Forced and Servile Marriage: Anti-Slavery Project submission in response to the Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department Discussion Paper.

Anti-Slavery Australia submits that the Australian Government’s response to forced marriage must be developed in close consultation with the community and must include effective strategies to protect people who have been, or are at risk of being, forcibly married. The submission recommends that Australia develops a hybrid civil and criminal legislative response to fulfil its obligations under international law

Without consent: Forced marriage in Australia

This article explores Australia's response to the emerging issue of forced marriage. In light of community and government responses to forced marriage, we review the challenges involved in defining forced marriage and the degree to which the practice overlaps with other forms of exploitative conduct such as servitude and slavery. While we welcome the reform of existing criminal laws to fully reflect Australia's international obligations to prohibit 'practices similar to slavery', we caution against prioritising prosecutions over preventative and protective strategies. We argue that the creation of specific criminal offences of forced marriage should be accompanied by the introduction of new, family law-based civil remedies for people seeking to avoid or escape forced marriage, and targeted support services for people in, or facing, forced marriage. These measures should be accompanied by investment in community legal education and consultation in order to deepen the community's understanding of forced marriage in Australia

The Criminal Justice Response to Slavery and People Trafficking; Reparation; and Vulnerable Witness Protection

This submission highlights the shortcomings of the people trafficking offences set out in the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth). It also addresses the need for a holistic response to people trafficking, beyond the criminal justice system and law enforcement, which includes a visa framework and compensation scheme for victims

A novel method for the injection and manipulation of magnetic charge states in nanostructures

Realising the promise of next-generation magnetic nanotechnologies is contingent on the development of novel methods for controlling magnetic states at the nanoscale. There is currently demand for simple and flexible techniques to access exotic magnetisation states without convoluted fabrication and application processes. 360 degree domain walls (metastable twists in magnetisation separating two domains with parallel magnetisation) are one such state, which is currently of great interest in data storage and magnonics. Here, we demonstrate a straightforward and powerful process whereby a moving magnetic charge, provided experimentally by a magnetic force microscope tip, can write and manipulate magnetic charge states in ferromagnetic nanowires. The method is applicable to a wide range of nanowire architectures with considerable benefits over existing techniques. We confirm the method's efficacy via the injection and spatial manipulation of 360 degree domain walls in Py and Co nanowires. Experimental results are supported by micromagnetic simulations of the tip-nanowire interaction.Comment: in Scientific Reports (2016

Concurrent 43 and 86 GHz Very Long Baseline Polarimetry of 3C273

We present sub-milliarcsecond resolution total intensity and linear polarization VLBI images of 3C273, using concurrent 43 and 86 GHz data taken with the Very Long Baseline Array in May 2002. The structure seen in the innermost jet suggest that we have fortuitously caught the jet in the act of changing direction. The polarization images confirm that the core is unpolarized (fractional polarization m < 1 %) at 86 GHz, but also show well ordered magnetic fields (m ~ 15 %) in the inner jet, at a projected distance of 2.3 pc from the core. In this strongly polarized region, the rotation measure changes across the jet by 4.2 x 10^{4} rad m^{-2} over an angular width of about 0.3 milliarcseconds. If the lack of polarization in the core is also attributed to a Faraday screen, then a rotation measure dispersion > 5.2 x 10^{4} rad m^{-2} must be present in or in front of that region. These are among the highest rotation measures reported so far in the nucleus of any active galaxy or quasar, and must occur outside (but probably close to) the radio emitting region. The transverse rotation measure gradient is in the same sense as that observed by Asada et al and by Zavala and Taylor at greater core distances. The magnitude of the transverse gradient decreases rapidly with distance down the jet, and appears to be variable.Comment: 4 pages, LaTeX, 3 postscript figures, submitted to Astrophysical Journal Letter

Can self-affirmation exacerbate adverse reactions to stress under certain conditions?

OBJECTIVE: Self-affirmation has repeatedly been shown to reduce adverse psychological and physiological responses to stress. However, it is plausible that self-affirmation could exacerbate negative reactions to stress under certain conditions. The current research explored whether self-affirmation would increase negative psychological responses to a stressor occurring in a central life domain characterised by low levels of control. DESIGN: Female participants (Study 1 N = 132; Study 2 N = 141) completed baseline measures of anxiety and mood. They were then randomly allocated to complete a self-affirmation or control task, before reading a narrative documenting a stressful birth and imagining themselves in the place of the woman giving birth. After completing this task, participants again reported their levels of anxiety and positive mood. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Anxiety and positive mood assessed at follow-up. RESULTS: Study 1 demonstrated that self-affirmed women experienced increased anxiety and less positive mood at follow-up, compared both to baseline and to women in the control condition. Study 2 revealed that the effect of self-affirmation on outcomes was moderated by fear of childbirth. CONCLUSION: These results provide preliminary evidence that self-affirmation may worsen negative responses to stressors under certain conditions and for certain individuals

The COINS Sample - VLBA Identifications of Compact Symmetric Objects

We present results of multifrequency polarimetric VLBA observations of 34 compact radio sources. The observations are part of a large survey undertaken to identify CSOs Observed in the Northern Sky (COINS). Compact Symmetric Objects (CSOs) are of particular interest in the study of the physics and evolution of active galaxies. Based on VLBI continuum surveys of ~2000 compact radio sources, we have defined a sample of 52 CSOs and CSO candidates. In this paper, we identify 18 previously known CSOs, and introduce 33 new CSO candidates. We present continuum images at several frequencies and, where possible, images of the polarized flux density and spectral index distributions for the 33 new candidates and one previously known but unconfirmed source. We find evidence to support the inclusion of 10 of these condidates into the class of CSOs. Thirteen candidates, including the previously unconfirmed source, have been ruled out. Eleven sources require further investigation. The addition of the 10 new confirmed CSOs increases the size of this class of objects by 50%.Comment: 24 pages, incl 8 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Figure quality degraded in the interests of space, full gzipped PS version also available at http://www.ee.nmt.edu/~apeck/papers

An inverse modeling approach to obtain P-T conditions of metamorphic stages involving garnet growth and resorption

This contribution presents an approach and a computer program (GRTMOD) for numerical simulation of garnet evolution based on compositions of successive growth zones in natural samples. For each garnet growth stage, a new local effective bulk composition is optimized, allowing for resorption and/or fractionation of previously crystallized garnet. The successive minimizations are performed using the Nelder-Mead algorithm; a heuristic search method. An automated strategy including two optimization stages and one refinement stage is described and tested. This program is used to calculate pressure-temperature (P-T) conditions of crystal growth as archived in garnet from the Sesia Zone (Western Alps). The compositional variability of successive growth zones is characterized using standardized X-ray maps and the program XMapTools. The model suggests that Permian garnet cores crystallized under granulite-facies conditions at T&gt;800 °C and P = 6 kbar. During Alpine times, a first garnet rim grew at eclogite-facies conditions (650 °C, 16 kbar) at the expense of the garnet core. A second rim was added at lower P (∼11 kbar) and 630 °C. In total, garnet resorption is modeled to amount to ∼9 vol% during the Alpine evolution; this value is supported by our observations in X-ray compositional maps