A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "According to U.S. intelligence, the threat to U.S airspace remains. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is to defend U.S. air space and the U.S. Air Force has 18 sites in the United States that conduct air sovereignty alert (ASA) operations. ASA operations support fighter aircraft in conducting homeland air defense operations. GAO examined the extent to which (1) NORAD has adopted a risk-based management approach to determine ASA operational requirements; (2) the Air Force has implemented ASA operations as a steady-state mission in accordance with Department of Defense (DOD), NORAD, and Air Force directives and guidance; (3) the Air Force assesses the readiness of units conducting ASA operations; and (4) the Air Force faces challenges in sustaining ASA operations for the future and what plans, if any, it has to address such challenges. GAO reviewed relevant ASA guidance, directives, and planning documents; and interviewed DOD officials, including the commanders of all 18 ASA sites."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Workers who "blow the whistle" on prohibited practices play a role in enforcing federal laws, but these workers risk reprisals from their employers. The Whistleblower Protection Program at the Department of Labor's (Labor) Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is responsible for investigating whistleblowers' complaints. OSHA's decisions generally may be appealed to the Office of Administrative Law Judges (OALJ) and, ultimately, the Administrative Review Board (ARB). GAO examined (1) what is known about processing times for complaints and what affects these times, (2) what outcomes resulted, and (3) what challenges OSHA faces in administering the program. To answer these questions, GAO analyzed electronic data files from OSHA, OALJ, and ARB; visited five OSHA regional offices; reviewed case files; conducted a Web-based survey of investigators; and interviewed key officials."

This talk briefly reviews three types of time-asymmetry in physics, which I classify as universal, macroscopic and microscopic. Most of the talk is focused on the latter, namely the violation of T-reversal invariance in particle physics theories. In sum tests of microscopic T-invariance, or observations of its violation, are limited by the fact that, while we can measure many processes, only in very few cases can we construct a matched pair of process and inverse process and observe it with sufficient sensitivity to make a test. In both the cases discussed here we can achieve an observable T violation making use of flavor tagging, and in the second case also using the quantum properties of an antisymmetric coherent state of two B mesons to construct a CP-tag. Both these tagging properties depend only on very general properties of the flavor and/or CP quantum numbers and so provide model independent tests for T-invariance violations. The microscopic laws of physics are very close to T-symmetric. There are small effects that give CP- and T-violating processes in three-generation-probing weak decays. Where a T-violating observable can be constructed we see the relationships between T-violation and CP-violation expected in a CPT conserving theory. These microscopic …

“Molecular dissection of the roles of the SOD genes in mammalian response to low dose irradiation " was started on 09/01/03 and ended on 08/31/07. The primary objective of the project was to carry out mechanistic studies of the roles of the anti-oxidant SOD genes in mammalian cellular response to low dose ionizing radiation.

The collaboration between Mark Fink (Tulane University) and R. Morris Bullock (Brookhaven National Laboratory, currently at PNL) is an effort to understand some of the fundamental processes involved in catalytic bond activations with low coordinate palladium species. The project involves the photochemical generation of reactive low-valent palladium species as transients using nanosecond laser flash photolysis and the subsequent investigation of their reactions with chloroarenes and hydrosilanes. In the case of Si-H activation of hydrosilanes, relatively long-lived sigma complexes are implicated. These complexes may be important models for C-H activation in hydrocarbons. The information obtained from these studies will help in the understanding of fundamental processes involved in a number of important catalytic reactions in the petrochemical and environmental areas.

We study the microbunching instability in a bunch compressor by a parallel code with some improved numerical algorithms. The two-dimensional charge/current distribution is represented by a Fourier series, with coefficients determined through Monte Carlo sampling over an ensemble of tracked points. This gives a globally smooth distribution with low noise. The field equations are solved accurately in the lab frame using retarded potentials and a novel choice of integration variables that eliminates singularities. We apply the scheme with parameters for the first bunch compressor system of FERMI{at}Elettra, with emphasis on the amplification of a perturbation at a particular wavelength. Gain curves agree with those of the linearized Vlasov model at long wavelengths, but show some deviation at the smallest wavelengths treated.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Bi-weekly student newspaper from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas that includes campus news and local news of interest to students along with advertising.

