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

Epidemic Spreading in Technological Networks

This dissertation proposes a new epidemiological model to account for particular characteristics of computer worm epidemics. This new model, termed the Progressive Susceptible-Infected-Detected-Removed (PSIDR) epidemiological model, incorporates new aspects related to the availability of antivirus signatures, to the existence of direct immunization, and to the presence of a curing phase. Various costs are incorporated in the model, which allow us to determine the best strategies to fight worms. The model undergoes an extensive series of validation tests, its properties being evaluated mostly numerically. The model shows good agreement with empirical data. The paper then investigates current response strategies as well as the effect of virus throttling. The model yields both practical recommendations and new insights about the observed low prevalence of worms over the Interne

Learning Spatial Invariance with the Trace Rule in Nonuniform Distributions

International audienceConvolutional models of object recognition achieve invariance to spatial transformations largely because of the use of a suitably defined pooling operator. This operator typically takes the form of a max or average function defined across units tuned to the same feature. As a model of the brain's ventral pathway, where computations are carried out by weighted synaptic connections, such pooling can lead to spatial invariance only if the weights that connect similarly tuned units to a given pooling unit are of approximately equal strengths. How identical weights can be learned in the face of nonuniformly distributed data remains unclear. In this letter, we show how various versions of the trace learning rule can help solve this problem. This allows us in turn to explain previously published results and make recommendations as to the optimal rule for invariance learning

Use of Predictive Analytic Tools to Assess Technological Emergences and Acquisition Targets

The United States has been the international leader in science and technology of importance to national security for three-quarters of a century. However, the development by other nations of their own science and technology capabilities, in concert with and fueled by increasing globalization and connectivity of economic and technological development, has increased competition for technological leadership. The authors use patent filings to analyze the current relative positions of the United States and other countries in selected technology areas of interest to the Department of the Air Force: additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence, ceramics, quantum, sensors, and space.Areas of technological emergence were identified by detecting rapid growth in cumulative patent applications in specific technology areas and whether this occurred in the United States or China. The authors also describe and analyze the patent portfolios of U.S. companies that were early filers in these areas, focusing on small or medium-size companies that were not already owned or controlled by foreign entities; this, in turn, enabled identification of companies that had specific leading technological capabilities that could make them attractive for possible foreign acquisition. The authors propose a method to simultaneously identify connected areas of technological emergence and the companies with leading capabilities in these areas

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 4 m. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the 6.5 m James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 yr, 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