Articles - QESP
By Springer
- Friday, December 28th, 2018
Once upon a time, people thought that electrons and ions always stuck together, living happily ever after. However, under low density of matter or high temperatures, the components of matter are no longer bound together. Instead, they form plasma, a state of matter naturally occurring in our universe, which has since been harnessed for everyday applications such as TV screens, chip etching and torches, but also propulsion and even sustained energy production via controlled fusion.
By Mikhail Dyakonov
- Friday, December 28th, 2018
In quantum computing, the classical two-state circuit element (the transistor) is replaced by a quantum element called a quantum bit, or qubit. Like the conventional bit, it also has two basic states. Although a variety of physical objects could reasonably serve as quantum bits, the simplest thing to use is the electron’s internal angular momentum, or spin, which has the peculiar quantum property of having only two possible projections on any coordinate axis: +1/2 or –1/2 (in units of the Planck constant). For whatever the chosen axis, you can denote the two basic quantum states of the electron’s spin as ? and ?.
By Stephen Easton
- Thursday, December 27th, 2018
The Australian government’s Information Security Manual has been simplified with the removal of 258 recommended cyber security controls and the addition of 63.
Words like “should” and “must” were also removed from the descriptions of 687 entries to get away from “compliance-based language” in the manual, according to a report listing all the changes.
Presumably, the idea is to encourage executives to take charge of managing cyber security risks and to use the ISM as a guide, but not to rely on it too much as a kind of checklist.
The latest update sees a net reduction of 20% on the 950 individual security tips that were listed in the previous version of the ISM.
By Ted Smillie
- Wednesday, December 26th, 2018
Yes, 2018 was a year of skepticism, where sound advice was often shouted down by unconscious bias, but by year end there were encouraging signs. On the down side: On climate change scepticism, a 20 December 2018 study led by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) notes that “The World Health […]
By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics and PLuS Alliance Fellow, UNSW
- Monday, December 3rd, 2018
What if we had an opportunity to double the size of the tourism industry, or to quadruple the size of the beef industry, or to boost the economy by more than any of the presently proposed tax switches?
What if we could do it while permanently improving the lives of disadvantaged young people?
We surely wouldn’t let it slip away.
By Stephen Easton
- Monday, December 3rd, 2018
If you think cyber risk management is not the end of the world you are dead wrong, according to the federal government’s top adviser on these matters.
Alastair MacGibbon thinks a potentially cataclysmic cyber security failure is “the greatest existential threat we face as a society today” and the relevant authorities have not been taking it seriously enough.
He told delegates at last week’s National Investigations Symposium — who came mostly from regulatory, law enforcement and public sector integrity agencies, as well as internal integrity units — that “cyber-related evidence” would soon become integral in most of their investigations.
By ABC Science technology reporter Ariel Bogle
- Monday, December 3rd, 2018
Australia’s new technology surveillance laws are drawing increasing scrutiny from international privacy groups and technology companies.
Crimes, smartphone applications and data can cross borders thanks to the internet, and the proposed legislation is part of a push to allow authorities greater access to suspects’ secure messages.
“The lack of access to encrypted communications presents an increasingly significant barrier for national security and law enforcement agencies,” Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said when introducing the bill to parliament in mid-September.
By Ted Smillie
- Sunday, December 2nd, 2018
“Scepticism is an attitude that treats every claim to truth as up for debate. Religion, philosophy, science, history, psychology – generally, sceptics believe every source of knowledge has its limits, and its up to us to figure out what those are.” So says a 05 October 2018 article by The Ethics Centre, Ethics Explainer: Scepticism, […]
By The Conversation
- Thursday, October 25th, 2018
Vocational Education and Training (VET) is an important part of the education sector and trains people of all ages for occupations vital across all sectors of the economy. It also makes a major contribution to social inclusion.
Australia endlessly debates the ATAR level needed even to enter teacher-training programs for school teaching.
But it doesn’t seem to care about the qualifications of those who teach our young people, workers and citizens in VET. For the last 20 years, VET teachers have only been required to have a Certificate IV level qualification in VET teaching, and the industry qualification at the level at which they are teaching people.
By Ted Smillie
- Thursday, October 25th, 2018
The Australian Government’s failures are not for want of external advice. Our September 2018 Issue reported on CSIRO’s Data61 Digital Innovation report, which claimed “A focus on eight key digital industries would yield up to $315 billion in economic value”.
Now a 4th October article in The Mandarin by Stephen Easton, The most influential voices outside of government on improving the APS, reports on the influence of the Centre for Strategy and Governance (CSG), noting that “The 20 CSG members are mostly ex-secretaries or deputy secretaries and include two past APS commissioners, Lynelle Briggs and Helen Williams, as well as Ian McPhee, the immediate past auditor-general. Some of the newest to join them are recently departed secretaries Lisa Paul and Gordon de Brouwer, who also sits on the APS Review panel chaired by David Thodey.”