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas Senate and House of Representatives relating to Granting the legislature permission to adjourn for more than three days during the period beginning on Wednesday, January 14, 2009, and ending on Monday, January 26, 2009.

Daily student newspaper from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

Weekly student newspaper from the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas that includes campus news and commentaries along with advertising.

Photocopies of envelopes addressed to the Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus at Dallas, Texas from Allen at Windcrest, Texas. There is also a registration form filled out by Linda M. Allen for the Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus Statewide Conference in Austin, including contact information and workshop selections in Technology Tips for Clubs, Making Your Endorsements Matter, and Building a Bigger Club.

Homeland security relies heavily on analytical chemistry to identify suspicious materials and persons. Traditionally this role has focused on attribution, determining the type and origin of an explosive, for example. But as technology advances, analytical chemistry can and will play an important role in the prevention and preemption of terrorist attacks. More sensitive and selective detection techniques can allow suspicious materials and persons to be identified even before a final destructive product is made. The work presented herein focuses on the use of commercial and novel detection techniques for application to the prevention of terrorist activities. Although drugs are not commonly thought of when discussing terrorism, narcoterrorism has become a significant threat in the 21st century. The role of the drug trade in the funding of terrorist groups is prevalent; thus, reducing the trafficking of illegal drugs can play a role in the prevention of terrorism by cutting off much needed funding. To do so, sensitive, specific, and robust analytical equipment is needed to quickly identify a suspected drug sample no matter what matrix it is in. Single Particle Aerosol Mass Spectrometry (SPAMS) is a novel technique that has previously been applied to biological and chemical detection. The current work …

Abstract We conduct a detailed test of a recently developed technique, CAPloc, in recovering source parameters from a few stations against results from a large broadband network in Southern California. The method uses a library of 1D Green’s functions which are broken into segments and matched to waveform observations with adjustable timing shifts. These shifts can be established by calibration against a distribution of well-located earthquakes and assembled in tomographic images for predicting various phase-delays. Synthetics generated from 2D cross-sections through these models indicates that 1D synthetic waveforms are sufficient in modeling but simply shifted in time for most hard-rock sites. This simplification allows the source inversion for both mechanism and location to easily obtain by grid search. We test one-station mechanisms for 160 events against the array for both PAS and GSC which have data since 1960. While individual solutions work well (about 90%), joint solutions produce more reliable and defensible results. Inverting for both mechanism and location also works well except for certain complex paths across deep basins and along mountain ridges.

A novel Taylor-Couette experiment has been developed to produce rotating shear ows for the study of hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic instabilities which are believed to drive angular momentum transport in astrophysical accretion disks. High speed, concentric, corotating cylinders generate the flow where the height of the cylinders is twice the radial gap width. Ekman pumping is controlled and minimized by splitting the vertical boundaries into pairs of nested, differentially rotating rings. The end rings and cylinders comprise four independently driven rotating components which provide exibility in developing flow profiles. The working fluids of the experiment are water, a water-glycerol mix, or a liquid gallium alloy. The mechanical complexity of the apparatus and large dynamic pressures generated by high speed operation with the gallium alloy presented unique challenges. The mechanical implementation of the experiment and some representative results obtained with Laser Doppler Velocimetry in water are discussed.

