.
While original research and reviews nonetheless remain the focus of TSMJ, we are also proud to present perspectives written by our staff writers on recent and topical events, such as our cover piece on newly approved anti-amyloid drug aducanumab, or our other fantastic piece on emerging infectious diseases.
To end, I would like to thank the School of Medicine of Trinity College Dublin and our advisors for supporting the TSMJ and ensuring that it meets high editorial standards. Many thanks to the TCD Student Open Access Project, which has supported the online publication of the TSMJ, as well as other student open-access journals from various faculties around Trinity. I would also like to thank our sponsors from Johnson and Johnson, the Medical Protection Society, and the Trinity Association and Trust. Without their generosity, it would not be possible to print, produce, and publish, either in print or online.
Last, but not least, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation towards the whole TSMJ committee. I am incredibly grateful to have been able to work—with and for—all the talented directors, editors and reviewers who have so graciously volunteered with us this year. To our directors: your time and effort have gone towards not only producing this volume but also the myriad background tasks that keep the TSMJ running, from organising events and journal clubs to running our social media accounts and website. As one of the largest committees in recent years (with an equally large agenda), this must have been no easy feat. A special commendation should also go out to our Media Director, Rachel Chen, who was also responsible for the wonderful artwork that adorns the cover of this issue.
As for our editors and reviewers, you have been—now and always—the driving force of the TSMJ. As well as our appreciation, you have also my sincerest apologies, for the sheer size of this year’s volume should elucidate just how much has been edited, reviewed and formatted over countless drafts. Thank you for the many hours spent reading and re-reading manuscripts, figuring out how to best showcase the work of the authors.
I hope that this volume is as much a pleasure to read as it was for us to work on, and that Volume 22 stands as a testament to what can be achieved from the cumulative talent and hard work of all the brilliant medicine and health science students that we have here in Trinity. I look forward to what the next committee has to offer
Digital transformation and the challenge for Ireland’s public service media
Full text linkIrish story-telling and audiovisual content are successful and popular both at home and internationally and, at the same time, appetites for news content amongst Irish audiences are exceptionally high. However, in striving to provide audience access to impartial news and distinctive high quality content, public service media (PSM) in Ireland have been hampered, in recent years, by an ongoing crisis in funding. Financial pressures at RTÉ, in part at least, reflect a crisis of its own making triggered by disclosures in June 2023 of poor practices on reporting of payments to star talent. But, more fundamentally, the funding predicament reflects forces that have disrupted the economics of television worldwide over recent years. This article analyses the challenges faced by PSM in the digital era and how these are being addressed by policy-makers in Ireland. Drawing on the author’s experience as member of the Future of Media Commission (FOMC)—a body set up by the Government in 2020 to consider and make recommendations on the future funding and sustainability of PSM and media more widely—this article considers how digital transformation is affecting PSM in Ireland and it asks to what extent PSM still delivers benefits that are valued by society. The main options for PSM funding are considered and, in the wake of publication of the FOMC Report, reflections are offered on the process of media and cultural policy-making in Ireland
Support for film and television production in small nations: the role of Screen Ireland
Full text linkThis article examines the role and significance of national screen agencies focusing on Ireland\u27s support agency, Fís Éireann/Screen Ireland. It considers Screen Ireland\u27s contributions to enhancing the professionalisation and capacity building of the Irish production sector. The agency\u27s role in expanding screen support and developing local creative talent is highlighted, alongside its non-funding interventions that foster networks of collaboration and action between industry and policy stakeholders. It highlights the agency\u27s role in facilitating co-productions as it attempts to transform the nation from a service provider to a more strategically diverse sector. Using strategy documents and interviews, the article underscores the constant need for such agencies to define and attribute value to their work. By comparing Screen Ireland with similar bodies in other European countries, the study considers global transformations in the screen industry and how they are mediated by national publicly funded bodies
Foreign Direct Investment and the facilitation of circulation in Irish film production policy
Full text linkThis article argues that the ‘facilitation of circulation’ has come to shape Irish film industry policy, reflecting on correlations and developments across Screen Ireland and inward-investment agencies such as IDA Ireland. The financialisation of the media industries, along with structural changes in global film economies, has significant implications for workers and industrial formations on-the-ground in given places, nations, and regions. In treating film products as another commodity to be produced in a global assembly line, Screen Ireland has absorbed the industrial logics of what Kay Dickinson refers to as ‘supply chain cinema’ (2024). This article builds a political economic framework for analysing these transformations through a reflection on the Section 481 as an instantiation of their logics, brushing against the grain of mainstream media policy discourses towards a left critique of inward-investment-based screen policy
The new tax credit regime for digital games production in Ireland
