Marginalised by the mainstream: the construction of sexuality and representations of lesbians, gay men and bisexuals in Australian youth policy

In this thesis, I explore how some same sex attracted young people experience heteronormativity, heterosexism, homophobia and biphobia. I also examine representations of lesbian, gay and bisexual young people in youth health policies aimed at addressing issues affecting them. I used qualitative research methods to explore how sexuality was constructed in some young people's lives and how hegemonic ideas about sexuality were experienced. Semi structured individual interviews were conducted with lesbian, gay and bisexual young people. I analyzed the data using grounded theory. I argue that various institutions (namely legal, political, religious, scientific and cultural) and practices within families, peer groups, workplaces, schools and other social settings, produce limited ideas concerning what is acceptable, 'normal' human sexuality. Through this study I found that sexual emotions and behaviors understood as heterosexual are affirmed and accepted, while those identified as homosexual or bisexual are subordinated and stigmatized. I argue that these ideas of sexuality adversely affect some young people. Lesbian, gay and bisexual young people adopt a range of techniques to construct and negotiate their sexual identities within hostile and unsupportive environments. They often struggle with the choice to conceal or disclose their homosexuality or bisexuality in everyday life. Some young people respond to the stigma of homosexuality and bisexuality by concealing their homosexual or bisexual orientation. This investigation revealed that this causes stress, a negative self-image, alienation, and isolation for many of these young people. Young lesbians, gays and bisexuals also report that concealing their sexuality negatively impacts on relationships with family, friends, work colleagues and others. Some young people however oppose the expectations to be heterosexual and disclose their homosexuality or bisexuality. Through this research it became apparent that many same sex attracted young people who disclose experience prejudice, violence and discrimination in relationships, employment, education, health services and elsewhere. Furthermore, lesbian, gay and bisexual young people often experience isolation, suicide ideation, suicide attempts, homelessness, and other psychosocial problems because of the stigma attached to homosexuality and bisexuality. Official recognition of the difficulties experienced by same sex attracted young people has led to moves to include them in federal and state government youth related policies. Young lesbians, gay men and bisexuals have, for example, been mentioned in policies relating to youth suicide, youth homelessness, and a national health policy for children and young people. To address the health concerns mentioned, approaches outlined in the policies concentrate on improving the young people's access to health services. I argue that this intervention alone is inadequate because it fails to challenge the heteronormative, heterosexist, homophobic and biphobic ideas of sexuality that harm the health, and well-being of young lesbians, gays and bisexuals. A range of strategies are recommended regarding policies concerned with young people that are directed towards ending inequality between sexualities. This research reveals that certain social practices, institutions and beliefs constitute heterosexual hegemony, which oppresses homosexuality and bisexuality, thereby producing negative experiences for many same sex attracted young people. Hegemonic ideas of sexuality, I argue, need to be disrupted and changed. Australian governments have the capacity to make a significant contribution to interrupting such discriminatory ideas and practices by enacting legislation designed to break patterns of heterosexual privileging

How accurately do adult sons and daughters report and perceive parental deaths from coronary disease?

<b>OBJECTIVES</b>: To describe how adult sons and daughters report and perceive parental deaths from heart disease <b>DESIGN</b>: Two generation family study. <b>SETTING</b>: West of Scotland. <b>SUBJECTS</b>: 1040 sons and 1298 daughters aged 30-59 from 1477 families, whose fathers and mothers were aged 45-64 in 1972-76 and have been followed up for mortality over 20 years. <b>OUTCOME</b> : Perception of a "family weakness" attributable to heart disease. RESULTS : 26% of sons and daughters had a parent who had died of coronary heart disease (CHD). The proportion was higher in older offspring (+18% per 10 year age difference) and in manual compared with non-manual groups (+37%). Eighty nine per cent of parental deaths from CHD were correctly reported by offspring. Only 23% of sons and 34% of daughters with at least one parent who had died of CHD considered that they had a family weakness attributable to heart disease. Perceptions of a family weakness were higher when one or both parents had died of CHD, when parental deaths occurred at a younger age, in daughters compared with sons and in offspring in non-manual compared with manual occupations. <b>CONCLUSIONS</b>: Only a minority of sons and daughters with experience of a parent having died from CHD perceive this in terms of a family weakness attributable to heart disease. Although men in manual occupations are most likely to develop CHD, they are least likely to interpret a parental death from CHD in terms of a family weakness. Health professionals giving advice to patients on their familial risks need to be aware of the difference between clinical definitions and lay perceptions of a family history of heart disease

Supplementary report to the final report of the coral reef expert group: S3. Synopsis of current coral reef monitoring on the Great Barrier Reef

[Extract] The intent of the future Reef 2050 Integrated Monitoring and Reporting Program (RIMReP) is not to duplicate existing arrangements but to coordinate and integrate existing monitoring, modelling and reporting programs. This report presents the results of a desktop review of 15 current coral reef monitoring programs on the Great Barrier Reef (the Reef) to guide the recommendations for the design of the RIMReP coral reef monitoring. The review had three main objectives: • Collate detailed information about the spatio-temporal design, methods, data quality and reporting processes of existing programs; • Identify which of the candidate indicators, as identified by the RIMReP Coral Reef Expert Group, are covered in existing programs; • Discuss potential limitations of the current programs.An accessible copy of this report is not yet available from this repository, please contact [email protected] for more information

Discrepancies between empirical and theoretical models of the flaring solar chromosphere and their possible resolution

Models of the solar chromosphere during flaring deduced theoretically or empirically are compared. Marked discrepancies are noted and various reasons are offered to explain their existence. A means is presented for testing theoretical heating models (electron heating) by analyzing the net energy loss rates in (observed) empirical atmospheres and inverting the flare energy equation to deduce the parameters of the supposed heating mechanism

Development of a theory of the spectral reflectance of minerals, part 4

A theory of the spectral reflectance or emittance of particulate minerals was developed. The theory is expected to prove invaluable in the interpretation of the remote infrared spectra of planetary surfaces

Hard x-ray polarimetry with the Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI)

Although designed primarily as a hard X-ray imager and spectrometer, the Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) is also capable of measuring the polarization of hard X-rays (20-100 keV) from solar flares. This capability arises from the inclusion of a small unobstructed Be scattering element that is strategically located within the cryostat that houses the array of nine germanium detectors. The Ge detectors are segmented, with both a front and rear active volume. Low energy photons (below about 100 keV) can reach a rear segment of a Ge detector only indirectly, by scattering. Low energy photons from the Sun have a direct path to the Be and have a high probability of Compton scattering into a rear segment of a Ge detector. The azimuthal distribution of these scattered photons carries with it a signature of the linear polarization of the incident flux. Sensitivity estimates, based on simulations and in-flight background measurements, indicate that a 20-100 keV polarization sensitivity of less than a few percent can be achieved for X-class flares

The entanglement of the stuff and practice of human service work: A case for complexity

The fact that social welfare professions including social work, youth work and community work deal with the lives and relationships of human beings is far from controversial. What is contentious is that in light of increasing intellectual work on the nature of social practices there is a failure in the human services literature to adequately examine the interdependencies and entanglements between conceptualisations of the stuff that the helping professions deals with and understandings of practice. This article examines the nexus and mediations between the phenomena and practice of social service work. The case is made that human services and the human beings they deal with are often imagined and represented in one-dimensional, unambiguous, calculable and orderable ways that align with neo-liberal inspired and technical approaches to practice. I argue that these accounts are inadequate and I suggest that practices of care and the people engaged in such practices should be constituted as complex, unpredictable, wicked and emergent. A key to good practice in the people professions is acknowledging and attending to this complexity and aporia

Where's WIL? Including work integrated learning in descriptions of what it is that academics do

Australian universities are embracing work-integrated learning (WIL) and as a result, delivering WIL has become a key component of academic work. In light of its increasing popularity, it is surprising that WIL is often missing from accounts of what university lecturers do and tends to be valued less when compared to other academic activities such as research, face-to-face teaching, community engagement and governance. This article examines this oversight. A case is made for recognizing WIL as distinct from and of equal importance to other day-to-day academic tasks, and including WIL in common descriptions of academic work roles

Determination of the Acceleration Region Size in a Loop-structured Solar Flare

In order to study the acceleration and propagation of bremsstrahlung-producing electrons in solar flares, we analyze the evolution of the flare loop size with respect to energy at a variety of times. A GOES M3.7 loop-structured flare starting around 23:55 on 2002 April 14 is studied in detail using \textit{Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager} (\textit{RHESSI}) observations. We construct photon and mean-electron-flux maps in 2-keV energy bins by processing observationally-deduced photon and electron visibilities, respectively, through several image-processing methods: a visibility-based forward-fit (FWD) algorithm, a maximum entropy (MEM) procedure and the uv-smooth (UVS) approach. We estimate the sizes of elongated flares (i.e., the length and width of flaring loops) by calculating the second normalized moments of the intensity in any given map. Employing a collisional model with an extended acceleration region, we fit the loop lengths as a function of energy in both the photon and electron domains. The resulting fitting parameters allow us to estimate the extent of the acceleration region which is between $\sim 13 \rm{arcsec}$ and $\sim 19 \rm{arcsec}$. Both forward-fit and uv-smooth algorithms provide substantially similar results with a systematically better fit in the electron domain.The consistency of the estimates from these methods provides strong support that the model can reliably determine geometric parameters of the acceleration region. The acceleration region is estimated to be a substantial fraction ($\sim 1/2$) of the loop extent, indicating that this dense flaring loop incorporates both acceleration and transport of electrons, with concurrent thick-target bremsstrahlung emission.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, accepted to Astronomy and Astrophysics journa

The Effects of Pure Density Evolution on the Brightness Distribution of Cosmological Gammy-Ray Bursts

In this work, we explore the effects of burst rate denisty evolution on the observed brightness distribution of cosmological gamma-ray bursts. Although the brightness distribution of gamma-ray bursts observed by the BATSE experiment has been shown to be consisitent with a nonevoloving soruce population observed to redshifts of order unity, evolution of some form is likely to be present in the gamma-ray bursts. Additionally nonevolving models place significant constraints on the range of observed burst luminosities, which are relaxed if evolution of the burst population is present. In this paper, three analytic forms of density evolution are examined. In general, forms of evolution with densities that increase montonically with redshift require that the BATSE data correspond to burst at larger redshifts, or to incorporate a wider range of burst luminosities, or both. Independent estimates of the maximum observed redshift in the BATSE data and/or the range of luminosity from which are large fraction of the observed burts are drawn therefore allow for constraints to be placed on the amount of evolution that may be present in the burst population. Specifically, if recent measurements obtained from analysis of the BATSES duration distribution of the actiona limiting redshift in the BATSE data at Zlim = 2 are correst, the BATSE N(P) distribution is a A=0 universe is inconsistent at a level of ~3 σ with the nonevolving gamma-ray bursts and some for of evolution in the population is required. The sense of this required source evolution is to provide a higher desnisty, larger luminosities, or both with increasing redshift