NUI Maynooth Eprint Archive
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Sharing our Stories. From Meru to Maynooth: Isaiah Gitonga tells his story…
No full textIsaiah Gitonga from Kenya is currently studying in
Ireland. His background is in nursing and mental health;
his thesis focuses on “the role of connected health in
supporting the psychological well-being and overall
quality of life for people living with and beyond cancer”
It’s all about resources: Narcissistic CEOs and entrepreneurial orientation during disruptions
No full textResearch regarding the influence of personality traits, such as narcissism, on entrepreneurial orientation (EO) is burgeoning, yet the role of affective and cognitive mechanisms is under-examined. Drawing from research on conservation of resources (COR) theory, entrepreneurial cognition and emotion, we examine the narcissism-EO relationship nexus. Specifically, we analyse the mediating role of the resource-induced coping heuristic (RICH) and the moderating influence of fear on the relationship between narcissism and EO. Longitudinal data from CEO-entrepreneurs of SMEs in six countries were collected during the COVID-19 disruptions. Results suggest that the RICH fully mediates the relationship between narcissism and EO. Fear of COVID-19 (FC-19) positively influenced EO and strengthened the narcissism-RICH relationship. Further, pandemic-related disruptions negatively influenced EO and attenuated the positive influence of FC-19 on EO. These findings offer insight into the drivers of entrepreneurial behaviour during times of disruption
Inference for extreme spatial temperature events in a changing climate with application to Ireland
No full textWe investigate the changing nature of the frequency, magnitude, and spatial extent of extreme temperatures in Ireland from 1942 to 2020. We develop an extreme value model that captures spatial and temporal non-stationarity in extreme daily maximum temperature data. We model the tails of the marginal variables using the generalised Pareto distribution and the spatial dependence of extreme events by a semi-parametric Brown-Resnick r-Pareto process, with parameters of each model allowed to change over time. We use weather station observations for modelling extreme events since data from climate models (not conditioned on observational data) can over-smooth these events and have trends determined by the specific climate model configuration. However, climate models do provide valuable information about the detailed physiography over Ireland and the associated climate response. We propose novel methods which exploit the climate model data to overcome issues linked to the sparse and biased sampling of the observations. Our analysis identifies a temporal change in the marginal behaviour of extreme temperature events over the study domain, which is much larger than the change in mean temperature levels over this time window. We illustrate how these characteristics result in increased spatial coverage of the events that exceed critical temperatures
Assemblage theory, data systems and data ecosystems: The data assemblages of the Irish planning system
No full textThe work of the state has been transformed by digitalisation and datafication, with paper systems increasingly complemented and replaced by digital data systems. While much research has been undertaken on the effects of these data systems on e-government and e-governance, relatively little critical attention has been paid to the ontological nature of the data systems themselves, how they come into being, operate, iterate, and work in conjunction with other systems. In this paper, we build on work that understands the nature of data systems as data assemblages; that is, as being thoroughly socio-technical in nature, emerging and unfolding contingently, contextual and relationally through material and discursive practices and processes. We extend Kitchin (2014) and Kitchin and Lauriault’s (2018) notion of a data assemblage through an engagement with assemblage theory, and detail how data systems are articulated and scaffolded into being, and scaled into a functioning data ecosystem, which is conceptualised as an assemblage of data assemblages. We illustrate the utility of this reconceptualization through an analysis of the development and control function of the Irish planning system, which is composed of a number of interlinked data systems used for managing the entire planning process from seeking planning permission, monitoring construction, to completed property
MotherHack: Creative coding as an artist‐mother
No full textEnmeshed in the materiality of caregiving, becoming a mother changes how one relates to the world and others. These changes involve how a mother as subject is defined by others through cultural and societal idealizations of motherhood and parenting norms, but also through the leaking boundaries between the mother and other subjects as she is attuned to the needs of caregiving. In this analysis, I consider maternal subjectivity in terms of working as an artist‐mother, defined as an artist who is also a mother and whose practice does not distinguish between these roles. In particular, I focus on the process of my development of a creative coding project, Emergent , during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Through this analysis of the process of developing Emergent , I attend to the questions of maternal subjectivity that arose through its production, drawing from the embodied experiences of working as an artist‐mother, in order to understand maternal subjectivity through the practice of computation. Here the work of producing art becomes the means of considering maternal subjectivity differently through embodied experience, as the labor affiliated with care‐giving is entangled with the process of art making
