Cooled infrared filters and dichroics for the James Webb Space Telescope Mid-Infrared Instrument

The cooled infrared filters and dichroic beam splitters manufactured for the Mid-Infrared Instrument are key optical components for the selection and isolation of wavelengths in the study of astrophysical properties of stars, galaxies, and other planetary objects. We describe the spectral design and manufacture of the precision cooled filter coatings for the spectrometer (7 K) and imager (9 K). Details of the design methods used to achieve the spectral requirements, selection of thin film materials, deposition technique, and testing are presented together with the optical layout of the instrument. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.

Housing supply and brownfield regeneration in a post-Barker world: is there enough brownfield land in England and Scotland?

The findings of the Barker review, which examined the reasons for the undersupply of UK housing, have important implications for the devolved constituents of the UK, including Scotland. This paper traces the emergence of the brownfi eld regeneration policy agenda across the UK and examines how the Barker review connects with this brownfi eld policy focus. The paper compares housing and brownfi eld policies and practices in England and Scotland, places them in an international context and elicits wider lessons for devolved governance in relation to housing policy, in terms of ‘centrist–local’ tensions. Estimates based on published data suggest that Barker’s emphasis on increased housing supply cannot easily be reconciled with the current emphasis on brownfi eld development and is likely to require a return to greenfield development in both countries.

Queering Philip Roth: homosocial discourse in 'An actor’s life for me', 'Letting go', 'Sabbath’s theater' and the 'American trilogy'

Much has been written on Roth’s representation of masculinity, but this critical discourse has tended to be situated within a heteronormative frame of reference, perhaps because of Roth’s popular reputation as an aggressively heterosexual, libidinous, masculinist, in some versions sexist or even misogynist author. In this essay I argue that Roth’s representation of male sexuality is more complex, ambiguous, and ambivalent than has been generally recognized. Tracing a strong thread of what I call homosocial discourse running through Roth’s oeuvre, I suggest that the series of intimate relationships with other men that many of Roth’s protagonists form are conspicuously couched in this discourse and that a recognition of this ought to reconfigure our sense of the sexual politics of Roth’s career, demonstrating in particular that masculinity in his work is too fluid and dynamic to be accommodated by the conventional binaries of heterosexual and homosexual, feminized Jew and hyper-masculine Gentile, the “ordinary sexual man” and the transgressively desiring male subject.