Voices for 2020: Ending Family Homelessness

Ending family homelessness will require a wide variety of community-based strategies to ensure that every member of each family experiencing homelessness is offered the services and supports they need to thrive. Following engagement with homeless families and health and human service providers; a review of the research literature and best practices in addressing the needs of homeless families; and completion of a local environmental scan, several strategies were identified for local action to end family homelessness

Putting the pieces in place: children, communities and social capital in Australia

Provides insights into the aspects of Australian communities that support children and those that fail them. It examines the ways in which communities can be strengthened from the standpoint of children. The report documents how excessive use of alcohol, aggressive drivers and the threat of violence make children feel unsafe in their communities. It also highlights the importance of strong, caring relationships. Executive summary   What do children in Australia value about their communities? How are communities supporting children? How are communities failing them – and why? Over the past fifteen years, governments at Commonwealth, state and local levels have been concerned with strengthening communities as part of a policy shift towards "local solutions to local problems" and to place-based initiatives. This policy shift was heavily influenced by ideas of social capital. Children are often assumed to benefit from "strong communities", yet we know very little about children‟s views on what makes a strong, supportive community. Indeed, we know very little about children‟s places and roles within Australian communities. If policies and initiatives are to be inclusive of children – as this report argues they should – it is crucial that we understand children‟s views and experiences of their communities. The research project explores in depth what children in middle childhood think about their communities, how children experience "community‟ on a daily basis, and what vision they have for their communities. This report presents the findings of participatory, rights-based research with 108 children aged between eight and twelve years across six sites in eastern Australia. The findings provide important insights into communities from a child\u27s standpoint. This research also demonstrates children‟s capacity to engage in detailed discussion and deliberation about "what works" - and "what is broken" – within their community. Additionally, it demonstrates the important insights children can provide into how to fix that which is broken

CTK - A new CCD Camera at the University Observatory Jena

The Cassegrain-Teleskop-Kamera (CTK) is a new CCD imager which is operated at the University Observatory Jena since begin of 2006. This article describes the main characteristics of the new camera. The properties of the CCD detector, the CTK image quality, as well as its detection limits for all filters are presented.Comment: AN accepted, 6 pages, 15 figures, 2 table

Catalogue of candidate emission-line objects in the Small Magellanic Cloud

H\alpha and [O III] narrow band, wide field (7 * 7 degree), CCD images of the Small Magellanic Cloud were compared and a catalogue of candidate planetary nebulae and H\alpha emission-line stars was compiled. The catalogue contains 131 planetary nebulae candidates, 23 of which are already known to be or are probable planetary nebulae or very low excitation objects. Also, 218 emission-line candidates have been identified with 113 already known. Our catalogue therefore provides a useful supplement to those of Meyssonnier & Azzopardi (1993) and Sanduleak, MacConnell & Davis Phillip (1978). Further observations are required to confirm the identity of the unknown objects.Comment: 8 pages, accepted by MNRA

Wavelength dependence of angular diameters of M giants: an observational perspective

We discuss the wavelength dependence of angular diameters of M giants from an observational perspective. Observers cannot directly measure an optical-depth radius for a star, despite this being a common theoretical definition. Instead, they can use an interferometer to measure the square of the fringe visibility. We present new plots of the wavelength-dependent centre-to-limb variation (CLV) of intensity of the stellar disk as well as visibility for Mira and non-Mira M giant models. We use the terms ``CLV spectra'' and ``visibility spectra'' for these plots. We discuss a model-predicted extreme limb-darkening effect (also called the narrow-bright-core effect) in very strong TiO bands which can lead to a misinterpretation of the size of a star in these bands. We find no evidence as yet that this effect occurs in real stars. Our CLV spectra can explain the similarity in visibilities of R Dor (M8IIIe) that have been observed recently despite the use of two different passbands. We compare several observations with models and find the models generally under-estimate the observed variation in visibility with wavelength. We present CLV and visibility spectra for a model that is applicable to the M supergiant alpha Ori.Comment: 16 pages with figures. Accepted by MNRA

STK: A new CCD camera at the University Observatory Jena

The Schmidt-Teleskop-Kamera (STK) is a new CCD-imager, which is operated since begin of 2009 at the University Observatory Jena. This article describes the main characteristics of the new camera. The properties of the STK detector, the astrometry and image quality of the STK, as well as its detection limits at the 0.9m telescope of the University Observatory Jena are presented.Comment: AN accepted, 8 pages, 12 figures, 3 table

Spectrophotometric Libraries, Revised Photonic Passbands and Zero-points for UBVRI, Hipparcos and Tycho Photometry

We have calculated improved photonic passbands for the UBV RI, Hipparcos and Tycho Hp,BT,VT standard systems using the extensive spectrophotometric libraries of NGSL and MILES. Using the Hp passband, we adjusted the absolute flux levels of stars in the spectrophotometric libraries so their synthetic Hp magnitudes matched the precise Hipparcos catalog value. Synthetic photometry based on the renormalized fluxes were compared to the standard UBVRI and BT, VT magnitudes and revised synthetic zero-points were determined. The Hipparcos and Tycho photometry system zero-points were also compared to the V magnitude zero-points of the SAAO UBVRI system, the homogenized UBV system and the Walraven V B system. The confusion in the literature concerning broadband magnitudes, fluxes, passbands and the choice of appropriate mean wavelengths is detailed and discussed in an appendix.Comment: 44 pages, including 16 figures and a 12 page appendi