Financial inclusion depends on providing adjusted services for citizens with disclosed vulnerabilities. At the same time, the financial industry needs to adhere to a strict regulatory framework, which is often in conflict with the desire for inclusive, adaptive, and privacy-preserving services. In this article we study how this tension impacts the deployment of privacy-sensitive technologies aimed at financial inclusion. We conduct a qualitative study with banking experts to understand their perspectives on service development for financial inclusion. We build and demonstrate a prototype solution based on open source decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials software and report on feedback from the banking experts on this system. The technology is promising thanks to its selective disclosure of vulnerabilities to the full control of the individual. This supports GDPR requirements, but at the same time, there is a clear tension between introducing these technologies and fulfilling other regulatory requirements, particularly with respect to “Know Your Customer.” We consider the policy implications stemming from these tensions and provide guidelines for the further design of related technologies.

In this paper, we describe the system design and capabilities of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope at the conclusion of its construction project and commencement of science operations. ASKAP is one of the first radio telescopes to deploy phased array feed (PAF) technology on a large scale, giving it an instantaneous field of view that covers $31\,\textrm{deg}^{2}$ at $800\,\textrm{MHz}$. As a two-dimensional array of 36$\times$12 m antennas, with baselines ranging from 22 m to 6 km, ASKAP also has excellent snapshot imaging capability and 10 arcsec resolution. This, combined with 288 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth and a unique third axis of rotation on each antenna, gives ASKAP the capability to create high dynamic range images of large sky areas very quickly. It is an excellent telescope for surveys between 700 and $1800\,\textrm{MHz}$ and is expected to facilitate great advances in our understanding of galaxy formation, cosmology, and radio transients while opening new parameter space for discovery of the unknown.

The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (RACS) is the first large-area survey to be conducted with the full 36-antenna Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope. RACS will provide a shallow model of the ASKAP sky that will aid the calibration of future deep ASKAP surveys. RACS will cover the whole sky visible from the ASKAP site in Western Australia and will cover the full ASKAP band of 700–1800 MHz. The RACS images are generally deeper than the existing NRAO VLA Sky Survey and Sydney University Molonglo Sky Survey radio surveys and have better spatial resolution. All RACS survey products will be public, including radio images (with $\sim$ 15 arcsec resolution) and catalogues of about three million source components with spectral index and polarisation information. In this paper, we present a description of the RACS survey and the first data release of 903 images covering the sky south of declination $+41^\circ$ made over a 288-MHz band centred at 887.5 MHz.

We describe the performance of the Boolardy Engineering Test Array, the prototype for the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope. Boolardy Engineering Test Array is the first aperture synthesis radio telescope to use phased array feed technology, giving it the ability to electronically form up to nine dual-polarisation beams. We report the methods developed for forming and measuring the beams, and the adaptations that have been made to the traditional calibration and imaging procedures in order to allow BETA to function as a multi-beam aperture synthesis telescope. We describe the commissioning of the instrument and present details of Boolardy Engineering Test Array’s performance: sensitivity, beam characteristics, polarimetric properties, and image quality. We summarise the astronomical science that it has produced and draw lessons from operating Boolardy Engineering Test Array that will be relevant to the commissioning and operation of the final Australian Square Kilometre Array Path telescope.

In many cells throughout the body, vitamin D is converted into its active form calcitriol and binds to the vitamin D receptor (VDR), which functions as a transcription factor to regulate various biological processes including cellular differentiation and immune response. Vitamin D-metabolising enzymes (including CYP24A1 and CYP27B1) and VDR play major roles in exerting and regulating the effects of vitamin D. Preclinical and epidemiological studies have provided evidence for anti-cancer effects of vitamin D (particularly against colorectal cancer), although clinical trials have yet to prove its benefit. In addition, molecular pathological epidemiology research can provide insights into the interaction of vitamin D with tumour molecular and immunity status. Other future research directions include genome-wide research on VDR transcriptional targets, gene–environment interaction analyses and clinical trials on vitamin D efficacy in colorectal cancer patients. In this study, we review the literature on vitamin D and colorectal cancer from both mechanistic and population studies and discuss the links and controversies within and between the two parts of evidence.

