Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1994, the CALFED Delta-Bay and Central Valley Project Improvement Act has provided more than $63 million to buy private lands in California for wetlands mitigation and wildlife enhancement. Federal agencies and nonprofit organizations have acquired 101,800 acres--94,300 acres in full ownership and 7,500 acres in partial interest or easements that restrict how land may be used. The three federal agencies and nonprofit organization GAO reviewed use the Uniform Standards for Federal Land Acquisitions for appraisals. All the entities developed and used supplemental appraisal guidance, which was generally consistent across the entities. The agencies and nonprofit organization used similar methodologies with one exception. The National Resources Conservation Service does not consider the land's residual value when making its appraisals as specified in the Uniform Standards."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the appropriateness of a termination of a 1997 request by the Indian Health Services (IHS) for proposals to provide computed tomographic scanning services for the Blackfeet and Crow Service Units in Montana. GAO found no indication that IHS negotiated in bad faith. GAO's Office of Special Investigations had looked into the case in December 1998. GAO determined that the case was not within the scope of ongoing work and referred the case to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG). A June 1999 report by the OIG concluded that the allegations were unwarranted."

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

This report outlines the amended FY2002 defense budget request from the Bush administration, delivered to the Hill in June 2001.

This report describes the results from an experimental program to investigate the feasibility of laser produced MeV protons as a diagnostic of electric fields or shock compressed materials. The experimental campaign was very successful, and has led to substantial advances in the characterization and optimization of proton sources from ultra-intense laser-solid interaction. This is a subject of the highest scientific interest [1] and is highly relevant to developing its use as a possible NIF implosion diagnostic and other applications relevant to stockpile stewardship.

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

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

The Savannah River Site (SRS) has been evaluating technologies for removing radioactive cesium ({sup 137}Cs) from the supernate solutions stored in the high-level waste tanks at the site. Crystalline silicotitanate (CST) sorbent (IONSIV IE-911{reg_sign}, UOP LLC, Des Plaines, IL), which is very effective at removing cesium from high-salt solutions, was one of three technologies that were tested. Because of the extremely high inventory of {sup 137}Cs expected for the large columns of CST that would be used for treating the SRS supernate, any loss of flow or cooling to the columns could result in high temperatures from radiolytic heating. Also, even under normal operating conditions, the CST would be exposed to the supernates for up to a year before being removed. Small-scale batch and column tests conducted last year using samples of production batches of CST showed potential problems with CST clumping and loss of cesium capacity after extended contact with the simulant solutions. Similar tests-using samples of a baseline and improved granular CST and the CST powder used to make both granular samples-were performed this year to compare the performance of the improved CST. The column tests, which used recirculating supernate simulant, showed that the baseline CST generated more …

Between the accelerator and fusion chamber the heavy ion beams are subject to a dramatic but vital series of manipulations, some of which are carried out simultaneously and involve large space charge forces. The beams' quality must be maintained at a level sufficient for the fusion application; this general requirement significantly impacts beam line design, especially in the considerations of momentum dispersion. Immediately prior to final focus onto a fusion target, heavy ion driver beams are compressed in length by typically an order of magnitude. This process is simultaneous with bending through large angles to achieve the required target illumination configuration. The large increase in beam current is accommodated by a combination of decreased lattice period, increased beam radius, and increased strength of the beamline quadrupoles. However, the large head-to-tail momentum tilt (up to 5%) needed to compress the pulse results in a very significant dispersion of the pulse centroid from the design axis. General design features are discussed. A principal design goal is to minimize the magnitude of the dispersion while maintaining approximate first order achromaticity through the complete compression/bend system. Configurations of bends and quadrupoles, which achieve this goal while simultaneously maintaining a locally matched beam-envelope, are analyzed.

Interview with Navy veteran L. B. England. The interview includes England's personal experiences while aboard the battleship USS West Virginia during the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. England also talks about the death of his brother, Boyd England, who was killed on the West Virginia during the attack. The interview includes an appendix with an article about England.

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

The FIRST survey (Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-cm) is scheduled to cover 10,000 square degrees of the northern and southern galactic caps. Until recently, astronomers classified radio-emitting galaxies through a visual inspection of FIRST images. Besides being subjective, prone to error and tedious, this manual approach is becoming infeasible: upon completion, FIRST will include almost a million galaxies. This paper describes the application of six methods of evolving neural networks (NNs) with genetic algorithms (GAs) to identify bent-double galaxies. The objective is to demonstrate that GAs can successfully address some common problems in the application of NNs to classification problems, such as training the networks, choosing appropriate network topologies, and selecting relevant features. The results indicate that most of the methods perform equally well on our data, but the feature selection method gives superior results.

