LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products

(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at Cerro Pach\'{o}n in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg$^2$ field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000 square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5$\sigma$ point-source depth in a single visit in $r$ will be $\sim 24.5$ (AB). The project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg$^2$ with $\delta<+34.5^\circ$, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, $ugrizy$, covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a 18,000 deg$^2$ region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to $r\sim27.5$. The remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products, including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.Comment: 57 pages, 32 color figures, version with high-resolution figures available from https://www.lsst.org/overvie

Rethinking place-making: aligning placeness factors with perceived urban design qualities (PUDQs) to improve the built environment in historical district

Understanding the concept of place is critically important for urban design and place-making practice, and this research attempted to investigate the pathways by which perceived urban design qualities (PUDQs) influence placeness factors in the Chinese context. Twelve hypotheses were developed and combined in a structural equation model for validation. The Tanhualin historical district in Wuhan, China was selected for the analysis. As a result, place attachment was verified as a critical bridge factor that mediated the influence of PUDQs on place satisfaction. Among the five selected PUDQs, walkability and space quality were revealed as the most influential factors associated with place attachment and place satisfaction. Accessibility was actually indirectly beneficial to place-making via the mediation of walkability. Corresponding implications and strategies were discussed to maintain the sense of place for historic districts

Study Examines Stereotypes In Two National Newspapers

A study ofThe New York Times and USA Today articles on college basketball counters the genderspecific stereotypes found in previous studies on television commentary ofMarch Madness

John Amaechi: Changing The Way Sport Reporters Examine Gay Athletes

In 2007, John Amaechi became the first former National Basketball Association (NBA) player to publicly announce he was gay. Former NBA star Tim Hardaway made a series of homophobic remarks a week later. A textual analysis was used to analyze narratives on Amaechi\u27s revelation and/or Hardaway\u27s comments published in 50 international newspapers. Four dominant themes emerged from the data. While most of these themes supported narratives that gay males remain unwelcome in men\u27s team sports, all were challenged consistently, thus, showing the fluidity of hegemonic masculinity and the increasing societal acceptance of gays and gay lifestyles. Moreover, print media writers exhibited little homophobia and frequently called for more acceptance of gays, particularly within sport. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

In Demand? Examining Sport Management Faculty Openings And Hires

Over the past 25-30 years, sport management has been among the fastest growing academic disciplines in higher education within the United States. However, the few universities producing sport management doctoral graduates have seemingly been unable to meet the demands for qualified individuals to teach at the university level. This study analyzed each of the 124 professorial advertisements for sport management/administration placed by U.S. universities over a one-year period, encompassing the 2005-06 academic year. The majority of the openings were in the Southeast, Northeast, and Midwest, with few listings in the Southwest or West. Nearly half of all listings were at institutions offering sport management only at the undergraduate level. A phone survey revealed only 69% of advertised positions were filled, with 53% of schools with failed searches citing a lack of desired applicants. A majority of schools that did not hire planned to re-post their positions the following academic year. © 2011 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved