Microbial Population Biology covers a diverse range of cutting edge issues in the microbial sciences and beyond. Firmly founded in evolutionary biology and with a strongly integrative approach, past meetings have covered topics ranging from the dynamics and genetics of adaptation to the evolution of mutation rate, community ecology, evolutionary genomics, altruism, and epidemiology. This meeting is never dull: some of the most significant and contentious issues in biology have been thrashed out here. We anticipate the 2007 meeting being no exception. The final form of the 2007 meeting is yet to be decided, but the following topics are likely to be included: evolutionary emergence of infectious disease and antibiotic resistance, genetic architecture and implications for the evolution of microbial populations, ageing in bacteria, biogeography, evolution of symbioses, the role of microbes in ecosystem function, and ecological genomics.

The project description is R and D activities at NREL and Sandia aimed at lowering the delivered energy cost of parabolic trough collector systems and FOA awards to support industry in trought development. The primary objectives are: (1) support development of near-term parabolic trought technology for central station power generation; (2) support development of next-generation trought fields; and (3) support expansion of US trough industry. The major FY08 activities were: (1) improving reflector optics; (2) reducing receiver heat loss (including improved receiver coating and mitigating hydrogen accumulation); (3) measuring collector optical efficiency; (4) optimizing plant performance and reducing cost; (5) reducing plant water consumption; and (6) directly supporting industry needs, including FOA support.

Systems biology recognizes the complex multi-scale organization of biological systems, from molecules to ecosystems. The International Symposium on Systems Biology has been hosted by the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Washington, since 2002. The annual two-day event gathers the most influential researchers transforming biology into an integrative discipline investingating complex systems. Engineering and application of new technology is a central element of systems biology. Genome-scale, or very small-scale, biological questions drive the enigneering of new technologies, which enable new modes of experimentation and computational analysis, leading to new biological insights and questions. Concepts and analytical methods in engineering are now finding direct applications in biology. Therefore, the 2008 Symposium, funded in partnership with the Department of Energy, featured global leaders in "Systems Biology and Engineering."

The last decade witnessed the rapid development and implementation of aberration correction in electron optics, realizing a more-than-70-year-old dream of aberration-free electron microscopy with a spatial resolution below one angstrom [1-9]. With sophisticated aberration correctors, modern electron microscopes now can reveal local structural information unavailable with neutrons and x-rays, such as the local arrangement of atoms, order/disorder, electronic inhomogeneity, bonding states, spin configuration, quantum confinement, and symmetry breaking [10-17]. Aberration correction through multipole-based correctors, as well as the associated improved stability in accelerating voltage, lens supplies, and goniometers in electron microscopes now enables medium-voltage (200-300kV) microscopes to achieve image resolution at or below 0.1nm. Aberration correction not only improves the instrument's spatial resolution but, equally importantly, allows larger objective lens pole-piece gaps to be employed thus realizing the potential of the instrument as a nanoscale property-measurement tool. That is, while retaining high spatial resolution, we can use various sample stages to observe the materials response under various temperature, electric- and magnetic- fields, and atmospheric environments. Such capabilities afford tremendous opportunities to tackle challenging science and technology issues in physics, chemistry, materials science, and biology. The research goal of the electron microscopy group at the Dept. of Condensed Matter Physics and …

Abstract: Increased forest productivity has been obtained by improving resource availability through water and nutrient amendments. However, more stress-tolerant species that have robust site requirements do not respond consistently to irrigation. An important factor contributing to robust site requirements may be the distribution of biomass belowground, yet available information is limited. We examined the accumulation and distribution of above- and below-ground biomass in sweetgum (Liqrridambar sfyrac$lua L.) and loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) stands receiving irrigation and fertilization. Mean annual aboveground production after 4 years ranged from 2.4 to 5.1 ~g.ha-'.year' for sweetgum and from 5.0 to 6.9 ~g.ha-l.year-l for pine. Sweetgum responded positively to irrigation and fertilization with an additive response to irrigation + fertilization. Pine only responded to fertilization. Sweetgum root mass fraction (RME)in creased with fertilization at 2 years and decreased with fertilization at 4 years. There were no detectable treatment differences in loblolly pine RMF. Development explained from 67% to 98% of variation in shoot versus root allometry for ephemeral and perennial tissues, fertilization explained no more than 5% of the variation in for either species, and irrigation did not explain any. We conclude that shifts in allocation from roots to shoots do not explain nutrient-induced …

The purpose of this report is to provide status of the ingest software used to process instrument data for the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program Climate Research Facility (ACRF). The report is divided into 4 sections: (1) for news about ingests currently under development, (2) for current production ingests, (3) for future ingest development plans, and (4) for information on retired ingests. Please note that datastreams beginning in “xxx” indicate cases where ingests run at multiple ACRF sites, which results in a datastream(s) for each location.

The purpose of this report is to provide a concise but comprehensive overview of Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility instrumentation status. The report is divided into the following four sections: (1) new instrumentation in the process of being acquired and deployed, (2) existing instrumentation and progress on improvements or upgrades, (3) proposed future instrumentation, and (4) Small Business Innovation Research instrument development.

Wind generated electricity is a variable resource. Hydrogen can be generated as an energy storage media, but is costly. Advancements in power electronics and system integration are needed to make a viable system. Therefore, the long-term goal of the efforts at the University of North Dakota is to merge wind energy, hydrogen production, and fuel cells to bring emission-free and reliable power to commercial viability. The primary goals include 1) expand system models as a tool to investigate integration and control issues, 2) examine long-term effects of wind-electrolysis performance from a systematic perspective, and 3) collaborate with NREL and industrial partners to design, integrate, and quantify system improvements by implementing a single power electronics package to interface wild AC to PEM stack DC requirements. This report summarizes the accomplishments made during this project.

Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

This workshop focused on the application of ambient pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (APXPS) to environmental science and catalysis. Pioneering work on APXPS was done in the early 1970's by Hans and Kai Siegbahn et al., who demonstrated that XPS can operate at pressures of up to 1 Torr. A new type of APXPS instrument that utilizes a differentially-pumped electrostatic lens system at the ALS in 2001 increased the pressure limit to above 5 Torr, which opened the door to XPS experiments on water and aqueous solutions at temperatures above the melting point, in equilibrium with the vapor pressure of water. The impact of APXPS on fields such as environmental and atmospheric science as well as heterogeneous catalysis is already visible in numerous high impact publications. Today several other synchrotron facilities around the world have already implemented beam lines for APXPS or planning to do so in the near future. The goal of this workshop (organized by Miquel Salmeron (Molecular Foundry, LBNL), B. Simon Mun (Advanced Light Source, LBNL) and Hendrik Bluhm (Chemical Sciences Division, LBNL)) was to bring together researchers interested in the technique, review its current progress, discuss scientific opportunities and desirable technical improvements as well as consider the …

Lancelets ('amphioxus') are the modern survivors of an ancient chordate lineage with a fossil record dating back to the Cambrian. We describe the structure and gene content of the highly polymorphic {approx}520 million base pair genome of the Florida lancelet Branchiostoma floridae, and analyze it in the context of chordate evolution. Whole genome comparisons illuminate the murky relationships among the three chordate groups (tunicates, lancelets, and vertebrates), and allow reconstruction of not only the gene complement of the last common chordate ancestor, but also a partial reconstruction of its genomic organization, as well as a description of two genome-wide duplications and subsequent reorganizations in the vertebrate lineage. These genome-scale events shaped the vertebrate genome and provided additional genetic variation for exploitation during vertebrate evolution.

The Office of Radioisotope Power Systems of the Department of Energy (DOE) provides Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) for applications where conventional power systems are not feasible. For example, radioisotope thermoelectric generators were supplied by the DOE to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for deep space missions including the Cassini Mission launched in October of 1997 to study the planet Saturn. For the Cassini Mission, ORNL produced carbon-bonded carbon fiber (CBCF) insulator sets, iridium alloy blanks and foil, and clad vent sets (CVS) used in the generators. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has been involved in developing materials and technology and producing components for the DOE for more than three decades. This report reflects program guidance from the Office of Radioisotope Power Systems for fiscal year (FY) 2007. Production activities for prime quality (prime) CBCF insulator sets, iridium alloy blanks and foil, and CVS are summarized in this report. Technology activities are also reported that were conducted to improve the manufacturing processes, characterize materials, or to develop information for new radioisotope power systems.

Porosity evolution at reactive interfaces is a key process that governs the evolution and performances of many engineered systems that have important applications in earth and environmental sciences. This is the case, for example, at the interface between cement structures and clays in deep geological nuclear waste disposals. Although in a different transport regime, similar questions arise for permeable reactive barriers used for biogeochemical remediation in surface environments. The COMEDIE project aims at investigating the coupling between transport, hydrodynamics and chemistry when significant variations of porosity occur. The present work focuses on a numerical benchmark used as a design exercise for the future COMEDIE-2D experiment. The use of reactive transport simulation tools like Hytec and Crunch provides predictions of the physico-chemical evolutions that are expected during the future experiments in laboratory. Focus is given in this paper on the evolution during the simulated experiment of precipitate, permeability and porosity fields. A first case is considered in which the porosity is constant. Results obtained with Crunch and Hytec are in relatively good agreement. Differences are attributable to the models of reactive surface area taken into account for dissolution/precipitation processes. Crunch and Hytec simulations taking into account porosity variations are then presented …

This report talks about Approval of Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant Contractor- Initiated Authorization Basis Amendment Requests (ABAR)

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Description. Individual raw data streams from instrumentation at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program Climate Research Facility (ACRF) fixed and mobile sites are collected and sent to the Data Management Facility (DMF) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for processing in near real time. Raw and processed data are then sent daily to the ACRF Archive, where they are made available to users. For each instrument, we calculate the ratio of the actual number of data records received daily at the Archive to the expected number of data records. The results are tabulated by (1) individual data stream, site, and month for the current year and (2) site and fiscal year (FY) dating back to 1998.

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Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

A review of recent measurements of beauty production, based on proton antiproton collision data at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV and using the CDF detector, is given. Previous measurements of beauty (b) quark production at the Tevatron, carried out at centre-of-mass energies {radical}s = 1.8 TeV, have shown discrepancies when compared to Next to Leading Order (NLO) predictions [1]. Improved predictions and experimental procedures have reduced this discrepancy [2]. Improved parton density functions, better fragmentation functions and more complete theoretical calculations have improved theoretical accuracy. Experimentally, measurements of beauty production at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV are now presented in terms of b hadrons or B mesons, to avoid problems unfolding back to the quark level. In this review [3] measurements of inclusive beauty (where one beauty jet or hadron is reconstructed in the event), and beauty + X (where X can be a boson or another beauty jet or hadron), production will be presented: inclusive beauty jet cross-section; semi and fully reconstructed B meson cross-section; beauty dijet cross-section; semi-reconstructed B B meson cross-section; Z boson + beauty jet cross-section. More information concerning other measurements of heavy quark production can be found elsewhere [4].

Fact sheet features answers to frequently asked questions on biodiesel blends.

Semiweekly newspaper from Boerne, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly student newspaper from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

This note publishes some and information that has resided in private files. The attached tables were provided by Joseph Skelly from his archives. They show magnetic field measurements versus excitation current for the Booster to AGS transfer line quadrupoles and dipoles based on field measurements [we believe] were done by the Magnet Division. Also given are Ed Blesser's fifth order fits of field versus current. The results are given in 'Tesla' or T-M/M. These tables are attached to provide an archive of this data. The MAD model of the BTA line does have the same values as shown in the attached fits so the transfer was correct. MAD uses as its 'gradient' for quads Tesla per meter normalized to rigidity [B-rho]. The model of the BTA line in use uses the T-M/M given in the tables divided by the length to give T M which is then normalized by Brho. Thus, the input to the model appears to be correct. The original model is also attached as part of a memo by Skelly describing it.

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