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

Speech compression & decompression through DSP

The main purpose of this project is to implement a speech compression algorithm using a digital signal processor. The algorithm that will be developed is the efficient compression and storage of speech signals in real-time. This will be implemented through the use of three components: a host computer, a software program and the digital signal processor. The appropriate signal processing algorithm will be programmed by the group and a host computer will be used as a medium to send and load the necessary instructions of the program to the digital signal processor. The digital signal processor will be the system that will perform the actual signal processing, specifically the encoding of signals, compression, decompression, and the decoding of the decompressed signals. Signal processing will be done by first acquiring speech signals using a microphone which is directly connected to a pre-amplifier. These signals will then be encoded, compressed accordingly in the DSP kit and will be stored into the DSP on-chip RAM. The project will be very substantial for many signal-related applications since most of modern signal related technologies require efficient signal compression. Some of its common applications are computer-based training (CBT), sound editing and recording, speech recognition and voice mail. Computer-based training is a means of acquiring knowledge with the use of computers through recorded topics or lectures whereas sound editing and recording is popularly used by most recording studios and companies to enhance music reproduction. Speech recognition also requires compression to increase its number of templates for signal comparison and it is needed in voice mail to efficiently store as many number of messages as possible

Human Gut Microbiota: Toward an Ecology of Disease

Composed of trillions of individual microbes, the human gut microbiota has adapted to the uniquely diverse environments found in the human intestine. Quickly responding to the variances in the ingested food, the microbiota interacts with the host via reciprocal biochemical signaling to coordinate the exchange of nutrients and proper immune function. Host and microbiota function as a unit which guards its balance against invasion by potential pathogens and which undergoes natural selection. Disturbance of the microbiota composition, or dysbiosis, is often associated with human disease, indicating that, while there seems to be no unique optimal composition of the gut microbiota, a balanced community is crucial for human health. Emerging knowledge of the ecology of the microbiota-host synergy will have an impact on how we implement antibiotic treatment in therapeutics and prophylaxis and how we will consider alternative strategies of global remodeling of the microbiota such as fecal transplants. Here we examine the microbiota-human host relationship from the perspective of the microbial community dynamics

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