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Academic research in the USA and more recently in the UK and Sweden, has highlighted public capital as a significant growth determinant. Public capital, it is argued, has a positive effect on private sector output, productivity and capital formation. However, controversy surrounds the empirical results emerging from this literature. Much of the controversy rests on research methods employed. Adds to this body of literature in two ways. First, estimates aggregate production functions for private sector output using Irish data. The stock of public capital is included as an input to investigate the effects of government investment on private sector productivity. Second, uses modern time‐series techniques to test the hypothesis. Employs the Johansen (1988) cointegration testing procedure and error correction modelling on annual data for the period 1958‐1990. These modern techniques produce empirical results which do not support the public capital hypothesis. Suggests several reasons to explain this outcome, and outlines possible policy implications.

Significant alcohol use increases the risk of injuries and violence in young people. The purpose of this paper is to examine factors associated with receiving street service care for alcohol intoxication, alcohol-related injury or violence among young people in a night-time economy (NTE).

Participants included 217 young adults, 135 of whom required street service care on a Friday or Saturday evening in an Australian entertainment district. The remaining 88 young adults were a matched control sample. Participants were surveyed and provided a breathalyser sample. A multinomial logistic regression was conducted to examine the relationship between blood alcohol content (BAC) level, subjective intoxication, gender, illicit drug use, age, preloading, total drinks consumed, and the receipt of care for intoxication, injury, or violence.

Of those who received care, 70.4 per cent received it for intoxication, 19.3 per cent for injury, and 10.3 per cent following a violent incident. Male gender and high BAC level were associated with receiving support following a violent incident. High-subjective intoxication and female gender were associated with receiving support for injury.

Results demonstrate the factors associated with receiving street service care for young people in the NTE experiencing non-emergent health needs. Further research is required to examine the impact of such a service on crime, injuries, and frontline service resources.

This is the first study to examine factors associated with receiving street service care for alcohol intoxication, injury, or violence in a NTE. Results inform policy and practice relating to the provision of street service care in the NTE for non-emergent health problems, and how this interrelates with other frontline services.

Drawing on anthropological perspectives, this paper argues that the fungibility of objects and the ability to exchange them for money is a defining characteristic of capitalist markets. In contrast, other systems of reckoning value emphasize the unique relationships within which objects are embedded and their inability to stand for just any other thing. This paper further highlights the role of slavery in the origins and continued dominance of capitalism and the existence of alternative systems such as cooperativism and sharing that are often overlooked. This paper then examines the Saussurean and Peircean semiotics underlying the concept of money as an abstract sign and argues that non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in blockchain technology contradict these theories by emphasizing pure uniqueness and rendering objects non-transformable or inconvertible. This paper concludes by warning against the dangers of a future where fungibility is absent, as it is necessary for life and the generation of new and different possibilities.

This paper explores the background principles, theories, and components of the QuikFix intervention for primary and comorbid substance use in young people.

QuikFix is a brief Motivational Interviewing (MI) intervention utilising cognitive-behavioural coping skills training to reduce vulnerability to substance use and comorbid mental health problems in young people. It is delivered in two to three brief sessions including an assessment. A new version, QuikFix PI (Personality Intervention) which incorporates coping skills training targeting, sensation seeking, impulsive, depressive and anxiety personality styles that may underlie primary and comorbid substance use problems is presented.

The original QuikFix intervention has demonstrated efficacy in young alcohol and cannabis users with comorbid depression and anxiety symptoms. The efficacy of the new personality targeted version of QuikFix is currently being tested in a large randomized controlled trial among young people with alcohol related injuries/illnesses. Future research is required to determine the efficacy of QuikFix PI in comorbid populations including those with behavioural disorders.

QuikFix interventions can be delivered via telephone or face-to-face in clinical settings for clients with primary substance use and comorbid depression and anxiety symptoms.

This paper describes a novel two to three session manualised personality targeted substance use intervention. The full original QuikFix treatment manual is available online (Hides and Carroll 2010).

The purpose of this paper is to describe the evolution of a blended learning strategy in a company law course for accounting students and to evaluate its impact on assessment and student self-reflection.

A case study approach is used to describe the development of blended learning technologies within an elevator pitch assessment item in four cohorts over a two-year period. This is complemented by teacher observations, an online survey and student interviews to evaluate the assessment item, the technology used and its impact as a self-reflection and assessment tool.

The case study reveals the benefits of blended learning technologies but also a series of logistical, assessment-related, behavioural and technological issues and how these issues were addressed. The preliminary evidence from the online survey and student interviews suggests that the blended learning technologies have facilitated flexibility in assessment (both from a student and teacher perspective), student self-reflection and fairness in assessment practices.

The study identifies the benefits of and likely issues facing educators when considering the deployment of blended learning technologies to teach and assess oral communication skills. The paper contributes to pedagogy by describing the innovative use of video cameras in assessing elevator pitches and extends the literature on video presentations in higher education, in particular, its positive influence on student self-reflection.

THE IRISH, it would appear, are not a romantic race ! They do not appreciate their works of art, neither do they revere their great writers. As James Joyce so aptly put it—

The question has been recently raised as to how far the operation of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts of 1875, 1879, and 1899, and the Margarine Act, 1887, is affected by the Act 29 Charles II., cap. 7, “for the better observation of the Lord's Day, commonly called Sunday.” At first sight it would seem a palpable absurdity to suppose that a man could escape the penalties of one offence because he has committed another breach of the law at the same time, and in this respect law and common‐sense are, broadly speaking, in agreement; yet there are one or two cases in which at least some show of argument can be brought forward in favour of the opposite contention.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive review of organizational crisis and organizational change management and to provide a guide to crisis prevention, management and recovery by highlighting critical actions to be taken during each stage of an organizational crisis. A second aim is to compare the crisis management of two financial firms during the 2007 financial crisis: Lehman Brothers and Paulson & Company.

The methodology involved a review of the literature and a case analysis related to organizational crisis and organizational change management. The synthesis of these two approaches is a conceptual paper. Furthermore, the article is supplemented by comparing the management of the 2007 financial crisis by both Lehman Brothers and Paulson & Company in an attempt to compare the literature findings to a global organizational crisis.

The literature suggests that organizations with early crisis detection methods and crisis management plans already in place before the onset of a crisis are significantly better prepared to manage and survive a crisis event. In addition, these better prepared organizations have the opportunity to reposition themselves and turn a crisis event into a strategic opportunity. This is evident in the authors' comparisons of both Lehman Brothers' and Paulson & Company's different management of the 2007 financial crisis.

The demand for crisis management is on the rise as the 2007 financial crisis exposed the lack of preparedness among financial institutions, challenged the assumptions crisis management plans were based on and required a regulatory transformation of financial markets. Surviving firms are recovering and learning from the crisis as their crisis management proved to be ineffective.

The scope of this paper offers readers a guide to organizational crisis management, supplemented with examples from a financial crisis that affected almost every organization in the world and from which many organizations are still recovering. Any organization, regardless of industry, can benefit from the guide presented in this research. Moreover, the framework of this paper can enable practitioners to formulate and improve their organization's crisis management plans and capabilities.