NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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Essays on Consumption and Income Inequality In Ireland
No full textThis thesis consists of essays examining the relationship between income and consumption in Ireland. If people with ‘rational expectations’ can freely borrow or save then ‘lifetime income’ or consumption is a more accurate measure of the distribution of household resources than current income. However, a number of issues such as measurement error in income and expenditure, formation of expectations and the relative importance of permanent and transitory shocks to income all pose challenges to anyone wishing to understand how households smooth consumption over income peaks and troughs to maintain living standards. I will examine some of these issues identified in the research in the Irish context through an analysis of household survey microdata
Externalizing the threat from within: A new direction for researching associations between suicide and psychotic experiences
No full textA recent suicidal drive hypothesis posits that psychotic experiences (PEs) may serve to externalize internally generated and self-directed threat (i.e., self-injurious/suicidal behavior [SIB]) in order to optimize survival; however, it must first be demonstrated that such internal threat can both precede and inform PEs. The current study conducted the first known bidirectional analysis of SIB and PEs to test whether SIB could be considered as a plausible antecedent for PEs. Prospective data were utilized from the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Longitudinal Twin Study, a nationally representative birth cohort of 2232 twins, that captured SIB (any self-harm or suicidal attempt) and PEs at ages 12 and 18 years. Cross-lagged panel models demonstrated that the association between SIB at age 12 and PEs at age 18 was as strong as the association between PEs at age 12 and SIB at age 18. Indeed, the best representation of the data was a model where these paths were constrained to be equal (OR = 2.48, 95% CI = 1.63–3.79). Clinical interview case notes for those who reported both SIB and PEs at age 18, revealed that PEs were explicitly characterized by SIB/threat/death-related content for 39% of cases. These findings justify further investigation of the suicidal drive hypothesis
Worlds Apart? – The Challenges of Aligning Brand Value for NGO’s
No full textBrands are increasingly part of how international aid and development Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) operate, but there are challenges in aligning NGO brand
value across diverse stakeholders. This research explores how key decision makers
within one major NGO – Oxfam—construct the challenges of brand value alignment, using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis methodology. Three master-themes emerge demonstrating key tensions around aligning NGOs brand value:
the difficulty of balancing competing stakeholder needs, the internal cultural conflict
around branding, and the existential dilemma underlying the societal effectiveness of
NGOs. This paper proposes that NGOs can better navigate these intra—brand tensions using Brand-as-Purpose as an organizing principle; framing shared identity,
creating a dynamic container for stakeholder interests and cultivating Moral Capital strongly anchored in increasing recipient wellbeing. This paper is one of the first pieces of research which explores how NGOs make sense of aligning brand value in the context of complex stakeholder cultures and recipient sovereignty. Brand-as Purpose is put forward as an organizing principle to help balance three key tensions around brand value alignment. This paper proposes that Moral Capital anchored in recipient wellbeing underpins NGO brand value and societal legitimacy and needs
to be paramount in how NGO’s establish and legitimize their brands
The macropsychology of COVID-19: Psychological governance as pandemic response.
No full textControlling the pandemic has necessitated governments across the world to implement behavior change agenda, through new policies, laws, and public communication strategies.
The concept of “psychological governance” has therefore been crucial to curtailing the pandemic. Psychological governance is the application of insights from behavioral and psychological sciences to public policy for the purpose of influencing behavior at the individual, group, and population levels. Similarly, a macropsychology perspective aims to understand and shape behavior at the population level, through the application of psychology to factors
that influence the settings and conditions of our lives, such as policies, institutions, systems, and structures. Psychological governance and a macropsychology perspective are key to effectively supporting pandemic preparedness, coping, and recovery at the population level.
In this paper, the role of psychological governance in responding to COVID-19 is considered. This paper also examines the role of several macropsychological factors in the pandemic, including heroism, trust in government, culture, and equitable access and human right
The successful implementation of industry 4.0 in manufacturing: An analysis and prioritization of risks in Irish industry.
