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

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

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

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Cyclone Nargis hit Burma's impoverished Irrawaddy Delta on May 2, 2008, leaving nearly 140,000 people dead or missing and severely affecting about 2.4 million others, according to the UN. The Burmese military government initially blocked most access to the affected region; however, amid international pressure, it slowly began allowing international aid workers entry into the region. Since 1997, the United States has imposed sanctions to prohibit, among other things, the exportation of financial services to Burma and transactions with Burmese officials. In response to a congressional mandate, GAO (1) described the assistance UN and U.S. agencies have provided in response to Cyclone Nargis, (2) assessed USAID actions to help ensure funds are used as intended and do not benefit sanctioned entities, and (3) described the challenges responders experienced and the lessons learned. GAO reviewed financial and program documents; interviewed U.S., UN, and nongovernmental organization (NGO) officials; and traveled to Thailand and Burma."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses our past work examining the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) progress and efforts in planning, developing, and deploying its global nuclear detection architecture (GNDA). The overall mission of the GNDA is to use an integrated system of radiation detection equipment and interdiction activities to combat nuclear smuggling in foreign countries, at the U.S. border, and inside the United States. Terrorists smuggling nuclear or radiological material into the United States could use these materials to make an improvised nuclear device or a radiological dispersal device (also called a "dirty bomb"). The detonation of a nuclear device in an urban setting could cause hundreds of thousands of deaths and devastate buildings and physical infrastructure for miles. While not as damaging, a radiological dispersal device could nonetheless cause hundreds of millions of dollars in socioeconomic costs as a large part of a city would have to be evacuated--and possibly remain inaccessible--until an extensive radiological decontamination effort was completed. Accordingly, the GNDA remains our country's principal strategy in protecting the homeland from the consequences of nuclear terrorism. The GNDA is a multi-departmental effort coordinated by DHS's Domestic Nuclear Detection …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Increasing computer interconnectivity, such as the growth of the Internet, has revolutionized the way our government, our nation, and much of the world communicate and conduct business. However, this widespread interconnectivity poses significant risks to the government's and the nation's computer systems, and to the critical infrastructures they support. These critical infrastructures include systems and assets--both physical and virtual--that are essential to the nation's security, economic prosperity, and public health, such as financial institutions, telecommunications networks, and energy production and transmission facilities. Because most of these infrastructures are owned by the private sector, establishing effective public-private partnerships is essential to securing them from pervasive cyber-based threats. Federal law and policy call for federal entities, such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to work with private-sector partners to enhance the physical and cyber security of these critical infrastructures. GAO is providing a statement describing (1) cyber threats facing cyber-reliant critical infrastructures; (2) recent actions the federal government has taken, in partnership with the private sector, to identify and protect cyber-reliant critical infrastructures; and (3) ongoing challenges to protecting these infrastructures. In preparing this statement, GAO relied on its …

Attempts to resolve the Cyprus problem and reunify the island have undergone various levels of negotiation for over 45 years. Talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders have thus far failed to reach a mutually agreed settlement leaving the country with a solution for unification far from being achieved and raising the specter of a possible permanent separation. This report provides a brief overview of the early history of the negotiations, a more detailed review of the negotiations since 2008, and a description of some of the issues involved in the talks. A side issue involving trade between the European Union and Turkish Cyprus is also addressed.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To assess quality of life and identify areas for improvement, the Air Force conducts periodic surveys of its airmen. Recent surveys indicted that many of them were not satisfied with the quality, variety, and availability of food at Air Force bases. As a result, the Air Force implemented an initiative in 2010--the Food Transformation Initiative--to improve on-base food services. The Air Force piloted the initiative at six installations with a $10.3 million contract awarded in August 2010 and plans to eventually expand the initiative to other installations in the United States. The Senate and House Armed Services Committees directed GAO to undertake a comprehensive review of the initiative. GAO reviewed (1) the initiative's objectives and performance measures, (2) implementation progress, (3) the initiative's impact on food service workers at the pilot installations, and (4) alternative approaches the Air Force considered. GAO reviewed documentation on the initiative, interviewed Air Force and contractor officials, and visited four of the six pilot installations."

