Mark Booth

Delta Islanders’ Jared Maznik thrives as a pick-up player for host Saints at Founder’s Cup national junior “B” championships

The UK and U.S. Governments have now formalized the UK-U.S. Data Bridge. The U.S. Attorney General designated the UK as a “qualifying state” for the...

The Council of the European Union and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on a new comprehensive regulation governing AI, known as the “AI Act,” late on Friday night (December 8, 2023). While the final agreed text has not yet been published, we have summarized what are understood to be some of the key aspects of the agreement.

We present a performance analysis for the aperture masking interferometry (AMI) mode on board the James Webb Space Telescope Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (JWST/NIRISS). Thanks to self-calibrating observables, AMI accesses inner working angles down to and even within the classical diffraction limit. The scientific potential of this mode has recently been demonstrated by the Early Release Science (ERS) 1386 program with a deep search for close-in companions in the HIP 65426 exoplanetary system. As part of ERS 1386, we use the same data set to explore the random, static, and calibration errors of NIRISS AMI observables. We compare the observed noise properties and achievable contrast to theoretical predictions. We explore possible sources of calibration errors and show that differences in charge migration between the observations of HIP 65426 and point-spread function calibration stars can account for the achieved contrast curves. Lastly, we use self-calibration tests to demonstrate that with adequate calibration NIRISS F380M AMI can reach contrast levels of ∼9–10 mag at ≳λ/D. These tests lead us to observation planning recommendations and strongly motivate future studies aimed at producing sophisticated calibration strategies taking these systematic effects into account. This will unlock the unprecedented capabilities of JWST/NIRISS AMI, with sensitivity to significantly colder, lower-mass exoplanets than lower-contrast ground-based AMI setups, at orbital separations inaccessible to JWST coronagraphy.

On March 13, 2024, the EU Parliament voted to pass the EU’s much-discussed AI Act (with 523 votes in favor, 46 against and 49 abstentions). For an insight into the AI Act’s progression through the EU lawmaking system, see our earlier posts: here, here and here.

Electronic identification and trust services (eIDAS) refer to a range of services that include verifying the identity of individuals and businesses...

The FCC’s recent introduction of a new Voluntary Cybersecurity Labelling Program for consumer Internet of Things (IoT) products reflects the continued desire by U.S. regulators to bolster the security of the ever-increasing number of internet-connected household items available to the public. UK and EU regulating authorities are no different, and are in the midst of introducing new cybersecurity requirements for the IoT.

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Mark Booth Senior Lecturer in Parasite Epidemiology, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University

Planning "reforms" are being used as an excuse to refuse applications