This report discusses whether substantial donations to tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organizations are subject to the federal gift tax.

The upcoming incarnation of the Gordon Research Conference on Electron Donor Acceptor Interactions will feature sessions on classic topics including proton-coupled electron transfer, dye-sensitized solar cells, and biological electron transfer, as well as emerging areas such as quantum coherence effects in donor-acceptor interactions, spintronics, and the application of donor-acceptor interactions in chemical synthesis.

The 2012 Gordon Conference will present and discuss cutting-edge research in the field of microbial metabolism of C1 compounds. The conference will feature the roles and application of C1 metabolism in natural and synthetic systems at scales from molecules to ecosystems. The conference will stress molecular aspects of the unique metabolism exhibited by autotrophic bacteria, methanogens, methylotrophs, aerobic and anaerobic methanotrophs, and acetogens.

The sub-theme of this year’s meeting, ‘Cell Wall Research in a Post-Genome World’, will be a consideration of the dramatic technological changes that have occurred in the three years since the previous cell wall Gordon Conference in the area of DNA sequencing. New technologies are providing additional perspectives of plant cell wall biology across a rapidly growing number of species, highlighting a myriad of architectures, compositions, and functions in both "conventional" and specialized cell walls. This meeting will focus on addressing the knowledge gaps and technical challenges raised by such diversity, as well as our need to understand the underlying processes for critical applications such as crop improvement and bioenergy resource development.

The Vibrational Spectroscopy conference brings together experimentalists and theoreticians working at the frontiers of modern vibrational spectroscopy, with a special emphasis on spectroscopies that probe the structure and dynamics of molecules in gases, liquids, and at interfaces. The conference explores the wide range of state-of-the-art techniques based on vibrational motion. These techniques span the fields of time-domain, high-resolution frequency-domain, spatially-resolved, nonlinear, and multidimensional spectroscopies. The conference highlights both the application of these techniques in chemistry, materials, biology, the environment, and medicine as well as the development of theoretical models that enable one to connect spectroscopic signatures to underlying molecular motions including chemical reaction dynamics. The conference goal is to advance the field of vibrational spectroscopy by bringing together a collection of researchers who share common interests and who will gain from discussing work at the forefront of several connected areas. The intent is to emphasize the insights and understanding that studies of vibrations provide about a variety of molecular systems ranging from small polyatomic molecules to large biomolecules, nanomaterials, and environmental systems.

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

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

The edge bootstrap current plays a critical role in the equilibrium and stability of the steep edge pedestal plasma. The pedestal plasma has an unconventional and difficult neoclassical property, as compared with the core plasma. It has a narrow passing particle region in velocity space that can be easily modified or destroyed by Coulomb collisions. At the same time, the edge pedestal plasma has steep pressure and electrostatic potential gradients whose scale-lengths are comparable with the ion banana width, and includes a magnetic separatrix surface, across which the topological properties of the magnetic field and particle orbits change abruptly. A driftkinetic particle code XGC0, equipped with a mass-momentum-energy conserving collision operator, is used to study the edge bootstrap current in a realistic diverted magnetic field geometry with a self-consistent radial electric field. When the edge electrons are in the weakly collisional banana regime, surprisingly, the present kinetic simulation confirms that the existing analytic expressions [represented by O. Sauter et al. , Phys. Plasmas 6 , 2834 (1999)] are still valid in this unconventional region, except in a thin radial layer in contact with the magnetic separatrix. The agreement arises from the dominance of the electron contribution to the bootstrap current …

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

Commencement program for the summer 2012 graduating class of the University of North Texas, held in the UNT Coliseum on Friday and Saturday, August 10-11, 2012. The program contains the order of service and a list of graduates for the baccalaureate, master's, doctoral degrees.

Semi-weekly newspaper from Copperas Cove, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with advertising.

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

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.

Report that provides background information and identifies issues for Congress on Department of Defense (DOD) energy initiatives.

Lithium coating improves energy confinement and eliminates edge localized modes in NSTX, but the mechanism of this improvement is not yet well understood. We used the gas-puff-imaging (GPI) diagnostic on NSTX to measure the changes in edge turbulence which occurred during a scan with variable lithium wall coating, in order to help understand the reason for the confinement improvement with lithium. There was a small increase in the edge turbulence poloidal velocity and a decrease in the poloidal velocity fluctuation level with increased lithium. The possible effect of varying edge neutral density on turbulence damping was evaluated for these cases in NSTX. __________________________________________________

