We construct and analyze a u -band selected galaxy sample from the SDSS Southern Survey , which covers 275 deg ^ { 2 } .
The sample includes 43223 galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts in the range 0.005 < z < 0.3 and with 14.5 < u < 20.5 .
The S/N in the u -band Petrosian aperture is improved by coadding multiple epochs of imaging data and by including sky-subtraction corrections .
Luminosity functions for the near-UV ^ { 0.1 } u band ( \lambda \approx 322 \pm 26 { nm } ) are determined in redshift slices of width 0.02 , which show a highly significant evolution in M ^ { * } of -0.8 \pm 0.1 mag between z = 0 and 0.3 ; with M ^ { * } -5 \log h _ { 70 } = -18.84 \pm 0.05 ( AB mag ) , \log \phi ^ { * } = -2.06 \pm 0.03 ( h _ { 70 } ^ { 3 } { \ > Mpc ^ { -3 } } ) and \log \rho _ { L } = 19.11 \pm 0.02 ( h _ { 70 } { \ > W Hz ^ { -1 } Mpc ^ { -3 } } ) at z = 0.1 .
The faint-end slope determined for z < 0.06 is given by \alpha = -1.05 \pm 0.08 .
This is in agreement with recent determinations from GALEX at shorter wavelengths .
Comparing our z < 0.3 luminosity density measurements with 0.2 < z < 1.2 from COMBO-17 , we find that the 280-nm density evolves as \rho _ { L } \propto ( 1 + z ) ^ { \beta } with \beta = 2.1 \pm 0.2 ; and find no evidence for any change in slope over this redshift range .
By comparing with other measurements of cosmic star formation history , we estimate that the effective dust attenuation at 280 nm has increased by 0.8 \pm 0.3 mag between z = 0 and 1 .