Weekly newspaper from Dallas, Texas that includes local, state, and national news and advertising of interest to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Although recycling can generate environmental and economic benefits, the national recycling rate has increased only slightly since 2000, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). While local governments have the primary role in operating recycling programs, EPA and the Department of Commerce (Commerce) have some legal responsibilities for encouraging recycling. GAO was asked to (1) identify key practices cities are using to increase recycling, (2) describe what EPA and Commerce are doing to encourage recycling, and (3) identify federal policy options that could help increase recycling. GAO interviewed recycling coordinators in 11 large cities about key practices and 13 additional recycling stakeholders about policy options. GAO selected both groups based on geographic representation and recycling expertise, among other factors."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Spending on long-term care services--about $193 billion in 2004--is expected to rise. In 2000, Congress passed the Long-Term Care Security Act, requiring the federal government to offer long-term care insurance. To do so, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) contracted with Long Term Care Partners LLC (Partners) to create the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program. This is the second of two reports required by the act on the competitiveness of the federal program. GAO's March 31, 2006, report, Long-Term Care Insurance: Federal Program Compared Favorably with Other Products, and Analysis of Claims Trend Could Inform Future Decisions (GAO-06-401), found that the federal program's benefits and premiums compared favorably with other plans, but enrollment and claims experience--the amount and number of claims payments--were lower than Partners expected. In this report, GAO compared the federal program's profit structure and marketing efforts with those of other plans and updated its analysis of the program's claims experience. GAO reviewed the contract between OPM and Partners and interviewed OPM, Partners, and insurance carrier officials, as well as actuaries and industry experts. GAO also analyzed data on claim payments for the …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

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This report mainly discusses about Homeland Security Research and Development Funding, Organization, and Oversight where DHS is mandated to coordinate total federal agency homeland security R&D, which was requested at $5.1 billion. Policy issues include waste in research and technology programs.

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Smokes and obscurants (S&O) are important screening agents used during military training exercises on many military installations. Although the use of S&O is subject to environmental laws, the fate and effects of S&O on natural habitats are not well documented. One particular concern is the impact S&O may have on local insect populations, which can be important components of terrestrial food chains of endangered species. Fog-oil (FO) is an S&O that is of particular concern. An important part of assessing potential ecosystem impacts is the ability to predict downwind FO concentrations. This report documents the use of the comprehensive atmospheric dispersion modeling system DUST TRANsport (DUSTRAN) to simulate the downwind transport and diffusion of a hypothetical FO release on the U.S. Army installation at Ft. Hood, TX.

The effect of enhanced crater formation has been demonstrated experimentally when multiple and delayed shaped charge jets impact and penetrate concrete. The concept for enhancement utilizes a single follow-on jet at the centerline of holes produced by multiple precursor jets penetrating the surrounding the region. Calculations of the 3D crater enhancement phenomena have been conducted with multiple rods to simulate the steady state portion of the multiple jet penetration process. It is expected that this analysis methodology will be beneficial for optimization of the multiple jet crater enhancement application. We present calculated results using ALE3D where the model uses the standard Gruneisen equation of state combined with a rate dependent strength model including material damage parameters. This study focuses on the concrete material damage model as a representation of the portion of the target that would eventually be ejected creating a large bore-hole. The calculations are compared with the experimental evidence and limitations of the modeling approach are discussed.

M-ary pulse position modulation (M-ary PPM) is an alternative to on-off-keying (OOK) that transmits multiple bits as a single symbol occupying a frame of M slots. PPM does not require thresholding as in OOK signaling, instead performing a comparison test among all slots in a frame to make the slot decision. Combining PPM with optical code division multiple access (PPM/O-CDMA) adds the benefit of supporting multiple concurrent, asynchronous bursty PPM users. While the advantages of PPM/O-CDMA are well known, implementing a receiver that performs comparison test can be difficult. This paper describes the design of a novel array receiver for M-ary PPM/O-CDMA (M = 4) where the received signal is mapped onto an xy-plane whose quadrants define the PPM slot decision by means of an associated control law. The receiver does not require buffering or nonlinear operations. In this paper we describe a planar lightwave circuit (PLCs) implementation of the receiver. We give detailed numerical simulations that test the concept and investigate the effects of multi-access interference (MAI) and optical beat interference (OBI) on the slot decisions. These simulations provide guidelines for subsequent experimental measurements that will be described.

