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

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

With China ascendant, Britain's ability to shape human rights at the UN now looks uncertain

Britain has had a powerful influence at the UN Human Rights Council and on development issues generally, writes Richard Gowan (European Council on Foreign Relations). But without the UK, the EU's progressive voice will be weakened. The government hopes to continue to exert influence through non-EU networks, but pressure to tie up trade deals may curtail its criticism of countries like China

EMBRACING DI[VERSHTY: A FRAMEWORK FOR RESOLVING CONFLICT BETWEEN MIS AND MANUFACTURING

Turf wars between corporate Management Information Systems (MIS) and corporate manufacturing threaten the success of computer integrated manufacturing (CIM). Cooperation between MIS and manufacturing is essential in the planning, design and implementation of cross-functional information systems, and it is information systems that are the biggest source of CIM failure. This paper takes the position that both MIS and manufacturing have been slow to recognize their contrasting corporate cultures and to deal with resolving the conflict between the two groups. In order to better understand the conflict between MIS and manufacturing, the authors identify the technical and organizational differences. From this, seven points of conflict are identified that are the focal point of the turf wars. A framework for resolving the MIS/manufacturing conflict, based on prior research in organizational diversity, is presented. An empirical research agenda is proposed that will test the framework for applicability, completeness and accuracy. In conclusion, the authors recommend collaborative research between the MIS and manufacturing communities to study the technical and organizational issues related to CIM

Introduction

Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture No. 45Copyright © 2004 Cambridge University PressFor the Victorian reading public, periodicals played a far greater role than books in shaping their understanding of new discoveries and theories in science, technology and medicine. Such understandings were formed not merely by serious scientific articles, but also by glancing asides in political reports, fictional representations, or humorous attacks in comic magazines. Ranging across diverse forms of periodicals, from top-selling religious and juvenile magazines through to popular fiction-based periodicals, and from the campaigning 'new journalism' of the late century to the comic satire of Punch, this book explores the ways in which scientific ideas and developments were presented to a variety of Victorian audiences. In addition, it offers three case studies of the representation of particular areas of science: 'baby science', scientific biography, and electricity. This intriguing collaborative volume sheds light on issues relating to history and history of science, literature, book history, and cultural and media studies

Methodological Issues in Systems Management Suites Deployment

The promise and failure of systems management suites has become a critical issue for organizations attempting to gain control of the distributed enterprise. These expensive suites (solutions that perform enterprise management functions, such as software distribution, inventory, network management, etc.) promise to provide a single integrated solution that can address a complete set of enterprise management needs. A survey of IT professionals was used (1) to identify organizations’ commitment to suite technology and/or best-of-breed point solutions, (2) to assess organizations’ ability to implement suite technology throughout the enterprise, (3) to examine the costs associated with suite deployment, and (4) to identify the essential steps and key obstacles to suite deployment and management. Results of the survey indicate that until the issues of deployment methodology, asset inventory management, and deployment costs, organizations may not realize the full potential of system management suites

Reply to: Towards solving the missing ice problem and the importance of rigorous model data comparisons

Our recent ice sheet reconstruction, PaleoMIST 1.0, was created on the basis of using near-field (i.e., ice sheet proximal) geological constraints. This was done so that it would be independent of far-field relative sea level observations, that are subject to uncertainties in the global distribution of ice, and deep sea proxy based global mean sea level reconstructions, which have large uncertainties due to temperature and salinity effects. We do not disagree with the interpretation of the far-field data highlighted by Yokoyama et al., but emphasise that near-field constraints should be the starting point for reconstructing ice sheets

Variant of TYR and Autoimmunity Susceptibility Loci in Generalized Vitiligo.

BACKGROUND Generalized vitiligo is an autoimmune disease characterized by melanocyte loss, which results in patchy depigmentation of skin and hair, and is associated with an elevated risk of other autoimmune diseases. METHODS To identify generalized vitiligo susceptibility loci, we conducted a genomewide association study. We genotyped 579,146 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 1514 patients with generalized vitiligo who were of European-derived white (CEU) ancestry and compared the genotypes with publicly available control genotypes from 2813 CEU persons. We then tested 50 SNPs in two replication sets, one comprising 677 independent CEU patients and 1106 CEU controls and the other comprising 183 CEU simplex trios with generalized vitiligo and 332 CEU multiplex families. RESULTS We detected significant associations between generalized vitiligo and SNPs at several loci previously associated with other autoimmune diseases. These included genes encoding major-histocompatibility-complex class I molecules (P=9.05×10−23) and class II molecules (P=4.50×10−34), PTPN22 (P=1.31×10−7), LPP (P=1.01×10−11), IL2RA (P=2.78×10−9), UBASH3A (P=1.26×10−9), and C1QTNF6 (P=2.21×10−16). We also detected associations between generalized vitiligo and SNPs in two additional immune-related loci, RERE (P=7.07×10−15) and GZMB (P=3.44×10−8), and in a locus containing TYR (P=1.60×10−18), encoding tyrosinase. CONCLUSIONS We observed associations between generalized vitiligo and markers implicating multiple genes, some associated with other autoimmune diseases and one (TYR) that may mediate target-cell specificity and indicate a mutually exclusive relationship between susceptibility to vitiligo and susceptibility to melanoma