An Analysis of Potential Tax Incentives to Increase Charitable Giving in Puerto Rico

Compares options for improving tax incentives for charitable giving, including lifting the ceiling on deductions as a percentage of adjusted gross income, and estimated effects on nonprofits in Puerto Rico, where average giving is high relative to AGI

The Radial Extent and Warp of the Ionized Galactic Disk. I. A VLBA Survey of Extragalactic Sources Toward the Anticenter

We report multifrequency Very Long Baseline Array observations of twelve active galactic nuclei seen toward the Galactic anticenter. All of the sources are at |b| < 10 degrees and seven have |b| < 0.5 degrees. Our VLBA observations can detect an enhancement in the angular broadening of these sources due to an extended H II disk, if the orientation of the H II disk in the outer Galaxy is similar to that of the H I disk. Such an extended H II disk is suggested by the C IV absorption in a quasar's spectrum, the appearance of H I disks of nearby spiral galaxies, and models of Ly-alpha cloud absorbers and the Galactic fountain. We detect eleven of the twelve sources at one or more frequencies; nine of the sources are compact and suitable for an angular broadening analysis. A preliminary analysis of the observed angular diameters suggests that the H II disk does not display considerable warping or flaring and does not extend to large Galactocentric distances (R >~ 100 kpc). A companion paper (Lazio & Cordes 1997) combines these observations with those in the literature and presents a more comprehensive analysis.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX2e with AASTeX macro aaspp4, accepted for publication in ApJS, Vol. 115, 1998 April; Figures 1, 3, and 4 included, for figures of individual sources see http://astrosun.tn.cornell.edu/students/lazio/Anticenter/anticenterI.htm

Angular Broadening of Intraday Variable AGN. II. Interstellar and Intergalactic Scattering

We analyze a sample of 58 multi-wavelength, Very Long Baseline Array observations of active galactic nuclei (AGN) to determine their scattering properties. Approximately 75% of the sample consists of AGN that exhibit centimeter-wavelength intraday variability (interstellar scintillation) while the other 25% do not show intraday variability. We find that interstellar scattering is measurable for most of these AGN, and the typical broadening diameter is 2 mas at 1 GHz. We find that the scintillating AGN are typically at lower Galactic latitudes than the non-scintillating AGN, consistent with the scenario that intraday variability is a propagation effect from the Galactic interstellar medium. The magnitude of the inferred interstellar broadening measured toward the scintillating AGN, when scaled to higher frequencies, is comparable to the diameters inferred from analyses of the light curves for the more well-known intraday variable sources. However, we find no difference in the amount of scattering measured toward the scintillating versus non-scintillating AGN. A consistent picture is one in which the scintillation results from localized regions ("clumps") distributed throughout the Galactic disk, but which individually make little contribution to the angular broadening. Of the 58 AGN observed, 37 (64%) have measured redshifts. At best, a marginal trend is found for scintillating (non-scintillating) AGN to have smaller (larger) angular diameters at higher redshifts. We also use our observations to try to constrain the possibility of intergalactic scattering. While broadly consistent with the scenario of a highly turbulent intergalactic medium, our observations do not place significant constraints on its properties.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures; AASTeX format; ApJ in pres

The Microarcsecond Sky and Cosmic Turbulence

Radio waves are imprinted with propagation effects from ionized media through which they pass. Owing to electron density fluctuations, compact sources (pulsars, masers, and compact extragalactic sources) can display a wide variety of scattering effects. These scattering effects, particularly interstellar scintillation, can be exploited to provide *superresolution*, with achievable angular resolutions (<~ 1 microarcsecond) far in excess of what can be obtained by very long baseline interferometry on terrestrial baselines. Scattering effects also provide a powerful sub-AU probe of the microphysics of the interstellar medium, potentially to spatial scales smaller than 100 km, as well as a tracer of the Galactic distribution of energy input into the interstellar medium through a variety of integrated measures. Coupled with future gamma-ray observations, SKA observations also may provide a means of detecting fainter compact gamma-ray sources. Though it is not yet clear that propagation effects due to the intergalactic medium are significant, the SKA will either detect or place stringent constraints on intergalactic scattering.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures in 8 PostScript files, to appear in "Science with the Square Kilometer Array," eds. C. Carilli and S. Rawlings, New Astronomy Reviews (Elsevier: Amsterdam

Genesis Lunar Outpost: Program/Requirements Document for an Early Stage Lunar Outpost

