astroplan: An Open Source Observation Planning Package in Python

We present astroplan - an open source, open development, Astropy affiliated package for ground-based observation planning and scheduling in Python. astroplan is designed to provide efficient access to common observational quantities such as celestial rise, set, and meridian transit times and simple transformations from sky coordinates to altitude-azimuth coordinates without requiring a detailed understanding of astropy's implementation of coordinate systems. astroplan provides convenience functions to generate common observational plots such as airmass and parallactic angle as a function of time, along with basic sky (finder) charts. Users can determine whether or not a target is observable given a variety of observing constraints, such as airmass limits, time ranges, Moon illumination/separation ranges, and more. A selection of observation schedulers are included which divide observing time among a list of targets, given observing constraints on those targets. Contributions to the source code from the community are welcome

Multi-messenger observations of a binary neutron star merger

On 2017 August 17 a binary neutron star coalescence candidate (later designated GW170817) with merger time 12:41:04 UTC was observed through gravitational waves by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor independently detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) with a time delay of ~1.7 s with respect to the merger time. From the gravitational-wave signal, the source was initially localized to a sky region of 31 deg2 at a luminosity distance of 40+8-8 Mpc and with component masses consistent with neutron stars. The component masses were later measured to be in the range 0.86 to 2.26 Mo. An extensive observing campaign was launched across the electromagnetic spectrum leading to the discovery of a bright optical transient (SSS17a, now with the IAU identification of AT 2017gfo) in NGC 4993 (at ~40 Mpc) less than 11 hours after the merger by the One- Meter, Two Hemisphere (1M2H) team using the 1 m Swope Telescope. The optical transient was independently detected by multiple teams within an hour. Subsequent observations targeted the object and its environment. Early ultraviolet observations revealed a blue transient that faded within 48 hours. Optical and infrared observations showed a redward evolution over ~10 days. Following early non-detections, X-ray and radio emission were discovered at the transient’s position ~9 and ~16 days, respectively, after the merger. Both the X-ray and radio emission likely arise from a physical process that is distinct from the one that generates the UV/optical/near-infrared emission. No ultra-high-energy gamma-rays and no neutrino candidates consistent with the source were found in follow-up searches. These observations support the hypothesis that GW170817 was produced by the merger of two neutron stars in NGC4993 followed by a short gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) and a kilonova/macronova powered by the radioactive decay of r-process nuclei synthesized in the ejecta

Perceptions of Federal Aid Impacts on State Agencies: Patterns, Trends, and Variations Across the 20th Century

American federalism is a dynamic process involving the views and interactions among state and national officials. Based on multiple mail surveys of state agency heads across 75 years, this article traces the perspectives of state executives toward a core component of state-national relationships—federal aid. The time frame dates from the 1920s and covers a period in which federal aid programs to the states grew enormously, as did state administrative establishments. There was a long-term rise in the perceived intrusiveness of federal aid as well as increased policy distortion effects. Despite substantial fluctuations in perceived aid impacts, there was a four-decade consistency in the penetration of federal aid into and across the existing 3,000 state agencies. Furthermore, when perceptions of national influence are combined in an index of perceived national fiscal influence, there was a roller coaster effect with an overall secular "decline" in national influence since 1974. Copyright 2007, Oxford University Press.

\u3ci\u3eInternational Encyclopedia Of Public Policy And Administration \u3c/i\u3e

Editor: Jay Shafritz Federalism authored by Dale Krane, UNO faculty member. Intergovernmental Relations co-authored by Dale Krane, UNO faculty member. Intergovernmental Management co-authored by Dale Krane, UNO faculty member. Public administration—the implementation side of government—is becoming an increasingly international discipline. Public policy—the decisionmaking side of modern government—has often been segregated from the administration of policy decisions. This four-volume encyclopedia is the first major international and comprehensive reference to combine public administration and policy in a single work.Containing approximately 900 articles by over 300 experts, the International Encyclopedia of Public Policy and Administration covers all of the core concepts, terms, and processes of the following areas: applied behavioral science, budgeting, comparative public administration, development administration, industrial/organizational psychology, industrial policy, international trade, labor relations, management, nonprofit management, organization theory and behavior, policy analysis, political economy, political science, public administration, public finance, public law, public management, public personnel administration, public policy, and taxation.The reader will also find entries on individuals who made significant intellectual and technical contributions to the development of public policy and administration, such as Louis Brownlow, John Maynard Keynes, and Leonard White; significant organizations such as the American Society for Public Administration, the International Institute of Administrative Sciences, and the National Academy of Public Administration; and historically important committees or commissions, such as the Fulton Committee in Great Britain or the Hoover Commission in the United States.Each article tackles its subject from a generic perspective with examples from as wide a range of states as practical. Typically, an article deals with historical and theoretical developments, then explains how relevant concepts and practices are applied in varying cultures, such as the United States, Western Europe, or Asia, and in varying regimes, such as presidential, parliamentary, or monarchical. An underlying theme of the encyclopedia is that the various aspects of public administration in all developed states are essentially the same.The International Encyclopedia of Public Policy and Administration presents the best of modern scholarship in an accessible form for an international audience. It is designed so that its contents—a combination of historical and descriptive articles, procedural presentations, and interpretive essays—will be accessible to the general reader as well as of interest to the specialist. Destined to become the basic reference book for public policy and administration, this encyclopedia will be an invaluable resource for students, teachers, and practitioners throughout the world.https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/facultybooks/1213/thumbnail.jp

GUBERNATORIAL INFLUENCE AND STATE BUREAUCRACY

Previous research has concentrated on differences in gubernatorial power across states. Relatively little research attention has been devoted to the sources of gubernatorial influence over state agencies. Based on data collected from state administrators in 1978, this study examines the effects of four sets of factors on the perceived influence of the governor over the state administrative apparatus. These sets are: formal powers of the governor, characteristics of the agencies, characteristics of the positions held by administrators, and personal characteristics of these officials. Results show that these factors account for nearly one-fourth of the variance in the influence of the governor over state agencies, as reported by agency heads.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline