Shooting up illicit drugs with God and the State: the legal–spatial constitution of Sydney's Medically Supervised Injecting Centre as a sanctuary

© 2015 Institute of Australian Geographers In 1999, the Uniting Church opened a Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) at the Wayside Chapel in the inner Sydney suburb of Kings Cross. The Uniting Church justified this overt act of civil disobedience against the State's prohibitionist model of drug usage by invoking the ancient right of sanctuary. This invocation sought to produce a specific sort of spatialisation wherein the meaning of the line constituting sanctuary effects a protected ‘inside’ governed by God's word – civitas dei – ‘outside’ the jurisdiction of state power in civitas terrena. Sanctuary claims a territory exempt from other jurisdictions. The modern assertion of sanctuary enacts in physical space the relationship between state and religious authorities and the integration and intersections of civitas terrena and civitas dei. This article draws upon conceptions of sanctuary at the intersection of the Catholic Christianity tradition and the State since medieval times to analyse the contemporary space of sanctuary in the MSIC, exploring the shifting and ambiguous boundaries in material, legislative, and symbolic spaces. We argue that even though the MSIC has now been incorporated into civitas terrena, it remains and enacts a space of sanctuary

Properties of the spokes in coaxial and parallel - Plate plasma accelerator

Photographic, magnetic, and spectroscopic study of vortex spokes in coaxial and parallel-plate plasma accelerator

Ambivalent Regulation: The Sexual Services Industries in NSW and Victoria - Sex Work as Work, or as Special Category?

Despite continuing contests in Australian states over the validity of sex work as work, Victoria and New South Wales (NSW) have been part of a global trend for states to decriminalise and/or legalise the sex industry. This article argues that although Victoria and NSW are united by their ambivalence toward the legal validity of sex work as work for women, this ambivalence is expressed and organised in different ways in each state, with consequent differences in regulatory schemas, practices of enforcement and outcomes for workers and communities. In particular, this article focuses on the regulation of sex services premises as a key indicator of how the sex industry is regarded and embedded within broader business, social and regulatory contexts. The article examines some specific regulations that affect women's status as sex workers in each state. It concludes by arguing that the failure to fully recognise sex work as work impacts most sharply on the safety and inclusion of workers: those whom the legislative schemas of both states purportedly seek to protec

Synthesis, structures and cytotoxicity studies of p-sulfonatocalix[4]arene lanthanide complexes

A number of p-sulfonatocalix[4]arene complexes of the lanthanides (Tb, Gd, and Eu) have been prepared, some in the presence of tetraazamacrocycle 1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane-1,4,7-triacetic acid (DO3A), and fully characterised. Crystal structure determinations reveal lanthanide coordination at the sulfonate group, bridging several calixarene units, giving coordination polymers. All complexes in this study have been determined to be relatively non-toxic using in vitro cell assays with CC₅₀ values in the range 30–170 μM

Crossover from diffusive to strongly localized regime in two-dimensional systems

We have studied the conductance distribution function of two-dimensional disordered noninteracting systems in the crossover regime between the diffusive and the localized phases. The distribution is entirely determined by the mean conductance, g, in agreement with the strong version of the single-parameter scaling hypothesis. The distribution seems to change drastically at a critical value very close to one. For conductances larger than this critical value, the distribution is roughly Gaussian while for smaller values it resembles a log-normal distribution. The two distributions match at the critical point with an often appreciable change in behavior. This matching implies a jump in the first derivative of the distribution which does not seem to disappear as system size increases. We have also studied 1/g corrections to the skewness to quantify the deviation of the distribution from a Gaussian function in the diffusive regime.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

DNA Sequence Analysis of Freshwater Eustigmatophyceae, a Potential Source of Essential Fatty Acids

Freshwater Eustigmatophyceae are a group of microalgae that are considered rare and of low diversity, with only a few genera and species in a single order. Some Eustigmatophyceae produce fatty acids that are important nutrients for aquaculture, as well as for human food consumption. In addition, some Eustigmatophyceae produce hydrocarbons that may be useful in biofuel production. In our studies of the diversity of coccoid algae from Itasca State Park, Minnesota, we discovered several isolates that we tentatively identified as Eustigmatophyceae. Preliminary molecular characterization indicated that these isolates were highly diverse and probably represented species new to science. In this study, we examined fifteen of the Eustigmatophyceae isolates from Itasca State Park using DNA sequence analysis of the plastid rbcL gene. Phylogenetic analyses of these sequences strongly supported Eustigmatophyceae as a monophyletic group and indicated two distinct lineages among our isolates within Eustigmatophyceae. Our results suggest that many of these isolates represent new genera and species. We can also infer the existence of at least two orders in the Eustigmatophyceae, based on the presence of two distinct lineages in the class. In addition to the taxonomic implications, this study will aid in the selection of isolates for further characterization of fatty acids and hydrocarbons, or as part of a regenerative life support system during extended space missions

Living with bushfire risk: Social and environmental influences on preparedness

This paper discusses the process of developing a model capable of informing the development of community outreach strategies to facilitate the sustained adoption of bushfire preparedness measures. Following the identification of anomalies in defining the predictors of preparedness, a qualitative study of the reasoning processes that influence whether or not people decided to prepare for bushfire hazards is presented. The findings of the qualitative study are used to revise the preparedness model. Finally, using data from 482 residents in high bushfire risk areas in Hobart, the ability of the revised model to account for differences in levels of household preparedness is discussed

Phantom Validation of Tc-99m Absolute Quantification in a SPECT/CT Commercial Device.

Aim. Similar to PET, absolute quantitative imaging is becoming available in commercial SPECT/CT devices. This study's goal was to assess quantitative accuracy of activity recovery as a function of image reconstruction parameters and count statistics in a variety of phantoms. Materials and Methods. We performed quantitative (99m)Tc-SPECT/CT acquisitions (Siemens Symbia Intevo, Erlangen, Germany) of a uniform cylindrical, NEMA/IEC, and an anthropomorphic abdominal phantom. Background activity concentrations tested ranged: 2-80 kBq/mL. SPECT acquisitions used 120 projections (20 s/projection). Reconstructions were performed with the proprietary iterative conjugate gradient algorithm. NEMA phantom reconstructions were obtained as a function of the iteration number (range: 4-48). Recovery coefficients, hot contrast, relative lung error (NEMA phantom), and image noise were assessed. Results. In all cases, absolute activity and activity concentration were measured within 10% of the expected value. Recovery coefficients and hot contrast in hot inserts did not vary appreciably with count statistics. RC converged at 16 iterations for insert size > 22 mm. Relative lung errors were comparable to PET levels indicating the efficient integration of attenuation and scatter corrections with adequate detector modeling. Conclusions. The tested device provided accurate activity recovery within 10% of correct values; these performances are comparable to current generation PET/CT systems