NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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Procrastination, depressive symptomatology, and loneliness in later life
No full textObjectives: Procrastination is an almost universal behaviour and yet little research to date has focused on procrastination among older adults. The purpose of this study was to explore the potential asso-ciation between age and procrastination, and the potential mediating roles of depressive symptom-atology and loneliness.Method: Structural equation modelling was applied to data from 1309 participants (aged 29–92) from two waves United States Health and Retirement Study (2016–2020). Within the model, sex, education, marital status, and job status were added as covariates.Results: There was no statistically significant direct effect between age and procrastination (β = 0.06, p = 0.106). However, an indirect effect was present via depressive symptomatology (β = −0.40, p < 0.001). No mediating effect of loneliness was observed (β = − 0.01, p = 0.371). Subsequent analysis revealed that the symptoms, fatigue, loneliness, and lack of motivation significantly predicted procrastination.Conclusion: While age was not directly associated with procrastination, increasing age was associated with a decreased likelihood of depressive symptomatology, which was in turn associated with an increased likelihood of procrastination. Such findings indicates that age demonstrates no association with procrastination because of the suppressing effect of depressive symptomatology
Depression Literacy and Self-Reported Help-Giving Behaviour in Adolescents in Ireland
No full textThis questionnaire-based study aimed to explore depression literacy (DL) and help-giving experiences in 12–18-year-old adolescents (N = 535, Mage = 14.9 years, 51.8% male) in Ireland. In response to a vignette depicting a character displaying symptoms of depression, 46.7% labelled these symptoms ‘depression’, with increasing age and empathy associated with increased likelihood of labelling as such. Almost all (92.1%) believed the character needed help, but the perceived helpfulness of potential responses varied. Over one-third (38.2%) indicated they knew someone who had displayed similar symptoms in the past year, with 85.2% of these reporting having helped this person. Reported help-giving responses included comforting the person, encouraging professional help-seeking, and informing an adult. The findings suggest adolescent DL can be best supported by developmentally-sensitive interventions that encourage empathy and the importance of engaging adults’ assistance
Indicators of Global Climate Change 2023: annual update of key indicators of the state of the climate system and human influence
No full textIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments are the trusted source of scientific
evidence for climate negotiations taking place under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Evidence-based decision-making needs to be informed by up-to-date and timely information on key indicators of the state of the climate system and of the human influence on the global climate system.
However, successive IPCC reports are published at intervals of 5–10 years, creating potential for an information gap between report cycles.
We follow methods as close as possible to those used in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group One (WGI) report.We compile monitoring datasets to produce estimates for key climate indicators related to forcing of the climate system: emissions of greenhouse gases and short-lived climate forcers, greenhouse gas concentrations, radiative forcing, the Earth’s energy imbalance, surface temperature changes, warming attributed to human activities, the remaining carbon budget, and estimates of global temperature extremes. The purpose of this effort, grounded in an open-data, open-science approach, is to make annually updated reliable global climate
indicators available in the public domain (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11388387, Smith et al., 2024a). As they are traceable to IPCC report methods, they can be trusted by all parties involved in UNFCCC negotiations and help convey wider understanding of the latest knowledge of the climate system and its direction of travel.
The indicators show that, for the 2014–2023 decade average, observed warming was 1.19 [1.06 to 1.30] °C,of which 1.19 [1.0 to 1.4] °C was human-induced. For the single-year average, human-induced warming reached 1.31 [1.1 to 1.7] °C in 2023 relative to 1850–1900. The best estimate is below the 2023-observed warming record of 1.43 [1.32 to 1.53] °C, indicating a substantial contribution of internal variability in the 2023 record. Humaninduced
warming has been increasing at a rate that is unprecedented in the instrumental record, reaching 0.26[0.2–0.4] °C per decade over 2014–2023. This high rate of warming is caused by a combination of net greenhouse gas emissions being at a persistent high of 53+-5:4 GtCO2e yr-
CROSSDRO: Cross-sectoral Drought Impacts in Complex European Basins
No full textDroughts are pervasive and hazardous events that impact multiple domains, including agriculture, water resource management, ecological management, infrastructure, waterway navigation and forestry. A drought in Ireland in 2018, had severe socio-economic and environmental impacts across sectors: agriculture suffered from reduced grass growth, fodder shortages and decreased crop yields, peatlands faced increased wildfire risk and ecological degradation and water management was challenging amid supply issues. In addition, canals, waterways, and rivers experienced weed growth, navigation problems, fishing restrictions and reduced fish health and forestry saw increased tree deaths, especially in peatland plantations. The CROSSDRO project collated a network of river flow gauges across Europe, covering the period 1962–2017, for the analysis of hydrological drought
The accurate digitization of historical sea level records
No full textUnderstanding regional sea level variations is crucial for assessing coastal vulnerability, with accurate sea level data playing a pivotal role. Utilizing historical sea level marigrams can enhance datasets, but current digitization techniques face challenges such as bends and skews in paper charts, impacting sea level values. This study explores often-overlooked issues during marigram digitization,focusing on the case study of Dún Laoghaire in Ireland (1925–1931). The methodology involves digitizing the original marigram trace and underlying grid to assess offsets at the nearest ft (foot) interval on the paper chart, corresponding to changes in the water level trace for each hour interval. Subtracting the digitized value from the known value (the actual measurement) allows for the determination of differences, which are then subtracted from each hourly trace value. After adjusting for offsets ranging from −3.962 to 13.716 mm (millimetres), the study improves the final accuracy of sea level data to approximately the 10 mm level. Notably, data from 1926 and 1931 exhibit modest offsets (9–14 mm), emphasizing the importance of adjustments for accuracy. Such 10 mm accuracy is compatible with requirements of the Global Sea Level Observing System. Comparing the adjusted digitized data with other survey data shows similar amplitudes and phases for Dún Laoghaire in both the historical and modern datasets, and there is an overall mean sea level rise of 1.5 mm/year when combined with the available data from the Dublin regio