No full textIndustry 4.0 is anticipated to revolutionize the manufacturing sector through a digital transformation. With this
transformation, many benefits are expected, such as the automation and decentralization of production pro-
cesses. Nevertheless, enterprises face considerable risks upon successful implementation of Industry 4.0. The
uncertainties regarding these risks are currently hindering enterprises’ implementation of Industry 4.0. Although
several studies have investigated the adoption of Industry 4.0-related technologies, far too little attention has
been devoted to identifying and analyzing the risk factors associated with the adoption of these technologies in
manufacturing, especially in Irish industry. Therefore, this study contributes to the existing knowledge by pro-
posing a systematic approach to identifying and ranking these risk factors along with recommending policies to
mitigate the highest risks. Fourteen risk factors are identified, and the opinions of 12 industry experts across the
Irish manufacturing sector are used to rank these risk factors using an adjusted best-worst method. The lack of
standards and lack of methodological approaches was the highest-ranking risk factor, with the risk to capital
investment, the lack of talent, the uncertainty in economic benefits and the potential delay to the manufacturing
process ranking in the top 5. Policy recommendations to mitigate the highest-ranking risks are proposed based on
an analysis of the Irish government’s current Industry 4.0 policy. Governments should aim to assist industries in
establishing comprehensive standards to increase the rate of successful Industry 4.0 implementation
Automating Justice: An Ethical Responsibility of Computational Bioethics
No full textIn their proof-of-concept, Meier and colleagues (Citation2022) describe the purpose and programming decisions underpinning Medical Ethics Advisor (METHAD), an automated decision support (ADS) system used to guide treatment interventions. The authors themselves note they are not the first to propose that machines could help humans make better, if not more ethical, decisions. Indeed, Alan Turing commented during a 1951 talk broadcast by the BBC that an “attempt to make a thinking machine will help us greatly in finding out how we think ourselves.” Like the authors, we are among a growing community of ‘computational bioethicists’ interested in how thinking machines may be leveraged to yield faster, more consistent, and potentially fairer decisions in clinical and research contexts. Unlike Meier and colleagues, however, we reject the notion that developers can sidestep justice and the impacts that competing justice claims have on decisional outcomes at the ADS design stage, pilot testing, or implementation. In this Open Peer Commentary, we engage with three central ideas about justice: (i) ADS should be used to support, not supplant human decision-making as a matter of algorithmic justice; (ii) gains in procedural justice are among the strongest rationales to pursue research and development of ADS for ethical decision-making, and finally (iii) the values and priorities of stakeholders, e.g., patients, families, and communities actually affected by decisions should comprise the data inputs upon which ADS are ultimately trained. We draw on our collective work developing and implementing ADS for responsible data access management as members of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), and propose an agenda for future empirical work needed to advance the subdiscipline of computational bioethics with justice at the forefront
‘Woe is he Who Does Not Praise the Mother Of God’: Another Poem Beginning Mairg Nach Molann Máthair Dé
No full textIn 1919 Lambert McKenna published a poem beginning Mairg nach
molann máthair Dé in a collection entitled Dánta do chum Aonghus Fionn
Ó Dálaigh. The poem edited here, which survives in TCD 1340 (H. 3. 19),
begins with the same first line and as a result has been overlooked up to
now. Unlike the poem published by McKenna, in which the author emphasises the difficulty in finding original praise for the Virgin Mary, our poem
is straightforward in its direct and immediate praise of her
‘Bravery Deserving Of A Better Cause’: The British East India Company's Irish Soldiers, 1830-60
No full textThe abstract is included in the text
The 18-pounder field gun in Irish service, 1922-1942
No full textThe idea for this thesis originated from the author’s position as the leader of the team that was involved with the restoration of a “Quick Firing” 18-pounder field gun Mark II, serial number 9168 in the Irish Defence Forces’ Ordnance Base Workshops. Research carried out for this study confirms that this was one of the guns that were handed over to the fledgling Free State Army in June 1922. The opening shots of the Civil War were fired by an 18-pounder and the gun had an important role during the subsequent fighting. In a broader context the mass-produced 18-pounder was one of the great field guns of the early decades of the twentieth century. Its initial development and subsequent variations were an amalgamation of the great advancements in artillery design and its impact on a small nation like Ireland was therefore significant. This thesis will examine the 18-pounder field gun during its service in the Irish Defence Forces between 1922 and the Second World War
