The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

The Science Performance of JWST as Characterized in Commissioning

This paper characterizes the actual science performance of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as determined from the six month commissioning period. We summarize the performance of the spacecraft, telescope, science instruments, and ground system, with an emphasis on differences from pre-launch expectations. Commissioning has made clear that JWST is fully capable of achieving the discoveries for which it was built. Moreover, almost across the board, the science performance of JWST is better than expected; in most cases, JWST will go deeper faster than expected. The telescope and instrument suite have demonstrated the sensitivity, stability, image quality, and spectral range that are necessary to transform our understanding of the cosmos through observations spanning from near-earth asteroids to the most distant galaxies.Comment: 5th version as accepted to PASP; 31 pages, 18 figures; https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/acb29

Duration of androgen deprivation therapy with postoperative radiotherapy for prostate cancer: a comparison of long-course versus short-course androgen deprivation therapy in the RADICALS-HD randomised trial

Background Previous evidence supports androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) with primary radiotherapy as initial treatment for intermediate-risk and high-risk localised prostate cancer. However, the use and optimal duration of ADT with postoperative radiotherapy after radical prostatectomy remains uncertain. Methods RADICALS-HD was a randomised controlled trial of ADT duration within the RADICALS protocol. Here, we report on the comparison of short-course versus long-course ADT. Key eligibility criteria were indication for radiotherapy after previous radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer, prostate-specific antigen less than 5 ng/mL, absence of metastatic disease, and written consent. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to add 6 months of ADT (short-course ADT) or 24 months of ADT (long-course ADT) to radiotherapy, using subcutaneous gonadotrophin-releasing hormone analogue (monthly in the short-course ADT group and 3-monthly in the long-course ADT group), daily oral bicalutamide monotherapy 150 mg, or monthly subcutaneous degarelix. Randomisation was done centrally through minimisation with a random element, stratified by Gleason score, positive margins, radiotherapy timing, planned radiotherapy schedule, and planned type of ADT, in a computerised system. The allocated treatment was not masked. The primary outcome measure was metastasis-free survival, defined as metastasis arising from prostate cancer or death from any cause. The comparison had more than 80% power with two-sided α of 5% to detect an absolute increase in 10-year metastasis-free survival from 75% to 81% (hazard ratio [HR] 0·72). Standard time-to-event analyses were used. Analyses followed intention-to-treat principle. The trial is registered with the ISRCTN registry, ISRCTN40814031, and ClinicalTrials.gov , NCT00541047 . Findings Between Jan 30, 2008, and July 7, 2015, 1523 patients (median age 65 years, IQR 60–69) were randomly assigned to receive short-course ADT (n=761) or long-course ADT (n=762) in addition to postoperative radiotherapy at 138 centres in Canada, Denmark, Ireland, and the UK. With a median follow-up of 8·9 years (7·0–10·0), 313 metastasis-free survival events were reported overall (174 in the short-course ADT group and 139 in the long-course ADT group; HR 0·773 [95% CI 0·612–0·975]; p=0·029). 10-year metastasis-free survival was 71·9% (95% CI 67·6–75·7) in the short-course ADT group and 78·1% (74·2–81·5) in the long-course ADT group. Toxicity of grade 3 or higher was reported for 105 (14%) of 753 participants in the short-course ADT group and 142 (19%) of 757 participants in the long-course ADT group (p=0·025), with no treatment-related deaths. Interpretation Compared with adding 6 months of ADT, adding 24 months of ADT improved metastasis-free survival in people receiving postoperative radiotherapy. For individuals who can accept the additional duration of adverse effects, long-course ADT should be offered with postoperative radiotherapy. Funding Cancer Research UK, UK Research and Innovation (formerly Medical Research Council), and Canadian Cancer Society

Adding 6 months of androgen deprivation therapy to postoperative radiotherapy for prostate cancer: a comparison of short-course versus no androgen deprivation therapy in the RADICALS-HD randomised controlled trial

Background Previous evidence indicates that adjuvant, short-course androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) improves metastasis-free survival when given with primary radiotherapy for intermediate-risk and high-risk localised prostate cancer. However, the value of ADT with postoperative radiotherapy after radical prostatectomy is unclear. Methods RADICALS-HD was an international randomised controlled trial to test the efficacy of ADT used in combination with postoperative radiotherapy for prostate cancer. Key eligibility criteria were indication for radiotherapy after radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer, prostate-specific antigen less than 5 ng/mL, absence of metastatic disease, and written consent. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to radiotherapy alone (no ADT) or radiotherapy with 6 months of ADT (short-course ADT), using monthly subcutaneous gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogue injections, daily oral bicalutamide monotherapy 150 mg, or monthly subcutaneous degarelix. Randomisation was done centrally through minimisation with a random element, stratified by Gleason score, positive margins, radiotherapy timing, planned radiotherapy schedule, and planned type of ADT, in a computerised system. The allocated treatment was not masked. The primary outcome measure was metastasis-free survival, defined as distant metastasis arising from prostate cancer or death from any cause. Standard survival analysis methods were used, accounting for randomisation stratification factors. The trial had 80% power with two-sided α of 5% to detect an absolute increase in 10-year metastasis-free survival from 80% to 86% (hazard ratio [HR] 0·67). Analyses followed the intention-to-treat principle. The trial is registered with the ISRCTN registry, ISRCTN40814031, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT00541047. Findings Between Nov 22, 2007, and June 29, 2015, 1480 patients (median age 66 years [IQR 61–69]) were randomly assigned to receive no ADT (n=737) or short-course ADT (n=743) in addition to postoperative radiotherapy at 121 centres in Canada, Denmark, Ireland, and the UK. With a median follow-up of 9·0 years (IQR 7·1–10·1), metastasis-free survival events were reported for 268 participants (142 in the no ADT group and 126 in the short-course ADT group; HR 0·886 [95% CI 0·688–1·140], p=0·35). 10-year metastasis-free survival was 79·2% (95% CI 75·4–82·5) in the no ADT group and 80·4% (76·6–83·6) in the short-course ADT group. Toxicity of grade 3 or higher was reported for 121 (17%) of 737 participants in the no ADT group and 100 (14%) of 743 in the short-course ADT group (p=0·15), with no treatment-related deaths. Interpretation Metastatic disease is uncommon following postoperative bed radiotherapy after radical prostatectomy. Adding 6 months of ADT to this radiotherapy did not improve metastasis-free survival compared with no ADT. These findings do not support the use of short-course ADT with postoperative radiotherapy in this patient population