Microarrays and DNA chips are an efficient, high-throughput technology for measuring temporal changes in the expression of message RNA (mRNA) from thousands of genes (often the entire genome of an organism) in a single experiment. A crucial drawback of microarray experiments is that results are inherently qualitative: data are generally neither quantitatively repeatable, nor may microarray spot intensities be calibrated to in vivo mRNA concentrations. Nevertheless, microarrays represent by the far the cheapest and fastest way to obtain information about a cells global genetic regulatory networks. Besides poor signal characteristics, the massive number of data produced by microarray experiments poses challenges for visualization, interpretation and model building. Towards initial model development, we have developed a Java tool for visualizing the spatial organization of gene expression in bacteria. We are also developing an approach to inferring and testing qualitative fuzzy logic models of gene regulation using microarray data. Because we are developing and testing qualitative hypotheses that do not require quantitative precision, our statistical evaluation of experimental data is limited to checking for validity and consistency. Our goals are to maximize the impact of inexpensive microarray technology, bearing in mind that biological models and hypotheses are typically qualitative.

New ultrasound data, obtained with a circular experimental scanner, are compared with data obtained with standard X-ray CT. Ultrasound data obtained by scanning fixed breast tissue were used to generate images of sound speed and reflectivity. The ultrasound images exhibit approximately 1 mm resolution and about 20 dB of dynamic range. All data were obtained in a circular geometry. X-ray CT scans were used to generate X-ray images corresponding to the same 'slices' obtained with the ultrasound scanner. The good match of sensitivity, resolution and angular coverage between the ultrasound and X-ray data makes possible a direct comparison of the three types of images. We present the results of such a comparison for an excised breast fixed in formalin. The results are presented visually using various types of data fusion. A general correspondence between the sound speed, reflectivity and X-ray morphologies is found. The degree to which data fusion can help characterize tissue is assessed by examining the quantitative correlations between the ultrasound and X-ray images.

In contrast to standard reflection ultrasound (US), transmission US holds the promise of more thorough tissue characterization by generating quantitative acoustic parameters. We compare results from a conventional US scanner with data acquired using an experimental circular scanner operating at frequencies of 0.3 - 1.5 MHz. Data were obtained on phantoms and a normal, formalin-fixed, excised breast. Both reflection and transmission-based algorithms were used to generate images of reflectivity, sound speed and attenuation.. Images of the phantoms demonstrate the ability to detect sub-mm features and quantify acoustic properties such as sound speed and attenuation. The human breast specimen showed full field evaluation, improved penetration and tissue definition. Comparison with conventional US indicates the potential for better margin definition and acoustic characterization of masses, particularly in the complex scattering environments of human breast tissue. The use of morphology, in the context of reflectivity, sound speed and attenuation, for characterizing tissue, is discussed.

A project was undertaken to improve robotic surgical tools for telerobotic minimally invasive surgery. The major objectives were to reduce the size of the tools to permit new surgical procedures in confined spaces such as the heart and to improve control of surgical tools by locating positional sensors and actuators at the end effector rather than external to the patient as is currently the state of the technology. A new compact end-effector with wrist-like flexibility was designed. Positional sensors based on MEMS microfabrication techniques were designed.

This report is on Anticircumvention under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Universal Studios v. Corley.

K Basin sludge contains metallic uranium and uranium oxides that will corrode and hydrate during storage. The end-state (final) corrosion products will have a lower particle density and a higher void fraction (or volume fraction of sludge occupied by water) than the starting-state sludge at the beginning of storage. As the particle density and void fraction change, the volume occupied by a given mass of sludge will also change. The purpose of this report is to quantify how the various types and sources of K Basin sludge will react and volumetrically expand (or contract) between the time the sludge is first loaded into the storage containers (starting state) and the time all major volume-changing reactions have been completed (end state). The results from this report will be used in design and safety basis calculations for sludge management systems and will be incorporated into the sludge technical basis documents.

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

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

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

The human body and its aggressive environment challenge the survival of implanted foreign materials. Formidable biocompatibility issues arise from biological, chemical, electrical, and tribological origins. The body's electrolytic solution provides the first point of contact with any kind of implant, and is responsible for transport, healing, integration, or attack. Therefore, determining how to successfully control the integration of a biomaterial should begin with an analysis of the early interfacial dynamics involved. setting, a complicated feedback system of solution chemistry, pH, ions, and solubility exists. The introduction of a fixation device instantly confounds this system. The body is exposed to a range of voltages, and wear can bring about significant shifts in potentials across an implant. In the environment of a new implant the solution pH becomes acidic, ionic concentrations shift, cathodic currents can lead to corrosion, and oxygen levels can be depleted; all of these impact the ability of the implant to retain its protective oxide layer and to present a stable interface for the formation of a biolayer. Titanium has been used in orthopedic and maxilofacial surgery for many years due to its reputation as being biocompatible and its ability to osseointegrate. Osseointegration is defined as direct structural and …

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