Memorandum of Meeting with Mr. Cecil Saunders of the Defense Commissary Agency (DECA) regarding the consolidation of DECA at Fort Lee, Virginia.

Letters from Mercedes Agogerio to members of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) pleading on behalf of Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Census Bureau (Bureau) conducted the Count Question Resolution (CQR) program to correct errors in the count of housing units as well as dormitories and other group living facilities known as group quarters. GAO was asked to assess whether CQR was consistently implemented across the country, paying particular attention to whether the Bureau identified census errors that could have been caused by more systemic problems. GAO also evaluated how well the Bureau transitioned to CQR from an earlier quality assurance program called Full Count Review."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since the General Mining Act of 1872, billions of dollars in hardrock minerals, such as gold, have been extracted from federal land now managed by the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM). For years, some mining operators did not reclaim land, creating environmental, health, and safety risks. Beginning in 1981, federal regulations required all operators to reclaim BLM land disturbed by these operations. In 2001, federal regulations began requiring operators to provide financial assurances before they began exploration or mining operations. GAO was asked to determine the (1) types, amount, and coverage of financial assurances operators currently use; (2) extent to which financial assurance providers and others have paid to reclaim land not reclaimed by the operator since BLM began requiring financial assurances; and (3) reliability and sufficiency of BLM's automated information system (LR2000) for managing financial assurances for hardrock operations."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This letter responds to a Congressional letter requesting that we provide information on the approximate cost of various administrative steps that might be necessary to administer a subsidy program for the purchase of digital converter boxes to advance the transition to digital television (DTV). Specifically, the letter identifies a number of administrative steps that might be required to administer a rebate program targeted to low-income households that rely solely on over-the-air television signals, and asks us to estimate the costs of specific administrative steps. Estimating the specific costs of these administrative steps is difficult because of the substantial uncertainty about exactly what would be required to implement them. The Congressional letter also notes that the administrative costs for the rebate and voucher programs that we reviewed ranged from 10 percent to 39 percent. However, due to differences in the scope of the rebate and voucher programs we reviewed and a potential DTV subsidy, it is not clear how applicable the administrative costs of these programs are to estimating the costs of a DTV subsidy."

COBRA Program - Co-locate Navy Education and Training Command and Navy Educ - Impacted Sites: NAS_PENSACOLA_FL; NAVSUPPACT_MID_SOUTH_MILLINGTON_TN;

COBRA Program - Consolidate,Co-locate Active and Reserve Personnel & Recruiting - Impacted Sites: DFAS - 35 Indianapolis, IN (Corporate Responder), IN; DFAS - 35 Indianapolis, IN (Corporate Responder), IN; Scott AFB, IL; FORT KNOX, KY; Air Reserve Personnel Center (ARPC), CO; Robins AFB, GA; Randolph AFB, TX;

Letter from Koletta Hays to the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) regarding the possibly closure of Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, New Mexico. She argues against the closure, stating that the economy of the region would be devastated.

In SciDAC SDM project, the main assignment to the Georgia Institute of Technology team (according to the proposed work) is to develop advanced information extraction and information integration technologies on top of the XWRAP technology originated from Georgia Tech [LPH01]. We have developed XWRAPComposer technology to enable the XWRAP code generator to generate Java information wrappers that are capable of extraction of data from multiple linked pages. These information wrappers are used as gateways or adaptors for scientific information mediators to access and fuse interesting data and answering complex queries over a large collection of heterogeneous scientific information sources. Our accomplishments over the SciDAC sponsored years (July 2001 to July 2004) can be summarized along two dimensions. Technically, we have produced a number of major software releases and published over 30 research papers in both international conferences and international journals. The planned software releases include 1. Five Java wrappers and five WDSL-enabled wrappers for SDM Pilot scenarios, which were released in early 2003, 2. The XWRAPComposer toolkit (command line version) which was first released in late 2003 and then released in Summer 2004, 3. Five Ptolemy wrapper actors which were released first in Summer 2003, and then released again in …