Going Global? Defining, Characterising and Constructing Global Citizenship
No full textThis article shares the rationale and outcomes of a research project, titled ‘Going Global’, which was funded by the Irish Research Council’s New Foundations fund resourced by Irish Aid. The project held two regional workshops with personnel in the development and global citizenship education (GCE) fields, one in Belfast and one in Dublin. The workshops had three objectives: to gather views from participants on the meaning and content of global citizenship; to provide theoretical input to inform these discussions; and to enable participants to envisage more practice-grounded means to construct global citizenship in their work. The main finding from the project is that workshop participant attitudes to global citizenship range from the pragmatic, through the agnostic to the sceptical, but that none of these positions are mutually exclusive. Rather, it is recommended that global citizenship be treated as a provisional rather than a materially realised conceptual placeholder, enabling greater discussion and debate on the concept. Such debate should be around some key paradoxes identified by participants in this project including: the lack of a global state to guarantee rights; the perceived Eurocentricity of the concept; and depoliticised, technocratic and individualised biases in dominant conceptualisations of it. Greater conceptual exploration around such paradoxes in the sector could help tease out these positions further for professionals in the field, facilitating a deeper connection with the concept among them
Un-silencing the silenced: Using Black Migrant Women’s experiences of racism to propose a critical anti-racist pedagogy for Irish Adult Education.
No full textThis is a study of how an intersection of race, gender, migration status and nation impact the everyday lives of Black women in Ireland. Using a critical qualitative frame and relying on Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Black Feminist Thought (BFT) epistemologies, the research is based on 20 culturally responsive conversations, held with eight Black migrant women over a period of two years. I also include autobiographical reflections and inputs from my own experience as I too identify as a Black migrant woman.
The objectives of this research are: to position Black women as agents of knowledge by giving them the opportunity to tell their own story in order to disrupt dominant and majoritarian stories about Black migrant women; to contribute to Black Irish Feminist Thought and to develop a racially sensitive pedagogy for use in Irish adult education.
The women’s stories offer an insight into lives, daily inundated with micro and macro racial assaults. The thesis also highlights how Black women experience a pervasive and insidious kind of everyday racism in Ireland, which brings with it a range of psychological and physical trauma. The women report the widespread prevalence of negative stereotypes inputted on Black women and how attempting to debunk these stereotypes, sometimes re-enforces them, leaving the women psychologically drained, or excluding them from active participation in society. The inquiry shows that Black women are constantly devalued and looked upon as ‘less-than’. Educational spaces are not left out of racism as the inquiry highlights how racism permeates schools, churches and even the homes of these women. Drawing on aspects of various critical pedagogies, I use the experiences shared by the women, as a reflective fulcrum to propose a racially appropriate and culturally responsive pedagogy that can be applied in Adult and Further Education in Ireland. In addition to core critical pedagogic tenets, I specifically advocate for pedagogy that will use non-dominant cultures as a vehicle for learning, build community across social identities and teach from a standoint of reparation and love. In keeping with my own Nigerian way of knowing and being, but also modelling some of the epistemological and pedagogical positions that I recommend and advocate for, I present some of the findings in the form of parables and stories which I have included in different parts of the thesis
Access to Justice: Legal Pathways to Justice for the Rights of People in Prison.
No full textNotwithstanding the notable public interest cases that advance the rights of
disadvantaged groups in Ireland,
and the positive impact that some prison law cases
have had, the rights of people in prison remain under litigated. Previous research by
IPRT identified that there is a need for an increase in public interest litigation to advance
the rights of people in prison in Ireland. Using mixed method research methodologies
(doctrinal research and 26 semi-structured interviews), this report identifies and
examines the barriers and issues that arise in public interest prison law in order to shed
light on this topic and to identify areas for reform.
In doing so, the research illustrates a web of inter-connected problems that inhibit prisoner rights issues
from being addressed in a legally effective way that protects the rights of those affected. These barriers
include, and are not limited to, difficulties in accessing Civil Legal Aid (including operational barriers
within the Civil Legal Aid and Legal Aid-Custody Issues Schemes), blocks in accessing legal information
and legal representation, the general difficulty in prison law litigation, and deference to State authority
Teaching for the future: restorative legal professionals require a restorative education
No full textI am a non-lawyer who has never read for a degree in law, but has always studied
and lectured in a School of Law, initially at the University of Leeds (UK), where I
studied for my undergraduate degree, master’s degree and PhD in criminology, and
now at Maynooth University in Ireland. This gives me some sense of legal education,
because I always studied alongside law students, and I mostly lecture to mixed
groups of law and criminology students. I also taught criminology and criminal
justice to lawyers at an advanced level for many years.
Where I now teach in Ireland, our legal education is perhaps unconventional.
First, most of our law undergraduate students do not exclusively read law. Many
instead study a three-year Bachelor of Civil Law: a qualifying law degree with a
major or minor in criminology, business, accounting, a language, or another social
science or humanity (‘Law and Arts’). Second, people who study ‘straight’ law (the
LLB) undertake a four-year course, combining the professionally required subjects
with comparative, socio-legal and technologically oriented module
On Low-Rank Multiplicity-Free Fusion Categories
No full textThis thesis explains the methods and algorithms we used to obtain explici