Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Census Bureau (Bureau) estimates that the 2010 Census will cost over $11.3 billion, making it the most expensive in our history. The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate appropriation bills propose to reduce the Bureau's fiscal year 2007 budget request, raising questions about the Bureau's design of the 2010 Census and associated costs. Based on issued GAO work, this testimony addresses the extent to which the Bureau has (1) made progress redesigning its approach, including nonresponse follow-up, a key cost driver; and (2) developed a comprehensive project plan for the 2010 Census, as well as timely, detailed cost data for effective oversight and cost control."

This report considers the transition in government meant to stabilize Afghanistan. Moreover, the report discusses the new constitution and the benefits of it, such as women participating in politics. The report also discusses the NATO led troops in the region.

Sub-Saharan Africa ("Africa" hereafter) has been more severely affected by AIDS than any other part of the world. Experts attribute the severity of Africa's AIDS epidemic to the region's poverty, women's relative lack of empowerment, high rates of male worker migration, and other factors. Health systems there are ill-equipped; AIDS' severe social and economic consequences are depriving Africa of skilled workers and teachers, and reducing life expectancy by decades in some countries. This report explains the AIDS crisis and surrounding issues in detail, as well as U.S. and international efforts to provide general and economic aid. Relevant U.S. legislation is also outlined.

This report discusses the AIDS issues in Africa and the Bush administration call to double U.S. international funding for AIDS.

Sub-Saharan Africa has been far more severely affected by AIDS than any other part of the world. The United Nations reports that 24.5 million adults and children are infected with the HIV virus in the region, which has about 11% of the world's population but more than 64% of the worldwide total of infected people. This report discusses this issue in detail, including the cause of the African AIDS epidemic, the social and economic consequences, response and treatment, and U.S. policy.

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

Hot rolling is a problem involving large deformations during the process of turning an ingot into a thin sheet. As a result of the large deformations inherent in the process, significant amounts of energy are put into the ingot mechanically, most of which results in heat generation. Therefore, in order to predict the results of rolling both the mechanical and the thermal factors must accurately represent the real conditions. The factors which must be properly tuned include interface friction, mass scaling to decrease computation times, heat transfer at the interface, convective heat transfer from the ingot, and convective heat transfer from the roll. Since these parameters are generally not measurable the correct values must be derived by tuning the parameters so that solutions match some other measurable result. The interface friction will be tuned using an ALE3D input deck which has been set up to output the torque applied to the roll during the pass. The friction coefficient will be adjusted so that the computed torque matches the measured value. The various heat transfer coefficients are dependent on each other, and are tuned based on measured roll surface temperatures, ingot exit temperatures, and the energy input through the mechanical deformation …

The interplay of the effects of geometry and collective motion on d-{alpha} correlation functions is investigated for central Xe+Au collisions at E/A=50 MeV. The data cannot be explained with out collective motion, which could be partly along the beam axis. A semi-quantitative description of the data can be obtained using a Monte -Carlo model, where thermal emission is superimposed on collective motion. Both the emission volume and the competition between the thermal and collective motion influence significantly the shape of the correlation function, motivating new strategies for extending intensity interferometry studies to massive particles.

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

The Single Heater Test (SHT) is the first of three in-situ thermal tests included in the site characterization program for the potential nuclear waste monitored geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. The heating phase of the SHT started in August 1996 and was concluded in May 1997 after 9 months of heating. Cooling continued until January 1998, at which time post-test characterization of the test block commenced. Numerous thermal, hydrological, mechanical, and chemical sensors monitored the coupled processes in the unsaturated fractured rock mass around the heater (CRWMS M&O 1999). The objective of this calculation is to benchmark a numerical simulation of the rock mass thermal behavior against the extensive data set that is available from the thermal test. The scope is limited to three-dimensional (3-D) numerical simulations of the computational domain of the Single Heater Test and surrounding rock mass. This calculation supports the waste package thermal design methodology, and is developed by Waste Package Department (WPD) under Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) procedure AP-3.12Q, Revision 0, ICN 3, BSCN 1, Calculations.

Weekly newspaper from Holliday, Texas 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.