A Saltstone waste form was prepared in the Savannah River National Laboratory from a Tank 50H sample and Z-Area premix material for the first quarter of calendar year 2008 (1QCY08). After the prescribed 28 day cure, samples of the saltstone were collected, and the waste form was shown to meet the South Carolina Hazardous Waste Management Regulations (SCHWMR) R.61-79.261.24 and R.61-79.268.48(a) requirements for a nonhazardous waste form with respect to RCRA metals and underlying hazardous constituents. These analyses met all quality assurance specifications of USEPA SW-846. The Saltstone Production Facility (SPF) receives waste from Tank 50H for treatment. In the first quarter of the 2008 calendar year (1QCY08), in addition to Effluent Treatment Project (ETP) waste that is regularly added at approximately 10 kgal/month, Tank 50H received significant waste transfers from Tank 23H and from Tank 49H. The Saltstone Grout Sampling plan provides the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) with the chemical and physical characterization strategy for the salt solution which is to be disposed of in the Z-Area Solid Waste Landfill (ISWLF). During operation, samples were collected from Tank 50H and grout samples prepared to determine the non-hazardous nature of the grout to meet the …

Small non-axisymmetric perturbations of the magnetic field can greatly change the performance of tokamaks through non-ambipolar transport. A number of theories have been developed, but the predictions were not consistent with experimental observations in tokamaks. This Letter provides a resolution, with a generalized analytic treatment of the non-ambipolar transport. It is shown that the discrepancy between theory and experiment can be greatly reduced by two effects: (1) The small fraction of trapped particles for which the bounce and precession rates resonate. (2) The non- axisymmetric variation in the field strength along the perturbed magnetic field lines rather than along the unperturbed magnetic field lines. The expected sensitivity of ITER to non-axisymmetries is also discussed.

The transfer of liquid salt solution from Tank 32 to an evaporator is to be accomplished by activating the evaporator feed pump, with the supernate surface at a minimum height of approximately 74.4 inches above the sludge layer, while simultaneously turning on the downcomer with a flow rate of 110 gpm. Previously, activation of the evaporator feed pump was an isolated event without any other components running at the same time. An analysis of the dissolved solution transfer has been performed using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods to determine the amount of entrained sludge solids pumped out of the tank toward the evaporator with the downcomer turned on. The analysis results shows that, for the minimum tank liquid level of 105 inches above the tank bottom (which corresponds to a liquid depth of 74.4 inches above the sludge layer), the evaporator feed pump will contain less than 0.1 wt% sludge solids in the discharge stream, which is an order of magnitude less than the 1.0 wt% undissolved solids (UDS) loading criteria to feed the evaporator. Lower liquid levels with respect to the sludge layer will result in higher amounts of sludge entrainment due to the increased plunging jet velocity from …

This report gathers advice and best practice to help institutions designing and creating WARC files for collection management, access, preservation, and interoperability with collections from different institutions.

It can be computationally advantageous to perform computer simulations in a Lorentz boosted frame for a certain class of systems. However, even if the computer model relies on a covariant set of equations, it has been pointed out that algorithmic difficulties related to discretization errors may have to be overcome in order to take full advantage of the potential speedup. We summarize the findings, the difficulties and their solutions, and show that the technique enables simulations important to several areas of accelerator physics that are otherwise problematic, including self-consistent modeling in three-dimensions of laser wokefield accelerator stages at energies of 10 GeV and above.

The report is intended to provide a brief summary and analysis of major legislative provisions in bills related to reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration and related aviation programs that were considered during the 110th Congress.

Member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) contribute to the activities of the alliance in several ways, the chief of which is through the deployment of their own armed forces, funded by their national budgets. Certain commonly conducted activities, however, are paid for out of three NATO-run budgets. These three accounts--the civil budget, the military budget, and the security investment program--are funded by individual contributions from the member states. This report discusses North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) burdensharing in funding such operations.

This report focuses on U.N. reform efforts and priorities from the perspective of several key actors, including the U.S. government, the U.N. Secretary-General, selected groups of member states, and a cross-section of groups tasked with addressing U.N. reform. It also examines congressional actions related to U.N. reform, as well as future policy considerations.