A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "For more than 30 years, the Department of Defense (DOD) has worked to achieve full visibility over and accessibility to its spare parts inventory. This initiative, called total asset visibility (TAV), aims to provide timely, accurate information on the location, movement, status, and identity of units, personnel, equipment, and supplies. In 1999, GAO examined DOD's TAV implementation approach and recommended that DOD develop a strategic plan to guide its efforts. DOD did not concur and stated it would rely on the components to individually achieve TAV. DOD's current target to achieve TAV is 2010. As requested, GAO examined DOD's progress towards, and impediments to, achieving TAV over its spare parts inventory. GAO also assessed DOD's progress in ensuring that its inventory management systems comply with federal financial management standards."

Above-boiling temperature conditions, as encountered, forexample, in geothermal reservoirs and in geologic repositories for thestorage of heat-producing nuclear wastes, may give rise to stronglyaltered liquid and gas flow processes in porous subsurface environments.The magnitude of such flow perturbation is extremely hard to measure inthe field. We therefore propose a simple temperature-profile method thatuses high-resolution temperature data for deriving such information. Theenergy that is transmitted with the vapor and water flow creates a nearlyisothermal zone maintained at about the boiling temperature, referred toas a heat pipe. Characteristic features of measured temperature profiles,such as the differences in the gradients inside and outside of the heatpipe regions, are used to derive the approximate magnitude of the liquidand gas fluxes in the subsurface, for both steady-state and transientconditions.

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 home-rule city may extend a Tax Code, chapter 311 reinvestment zone’s termination date beyond the date provided in the ordinance designating the zone (RQ-0238-GA)

Students read to each other at Seminary Hills Elementary in Fort Worth, Texas.

Children and their teacher pose with books at Seminary Hills Elementary in Fort Worth, Texas.

A survey of the technical literature was performed to summarize the mechanical properties of inorganic components in K Basins sludge. The components included gibbsite, ferrihydrite, lepidocrocite and goethite, hematite, quartz, anorthite, calcite, basalt, Zircaloy, aluminum, and, in particular, irradiated uranium metal and uranium dioxide. Review of the technical literature showed that information on the hardness of uranium metal at irradiation exposures similar to those experienced by the N Reactor fuel present in the K Basins (typically up to 3000 MWd/t) were not available. Measurements therefore were performed to determine the hardness of coupons taken from three irradiated N Reactor uranium metal fuel elements taken from K Basins. Hardness values averaged 30 {+-} 8 Rockwell C units, similar to values previously reported for uranium irradiated to {approx}1200 MWd/t. The physical properties of candidate uranium metal and uranium dioxide surrogates were gathered and compared. Surrogates having properties closest to those of irradiated uranium metal appear to be alloys of tungsten. The surrogate for uranium dioxide, present both as particles and agglomerates in actual K Basin sludge, likely requires two materials. Cerium oxide, CeO2, was identified as a surrogate of the smaller UO2 particles while steel grit was identified for the UO2 agglomerates.

Congress annually considers 13 or more appropriations measures, which provide funding for numerous activities, for example, national defense, education, homeland security, and crime. These measures also fund general government operations such as the administration of federal agencies. Congress has developed certain rules and practices for the consideration of appropriations measures, referred to as the congressional appropriations process. This report discusses the following aspects of this process: Annual appropriations cycle; Spending ceilings for appropriations associated with the annual budget resolution; and Prohibitions against certain language in appropriations measures that violate separation of the authorization and appropriation functions into separate measures.

We present a computational study of signal propagation and attenuation of a 200 MHz dipole antenna in a cave environment. The cave is modeled as a straight and lossy random rough wall. To simulate a broad frequency band, the full wave Maxwell equations are solved directly in the time domain via a high order vector finite element discretization using the massively parallel CEM code EMSolve. The simulation is performed for a series of random meshes in order to generate statistical data for the propagation and attenuation properties of the cave environment. Results for the power spectral density and phase of the electric field vector components are presented and discussed.

This report examines the the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, which creates a prescription drug benefit for Medicare beneficiaries and establishes a new Medicare Advantage program to replace the current Medicare+Choice program.

This report discusses issues regarding the Clean Water Act. Prospects for legislative initiatives to comprehensively amend the Clean Water Act (CWA) have stalled for some time over whether and exactly how to change the law, and Congress has recently focused legislative attention on narrow bills to extend or modify selected CWA programs, rather than taking up comprehensive proposals. For example, the 108th Congress enacted one bill amending the CWA, legislation to reauthorize the National Estuary Program (H.R. 4731, P.L. 108-399).

This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress considers each year, regarding the Department of the Interior and related agencies. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Interior and Related Agencies. It summarizes the status of the bill, its scope, major issues, funding levels, and related congressional activity, and is updated as events warrant.

The 321-M Reactor Fuel Fabrication facility was used to fabricate enriched uranium fuel assemblies, lithium-aluminum target tubes, neptunium assemblies, and miscellaneous components for the production reactors. It operated for 25 years. During this time, thousands of uranium-aluminum-alloy (U-Al) fuel tubes were produced. After the facility terminated operations in 1995, all of the easily accessible U-Al was removed from the building, and only residual amounts remained. The Analytical Development Section of SRTC was tasked to conduct the required assays of highly enriched uranium in the deactivation and decommissioning activities of the facility. In this report we demonstrate successful assay of thirteen 55-gallon and 110-gallon drums in the far field transmission corrected point source acquisition configuration. Several of the drums were assayed using the commercial Q2 instrument in both the direct mode and in the segmented gamma scanner mode adapted by SRTC in addition to the far field method described here. The 110-gallon drums would not fit into the Q2 instrument, and so assay by the far field technique was necessary. While the far field transmission corrected method used for these drums is a straightforward technique, it was important to obtain comparison measurements between it and the Q2 techniques to establish its …

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

Funeral program for Sister Geneva Luddington, born March 31, 1909 and died November 30, 2004. The funeral was held Monday, December 6, 2004 at Greater Corinth Baptist Church, officiated by Rev. Carl Johnson. Funeral arrangements were made through Lewis Funeral Home and she was buried in Meadowlawn Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas.

Residual stress analysis was performed on thick, 1.0 to 25 {micro}m, depleted Uranium (DU) films deposited on an Al substrate by magnetron sputtering. Two distinct characterization techniques were used to measure substrate curvature before and after deposition. Stress evaluation was performed using the Benabdi/Roche equation, which is based on beam theory of a bi-layer material. The residual stress evolution was studied as a function of coating thickness and applied negative bias voltage (0-300V). The stresses developed were always compressive; however, increasing the coating thickness and applying a bias voltage presented a trend towards more tensile stresses and thus an overall reduction of residual stresses.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, covering a news story.