Surfactant-based foam delivery technology has been studied to remediate Hanford 200 area deep vadose zone sediment. However, the surfactants and remediation amendments have an unknown effect on indigenous subsurface microorganisms. Microbial populations are important factors to consider in remediation efforts due to their potential to alter soil geochemistry. This project focuses on measuring microbial metabolic responses to remediation amendments in batch and column studies using Deep Vadose Zone Sediments. Initial studies of the microbes from Hanford 200 area deep vadose zone sediment showed surfactants sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and cocamidopropyl betaine (CAPB) and remediation amendment calcium polysulfide (CPS) had no affect on microbial growth using BiologTM Ecoplates. To move towards a more realistic field analog, soil columns were packed with Hanford 200 Area sediment. Once microbial growth in the column was verified by observing growth of the effluent solution on tryptic soy agar plates, remedial surfactants were injected into the columns, and the resulting metabolic diversity was measured. Results suggest surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) stimulates microbial growth. The soil columns were also visualized using X-ray microtomography to inspect soil packing and possibly probe for evidence of biofilms. Overall, BiologTM Ecoplates provide a rapid assay to predict effects of remediation …

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

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

This report presents, in analytical question and answer form, the issues surrounding the financial conditions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are stockholder-owned government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). Their federal charters give the GSEs special public policy goals aimed at providing liquidity in the mortgage market and to provide access to homeownership for underserved groups and locations. In return, their charters give the GSEs a special relationship with the government.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) assesses regulatory fees among industry sectors and fee categories based on obsolete data, with limited transparency. The Communications Act requires FCC to base its regulatory fees on the number of full-time equivalents (FTE) that perform regulatory tasks in certain bureaus, among other things. FCC based its fiscal year 2011 regulatory fee assessments on its fiscal year 1998 division of FTEs among fee categories. It has not updated the FTE analysis on which it bases its regulatory fees, in part to avoid fluctuations in fees from year to year. FCC officials stated that the agency has complied with its statutory authority by dividing fees among fee categories based on FTE data—although the data is from fiscal year 1998—since the statute does not prescribe a specific time for FCC to update its FTE analysis. As a result, after 13 years in a rapidly changing industry, FCC has not validated the extent to which its fees correlate to its workload. Major changes in the telecommunications industry include the increasing use of wireless and broadband services and a convergence of telecommunications industries. Moreover, FCC’s practice …

This report summarizes principal federal disaster assistance programs for possible use by Members of Congress and their staff in helping address the needs of constituents. This report includes a list of CRS reports about disaster assistance and assistance for victims of recent hurricanes. It also includes a list of federal agencies' websites established specifically to respond to disasters, offering updates on recovery efforts, and providing a catalog of federal assistance programs.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Federal Protective Service (FPS) is not assessing risks at federal facilities in a manner consistent with standards such as the National Infrastructure Protection Plan’s (NIPP) risk management framework, as FPS originally planned. Instead of conducting risk assessments, since September 2011, FPS’s inspectors have collected information, such as the location, purpose, agency contacts, and current countermeasures (e.g., perimeter security, access controls, and closed-circuit television systems). This information notwithstanding, FPS has a backlog of federal facilities that have not been assessed for several years. According to FPS’s data, more than 5,000 facilities were to be assessed in fiscal years 2010 through 2012. However, GAO was unable to determine the extent of FPS’s facility security assessment (FSA) backlog because the data were unreliable. Multiple agencies have expended resources to conduct risk assessments, even though the agencies also already pay FPS for this service. FPS received $236 million in basic security fees from agencies to conduct FSAs and other security services in fiscal year 2011. Beyond not having a reliable tool for conducting assessments, FPS continues to lack reliable data, which has hampered the …

The overall research objectives are to develop proteorhodopsin (PR) proteins as a model system for {alpha}-helical membrane protein insertion and folding, and to advance understanding of the diversity and mechanisms of PRs, a large family of photoenergy transducers (~4000 identified) abundant in the world’s oceans. Specific aims are: (1) To develop a highefficiency genetic selection procedure for light-driven proton-pumping in E. coli cells. Such a procedure would provide a positive selection method for proper folding and function of PRs in the E. coli membrane. (2) Characterize flash-induced absorption changes and photocurrents in PR variants in organisms from various environments, and their expression level and function when expressed in E. coli. Subaims are to: (a) elucidate the relationship of the transport mechanism to mechanisms of other microbial rhodopsins, some of which like PRs function as ion transporters and some of which use light energy to activate signaling pathways (sensory rhodopsins); and (b) identify important residues and chemical events in light-driven proton transport by PRs. In addition to their importance to the energy of the biosphere PRs have attracted interest for their potential for use in making photoenergy-transducing membranes for bioengineering applications.

Funeral program for Agnes M. Russell, born August 20, 1944 and died August 2, 2012. The funeral was held August 10, 2012 at New Creation Christian Fellowship in San Antonio, Texas.