The Mental Wellbeing of Farmers in Ireland
No full textThis thesis investigates the context of farming in Ireland, in terms of its impact on farmers' mental wellbeing. International research has highlighted the multitude of potential stressors affecting farmers. Despite the importance of farmers' mental wellbeing for ensuring the future viability of farming, few studies have examined the mental wellbeing of farmers in Ireland. This is all the more important as the COVID-19 pandemic has brought into focus questions of mental wellbeing and the role of occupation in health and wellbeing generally. This thesis draws on data from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing to consider psychometric outcomes for farmers relative to a rural, working, non-farmer cohort before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on this, qualitative research methods are employed to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped life for farmers in Ireland. Findings indicate that while the disruptions in pre- pandemic patterns of life were distressing, farmers adapted through new practices and found psychological support in the continuities of farming life. This thesis argues for conceptualising farming as a therapeutic landscape with physical, social, and emotional dimensions, which farmers draw on to support positive mental wellbeing. In conclusion, it is argued that economic processes of farm consolidation and challenges in farm succession will place strain on the social landscape of farming
Introduction: Motherhood, Mobility, Migration in Twenty-First-Century Women’s Writing
No full textDespite the centrality of experiences of migration, exile, and displacement in our globalized world, there are surprisingly few literary narratives that tell the stories of mothers who mother on the move, who mother in or through several languages, across linguistic and cultural barriers, or who negotiate non-motherhood in transnational settings. This special issue seeks to right this imbalance by drawing attention to matrifocal and maternal narratives of migration, displacement, exile, expatriation, transnationality, and nomadism since they shed light on ways in which motherhood is negotiated in this relatively new reality. It explores the diversity of literary representations of migrant motherhood in contemporary women’s writing and reflects on the poetics of motherhood and mothering across literature in different cultures and languages. In this way, the special issue contributes to the understanding of motherhood in a contemporary globalized world by shedding light on what often falls outside of the Western discourses of motherhood and mothering, thus offering fresh ways of imagining and living motherhood that is agential, empowered, and relational
How are academic libraries in Ireland providing student well-being and mental health support?
No full textBackground
The mental health and well-being of students has been a global concern for some time. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted mental health and well-being. Increasing pressures on students such as the “cost of living crisis” and lack of suitable accommodation have led to increased levels of anxiety. Higher Education Institutions (HEI) are seeking ways to incorporate a “whole university” approach to tackle the perceived mental health crisis. Academic libraries are at the heart of campus life and are therefore in a unique position to provide mental health and well-being support to students.
Aims
Despite many initiatives taking place on the island of Ireland there is little in the extant literature providing evidence of this. The aim of this study is to provide an overview of the provision of mental health and well-being supports in Irish academic libraries, and drivers and barriers in doing so. In addition, this study investigates the impact that COVID-19 has had on service provision.
Method
A primarily quantitative approach was taken using a questionnaire adapted from a previous UK study. Academic librarians who were either library directors or had responsibility for student services in the library answered a series of multiple-choice questions, and two open text questions were provided for longer responses. Descriptive statistical analysis was performed on multiple-choice questions and thematic analysis applied to the open text comments
A Control Framework for Ocean Wave Energy Conversion Systems: The Potential of Moments
No full textThe control of wave energy converters (WECs) to maximize power capture is a challenging problem. In particular, the nature of the wave excitation, which is in general panchromatic (or multi-sinusoidal), presents a reciprocating energy source that needs to be rectified through some means. In addition, the development of suitable control-oriented models is also challenging, requiring correct representation of system hydrodynamics and power take-off (PTO) components, while also lending themselves to control synthesis and real-time computational performance, along with a challenging optimal control problem. This article presents a moment-based mathematical framework for the formulation and solution of WEC control. It shows that moments are ideally suited to WEC control in terms of their ability to accurately characterize the nature of the wave excitation force (and the consequent evolutions in the system variables) while also gracefully including hydrodynamic and PTO nonlinearities as well as a natural extension to WEC arrays. Model reduction, to mold the system model into a control-friendly form, is also a feature of this framework