Lecture presented at the UNT College of Music Organ Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

Lecture recital presented at the UNT College of Music Organ Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

A primary justification for the establishment of energy efficiency standards for home appliances is the existence of information deficiencies and externalities in the market for appliances. For example, when a long-term homeowner purchases a new gas-fired water heater, she will maximize the value of her purchase by comparing the life-cycle cost of ownership of available units, including both total installed cost - purchase price plus installation costs - and operating cost in the calculus. Choice of the appliance with the lowest life-cycle costs leads to the most economically efficient balance between capital cost and fuel cost. However, if the purchaser's expected period of ownership is shorter than the useful life of the appliance, or the purchaser does not pay for the fuel used by the appliance, as is often the case with rental property, fuel cost will be external to her costs, biasing her decision toward spending less on fuel efficiency and resulting in the purchase of an appliance with greater than optimal fuel usage. By imposing an efficiency standard on appliances, less efficient appliances are made unavailable, precluding less efficient purchases and reducing fuel usage. The reduction in fuel demanded by residential users affects the total demand for such …

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

Multilayer coated blazed gratings with high groove density are the most promising candidate for ultra-high resolution soft x-ray spectroscopy. They combine the ability of blazed gratings to concentrate almost all diffraction energy in a desired high diffraction order with high reflectance soft x-ray multilayers. However in order to realize this potential, the grating fabrication process should provide a near perfect groove profile with an extremely smooth surface of the blazed facets. Here we report on successful fabrication and testing of ultra-dense saw-tooth substrates with 5,000 and 10,000 lines/mm.

Daily publication of the U.S. Office of the Federal Register contains rules and regulations, proposed legislation and rule changes, and other notices, including "Presidential proclamations and Executive Orders, Federal agency documents having general applicability and legal effect, documents required to be published by act of Congress, and other Federal agency documents of public interest" (p. ii). Table of Contents starts on page iii.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses issues related to possible changes to the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA) program, a topic that we have reported on in the past. At the end of chargeback year 2010, the FECA program, administered by the Department of Labor (Labor) had paid more than $1.88 billion in wage-loss compensation, impairment, and death benefits, and another $898.1 million for medical and rehabilitation services and supplies. Currently, FECA benefits are paid to federal employees who are unable to work because of injuries sustained while performing their federal duties, including those who are at or older than retirement age. Concerns have been raised that federal employees on FECA receive benefits that could be more generous than under the traditional federal retirement system and that the program may have unintended incentives for beneficiaries to remain on the FECA program beyond the traditional retirement age. Over the past 30 years, there have been various proposals to change the FECA program to address this concern. Recent policy proposals to change the way FECA is administered for older beneficiaries share characteristics with past proposals we have discussed in prior work. In August …

Hydrogen is a promising energy source for the future economy due to its environmental friendliness. One of the important obstacles for the utilization of hydrogen as a fuel source for applications such as fuel cells is the storage of hydrogen. In the infrastructure of the expected hydrogen economy, hydrogen storage is one of the key enabling technologies. Although hydrogen possesses the highest gravimetric energy content (142 KJ/g) of all fuels, its volumetric energy density (8 MJ/L) is very low. It is desired to increase the volumetric energy density of hydrogen in a system to satisfy various applications. Research on hydrogen storage has been pursed for many years. Various storage technologies, including liquefaction, compression, metal hydride, chemical hydride, and adsorption, have been examined. Liquefaction and high pressure compression are not desired due to concerns related to complicated devices, high energy cost and safety. Metal hydrides and chemical hydrides have high gravimetric and volumetric energy densities but encounter issues because high temperature is required for the release of hydrogen, due to the strong bonding of hydrogen in the compounds. Reversibility of hydrogen loading and unloading is another concern. Adsorption of hydrogen on high surface area sorbents such as activated carbon and organic …

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA; 5 U.S.C. §552) enables any person to access—without explanation or justification—certain existing, identifiable, unpublished, executive branch agency records. Pursuant to FOIA, the public has presumptive access to requested agency records unless the material falls within any of FOIA's nine categories of exemption from disclosure. This report discusses FOIA's history, examines its implementation, and provides potential policy approaches for Congress.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

This report gives an overview of Guinea and discusses the background information and relations with the United States

Multilayer coated blazed gratings with high groove density are the best candidates for use in high resolution EUV and soft x-ray spectroscopy. Theoretical analysis shows that such a grating can be potentially optimized for high dispersion and spectral resolution in a desired high diffraction order without significant loss of diffraction efficiency. In order to realize this potential, the grating fabrication process should provide a perfect triangular groove profile and an extremely smooth surface of the blazed facets. Here we report on recent progress achieved at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) in fabrication of high quality multilayer coated blazed gratings. The blazed gratings were fabricated using scanning beam interference lithography followed by wet anisotropic etching of silicon. A 200 nm period grating coated with a Mo/Si multilayer composed with 30 bi-layers demonstrated an absolute efficiency of 37.6percent in the 3rd diffraction order at 13.6 nm wavelength. The groove profile of the grating was thoroughly characterized with atomic force microscopy before and after the multilayer deposition. The obtained metrology data were used for simulation of the grating efficiency with the vector electromagnetic PCGrate-6.1 code. The simulations showed that smoothing of the grating profile during the multilayer deposition is the main reason for …

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This report describes the causes, costs, and current status of inflation.