Family matters: infants, toddlers and preschoolers of parents affected by mental illness

Contains fulltext : 102540.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)One in five young people in Australia, including infants, toddlers and preschoolers, lives in a family with a parent with a mental illness.1 Families affected by mental illness are more likely than other families to experience poverty and social isolation,2 and are more likely to have children taken into care.3 A combination of factors influences the child’s risk of psychopathology. These include psychosocial adversity, the child’s developmental status and age, genetics, family relationships, the severity and chronicity of parental psychiatric disorder, comorbidity, and the involvement of other carers in the child’s life. Not all children whose parents have mental health problems will experience difficulties themselves.4 Parental diagnosis itself does not confer risk, and many parents with severe depression, schizophrenia and other disorders are adequate caregivers.5 Rather, it is the severity and chronicity of psychopathology and the variation in parental personality, genetic characteristics, coping style and social circumstances that confer risk. Children’s characteristics, such as temperament and sex, can also influence the parent–child relationship and parenting behaviour.6 This article outlines the impact of three key mental health disorders on parenting and young offspring, and describes implications for practice

The position of graptolites within Lower Palaeozoic planktic ecosystems.

An integrated approach has been used to assess the palaeoecology of graptolites both as a discrete group and also as a part of the biota present within Ordovician and Silurian planktic realms. Study of the functional morphology of graptolites and comparisons with recent ecological analogues demonstrates that graptolites most probably filled a variety of niches as primary consumers, with modes of life related to the colony morphotype. Graptolite coloniality was extremely ordered, lacking any close morphological analogues in Recent faunas. To obtain maximum functional efficiency, graptolites would have needed varying degrees of coordinated automobility. A change in lifestyle related to ontogenetic changes was prevalent within many graptolite groups. Differing lifestyle was reflected by differing reproductive strategies, with synrhabdosomes most likely being a method for rapid asexual reproduction. Direct evidence in the form of graptolithophage 'coprolitic' bodies, as well as indirect evidence in the form of probable defensive adaptations, indicate that graptolites comprised a food item for a variety of predators. Graptolites were also hosts to a variety of parasitic organisms and provided an important nutrient source for scavenging organisms

Family matters: infants, toddlers and preschoolers of parents affected by mental illness

Contains fulltext : 102540.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)One in five young people in Australia, including infants, toddlers and preschoolers, lives in a family with a parent with a mental illness.1 Families affected by mental illness are more likely than other families to experience poverty and social isolation,2 and are more likely to have children taken into care.3 A combination of factors influences the child’s risk of psychopathology. These include psychosocial adversity, the child’s developmental status and age, genetics, family relationships, the severity and chronicity of parental psychiatric disorder, comorbidity, and the involvement of other carers in the child’s life. Not all children whose parents have mental health problems will experience difficulties themselves.4 Parental diagnosis itself does not confer risk, and many parents with severe depression, schizophrenia and other disorders are adequate caregivers.5 Rather, it is the severity and chronicity of psychopathology and the variation in parental personality, genetic characteristics, coping style and social circumstances that confer risk. Children’s characteristics, such as temperament and sex, can also influence the parent–child relationship and parenting behaviour.6 This article outlines the impact of three key mental health disorders on parenting and young offspring, and describes implications for practice

The Shadow of the Bomb:a study of degree-level nuclear physics textbooks

The author presents a textual analysis of 57 nuclear physics textbooks for senior-level physics degree students. The work investigates how the textbooks relate to an aspect that is relevant and important but almost wholly avoided, namely nuclear weapons. Most of the books do, however, contain expositions of other applications, notably nuclear power reactors. These expositions are often enthusiastic and occasionally extravagant. When the existing apocalyptic arsenals are borne in mind, the textbooks' asymmetry is seen to be problematic. The publication dates of the textbooks range from 1950 to 2010, yet for the question addressed in this study remarkably little has changed. This study emphasises the culture in which we all live, rather than individual specialists. The author concludes that a response to our nuclear situation, based on a rational programme for long-term survival, rather than on psychological defences, has to come from all. Experts do have special responsibilities but the author maintains that it is unrealistic to expect specialist groups, such as those involved in producing textbooks, to act independently of the wider culture