Second document in a series from the Space Architecture Design Group. Developed under the first year of a three-year grant from NASA, the program covers humans factors, environment-behavior, structural, construction processes, life-system and related needs for an 8-12 person lunar base for assignments lasting up to 20 months. The program includes sections on base master planning, base operations, command center, technical support habitat and all related design requirements.https://dc.uwm.edu/caupr_mono/1053/thumbnail.jp

Anomalous Radio-Wave Scattering from Interstellar Plasma Structures

This paper considers scattering screens that have arbitrary spatial variations of scattering strength transverse to the line of sight, including screens that are spatially well confined, such as disks and filaments. We calculate the scattered image of a point source and the observed pulse shape of a scattered impulse. The consequences of screen confinement include: (1) Source image shapes that are determined by the physical extent of the screen rather than by the shapes of much-smaller diffracting microirregularities. These include image elongations and orientations that are frequency dependent. (2) Variation with frequency of angular broadening that is much weaker than the trademark \nu^{-2} scaling law (for a cold, unmagnetized plasma), including frequency-independent cases; and (3) Similar departure of the pulse broadening time from the usually expected \nu^{-4} scaling law. We briefly discuss applications that include scattering of pulses from the Crab pulsar by filaments in the Crab Nebula; image asymmetries from Galactic scattering of the sources Cyg X-3, Sgr A*, and NGC 6334B; and scattering of background active galactic nuclei by intervening galaxies. We also address the consequences for inferences about the shape of the wavenumber spectrum of electron density irregularities, which depend on scaling laws for the image size and the pulse broadening. Future low-frequency (< 100 MHz) array observations will also be strongly affected by the Galactic structure of scattering material. Our formalism is derived in the context of radio scattering by plasma density fluctuations. It is also applicable to optical, UV and X-ray scattering by grains in the interstellar medium.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX2e with AASTeX-4.0, 6 PostScript figures, accepted by ApJ, revised version has minor changes to respond to referee comments and suggestion

Surveying the Dynamic Radio Sky with the Long Wavelength Demonstrator Array

This paper presents a search for radio transients at a frequency of 73.8 MHz (4 m wavelength) using the all-sky imaging capabilities of the Long Wavelength Demonstrator Array (LWDA). The LWDA was a 16-dipole phased array telescope, located on the site of the Very Large Array in New Mexico. The field of view of the individual dipoles was essentially the entire sky, and the number of dipoles was sufficiently small that a simple software correlator could be used to make all-sky images. From 2006 October to 2007 February, we conducted an all-sky transient search program, acquiring a total of 106 hr of data; the time sampling varied, being 5 minutes at the start of the program and improving to 2 minutes by the end of the program. We were able to detect solar flares, and in a special-purpose mode, radio reflections from ionized meteor trails during the 2006 Leonid meteor shower. We detected no transients originating outside of the solar system above a flux density limit of 500 Jy, equivalent to a limit of no more than about 10^{-2} events/yr/deg^2, having a pulse energy density >~ 1.5 x 10^{-20} J/m^2/Hz at 73.8 MHz for pulse widths of about 300 s. This event rate is comparable to that determined from previous all-sky transient searches, but at a lower frequency than most previous all-sky searches. We believe that the LWDA illustrates how an all-sky imaging mode could be a useful operational model for low-frequency instruments such as the Low Frequency Array, the Long Wavelength Array station, the low-frequency component of the Square Kilometre Array, and potentially the Lunar Radio Array.Comment: 20 pages; accepted for publication in A

Scintillation-Induced Intermittency in SETI

We consider interstellar scintillations as a cause of intermittency in radio signals from extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI). We demonstrate that scintillations are very likely to allow initial detections of narrowband signals from distant sources (> 100 pc), while making redetections improbable. We consider three models in order to assess the non-repeating, narrowband events found in recent SETI and to analyze large surveys in general: (I) Radiometer noise; (II) A population of constant Galactic sources undergoing interstellar scintillation,; and (III) Real, transient signals (or hardware errors) of either terrestrial or ET origin. We apply likelihood and Bayesian tests of the models to The Planetary Society/Harvard META data. We find that Models II and III are both highly preferred to Model I, but that Models II and III are about equally likely. Ruling out Model II in favor of Model III requires many more reobservations than were conducted in META *or* the reobservation threshold must be much lower than was used in META. *We cannot rule out the possibility that META events are real, intrinsically steady ETI signals.* We recommend that future surveys use thresholds far below the typical false-alarm threshold to lessen the effects of intermittency. The threshold level is best defined in terms of the recording and computational technology that is available at a cost commensurate with other survey costs.Comment: 59 pages, LaTeX using aaspp4 style file, 12 figures in 14 PostScript figures, ApJ, in press, 1997 Oct.