Francisco Valdes

A search for natural or artificial objects located at the Earth-Moon libration points

Abstract Photographs in the vicinity of the Earth-Moon triangular libration points L4 and L5, and of the solar-synchronized positions in the associated halo orbits (A. A. Kamel, 1969, Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University), were made during August–September 1979, using the 30-in Cassegrain telescope at Leuschner Observatory, Lafayette, California. An effective 2° square field was covered at each position. No discrete objects, either natural or artificial, were found. The detection limit was about 14th magnitude. The present work extends traditional SETI observations to include the search for interstellar probes (R. A. Freitas, Jr., 1980a, J. Brit. Interplanet. Soc. 33 , 95–100) .

Foreword: Under construction--LatCrit consciousness, community, and theory

Copyright

Beyond the First Decade: A Forward-Looking History of LatCrit Theory, Community and Praxis

Part I of this Afterword sketches an overview of the jurisprudential and intellectual precursors that have influenced the emergence and development of LatCrit theory during this past decade. Part II turns squarely to the origins and the efforts of this enterprise, as we have endeavored to articulate the LatCrit subject position in socially relevant ways. Part III explains the special emphasis on internationalism manifest both in our symposia and more broadly in our portfolio of projects. Part IV then concludes with an outline of some key points that might help to inform our second-decade agenda. In presenting our account of this collective endeavor, we hope both to explain the vision that has guided our work thus far, as well as to welcome critical and self-critical rejoinders that might help present a more complete picture of this complex undertaking.

First Data Release of the All-sky NOAO Source Catalog

Most of the sky has been imaged with NOAOs telescopes from both hemispheres. While the large majority of these data were obtained for PI-led projects only a small fraction have been released to the community via well-calibrated and easily accessible catalogs. We are remedying this by creating a catalog of sources from most of the public data taken on CTIO-4m+DECam as well as KPNO-4m+Mosaic3. This catalog, called the NOAO Source Catalog (NSC), already contains over 2.9 billion unique objects, 34 billion source measurements, covers ~30,000 square degrees of the sky, has depths of ~23rd magnitude in most broadband filters with ~1-2% photometry, and astrometric accuracy of ~2 mas. The NSC will be useful for exploring stellar streams, dwarf satellite galaxies, as well as variable stars and other transients. We release the catalog via the new NOAO Data Lab service in January 2018.

The Delivered Image Quality with the MOSAIC Cameras at the Kitt Peak 4 m Mayall and Cerro Tololo 4 m Blanco Telescopes

We analyze several thousand archival images from the NOAO Science Archive obtained over a five year period (2006-2011) using the MOSAIC cameras on the Kitt Peak National Observatory 4 m Mayall and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory 4 m Blanco telescopes in order to investigate the delivered image quality (DIQ). We fit the resulting point spread functions with Moffat functions and find that the profiles can be approximated by Moffat profiles with β ≈ 3.5. We analyze the DIQ distributions and investigate their dependence on various observational, environmental, and temporal variables. We find that the DIQ of the MOSAIC cameras is similar at both sites. The Mayall data show no significant variation of DIQ with wavelength, but the Blanco data show a gradual rise of DIQ toward shorter wavelengths. The DIQ shows little variation with elevation for zenith distance < 50° (airmass 1.6). The modal value of the DIQ distribution is larger for longer exposure time images, suggesting that improvements in the guiding, tracking, mirror support, and/or focus control may improve the DIQ. The DIQ also degrades when the mirror temperature deviates from the ambient temperature by more than ± 1°. Better thermal control of the mirror and focus will likely improve the DIQ.

Insisting on Critical Theory in Legal Education: Making Do While Making Waves

In practice, Judge Olmos serves as an exemplar of everything, both right and wrong, with this nation, this state, and this institution: history illustrates both how America can provide opportunity through the very institutions that oppress and suffocate Americas many Others. His example and legacy show us that we you not only can survive this conflicted reality, but also be empowered by your encounters and experiences with hostile social spaces and double-edged institutions, whether as law students or as lawyers. His example and legacy show us how one person with conviction can become an agent of social change both before and after we receive our law degrees. His example and legacy not only bring us together today, but also challenge us to continue his work, and his sense of personal commitment to the cause of social justice, throughout the lands now known as the United States. And it is in this spirit that I join you here today. In the mid-to-late 1970s, I was here, on this very campus, in the Rhetoric Department, across the way at Dwinelle Hall. At that time, I was preparing to graduate and, as they say, to commence my professional life. I mention this fact

Life as Praxis, Praxis as Life: A Review Essay of Derrick Bell's Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth

The book reviewed here raises themes and questions central to the work and life of critical theorists and activist scholars. Indeed, as sketched below, this book amounts to a sampler of the troubles and dilemmas that accompany personal praxis as persons of conscience seek to confront, transcend and reconcile, on all of life’s fronts, the dynamics of privilege and oppression that envelop us daily. The sketch presented below unfolds in three parts: the first briefly summarises the book; the second introduces a genre in critical outsider jurisprudence that struggles collectively with the same issues that the book engages; the third and closing part interweaves elements of the book with elements of the jurisprudence to posit a possible resolution to the main dilemma raised, but left unresolved, in this marvelous tome.

Chapter One: Modern Culture: Codification & Internalization

Chapter One of this Project documents the conflation of sex, gender and sexual orientation in modem Euro-American culture in order to introduce and contextualize the critiques that follow. This documentation shows that mainstream sexologists effectively codified the conflation as a formal intellectual construct in the form of clinical theory based on a pre-existing active/passive sex/gender paradigm at or around the turn of this century. At the same time, leading members of sexual minority communities embraced and internalized this conflation. Today, the conflation is still clinically and culturally ubiquitous throughout American society. Accordingly, Part I of this Chapter focuses on the formalization of the conflation through the combined efforts of mainstream sexologists and sexual minority activists concentrated in northern Europe. Part I[ focuses specifically on American society from the early decades of this century to the present in order to depict the conflations permeation of this nations culture and consciousness in modem times. Together, Parts I and II endeavor to provide a comprehensive, thorough, and critical presentation of the conflations presence in, impact on, and interaction with, modem Euro-American culture. Part III then provides a brief overview of nature, normality, and morality, and of their equation as a trinity. This trinity of concepts jointly drive the themes that shape(d) both mainstream and minority perspectives on the conflation, and thus help to shape the conflationary status quo. This discussion creates a historical, intellectual, and rhetorical framework for the investigations and critiques presented in the following Chapters of this Project.