This research was conducted in support of two branches of the EPA ENERGY STAR program, whose overall goal is to reduce, through voluntary market-based means, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the U.S. The primary objective was to collect data for the ENERGY STAR Office Equipment program on the after-hours power state of computers, monitors, printers, copiers, scanners, fax machines, and multi-function devices. We also collected data for the ENERGY STAR Commercial Buildings branch on the types and amounts of miscellaneous plug-load equipment, a significant and growing end use that is not usually accounted for by building energy managers. For most types of miscellaneous equipment, we also estimated typical unit energy consumption in order to estimate total energy consumption of the miscellaneous devices within our sample. This data set is the first of its kind that we know of, and is an important first step in characterizing miscellaneous plug loads in commercial buildings. The main purpose of this study is to supplement and update previous data we collected on the extent to which electronic office equipment is turned off or automatically enters a low power state when not in active use. In addition, it provides data on numbers and …

Weekly newspaper from Albany, Texas that includes local, county, and state news along with extensive advertising.

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

The primary goal of this work was to evaluate the efficacy of the chop-leach spent fuel dissolution process, with nitric acid dissolvent, for removing actinides and fission products from Zircaloy cladding to produce a cladding capable of meeting low-level waste (LLW) disposal criteria. Analysis of the cladding shows that actinides are present in the cladding at concentrations 50 to 400 times greater than the acceptable TRU limit in LLW. It appears that the nitric acid used for dissolution (initial concentration 4 M, with 10 M added as the dissolution proceeded) was inadequate for solubilizing the fuel meat. Scanning electron micrographs of the as-sampled cladding surface showed particles of material high in U on the surface of the cut samples, suggesting the fuel meat was not completely dissolved. If the cladding is to meet LLW disposal limits, it is likely that a more robust chemical treatment will be required to more completely digest the fuel meat. Based on the available analytical results, and the interpretation of those results, the following conclusions are drawn. The chop-leach method, as performed initially was inadequate for complete digestion of the fuel meat present in the Dresden-1 fuel samples studied. This failure of the dissolution process …

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Weekly newspaper from Archer City, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions appropriations bills, recessions, and budget reconciliation bills. The process begins with the President's budget request and it bounded by the rules of the House and Senate, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, and current program authorizations. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Energy and Water. It summarizes the current legislative status of the bill, its scope, major issues, funding levels, and related legislative activity. The report lists the key CRS staff relevant to the issues covered and related CRS products.

The autonomous pathogen detection system (APDS) is an automated, podium-sized instrument that continuously monitors the air for biological threat agents (bacteria, viruses, and toxins). The system has been developed to warn of a biological attack in critical or high-traffic facilities and at special events. The APDS performs continuous aerosol collection, sample preparation, and detection using multiplexed immunoassay followed by confirmatory PCR using real-time TaqMan assays. We have integrated completely reusable flow-through devices that perform DNA extraction and PCR amplification. The fully integrated system was challenged with aerosolized Bacillus anthracis, Yersinia pestis, Bacillus globigii and botulinum toxoid. By coupling highly selective antibody and DNA based assays, the probability of an APDS reporting a false positive is extremely low.

Average values of the neutron total cross sections of {sup 233}U, {sup 235}U, {sup 238}U, and {sup 239}Pu have been obtained in the unresolved resonance energy range from high-resolution transmission measurements performed at ORELA in the past two decades. The cross sections were generated by correcting the effective total cross sections for the self-shielding effects due to the resonance structure of the data. The self-shielding factors were found by calculating the effective and true cross sections with the computer code SAMMY for the same Doppler and resolution conditions as for the transmission measurements, using an appropriate set of resonance parameters. Our results are compared to results of previous measurements and to the current ENDF/B-VI data.

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

This project involved the investigation of the ability of non-heme iron metalloenzyme reactivity model complexes to catalyze the oxidation of alkane and arene molecules. The objectives were to synthesize a series of non-heme mononuclear and dinuclear iron complexes, characterize their electronic structure and reactivity properties, characterize intermediates formed during oxygen atom transfer chemistry, and elucidate the mechanisms and specificity of the reactions.

Weekly newspaper from Canadian, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with some advertising.

As part of the program to provide pretreatment development and testing services to support the River Protection Project-Waste Treatment Plant (RPP-WTP) mission to treat Hanford tank waste, a approximate 15 L sample of waste from Tank 241-AW-101 was received at the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC). The waste sample was characterized and diluted to provide feed for pretreatment testing. The characterization data provides a basis for rational development of pretreatment processes, determination of reagent requirements, verification of tank composition, and development of physical design parameters for the pretreatment plant.

