Ireland and immigration: explaining the absence of the far right

Garner seeks to explain the absence of far-right political formations in the history of the Republic of Ireland, especially in relation to immigration. He argues that the ‘mainstream’ nationalist parties have implemented a racialized governance of Ireland via the issue of citizenship (in the referendum of 2004). While hegemonic ideas on the racial purity of indigenous populations and the highly ambivalent attitudes and policies on immigration pursued over the last decade are characteristic of a broader European trend, this has not, in the Republic, been accompanied by meaningful far-right political mobilization. Ireland has frequently been seen as sui generis in political terms, and indeed emerges in some ways as a counter-case: increasing hostility towards Others has been identified in the midst of rapid economic growth and political stability. A variety of issues related to the country’s political development have given rise to an especially small left-wing vote, a nationalist centre ground and longlasting domination by a single populist party, Fianna Fa´ il. This party has been partnered in government since 1997 by a free-market party, the Progressive Democrats, who have contributed to Ireland’s movement towards neo-liberal policies and a highly functional approach to immigration. The transition from country of emigration to country of immigration has thus taken place against an ideological backdrop in which the imperatives of labour demand and consolidating domestic support for reform have made an uneasy match, resulting in the racialization of Irishness. The state has, however, amended the Constitution in order to qualify jus soli citizenship entitlement in the case of particular categories of people: those whose parents are not Irish nationals. The significant stakes of these changes are analysed in the context of state responses to Eire’s transition to a country of immigration, and the role of nationalist-populism in the country’s political culture.

The politics of exclusion:institutions and immigration policy in contemporary Germany

Immigration is one of the most sensitive issues of modern European politics. Nowhere is this more the case than in Germany, as a result of its history and the sheer scale of immigration it has experienced since 1945. Yet despite this background, Germany's immigration, residence and citizenship policy has been more restrictive when compared to that of many other countries; indeed, official policy long maintained that Germany was not a 'country of immigration'. But why has this been the case? The politics of exclusion provides a new analytical perspective on immigration in Germany, tracing the country's immigration and citizenship policy since the Second World War. The book argues that institutional politics are central to understanding why Germany's policy structures have experienced only incremental change over the past 20 years, and have remained comparatively restrictive. With its lively and accessible style, the book will appeal to advanced scholars and students of immigration and Germany.

Out in psychology:lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer perspectives

There has been a recent explosion of interest in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Perspective Psychology amongst students and academics, and this interest is predicted to continue to rise. Recent media debates on subjects such as same–sex marriage have fuelled interest in LGBTQ perspectives. This edited collection showcases the latest thinking in LGBTQ psychology. The book has 21 chapters covering subjects such as same sex parenting, outing, young LGBTQ people, sport, learning disabilities, lesbian and gay identities etc. The book has an international focus, with contributors from UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand List of Contributors. Foreword by Jerry J. Bigner. 1. Introducing Out in Psychology (Victoria Clarke and Elizabeth Peel). 2. From lesbian and gay psychology to LGBTQ psychologies: A journey into the unknown (Victoria Clarke and Elizabeth Peel) 3. What comes after discourse analysis for LGBTQ psychology(Peter Hegarty). 4. Recognising race in LGBTQ psychology: Power, privilege and complicity (Damien W. Riggs). 5. Personality, individual differences and LGB psychology (Gareth Hagger Johnson). 6. Heteronormativity and the exclusion of bisexuality in psychology (Meg Barker). 7. A minority within a minority: Experiences of gay men with intellectual disabilities.(Christopher Bennett and Adrian Coyle). 8. Closet talk: The contemporary relevance of the closet in lesbian and gay interaction (Victoria Land and Celia Kitzinger) 9. Romance, rights, recognition, responsibilities and radicalism: Same-sex couples’ accounts of civil partnership and marriage (Victoria Clarke, Carole Burgoyne and Maree Burns). 10. The experience of social power in the lives of trans people (Clair Clifford and Jim Orford). 11. What do they look like and are they among us? Bisexuality, (dis.closure and (Maria Gurevich, Jo Bower, Cynthia M. Mathieson and Bramilee Dhayanandhan). 12. Heterosexism at work: Diversity training, discrimination law and the limits of liberal individualism (Rosie Harding and Elizabeth Peel). 13. Out on the ball fields: Lesbians in sport (Vikki Krane and Kerrie J. Kauer). 14. Homophobia, rights and community: Contemporary issues in the lives of LGB people in the UK (Sonja J. Ellis). 15. Striving for holistic success: How lesbians come out on top (Faith Rostad and Bonita C. Long). 16. On Passing: The Interactional Organization of Appearance Attributions in the Psychiatric Assessment of Transsexual Patients (Susan A. Speer and Richard Green). 17. Alcohol and gay men: Consumption, promotion and policy responses (Jeffrey Adams, Timothy McCreanor and Virginia Braun). 18. Towards a clinical-psychological approach to address the hetero sexual concerns of intersexed women (Lih-Mei Liao). 19. Educational psychology practice with LGB youth in schools: Individual and institutional interventions (Jeremy J. Monsen and Sydney Bailey). 20. Que(e)rying the meaning of lesbian health: Individual(izing and community discourses (Sara MacBride-Stewart). 21. Transsexualism: Diagnostic dilemmas, transgender politics and the future of transgender care (Katherine Johnson). Index.