This paper describes the system architecture of a newly constructed radio telescope – the Boolardy engineering test array, which is a prototype of the Australian square kilometre array pathfinder telescope. Phased array feed technology is used to form multiple simultaneous beams per antenna, providing astronomers with unprecedented survey speed. The test array described here is a six-antenna interferometer, fitted with prototype signal processing hardware capable of forming at least nine dual-polarisation beams simultaneously, allowing several square degrees to be imaged in a single pointed observation. The main purpose of the test array is to develop beamforming and wide-field calibration methods for use with the full telescope, but it will also be capable of limited early science demonstrations.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to develop a decision support tool to assess the potential benefits and costs of new healthcare interventions.

Methods: The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer (CPAC) commissioned the development of a Cancer Risk Management Model (CRMM)—a computer microsimulation model that simulates individual lives one at a time, from birth to death, taking account of Canadian demographic and labor force characteristics, risk factor exposures, and health histories. Information from all the simulated lives is combined to produce aggregate measures of health outcomes for the population or for particular subpopulations.

Results: The CRMM can project the population health and economic impacts of cancer control programs in Canada and the impacts of major risk factors, cancer prevention, and screening programs and new cancer treatments on population health and costs to the healthcare system. It estimates both the direct costs of medical care, as well as lost earnings and impacts on tax revenues. The lung and colorectal modules are available through the CPAC Web site (www.cancerview.ca/cancerrriskmanagement) to registered users where structured scenarios can be explored for their projected impacts. Advanced users will be able to specify new scenarios or change existing modules by varying input parameters or by accessing open source code. Model development is now being extended to cervical and breast cancers.

On RADARSAT imagery, the southern margin of the onset zone of Bindschadler Ice Stream, West Antarctica, manifests a multi-banded feature, with brightness varying across the bands and oscillating along each band. Ground-based radar profiles across the margin reveal folds in the firn stratigraphy associated with this pattern and provide evidence for correlation between the depth of shallow isochrones and the RADARSAT backscatter intensity on each profile, allowing us to interpret the banded feature for firn-layer geometry in three dimensions. We use a kinematic model of isochrone depth evolution to show how layer folding and the band expression may result from deformation and advection in the near-surface flow field at ice-stream margins, even with steady flow. The model predicts the formation of longitudinally patterned bands when the ice-stream acceleration fluctuates along flow. Concerted study of the planform and stratigraphy of other RADARSAT-detected features on the ice sheets may help us understand their origin.

Radar studies of firn on the ice sheets have revealed complex folds on its internal layering that form from the interplay of snow accumulation and ice flow. A mathematical theory for these fold structures is presented, for the case where the radar cross section lies along the ice-flow direction and where the accumulation rate and ice-flow velocity are time-invariant. Our model, which accounts for firn densification, shows how ‘information’ (the depth and slope of isochrones) propagates on the radargram to govern its layer undulations. This leads us to discover universal rules behind the pattern of layer slopes on a distance–age domain and understand why the loci of layer-fold hinges curve, emerge and combine on the radargram to form closed loops that delineate areas of rising and plunging isochrones. We also develop a way of retrieving the accumulation rate distribution and layer ages from steady isochrone patterns. Analysis of a radargram from the onset zone of Bindschadler Ice Stream, West Antarctica, indicates that ice flow and accumulation rates have been steady there for the past ∼400 years, and that spatial anomalies in the latter are coupled to surface topography induced by ice flow over the undulating ice-stream bed. The theory provides new concepts for the morphological interpretation of radargrams.

This work studies the chemical and structural changes that occur in sols upon heating to form ceramics. Ferrimagnetic Y3Fe5O12 (YIG) was chosen because the geometric and structural constraint of ferrimagnetic interactions allow for a direct measurement of the degree of well-defined structure present within the sol at various stages of development. Glycolate sols of 8% mol total metal were prepared using Y(NO3)3 and Fe(NO3)3 hydrates in stoichiometric ratios. Terminal straight-chain diols were used, ranging from 1,2-ethanediol to 1,6-hexanediol. The temperatures at which mass change occurred during heating were determined by thermogravimetric analysis. Samples were heated to these temperatures and examined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), x-ray diffraction, and magnetometry to determine chemical, structural, and magnetic changes. Ferrimagnetic ordering was present after the first heating step. Defined structure, determined by x-ray, occurred in the penultimate step. Analysis of FTIR spectra, in conjunction with the results of thermogravimetric analysis, revealed a predictable decomposition pathway.