Interdisciplinary Problem Solving in Hybrid Organizations: the Implications of Scientific Reputation and Disciplinary Knowledge Diversity

This research extends the problem-solving perspective of the knowledge-based view by examining the interdisciplinary publication outcomes of individual scientists in hybrid organizations. Whereas prior literature has focused on problem-solving activities in hierarchies (firms), hybrid organizations, including federally funded research programs involving interdisciplinary science, have emerged to address societal issues ranging from public health to climate change. To understand what might contribute to scientists’ performance in such hybrid settings, in this article, we theorize and empirically examine how scientists’ overall scientific reputation and their access to and familiarity with various disciplinary knowledge domains influence their publication output in interdisciplinary journals. We focus specifically on 169 researchers in the eight Nanomedicine Development Centers funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Our analysis reveals that scientists’ scientific reputation is positively related to their subsequent number of publications in interdisciplinary journals. However, scientists’ disciplinary knowledge diversity has a more nuanced association with their number of interdisciplinary publications, contributing more when moderate than when high or low. These findings will help hybrid organizations such as universities and research institutes understand how individual attributes contribute to interdisciplinary research

Peptide Controlled Assembly of Palladium Nanoparticles on High-Aspect-Ratio Gold Nanorods

© 2020 American Chemical Society. The use of gold nanorods as a template for bimetallic applications, including plasmonics, imaging, and phototherapy, is widely studied due to the unique optical properties of the gold materials. Generally, gold nanorods prepared with a Ag-assisted method are used, with a typical aspect ratio (length vs width) around 3, resulting in surface plasmons resonating within the UV-visible range. Due to these unique properties, gold nanorods are often combined with a catalytically active second metal to increase their range of applicability. The use of higher-aspect-ratio gold nanorods as a bimetallic template is an attractive alternative to the typical method as the longitudinal plasmon of these materials can be adjusted into the near-infrared (NIR) range. This adjustment expands the applications of bimetallic Au nanorods in the second-NIR biological window, which spans 1000-1700 nm. In this work, a materials-binding peptide, CPd4, is used to control the size and shape formation of palladium nanoparticles onto the surface of high-aspect-ratio gold nanorods. Through variation of the solvent used when attaching the peptide, the concentration of CPd4 retained on the nanorods can be manipulated. Higher concentrations of peptide, once palladium was added, were seen to result in smaller cubelike nanoparticles on the surface, whereas lower concentrations of peptide yielded larger spherical palladium nanoparticles. The ability to tune the size and shape of palladium nanorods on the gold nanorod surface allows for optimization of catalytic activity with applications in the NIR range

Triple oxygen isotope distribution in modern mammal teeth and potential geologic applications

Reconstructing water availability in terrestrial ecosystems is key to understanding past climate and landscapes, but there are few proxies for aridity that are available for use at terrestrial sites across the Cenozoic. The isotopic composition of tooth enamel is widely used as a paleoenvironmental indicator and recent work suggests the potential for using the triple oxygen isotopic composition of the carbonate component of mammalian tooth enamel (delta'O-17(enamel)) as an indicator of aridity. How-ever, the extent to which delta'(17)O(enamel )values vary across environments is unknown and there is no framework for evaluating past aridity using delta'O-17(enamel) data. Here we present delta'O-17(enamel) and delta O-18(enamel) values from 50 extant mammalian herbivores that vary in physiology, behavior, diet, and water-use strategy. Teeth are from sites in Africa, Europe, and North America and represent a range of environments (humid to arid) and latitudes (34 degrees S to 69 degrees N), where mean annual delta O-18 values of meteoric water range from -26.0% to 2.2% (VSMOW). delta'O-17(enamel) values from these sites span 162 per meg (-252 to -90 per meg), where 1 per meg = 0.001%). The observed variation in delta'O-17(enamel) values increases with aridity, forming a wedge-shaped pattern in a plot of aridity index vs. delta'O-17(enamel) that persists regardless of geographic region. In contrast, the plot of aridity index vs. delta(18)O(enamel )for these same samples does not yield a distinct pattern. We use these new delta'O-17(enamel) data from extant teeth to provide guidelines for using delta'O-17(enamel) data from fossil teeth to assess and classify the aridity of past environments. delta'O-17(enamel) values from the fossil record have the potential to be a widely used proxy for aridity without the limitations inherent to approaches that use delta O-18(enamel) values alone. In addition, the data presented here have implications for how delta'(17)O(enamel)l values of large mammalian herbivores can be used in evaluations of diagenesis and past pCO(2) and past gross primary productivity. (C) 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe