Australia in the UN Security Council

Overview: In this Lowy Institute Analysis, Richard Gowan reviews Australia’s time as a non-permanent member of the Security Council. Gowan argues that while it has not changed the world, Australia has acquitted itself well, bringing extra rigour and professionalism to the Council’s debates. It has carved out a niche on the issue of humanitarian access in the Syrian conflict, and solidified its reputation as a good international citizen and a serious country. Key findings Australia’s advocacy for human rights, humanitarian causes and more effective sanctions has had a positive impact on both the Security Council and attitudes to Australia across the UN. Australia’s main substantive achievement has been to carve out a diplomatic niche on humanitarian aid to the conflict in Syria. Australia will hold the Council presidency again in November, and can use this to solidify its legacy, especially on the issue of humanitarian access

Effectiveness of Thermal-Pneumatic Airfoil-Ice-Protection System

Icing and drag investigations were conducted in the NACA Lewis icing research tunnel employing a combination thermal-pneumatic de-icer mounted on a 42-inch-chord NACA 0018 airfoil. The de-icer consisted of a 3-inch-wide electrically heated strip symmetrically located about the leading edge with inflatable tubes on the upper and lower airfoil surfaces aft of the heated area. The entire de-icer extended to approximately 25 percent of chord. A maximum power density of 9.25 watts per square inch was required for marginal ice protection on the airfoil leading edge at an air temperature of 00 F and an airspeed of 300 miles per hour. Drag measurements indicated, that without icing, the de-icer installation increased the section drag to approximately 140 percent of that of the bare airfoil; with the tubes inflated, this value increased to a maximum of approximately 620 percent. A 2-minute tube-inflation cycle prevented excessive ice formation on the inflatable area although small scattered residual Ice formations remained after inflation and were removed intermittently during later cycles. Effects of the time lag of heater temperatures after initial application of power and the insulating effect of ice formations on heater temperatures were also determined

An Ecological Risk Model for Early Childhood Anxiety: The Importance of Early Child Symptoms and Temperament

Childhood anxiety is impairing and associated with later emotional disorders. Studying risk factors for child anxiety may allow earlier identification of at-risk children for prevention efforts. This study applied an ecological risk model to address how early childhood anxiety symptoms, child temperament, maternal anxiety and depression symptoms, violence exposure, and sociodemographic risk factors predict school-aged anxiety symptoms. This longitudinal, prospective study was conducted in a representative birth cohort (n=1109). Structural equation modeling was used to examine hypothesized associations between risk factors measured in toddlerhood/preschool (age=3.0 years) and anxiety symptoms measured in kindergarten (age=6.0 years) and second grade (age= 8.0 years). Early child risk factors (anxiety symptoms and temperament) emerged as the most robust predictor for both parent-and child-reported anxiety outcomes and mediated the effects of maternal and family risk factors. Implications for early intervention and prevention studies are discussed

Patterns of anxiety symptoms in toddlers and preschool-age children: Evidence of early differentiation

The degree to which young children’s anxiety symptoms differentiate according to diagnostic groupings is under-studied, especially in children below the age of 4 years. Theoretical (confirmatory factor analysis, CFA) and statistical (exploratory factor analysis, EFA) analytical methods were employed to test the hypothesis that anxiety symptoms among 2–3-year-old children from a non-clinical, representative sample would differentiate in a manner consistent with current diagnostic nosology. Anxiety symptom items were selected from two norm-referenced parent-report scales of child behavior. CFA and EFA results suggested that anxiety symptoms aggregate in a manner consistent with generalized anxiety, obsessive–compulsive symptoms, separation anxiety, and social phobia. Multi-dimensional models achieved good model fit and fit the data significantly better than undifferentiated models. Results from EFA and CFA methods were predominantly consistent and supported the grouping of early childhood anxiety symptoms into differentiated, diagnostic-specific categories

Development of a novel observational measure for anxiety in young children: The Anxiety Dimensional Observation Scale

Background Identifying anxiety disorders in preschool-age children represents an important clinical challenge. Observation is essential to clinical assessment and can help differentiate normative variation from clinically significant anxiety. Yet, most anxiety assessment methods for young children rely on parent-reports. The goal of this article is to present and preliminarily test the reliability and validity of a novel observational paradigm for assessing a range of fearful and anxious behaviors in young children, the Anxiety Dimensional Observation Schedule (Anx-DOS). Methods A diverse sample of 403 children, aged 3 to 6 years, and their mothers was studied. Reliability and validity in relation to parent reports (Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment) and known risk factors, including indicators of behavioral inhibition (latency to touch novel objects) and attention bias to threat (in the dot-probe task) were investigated. Results The Anx-DOS demonstrated good inter-rater reliability and internal consistency. Evidence for convergent validity was demonstrated relative to mother-reported separation anxiety, social anxiety, phobic avoidance, trauma symptoms, and past service use. Finally, fearfulness was associated with observed latency and attention bias toward threat. Conclusions Findings support the Anx-DOS as a method for capturing early manifestations of fearfulness and anxiety in young children. Multimethod assessments incorporating standardized methods for assessing discrete, observable manifestations of anxiety may be beneficial for early identification and clinical intervention efforts

Women, Science, and Culture: Science and the Nineteenth-Century Periodical

publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticleArticle is post-print version.This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Women: a cultural review on January 2001, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09574040110034129The Victorian periodical press offers unique insights into many diverse areas of nineteenth-century experience, and the complex relations between gender, science and culture in particular, yet it has been consistently marginalized as a primary resource in academic study. The Science in the Nineteenth-century Periodical (SciPer) project at the universities of Sheffield and Leeds is creating a new point of access to a wide range of non-specialist periodicals across the century by means of a fully searchable electronic index. By detailing the entire contents of each journal, and not just those articles that have a clear scientific relevance, it becomes clear that science formed a fundamental and integral part of nineteenth-century culture. The electronic index, moreover, will include hypertext cross-reference links that will allow the user to identify a dialogic pattern of encounters between ostensibly diverse articles, rather than only to browse in a simple chronological mode. By adopting this innovative approach, the SciPer database will reveal the manifold intertextual relations between the fictional works of women writers like Elizabeth Gaskell and the scientific articles that often appeared in the pages of the same magazines, and will show that writers of both sexes and across several different genres actively engaged in vibrant interdisciplinary debates concerning scientific issues in a forum provided by the periodical. Although the SciPer database itself is not specifically focused on issues of gender, the index will include several periodicals aimed explicitly at a female readership and, by providing access to titles still rarely utilized in modern scholarship, it will offer further insights into the important contemporary debates about women and science, as well as the more subtle ways, in which gendered imagery was employed within scientific discourse. This article details some critical findings from Punch , The English Womans Domestic Magazine , Cornhill Magazine and the Review of Reviews

Lost Toy? Monsters Under the Bed? Contributions of Temperament and Family Factors to Early Internalizing Problems in Boys and Girls

This study was designed to examine the contribution of multiple risk factors to early internalizing problems and to investigate whether family and ecological context moderated the association between child temperament and internalizing outcomes. A sample of 1,202 mothers of 2- and 3-year-old children completed a survey of child social-emotional functioning, family environment, and violence exposure. Child temperament, maternal affective symptoms, and family expressiveness were associated with child anxiety and depression problems. Violence exposure was related only to child anxiety. When maternal affective symptoms were elevated, inhibited girls but not boys were rated as more anxious and youngsters with heightened negative emotionality were rated as more depressed. Family expressiveness moderated the association between inhibited temperament and anxiety symptoms