Energy Industries of Ohio was the lead organization for a consortium that examined the current situation involving the service life of electric arc and basic oxygen furnace hoods, roofs and side vents. Republic Engineered Products (REP), one of the project partners, installed a full-scale Al-Bronze “skirt” in their BOF at their Lorain OH facility, believed to be the first such installation of this alloy in this service. In 24 months of operation, the Al-Bronze skirt has processed a total of 4,563 heats, requiring only 2 shutdowns for maintenance, both related to physical damage to the skirt from operational mishaps. Yearly energy savings related to the REP facility are projected to be ~ 10 billion Btu's with significant additional environmental and productivity benefits. In recognition of the excellent results, this project was selected as the winner of the Ohio’s 2006 Governor’s Award for Excellence in Energy, the state’s award for outstanding achievements in energy efficiency.

As scientific codes become more complex and involve larger numbers of developers and algorithms, chances for algorithmic implementation mistakes increase. In this environment, code verification becomes essential to building confidence in the code implementation. This paper will present first results of a new code verification effort within LLNL's B Division. In particular, we will show results of code verification of the LLNL ASC ARES code on the test problems: Su Olson non-equilibrium radiation diffusion, Sod shock tube, Sedov point blast modeled with shock hydrodynamics, and Noh implosion.

Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging (DTMRI)technique enables the measurement of diffusion parameters and therefore,informs on the structure of the biological tissue. This technique isapplied with success to the static organs such as brain. However, thediffusion measurement on the dynamically deformable organs such as thein-vivo heart is a complex problem that has however a great potential inthe measurement of cardiac health. In order to understand the behavior ofthe Magnetic Resonance (MR)signal in a deforming media, the Bloch-Torreyequation that leads the MR behavior is expressed in general curvilinearcoordinates. These coordinates enable to follow the heart geometry anddeformations through time. The equation is finally discretized andpresented in a numerical formulation using implicit methods, in order toget a stable scheme that can be applied to any smooth deformations.Diffusion process enables the link between the macroscopic behavior ofmolecules and themicroscopic structure in which they evolve. Themeasurement of diffusion in biological tissues is therefore of majorimportance in understanding the complex underlying structure that cannotbe studied directly. The Diffusion Tensor Magnetic ResonanceImaging(DTMRI) technique enables the measurement of diffusion parametersand therefore provides information on the structure of the biologicaltissue. This technique has been applied with success to static organssuch as the brain. However, diffusion measurement of dynamicallydeformable organs …

Management and disposal of produced water is one of the most important problems associated with oil and gas (O&G) production. O&G production operations generate large volumes of brine water along with the petroleum resource. Currently, produced water is treated as a waste and is not available for any beneficial purposes for the communities where oil and gas is produced. Produced water contains different contaminants that must be removed before it can be used for any beneficial surface applications. Arid areas like west Texas produce large amount of oil, but, at the same time, have a shortage of potable water. A multidisciplinary team headed by researchers from Texas A&M University has spent more than six years is developing advanced membrane filtration processes for treating oil field produced brines The government-industry cooperative joint venture has been managed by the Global Petroleum Research Institute (GPRI). The goal of the project has been to demonstrate that treatment of oil field waste water for re-use will reduce water handling costs by 50% or greater. Our work has included (1) integrating advanced materials into existing prototype units and (2) operating short and long-term field testing with full size process trains. Testing at A&M has allowed us …

This report describes a robust and generalized method for the clustering of various human breast cell lines in 3D and describes the preparation of cellular extracts from these cultures for molecular analysis.

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

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