The external dimension of the EU’s fight against organized crime:the search for coherence between rhetoric and practice

SSince the external dimension of the European Union’s Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) began to be considered, a substantial amount of literature has been dedicated to discussing how the EU is cooperating with non-member states in order to counter problems such as terrorism, organized crime and illegal migration. According to the EU, the degree of security interconnectedness has become so relevant that threats can only be adequately controlled if there is effective concerted regional action. This reasoning has led the EU to develop a number of instruments, which have resulted in the exporting of certain elements of its JHA policies, either through negotiation or socialization. Although the literature has explored how this transfer has been applied to the field of terrorism and immigration, very little has been written on the externalisation of knowledge, practice and norms in the area of organized crime. This article proposes to bridge this gap by looking at EU practice in the development of the external dimension of organized crime policies, through the theoretical lens of the EU governance framework.

Costs and benefits of orthographic inconsistency in reading:evidence from a cross-linguistic comparison

We compared reading acquisition in English and Italian children up to late primary school analyzing RTs and errors as a function of various psycholinguistic variables and changes due to experience. Our results show that reading becomes progressively more reliant on larger processing units with age, but that this is modulated by consistency of the language. In English, an inconsistent orthography, reliance on larger units occurs earlier on and it is demonstrated by faster RTs, a stronger effect of lexical variables and lack of length effect (by fifth grade). However, not all English children are able to master this mode of processing yielding larger inter-individual variability. In Italian, a consistent orthography, reliance on larger units occurs later and it is less pronounced. This is demonstrated by larger length effects which remain significant even in older children and by larger effects of a global factor (related to speed of orthographic decoding) explaining changes of performance across ages. Our results show the importance of considering not only overall performance, but inter-individual variability and variability between conditions when interpreting cross-linguistic differences.

The cellular response to transglutaminase-cross-linked collagen

Collagen, type I, is a highly abundant natural protein material which has been cross-linked by a variety of methods including chemical agents, physical heating and UV irradiation with the aim of enhancing its physical characteristics such as mechanical strength, thermal stability, resistance to proteolytic breakdown, thus increasing its overall biocompatibility. However, in view of the toxicity of residual cross-linking agents, or impracticability at large scales, it would be more useful if the collagen could be cross-linked by a milder, efficient and more practical means by using enzymes as biological catalysts. We demonstrate that on treating native collagen type I (from bovine skin) with both tissue transglutaminase (TG2; tTG) and microbial transglutaminase (mTG; Streptoverticillium mobaraense) leads to an enhancement in cell attachment, spreading and proliferation of human osteoblasts (HOB) and human foreskin dermal fibroblasts (HFDF) when compared to culture on native collagen. The transglutaminase-treated collagen substrates also showed a greater resistance to cell-mediated endogenous protease degradation than the native collagen. In addition, the HOB cells were shown to differentiate at a faster rate than on native collagen when assessed by measurement of alkaline phosphatase activity and osteopontin expression. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Semantic search components:a blueprint for effective query language interfaces

Formulating complex queries is hard, especially when users cannot understand all the data structures of multiple complex knowledge bases. We see a gap between simplistic but user friendly tools and formal query languages. Building on an example comparison search, we propose an approach in which reusable search components take an intermediary role between the user interface and formal query languages.

Nootropia : a user profiling model based on a self-organising term network

Artificial Immune Systems are well suited to the problem of using a profile representation of an individual’s or a group’s interests to evaluate documents. Nootropia is a user profiling model that exhibits similarities to models of the immune system that have been developed in the context of autopoietic theory. It uses a self-organising term network that can represent a user’s multiple interests and can adapt to both short-term variations and substantial changes in them. This allows Nootropia to drift, constantly following changes in the user’s multiple interests, and, thus, to become structurally coupled to the user.

How weak categorizers based upon different principles strengthen performance

Combining the results of classifiers has shown much promise in machine learning generally. However, published work on combining text categorizers suggests that, for this particular application, improvements in performance are hard to attain. Explorative research using a simple voting system is presented and discussed in the light of a probabilistic model that was originally developed for safety critical software. It was found that typical categorization approaches produce predictions which are too similar for combining them to be effective since they tend to fail on the same records. Further experiments using two less orthodox categorizers are also presented which suggest that combining text categorizers can be successful, provided the essential element of ‘difference’ is considered.

Reflections on race in contemporary Ireland

Any reflection on the category "race" in the contemporary world is inevitably framed by the cumulative layers of meanings and practices attached to bodies and cultures over the previous centuries. If the idea of race resembles anything, it is a palimpsest,1with past interpretations leaking through to make the ink of the present run. Accordingly, I present some historical notes not as a distinct prelude to the "real" story, positing a rupture of past and present, but as the beginning of the story proper.

Developing a serious game for PSS

Purpose: This paper presents the system architecture of a serious game, which is going to be run in parallel to Rolls Royce tra ining on product-service systems (PSS). Design/methodology/approach: The original game is outlined, requirements for an onl ine version are defined, and the architecture is proposed. Findings: The games approach has proven its value in design for service tra ining but an online version is needed to improve the opportunit ies to deliver the game. Originality/value: Such a system presents opportunities for the acquisition and development of specific professional knowledge, skills, and competencies