This paper consists of an argument and a pilot study. First is a general, perhaps philosophical, argument against the National Academy's viewpoint''' that dealing with risk is a two-stage process consisting of (a) assessment of facts, and (b) evaluation of facts in sociopolitical context. We argue that societal risk intrinsically revolves around social relations as much as around evaluations of probability. Second, we outline one particular approach to analyzing societal risk management styles. We call this the fairness hypothesis. Rather than focusing on probabilities and magnitudes of undesired events, this approach emphasizes societal preferences for principles of achieving consent to a technology, distributing liabilities, and investing trust in institutions. Conflict rather than probability is the chief focus of this approach to societal risk management. This view is illustrated by a recent empirical pilot study that explored the fairness hypothesis in the context of new nuclear technologies.

A dc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometer has been integrated on a 9×9 mm2 chip with eight pick-up loops in parallel to directly form a SQUID inductance of about 0.5 nH. Very simple feedback electronics have been developed which do not require liquid-helium temperature impedance matching circuits or flux modulation techniques. The magnetometer has a typical white noise of 8 fT/(Hz)1/2 and a 1/f  corner frequency below 3.5 Hz. With an additional positive feedback circuit at 4.2 K the white noise level has been further reduced to 4.5 fT/(Hz)1/2. Using a two-pole integrator, a 3 dB bandwidth around 0.5 MHz and a maximum slew rate of 3 mT/s at 1.3 kHz have been attained with a ±0.4 μT feedback range.

We have fabricated several low-noise direct-current superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometers from single layers of YBa2Cu3O7−δ on 10 mm×10 mm bicrystal substrates. The magnetometer design consists of a single-turn pickup loop that is directly coupled to the SQUID inductance. At 77 K, these magnetometers exhibit large voltage modulation with applied flux of over 40 μV. The minimum flux noise, measured at 77 K using conventional flux-locked loop electronics with bias current reversal, is 3.5×10−6 Φ0/√Hz above 10 kHz and 6.5×10−6 Φ0/√Hz at 1 Hz. The field-to-flux conversion efficiency is measured to be 10 nT/Φ0, resulting in a white magnetic field noise of 35 fT/√Hz above 10 kHz, increasing to 65 fT/√Hz at 1 Hz.

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Analysis of the acoustoelectric behavior of microwave frequency, temperature-compensated AlN-based multilayer coupling configurations J. Appl. Phys. 104, 104509 (2008) We discuss the design, fabrication, and testing of prototype horn-coupled, lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKIDs) designed for cosmic microwave background studies. The LEKIDs are made from a thin aluminum film deposited on a silicon wafer and patterned using standard photolithographic techniques at STAR Cryoelectronics, a commercial device foundry. We fabricated 20-element arrays, optimized for a spectral band centered on 150 GHz, to test the sensitivity and yield of the devices as well as the multiplexing scheme. We characterized the detectors in two configurations. First, the detectors were tested in a dark environment with the horn apertures covered, and second, the horn apertures were pointed towards a beam-filling cryogenic blackbody load. These tests show that the multiplexing scheme is robust and scalable, the yield across multiple LEKID arrays is 91%, and the measured noise-equivalent temperatures for a 4 K optical load are in the range 26 ± 6 μK √ s. © 2014 AIP Publishing LLC. [http://dx