Engineering Visual Contracts: Using If-Then Thinking to Develop Behavioral Drivers for Imaging

The UWA Comic Contracting project has had a number of successful implementations of their visual comic book contracts, and this paper will focus on one of the key interdisciplinary approaches, namely the engineering thinking that is developed to group behavioral drivers, and create legal images for contracts. The paper will draw from a number of examples, but will primarily focus on the Aurecon employment contract, which is now in its second year, and rolled out across a number of jurisdictions. The paper will touch on some of the key impact data from the Aurecon contrac

Critical Space Infrastructure: A Complex System Governance Perspective

This paper examines the applicability of Complex System Governance (CSG) to advance the Critical Space Infrastructure field (CSI). CSI encompasses space related hardware, workforce, environment, facilities, and businesses that are necessary for societal well-being. CSI is increasing in importance as more societal serving systems are becoming dependent on CSI to operate. Given this increasing dependence on CSI, societal sectors are increasingly at risk should something go wrong with CSI upon which they depend. CSI has been developing is a fragmented way and lacks coherent organization. CSG is focused on design, execution, and evolution of system functions that provide for communications, control, coordination, and integration of complex systems. CSG provides structure and order to complex systems through a rigorous grounding in systems theory (the axioms and propositions that govern behavior, performance, and structure of complex systems), management cybernetics (the science of organizational structure), and system governance (focused on provision of direction, oversight, and accountability). In this paper the intersection of CSI and CSG is explored with respect to the value that can accrue to both fields through their intersection and joint development. The opportunities that lie at the intersection of these fields are examined. This paper concludes the exploration with a discussion of the implications for movement forward in bringing the value offered by CSG to the governance of space-based critical infrastructures

Design and characterization of the POLARBEAR-2b and POLARBEAR-2c cosmic microwave background cryogenic receivers

The POLARBEAR-2/Simons Array Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization experiment is an upgrade and expansion of the existing POLARBEAR-1 (PB-1) experiment, located in the Atacama desert in Chile. Along with the CMB temperature and $E$-mode polarization anisotropies, PB-1 and the Simons Array study the CMB $B$-mode polarization anisotropies produced at large angular scales by inflationary gravitational waves, and at small angular scales by gravitational lensing. These measurements provide constraints on various cosmological and particle physics parameters, such as the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$, and the sum of the neutrino masses. The Simons Array consists of three 3.5 m diameter telescopes with upgraded POLARBEAR-2 (PB-2) cryogenic receivers, named PB-2a, -2b, and -2c. PB-2a and -2b will observe the CMB over multiple bands centered at 95 GHz and 150 GHz, while PB-2c will observe at 220 GHz and 270 GHz, which will enable enhanced foreground separation and de-lensing. Each Simons Array receiver consists of two cryostats which share the same vacuum space: an optics tube containing the cold reimaging lenses and Lyot stop, infrared-blocking filters, and cryogenic half-wave plate; and a backend which contains the focal plane detector array, cold readout components, and millikelvin refrigerator. Each PB-2 focal plane array is comprised of 7,588 dual-polarization, multi-chroic, lenslet- and antenna-coupled, Transition Edge Sensor (TES) bolometers which are cooled to 250 mK and read out using Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs) through a digital frequency division multiplexing scheme with a multiplexing factor of 40. In this work we describe progress towards commissioning the PB-2b and -2c receivers including cryogenic design, characterization, and performance of both the PB-2b and -2c backend cryostats.Comment: 20 page

A Phase 2b Randomised Trial of the Candidate Malaria Vaccines FP9 ME-TRAP and MVA ME-TRAP among Children in Kenya

OBJECTIVE: The objective was to measure the efficacy of the vaccination regimen FFM ME-TRAP in preventing episodes of clinical malaria among children in a malaria endemic area. FFM ME-TRAP is sequential immunisation with two attenuated poxvirus vectors (FP9 and modified vaccinia virus Ankara), which both deliver the pre-erythrocytic malaria antigen construct multiple epitope–thrombospondin-related adhesion protein (ME-TRAP). DESIGN: The trial was randomised and double-blinded. SETTING: The setting was a rural, malaria-endemic area of coastal Kenya. PARTICIPANTS: We vaccinated 405 healthy 1- to 6-year-old children. INTERVENTIONS: Participants were randomised to vaccination with either FFM ME-TRAP or control (rabies vaccine). OUTCOME MEASURES: Following antimalarial drug treatment children were seen weekly and whenever they were unwell during nine months of monitoring. The axillary temperature was measured, and blood films taken when febrile. The primary analysis was time to a parasitaemia of over 2,500 parasites/μl. RESULTS: The regime was moderately immunogenic, but the magnitude of T cell responses was lower than in previous studies. In intention to treat (ITT) analysis, time to first episode was shorter in the FFM ME-TRAP group. The cumulative incidence of febrile malaria was 52/190 (27%) for FFM ME-TRAP and 40/197 (20%) among controls (hazard ratio = 1.52). This was not statistically significant (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.0–2.3; p = 0.14 by log-rank). A group of 346 children were vaccinated according to protocol (ATP). Among these children, the hazard ratio was 1.3 (95% CI 0.8–2.1; p = 0.55 by log-rank). When multiple malaria episodes were included in the analyses, the incidence rate ratios were 1.6 (95% CI 1.1–2.3); p = 0.017 for ITT, and 1.4 (95% CI 0.9–2.1); p = 0.16 for ATP. Haemoglobin and parasitaemia in cross-sectional surveys at 3 and 9 mo did not differ by treatment group. Among children vaccinated with FFM ME-TRAP, there was no correlation between immunogenicity and malaria incidence. CONCLUSIONS: No protection was induced against febrile malaria by this vaccine regimen. Future field studies will require vaccinations with stronger immunogenicity in children living in malarious areas

Mapping Cosmic Dawn and Reionization: Challenges and Synergies

Cosmic dawn and the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) are among the least explored observational eras in cosmology: a time at which the first galaxies and supermassive black holes formed and reionized the cold, neutral Universe of the post-recombination era. With current instruments, only a handful of the brightest galaxies and quasars from that time are detectable as individual objects, due to their extreme distances. Fortunately, a multitude of multi-wavelength intensity mapping measurements, ranging from the redshifted 21 cm background in the radio to the unresolved X-ray background, contain a plethora of synergistic information about this elusive era. The coming decade will likely see direct detections of inhomogenous reionization with CMB and 21 cm observations, and a slew of other probes covering overlapping areas and complementary physical processes will provide crucial additional information and cross-validation. To maximize scientific discovery and return on investment, coordinated survey planning and joint data analysis should be a high priority, closely coupled to computational models and theoretical predictions.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, submitted to the Astro2020 Decadal Survey Science White Paper cal