The Future of Journalism

The news industry faces monumental challenges: • More people are getting news and information on line •Advertising revenues are down • Major media companies are in or have gone through bankruptcy • Minute-by-minute reporting is changing the way newspapers, especially, report the news • Layoffs and consolidation stretches news staffs to cover stories in-depth What do these challenges mean for the future of news? What will be the impact of the changing media landscape on our democracy? How will these challenges influence the careers of future journalists? John Foreman, publisher, News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana Will Sullivan, interactive director, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Nancy Foreman, executive producer, WCIA-TV 3, Champaign-Urbana Bryan Murley, assistant professor of journalism, Eastern Illinois University Moderator Jeff Lynch, interim dean, College of Arts & Humanitieshttps://thekeep.eiu.edu/humanitiescenter_meaningfulwork0910/1000/thumbnail.jp

A Search for New Physics with the BEACON Mission

The primary objective of the Beyond Einstein Advanced Coherent Optical Network (BEACON) mission is a search for new physics beyond general relativity by measuring the curvature of relativistic space-time around Earth. This curvature is characterized by the Eddington parameter \gamma -- the most fundamental relativistic gravity parameter and a direct measure for the presence of new physical interactions. BEACON will achieve an accuracy of 1 x 10^{-9} in measuring the parameter \gamma, thereby going a factor of 30,000 beyond the present best result involving the Cassini spacecraft. Secondary mission objectives include: (i) a direct measurement of the "frame-dragging" and geodetic precessions in the Earth's rotational gravitomagnetic field, to 0.05% and 0.03% accuracy correspondingly, (ii) first measurement of gravity's non-linear effects on light and corresponding 2nd order spatial metric's effects to 0.01% accuracy. BEACON will lead to robust advances in tests of fundamental physics -- this mission could discover a violation or extension of general relativity and/or reveal the presence of an additional long range interaction in physics. BEACON will provide crucial information to separate modern scalar-tensor theories of gravity from general relativity, probe possible ways for gravity quantization, and test modern theories of cosmological evolution.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 2 table

Inflation and Dark Energy from spectroscopy at z > 2

The expansion of the Universe is understood to have accelerated during two epochs: in its very first moments during a period of Inflation and much more recently, at z < 1, when Dark Energy is hypothesized to drive cosmic acceleration. The undiscovered mechanisms behind these two epochs represent some of the most important open problems in fundamental physics. The large cosmological volume at 2 < z < 5, together with the ability to efficiently target high-$z$ galaxies with known techniques, enables large gains in the study of Inflation and Dark Energy. A future spectroscopic survey can test the Gaussianity of the initial conditions up to a factor of ~50 better than our current bounds, crossing the crucial theoretical threshold of $\sigma(f_{NL}^{\rm local})$ of order unity that separates single field and multi-field models. Simultaneously, it can measure the fraction of Dark Energy at the percent level up to $z = 5$, thus serving as an unprecedented test of the standard model and opening up a tremendous discovery space

The clustering of galaxies in the completed SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Anisotropic galaxy clustering in Fourier-space

We investigate the anisotropic clustering of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) Data Release 12 (DR12) sample, which consists of $1\,198\,006$ galaxies in the redshift range $0.2 < z < 0.75$ and a sky coverage of $10\,252\,$deg$^2$. We analyse this dataset in Fourier space, using the power spectrum multipoles to measure Redshift-Space Distortions (RSD) simultaneously with the Alcock-Paczynski (AP) effect and the Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) scale. We include the power spectrum monopole, quadrupole and hexadecapole in our analysis and compare our measurements with a perturbation theory based model, while properly accounting for the survey window function. To evaluate the reliability of our analysis pipeline we participate in a mock challenge, which resulted in systematic uncertainties significantly smaller than the statistical uncertainties. While the high-redshift constraint on $f\sigma_8$ at $z_{\rm eff}=0.61$ indicates a small ($\sim 1.4\sigma$) deviation from the prediction of the Planck $\Lambda$CDM model, the low-redshift constraint is in good agreement with Planck $\Lambda$CDM. This paper is part of a set that analyses the final galaxy clustering dataset from BOSS. The measurements and likelihoods presented here are combined with others in~\citet{Alam2016} to produce the final cosmological constraints from BOSS

The Future of Journalism

The news industry faces monumental challenges: • More people are getting news and information on line •Advertising revenues are down • Major media companies are in or have gone through bankruptcy • Minute-by-minute reporting is changing the way newspapers, especially, report the news • Layoffs and consolidation stretches news staffs to cover stories in-depth What do these challenges mean for the future of news? What will be the impact of the changing media landscape on our democracy? How will these challenges influence the careers of future journalists? John Foreman, publisher, News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana Will Sullivan, interactive director, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Nancy Foreman, executive producer, WCIA-TV 3, Champaign-Urbana Bryan Murley, assistant professor of journalism, Eastern Illinois University Moderator Jeff Lynch, interim dean, College of Arts & Humanitieshttps://thekeep.eiu.edu/humanitiescenter_meaningfulwork0910/1000/thumbnail.jp

Rideshare and the Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle: the Key to Low-cost Lagrange-point Missions

Rideshare is a well proven approach, in both LEO and GEO, enabling low-cost space access through splitting of launch charges between multiple passengers. Demand exists from users to operate payloads at Lagrange points, but a lack of regular rides results in a deficiency in rideshare opportunities. As a result, such mission architectures currently rely on a costly dedicated launch. NASA and Moog have jointly studied the technical feasibility, risk and cost of using an Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) to offer Lagrange point rideshare opportunities. This OMV would be launched as a secondary passenger on a commercial rocket into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) and utilize the Moog ESPA secondary launch adapter. The OMV is effectively a free flying spacecraft comprising a full suite of avionics and a propulsion system capable of performing GTO to Lagrange point transfer via a weak stability boundary orbit. In addition to traditional OMV ’tug’ functionality, scenarios using the OMV to host payloads for operation at the Lagrange points have also been analyzed. This analysis has led to definition of a mission concept to allow space weather monitoring at the Earth-Sun L1 point as well as perform the technology demonstration of an advanced solar sail payload