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

Weekly newspaper from Comanche, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

A stabilized equal-order velocity-pressure finite element algorithm is presented for the analysis of flow in porous media and in the solidification of binary alloys. The adopted governing macroscopic conservation equations of momentum, energy and species transport are derived from their microscopic counterparts using the volume-averaging method. The analysis is performed in a single domain with a fixed numerical grid. The fluid flow scheme developed includes SUPG (streamline-upwind/Petrov-Galerkin), PSPG (pressure stabilizing/Petrov-Galerkin) and DSPG (Darcy stabilizing/Petrov-Galerkin) stabilization terms in a variable porosity medium. For the energy and species equations a classical SUPG-based finite element method is employed. The developed algorithms were tested extensively with bilinear elements and were shown to perform stably and with nearly quadratic convergence in high Rayleigh number flows in varying porosity media. Examples are shown in natural and double diffusive convection in porous media and in the directional solidification of a binary-alloy.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "To achieve efficiencies and respond to procurement reforms, agencies have consolidated their procurement contracts--that is, combined existing smaller contracts into fewer larger contracts. To ensure contract bundling--a subset of contract consolidation--does not unfairly disadvantage small businesses, the President tasked the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to develop a strategy that would hold agencies accountable for contract bundling practices. In October 2002, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) within OMB issued its strategy. This report discusses the extent to which contracts were bundled in fiscal year 2002 and assesses the potential effectiveness of regulatory changes that have recently resulted from OFPP's strategy."

In segmentation of remotely sensed images, the number of pixel classes and their spectral representations are often unknown a priori. Even with prior knowledge, pixels with spectral components from multiple classes lead to classification errors and undesired small region artifacts. Coarseness regulation for segmented images is proposed as an efficient novel technique for handling these problems. Beginning with an over-segmented image, perceptually similar connected regions are iteratively merged using a method reminiscent of region growing, except the primitives are regions, not pixels. Interactive coarseness regulation is achieved by specifying the area {alpha} of the largest region eligible for merging. A region with area less than {alpha} is merged with the most spectrally similar connected region, unless the regions are perceived as spectrally dissimilar. In convergent coarseness regulation, which requires no user interaction, {alpha} is specified as the total number of pixels in the image, and the coarseness regulation output converges to a steady-state segmentation that remains unchanged as {alpha} is further increased. By applying convergent coarseness regulation to AVIRIS, IKONOS and DigitalGlobe images, and quantitatively comparing computer-generated segmentations to segmentations generated manually by a human analyst, it was found that the quality of the input segmentations was consistently and dramatically …

Weekly newspaper from Cooper, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

We report the results of a search in the MACHO light-curve database aiming to find new cataclysmic variables. The targets were selected from variables toward the Magellanic Clouds and Galactic bulge using as main criteria the amplitude of photometric variability and color indices. These criteria provided a total of 3720 variables, which were visually inspected for novae, recurrent novae or dwarf novae eruptions. Dwarf novae type outbursts were recognized in 28 objects while a second sample of 38 less probable candidates was also selected. Some characteristics of the light curves of the cataclysmic variables identified are described and, when possible, a classification in a subtype is assigned to the system. The coordinates of each selected target were cross correlated against X-ray survey databases in order to search for possible point source identifications. The detected dwarf novae in the direction of the bulge are probable members of the Galactic disk population.

Weekly newspaper from Dublin, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Information local to any one processor is insufficient to monitor the overall progress of most distributed computations. Typically, a second distributed computation for detecting termination of the main computation is necessary. In order to be a useful computational tool, the termination detection routine must operate concurrently with the main computation, adding minimal overhead, and it must promptly and correctly detect termination when it occurs. In this paper, we present a new algorithm for detecting the termination of a parallel computation on distributed-memory MIMD computers that satisfies all of those criteria. A variety of termination detection algorithms have been devised. Of these, the algorithm presented by Sinha, Kale, and Ramkumar (henceforth, the SKR algorithm) is unique in its ability to adapt to the load conditions of the system on which it runs, thereby minimizing the impact of termination detection on performance. Because their algorithm also detects termination quickly, we consider it to be the most efficient practical algorithm presently available. The termination detection algorithm presented here was developed for use in the PMESC programming library for distributed-memory MIMD computers. Like the SKR algorithm, our algorithm adapts to system loads and imposes little overhead. Also like the SKR algorithm, ours is tree-based, …

Weekly newspaper from Electra, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

A proof-of-technology demonstration for the Hanford River Protection Project (RPP) Hanford Tank Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) was performed by the Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) at the Savannah River Site (SRS). As part of this demonstration, a sample of as-received Tank AN-107 waste was mixed with surrogate recycle and then evaporated to concentrate the mixture. A second test was conducted in which surrogate recycle was initially concentrated, then mixed with as-received AN-107 waste. Both of these tests were the first studies conducted that investigated the potential impact of secondary-waste recycle streams on the evaporation process using actual radioactive waste feed.