The CH-TRU Waste Content Codes (CH-TRUCON) document describes the inventory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) CH-TRU waste within the transportation parameters specified by the Contact-Handled Transuranic Waste Authorized Methods for Payload Control (CH-TRAMPAC). The CH-TRAMPAC defines the allowable payload for the Transuranic Package Transporter-II (TRUPACT-II) and HalfPACT packagings. This document is a catalog of TRUPACT-II and HalfPACT authorized contents and a description of the methods utilized to demonstrate compliance with the CH-TRAMPAC. A summary of currently approved content codes by site is presented in Table 1. The CH-TRAMPAC describes "shipping categories" that are assigned to each payload container. Multiple shipping categories may be assigned to a single content code. A summary of approved content codes and corresponding shipping categories is provided in Table 2, which consists of Tables 2A, 2B, and 2C. Table 2A provides a summary of approved content codes and corresponding shipping categories for the "General Case," which reflects the assumption of a 60-day shipping period as described in the CH-TRAMPAC and Appendix 3.4 of the CH-TRU Payload Appendices. For shipments to be completed within an approximately 1,000-mile radius, a shorter shipping period of 20 days is applicable as described in the CH-TRAMPAC and Appendix 3.5 …

This review addresses the issue of surface segregation inbimetallic alloy nanoparticles, which are relevant to heterogeneouscatalysis, in particular for electro-catalysts of fuel cells. We describeand discuss a theoretical approach to predicting surface segregation insuch nanoparticles by using the Modified Embedded Atom Method and MonteCarlo simulations. In this manner it is possible to systematicallyexplore the behavior of such nanoparticles as a function of componentmetals, composition, and particle size, among other variables. We choseto compare Pt75Ni25, Pt75Re25, and Pt80Mo20 alloys as example systems forthis discussion, due to the importance of Pt in catalytic processes andits high-cost. It is assumed that the equilibrium nanoparticles of thesealloys have a cubo-octahedral shape, the face-centered cubic lattice, andsizes ranging from 2.5 nm to 5.0 nm. By investigating the segregation ofPt atoms to the surfaces of the nanoparticles, we draw the followingconclusions from our simulations at T= 600 K. (1) Pt75Ni25 nanoparticlesform a surface-sandwich structure in which the Pt atoms are stronglyenriched in the outermost and third layers while the Ni atoms areenriched in the second layer. In particular, a nearly pure Pt outermostsurface layer can be achieved in those nanoparticles. (2) EquilibriumPt75Re25 nanoparticles adopt a core-shell structure: a nearly pure Ptshell surrounding a more uniform Pt-Re …

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Application of conflict of interest law and the Open Meetings Act to the governing board of a groundwater conservation district (RQ-0304-GA)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a business that holds an on-premises alcoholic beverage permit may host a poker tournament (RQ-0305-GA)

The 109th Congress is examining the role of groups organized under section of the Internal Revenue Code(IRC) that are involved in federal elections, but are not operating under the requirements and restrictions of federal election law.

This report discusses Smith v. City of Jackson, a recent case in which the Supreme Court held that workers may sue employers under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) for workplace policies that have an adverse impact on older employees, even if the discriminatory effects are not intentional.

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A fundamental attribute of cell membranes is transmembrane asymmetry, specifically the formation of ordered phase domains in one leaflet that are compositionally different from the opposing leaflet of the bilayer. Using model membrane systems, many previous studies have demonstrated the formation of ordered phase domains that display complete transmembrane symmetry but there have been few reports on the more biologically relevant asymmetric membrane structures. Here we report on a combined atomic force microscopy (AFM) and fluorescence microscopy study whereby we observe three different states of transmembrane symmetry in phase-separated supported bilayers formed by vesicle fusion. We find that if the leaflets differ in gel-phase area fraction, then the smaller domains in one leaflet are in registry with the larger domains in the other leaflet and the system is dynamic. In a presumed lipid flip-flop process similar to Ostwald Ripening, the smaller domains in one leaflet erode away while the large domains in the other leaflet grow until complete compositional asymmetry is reached and remains stable. We have quantified this evolution and determined that the lipid flip-flop event happens most frequently at the interface between symmetric and asymmetric DSPC domains. If both leaflets have nearly identical area fraction of gel-phase, gel-phase …

