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

Laboratory Diagnosis of Radicular and Pseudoradicular Syndromes in Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF)

Laboratory tests may be used to confirm the clinical differentiation of pseudoradicular syndromes and radicular syndromes. In the presence of pseudoradicular syndromes, CSF and blood samples yield no positive results with either non-specific or specific methods. Radicular syndromes give rise to positive findings; using nonspecific methods they can be subdivided into inflammatory and non-inflammatory forms, with and without bloodnefve barrier impairment. Non-specific quantities of CSF routine diagnosis are total protein, albumin, leukocyte counts and differential cell courit, L-lactate, intrathecal -IgG, -IgA, -IgM and immunoglobulin-class oligoclonal bands. Oligoclonal bands enable the highly sensitive differentiation of non-inflammatory firom subacute-chronically inflammatory forms of radicular syndromes. Most of the specific quantities are the subject of current research, e. g. bacterial antigens, D-lactate, cultivation tests, polymerase chain reaction tests and pathogen-specific oligoclonal bands. Pathomechanisms affecting the permeability of the blood-nerve barrier to increasing concentrations of protein and to leukocyte subsets possibly explain the CSF fmdings in radicular and pseudoradicular syndromes.Peer Reviewe