Executive Orders: Promoting Democracy and Openness in New York State Government

This joint report outlines 11 executive actions Gov. Andrew Cuomo can take to open up New York State government, increase the accountability of state agencies and reduce barriers to voting. The orders are centered on the basic goal of empowering the citizenry with more and better information about what its government is doing, and how it is spending tax payer dollars

Bicycle Anti-Lock Braking System

Bicycling can be a very dangerous activity, largely because bicyclists have little to no protection relative to other vehicles on the road. In 2001, Transport Canada recorded 60 bicyclist fatalities and thousands of bicyclist injuries [1]. Governments have mandated safety equipment like helmets to protect cyclists in the event of an accident, but as any experienced bicyclist will tell you, keeping safe on a bike is largely about avoiding accidents in the first place. To meet this need for better bicycling safety, Cyclic Technologies is developing an antilock braking system (ABS) for bicycles that will help cyclists to avoid accidents by enabling them to stop faster and with more control

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