The temperature dependent micromagnetic behavior, structural phase transitions, magnetic transition, and the dynamics of phase transitions have been investigated using magnetic shape memory alloys. Results provide a novel concept of ‘polymagnets’. In thin film form the number of martensite variants is greatly reduced. A new technique to study dynamics of magnetic phase transitions has been developed applicable to bulk, thin films or multilayers. Transition pathways in magnetic shape memory alloys are as follows: Structural transitions followed by magnetic transition on cooling, and magnetic transition followed by structural transition on heating. The anisotropy of exchange spring mulilayers is greatly sensitive to substrate constraints, and shows a marked rotational hysteresis at lower temperatures. Results also show that a large reduction in coercivity of multilayers is a direct result of broadening of domain wall width by interlayer magnetostatic interactions.

This document is a final report for the project DE-FG03-98ER62578, "Laboratory Studies of the Role of Sea Salt Bromine in Determining Tropospheric Ozone". It includes a technical summary, collaborations, educational contributions and the peer-reviewed scientific publications that have resulted from this research.

Microbeam Diffraction Equipment which gives the ability to measure the complete strain tensor in polycrystalline thin metal films in a completely automated fashion.

Computational studies of proteins have significantly improved our understanding of protein folding. These studies are normally carried out using chains in isolation. However, in many systems of practical interest, proteins fold in the presence of other molecules. To obtain insight into folding in such situations, we compare the thermodynamics of folding for a Miyazawa-Jernigan model 64-mer in isolation to results obtained in the presence of additional chains. The melting temperature falls as the chain concentration increases. In multi-chain systems, free-energy landscapes for folding show an increased preference for misfolded states. Misfolding is accompanied by an increase in inter-protein interactions; however, near the folding temperature, the transition from folded chains to misfolded and associated chains isentropically driven. A majority of the most probable inter-protein contacts are also native contacts, suggesting that native topology plays a role in early stages of aggregation.

Currently only 5% of residential HVAC systems are sold with variable speed (VS) circulating blower motors in spite of the significant energy savings and comfort benefits associated with variable speed motors. This is due to the very high cost of variable speed motors currently on the market. The project goal is to develop a version of the DynaMotor{trademark} variable speed motor for use in residential HVAC systems. The motor will have performance similar to existing VS motors used in HVAC systems but will sell to HVAC OEM's for 40-50% less than existing VS motors thus bringing energy saving VS motor technology to middle tier HVAC systems. The DynaMotor is a unique, patented variable speed motor/drive technology that has significant advantages over other VS motor/drive technologies including low cost. Prior to this project development was focused exclusively on the factory automation market. The project goals included efficiency, speed range, audible noise, reliability and cost. All goals except cost have been obtained. Cost cannot be finally determined until a manufacturing partner is selected although the cost goals appear to be achievable. Negotiations with two potential manufacturing partners are underway. Although the project technical goals have been achieved, further improvements in audible noise, …

Successfully attacking underground storage facilities for chemical and biological (C/B) weapons is an important mission area for the Department of Defense. The fate of a C/B agent during an attack depends critically on the pressure and thermal environment that the agent experiences. The initial environment is determined by the blast wave from an explosive device. The byproducts of the detonation provide a fuel source that burn when mixed with oxidizer (after burning). Additional energy can be released by the ignition of the C/B agent as it mixes with the explosion products and the air in the chamber. Hot plumes venting material from any openings in the chamber can provide fuel for additional energy release when mixed with additional oxidizer. Assessment of the effectiveness of current explosives as well as the development of new explosive systems requires a detailed understanding of all of these modes of energy release. Using methodologies based on the use of higher-order Godunov schemes combined with Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR), implemented in a parallel adaptive framework suited to the massively parallel computer systems provided by the DOD High-Performance Computing Modernization program, we use a suite of programs to develop predictive models for the simulation of the energetics …