Full text linkTax credit and incentive regimes for creative production are increasingly a feature of the production landscape in many jurisdictions. Historically, Ireland has provided significant opportunities for both international and national audiovisual production, including through the provision of a generous tax credit regime of up to 32% of eligible expenditure for film and TV production. However, the digital games/videogames sector has not been considered as part of the audiovisual industries but as forming part of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. Until now. The recent introduction of a digital games tax credit in Ireland has, in part at least, framed the digital games sector as part of the cultural and creative industries, given the need for European Commission approval for the tax credit as a cultural state aid under EU Treaty provisions. This article addresses the impact of the contested framing of the digital games sector as simultaneously part of the industrial and cultural industries. It does so through interrogation of framing of games as both industrial and cultural in both EU state aid and Irish taxation policy
Systematic Literature Review: Calculative Mechanism Behind Individuals’ Entry to Hybrid Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment
Full text linkBy bringing together literature on the phenomena of hybrid entrepreneurship and staged entry into self-employment, this systematic literature review contributes to entrepreneurship scholarship in multiple ways. The paper describes how individuals’ entry into business ownership evolves around salaried employees’ calculative behaviour, which guides them towards multiple-job-holding as a source for maximisation of benefits and affects their subsequent entry into self-employment. Furthermore, this review indicates that the lack of consensus regarding criteria to identify hybrid entrepreneurship affects the criteria regarding staged entry into self-employment. Consequently, this study suggests clear criteria to differentiate hybrid entrepreneurs from self-employed individuals. Importantly, this review extends the existing typology of hybrid entrepreneurs and highlights topics for the future research agenda built on greater definitional acuity. In addition, this study is relevant for practitioners interested in facilitating programmes that foster entrepreneurship attempts by a highly educated and opportunity-driven working population
Stakeholder Integration to Overcome Ecological and Economic Trade-Offs in Eco-entrepreneurship
Full text linkEco-entrepreneurship research shows that ecopreneurs have to address and overcome ecological and economic trade-offs. However, limited studies focus on how ecopreneurs integrate stakeholders to overcome such trade-offs. This study explores the question: How do ecopreneurs integrate stakeholders to overcome ecological and economic trade-offs? Stakeholder theory was used as a lens for this study, as it prioritizes individuals involved in and affected by entrepreneurial activities and ventures. A narrative qualitative research approach provided insights into the study’s research question. The study found that ecopreneurs use four mechanisms to integrate stakeholders to overcome ecological and economic trade-offs. First, ecopreneurs integrate stakeholders’ common interests. Second, ecopreneurs include stakeholders’ input in key decisions, and third, they engage stakeholders in value co-creation. Lastly, ecopreneurs adhere to the guiding institutional frameworks in their interactions with multiple stakeholders. These mechanisms are interrelated; therefore, they do not operate in isolation. This study contributes multi-stakeholder integration to eco-entrepreneurship literature and suggests practical implications for business practitioners
How do Entrepreneurs Experience Business Failure and Rebound to Venture Again? A review of literature and research agenda
Full text linkThe ever-growing literature within the field of entrepreneurial failure has helped to yield several practical contributions. Yet the literature remains fragmented and inconsistent, and hence an up-to-date review is required to identify current theoretical contributions. To address these issues, we conducted a comprehensive systematic literature review of 180 publications on entrepreneurial failure and rebound literature. Three analytical themes were identified: antecedents, experiences, and overcoming failure to restart a business. We discuss how the three analytical themes have been used, and form linkages between them, to develop an integrative framework that maps a firm owner’s experience of a business demise and how the owner can rebound to venture again. Our review provides a nuanced view of the connections between the differing streams and sub-streams of research on entrepreneurial failure and rebound. We argue for a more integrated approach to examining the relationships between the causes, experiences, recovery, and learning from an entrepreneurial collapse
Firm-Level Attitudes and Actions to the “Twin Transition” Challenges of Digitalisation and Climate Change
Full text linkThere are increasing pressures on firms to adjust to the major global challenges of climate change and rapid developments in digital technologies. To date, the impacts of these two challenges on firms have largely been examined as separate issues. However there are suggestions of overlap, with the potential of digital technologies to help economies and firms shift to greener production methods. This paper provides a novel contribution to this literature on a “twin transition” by examining for the first time the overlap at a firm level between climate actions and digitalisation. The data are drawn from a large-scale survey of 3,000 firms in Ireland in 2020. The report includes novel questions on energy use, climate adaption priorities and digital strategies along with a wide range of firm characteristics. Our key outcome variables are the degree of digitalisation in the firm, if it has a climate plan and does it implement climate actions such as monitoring emissions. We find considerable overlap between having a climate and a digital plan in place across firms, while controlling for a range of other firm characteristics. At the same time, we find a reasonably large share of firms have positive attitudes to the importance of climate planning but without reporting corresponding concrete actions, suggesting a gap for policy to address