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Nuclear level densities and radiative strength functions (RSF) in {sup 56}Fe and {sup 57}Fe were measured using the {sup 57}Fe({sup 3}He,{alpha}{gamma}) and {sup 57}Fe({sup 3}He, {sup 3}He{prime}{gamma}) reactions, respectively, at Oslo Cyclotron Laboratory. A low-energy enhancement in the RSF below 4 MeV energy was observed. This finding cannot be explained by common theoretical models. In a second experiment, two-step cascade intensities with soft primary transitions from the {sup 56}Fe(n,2{gamma}) reaction were measured. The agreement between the two experiments confirms the low-energy enhancement in the RSF. In a third experiment, the neutron evaporation spectrum from the {sup 55}Mn(dn,N){sup 56}Fe reaction was measured at 7-MeV deuteron energy at John Edwards Accelerator Laboratory at Ohio University. Comparison of the level density of {sup 56}Fe obtained from the first and third experiments gives an overall good agreement. Furthermore, observed enhancement for soft {gamma} rays is supported by the last experiment.

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

The threats of bio-terrorism and newly emerging infectious diseases pose serious challenges to the national security infrastructure. Rapid detection and diagnosis of infectious disease in human populations, as well as characterizing pathogen biology, are critical for reducing the morbidity and mortality associated with such threats. One of the key challenges in managing an infectious disease outbreak, whether through natural causes or acts of overt terrorism, is detection early enough to initiate effective countermeasures. Much recent attention has been directed towards the utility of biomarkers or molecular signatures that result from the interaction of the pathogen with the host for improving our ability to diagnose and mitigate the impact of a developing infection during the time window when effective countermeasures can be instituted. Host responses may provide early signals in blood even from localized infections. Multiple innate and adaptive immune molecules, in combination with other biochemical markers, may provide disease-specific information and new targets for countermeasures. The presence of pathogen specific markers and an understanding of the molecular capabilities and adaptations of the pathogen when it interacts with its host may likewise assist in early detection and provide opportunities for targeting countermeasures. An important question that needs to be addressed is …

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

Standard jet finding techniques used in elementary particle collisions have not been successful in the high track density of heavy-ion collisions. This paper describes a modified cone-type jet finding algorithm developed for the complex environment of heavy-ion collisions. The primary modification to the algorithm is the evaluation and subtraction of the large background energy, arising from uncorrelated soft hadrons, in each collision. A detailed analysis of the background energy and its event-by-event fluctuations has been performed on simulated data, and a method developed to estimate the background energy inside the jet cone from the measured energy outside the cone on an event-by-event basis. The algorithm has been tested using Monte-Carlo simulations of Pb+Pb collisions at {radical}s = 5.5 TeV for the ALICE detector at the LHC. The algorithm can reconstruct jets with a transverse energy of 50 GeV and above with an energy resolution of {approx} 30%.

Data mining is emerging as one of the key features of many homeland security initiatives. Often used as a means for detecting fraud, assessing risk, and product retailing, data mining involves the use of data analysis tools to discover previously unknown, valid patterns and relationships in large data sets. This report discusses the data mining uses (i.e. Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) Program) and issues (i.e. data quality, interoperability, privacy), as well as the limitations of data mining.

On July 20, the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up its version of the FY2007 defense appropriations bill, H.R. 5631. Floor action is expected to begin on August 1. The Senate bill provides $453.5 billion defense programs, including $50 billion in appropriations for overseas operations. The total is $9.1 billion less than the Administration requested. Earlier, on June 20, the House passed its version of the bill. It provides $416.3 billion for defense programs, $4.1 billion below the request. The amounts in the House and Senate bills are not directly comparable, since some programs in the Senate bill are covered in the House in the Military Quality of Life/Veterans Affairs appropriations bill, H.R. 5385.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is shipping, for disposition purposes, bulk quantities of fissile materials, primarily highly enriched uranium (HEU). The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) specification 6M container has been the workhorse for NNSA and many other shippers of radioactive material since the 1980s. However, the 6M does not conform to the packaging requirements in the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR 71) and, for that reason, is being phased out for use in the DOE secure transportation system by the end of 2006. BWXT Y-12 developed and licensed the ES-3100 container to replace the DOT 6M. The ES-3100 was certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in April 2006. The process of deploying the new package began in June 2005 and is planned to be completed in July 2006. The package will be fully operational and completely replace the DOT 6M at the Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12) by October 2006. This paper reviews the deployment process and the mock loading station that was installed at National Transportation Research Center (NTRC) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Specialized equipment, tools, and instrumentation that support the handling and loading operations of the ES-3100 are …

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

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