This report discusses the April 2009 outbreak of the influenza strain known as H1N1, or commonly, swine influenza. This report describes the distribution of the virus and the statistics of affected areas, as well as international and U.S. efforts to treat infected persons, respond to outbreaks in various countries (such as Mexico and other Latin American nations), and prepare for a possible influenza pandemic.

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.

News release about DART's planned Orange Line terminating at Terminal A at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

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

U.S.-China economic ties have expanded substantially over the past three decades. With a huge population and a rapidly expanding economy, China is a potentially huge market for U.S. exporters. However, bilateral economic relations have become strained over a number of issues, which this report discusses at length. The current global economic crisis could further challenge China-U.S. economic ties. Several Members of Congress have urged the Obama Administration to take a more assertive approach in dealing with Chinese economic practices.

The charmonium yields are expected to be considerably suppressed if a deconfined medium is formed in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. In addition, the bottomonium states, with the possible exception of the {Upsilon}(1S) state, are also expected to be suppressed in heavy-ion collisions. However, in proton-nucleus collisions the quarkonium production cross sections, even those of the {Upsilon}(1S), scale less than linearly with the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions. These 'cold nuclear matter' effects need to be accounted for before signals of the high density QCD medium can be identified in the measurements made in nucleus-nucleus collisions. We identify two cold nuclear matter effects important for midrapidity quarkonium production: 'nuclear absorption', typically characterized as a final-state effect on the produced quarkonium state and shadowing, the modification of the parton densities in nuclei relative to the nucleon, an initial-state effect. We characterize these effects and study their energy and rapidity dependence.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The mission of the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD) includes enforcing provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which is designed to ensure that millions of workers are paid the federal minimum wage and overtime. Conducting investigations based on worker complaints is WHD's priority. On March 25, 2009, GAO testified on its findings related to (1) undercover tests of WHD's complaint intake process, (2) case study examples of inadequate WHD responses to wage complaints, and (3) the effectiveness of WHD's complaint intake process, conciliations (phone calls to the employer), and other investigative tools. To test WHD's complaint intake process, GAO posed as complainants and employers in 10 different scenarios. To provide case study examples and assess effectiveness of complaint investigations, GAO used data mining and statistical sampling of closed case data for fiscal year 2007. This report summarizes the testimony (GAO-09-458T) and provides recommendations."

A presentation that analysis the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 as well as the economic wide cap and trade program, the energy efficiency provisions, and the competitiveness provisions.

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

As scientific instruments and computer simulations produce more and more data, the task of locating the essential information to gain insight becomes increasingly difficult. FastBit is an efficient software tool to address this challenge. In this article, we present a summary of the key underlying technologies, namely bitmap compression, encoding, and binning. Together these techniques enable FastBit to answer structured (SQL) queries orders of magnitude faster than popular database systems. To illustrate how FastBit is used in applications, we present three examples involving a high-energy physics experiment, a combustion simulation, and an accelerator simulation. In each case, FastBit significantly reduces the response time and enables interactive exploration on terabytes of data.

Funeral program for Chester Ray Lara, Sr., born February 24, 1944 and died June 16, 2009. The funeral was held June 23, 2009 at Tried Stone Baptist Church, officiated by Rev. Danny W. Brooks. Funeral arrangements were made through the D. W. Brooks Funeral Home in San Antonio, Texas.

Gravitational instability of the distribution of stars in a galaxy is a well-known phenomenon in astrophysics. This report is an attempt to analyze this phenomenon by applying standard tools developed in accelerator physics. It is found that a nonrotating galaxy would become unstable if its size exceeds a certain limit that depends on its mass density and its velocity spread.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Isotope effects (IEs) are a powerful tool for examining the reactivity of, and interactions between, molecules. Recently, secondary IEs have been used to probe the nature of noncovalent interactions between guest and host molecules in supramolecular systems. While these studies can provide valuable insight into the specific interactions governing guest recognition and binding properties, IEs on noncovalent interactions are often very small and difficult to measure precisely. The Perrin group has developed an NMR titration method capable of determining ratios of equilibrium constants with remarkable precision. They have used this technique to study small, secondary equilibrium isotope effects (EIEs) on the acidity of carboxylic acids and phenols and on the basicity of amines, measuring differences down to thousandths of a pK{sub a} unit. It occurred to us that this titration method can in principle measure relative equilibrium constants for any process which is fast on the NMR timescale and for which the species under comparison are distinguishable by NMR. Here we report the application of this method to measure very small EIEs on noncovalent host-guest interactions in a supramolecular system.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the implementation of high speed intercity passenger rail projects in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the Recovery Act). The $8 billion provided by the Recovery Act for high speed and other intercity passenger rail projects has focused more attention on and generated a great deal of anticipation about the possibility of developing high speed rail systems in the United States. These projects are seen by some as serving an important transportation role, by moving people quickly and safely, reducing highway and airport congestion, and being environmentally friendly. This testimony focuses on (1) the factors identified that affect the economic viability of high speed rail projects and (2) how the Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) recent strategic plan incorporates those factors."

Axion Like Particles (ALPs) are predicted to couple with photons in the presence of magnetic fields. This effect may lead to a significant change in the observed spectra of gamma-ray sources such as AGNs. Here we carry out a detailed study that for the first time simultaneously considers in the same framework both the photon/axion mixing that takes place in the gamma-ray source and that one expected to occur in the intergalactic magnetic fields. An efficient photon/axion mixing in the source always means an attenuation in the photon flux, whereas the mixing in the intergalactic medium may result in a decrement and/or enhancement of the photon flux, depending on the distance of the source and the energy considered. Interestingly, we find that decreasing the value of the intergalactic magnetic field strength, which decreases the probability for photon/axion mixing, could result in an increase of the expected photon flux at Earth if the source is far enough. We also find a 30% attenuation in the intensity spectrum of distant sources, which occurs at an energy that only depends on the properties of the ALPs and the intensity of the intergalactic magnetic field, and thus independent of the AGN source being observed. …

This report describes the FY2010 appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Administration requested a net appropriation of $44.1 billion in budget authority for FY2010. This amounts to a $2.8 billion, or a 6.7% increase over the $41.2 billion enacted for FY2009 (not including supplemental funding). Total budget authority requested by the Administration for DHS for FY2010 amounts to $55.1 billion.

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Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since September 2001, the Department of Defense (DOD) has relied heavily on the reserve component primarily in support of ongoing contingency operations for the Global War on Terrorism, which is now known as the Overseas Contingency Operation. As of February 2009, approximately 691,000 reserve servicemembers have been activated in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, with many of these servicemembers being called for multiple deployments or extended for more than one year. This increased use of the reserve component servicemembers has led to questions by Congress about whether reserve component servicemembers might be experiencing a decline in earnings as a result of extended and frequent activations. Citing the nation's increased reliance on the reserve component, Congress mandated in 2002 that we review compensation programs available to reserve component servicemembers serving on active duty. In September 2003, we reported that DOD lacked sufficient information to determine the need for compensation programs and recommended that DOD obtain more complete information on the magnitude of income change, the causes of any such identified change, and the effect of income change on retention. The results of DOD's 2004 Status of Forces …

Environmental monitoring data were collected at and around the Area 3 and Area 5 Radioactive Waste Management Sites (RWMSs) at the Nevada Test Site. These data are associated with radiation exposure, air, groundwater, meteorology, vadose zone, subsidence, and biota. This report summarizes the 2008 environmental data to provide an overall evaluation of RWMS performance and to support environmental compliance and performance assessment (PA) activities.