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The fabrication of NanoTube Black, a Vertically Aligned carbon NanoTube Array (VANTA) on aluminium substrates is reported for the first time. The coating on aluminium was realised using a process that employs top down thermal radiation to assist growth, enabling deposition at temperatures below the substrate's melting point. The NanoTube Black coatings were shown to exhibit directional hemispherical reflectance values of typically less than 1% across wavelengths in the 2.5 µm to 15 µm range. VANTA-coated aluminium substrates were subjected to space qualification testing (mass loss, outgassing, shock, vibration and temperature cycling) before their optical properties were re-assessed. Within measurement uncertainty, no changes to hemispherical reflectance were detected, confirming that NanoTube Black coatings on aluminium are good candidates for Earth Observation (EO) applications.

*We would like to thank the Department of Family and Community Services for funding this research. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Minister for Family and Community Services, the Department of Family and Community Services or the Commonwealth Government.

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Increasing inequality in Australian cities has created the need for a deeper understanding of the interaction between spatial segmentation and economic outcomes. This paper offers a preliminary economic analysis of Australian neighbourhood externalities in the context of increasing segmentation. Theoretically, neighbourhoods can affect youths' economic outcomes through their effects on school quality, information flows, job networks, and demonstration effects. We utilise a new survey of 171 year 12 students in ten Melbourne high schools to examine the impact of individual, family, and neighbourhood characteristics on the decision to attend post-secondary education. It is shown that there exist neighbourhood externalities that affect human capital investment decisions. Finally, we offer some tentative implications for public policy.

Analyses of neighbourhood externalities have failed to produce consistent findings of their influence on outcomes. We explore variation in estimations of youths’ education expectations between two sets of neighbourhood proxies: one corresponding to the neighbourhood in which students’ schools were located; the other to students’ home neighbourhoods. Estimations including the latter were found to be less likely to suffer from misspecifications. This might help explain variation in previous findings and provides greater confidence in results showing that there are important neighbourhood effects that influence youths’ education.

Too often, we look at the mechanics of teaching in trying to improve teaching skills. Instead, we should have a nearly singular focus on improving learning, including professional learning.