A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The United States has invested more than $6.2 billion in the Afghan Ministry of Interior (MOI) and Afghan National Police (ANP). The Department of Defense's (Defense) Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A), with the Department of State (State), leads U.S. efforts to enhance MOI and ANP organizational structures, leadership abilities, and pay systems. This report assesses the status of U.S. efforts to help Afghanistan (1) restructure MOI and ANP, (2) retrain ANP units, (3) screen MOI and ANP personnel, and (4) enhance MOI and ANP pay systems. GAO reviewed Defense, State, and United Nations (UN) data and met with officials in the United States and Afghanistan."

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We have shown that: (1) Li+ ions are inserted reversibly, without diffusion control, up to the level of at least 4 moles Li+ ions per mole for V2O5, in the aerogel (ARG) form (500 m2/g specific surface area) and aerogel-like (ARG-L) form (200 m2/g specific surface area)(6,7,1,2); (2) polyvalent cations (Al+3, Mg+2, Zn+2) may be intercalated reversibly into V2O5 (ARG) with high capacity (approaching 4 equivalents/mole V2O5 (ARG)) for each (5); (3) dopant cations such as Ag+ and Cu+2 increase the conductivity of V2O5 (XRG) up to three orders of magnitude(3), they are electrochemically active – showing reduction to the metallic-state in parallel to intercalation of Li+ ions – but are not released to the electrolyte upon oxidation and Li+ ion release (Cu+2 ions are reduced to Cu metal and reoxidized to Cu+2 in Li+ ion insertion/release cycles, but the copper ions are not released to the electrolyte over more than 400 cycles of the XRG form); (4) we have shown that Cu+2 ion (dopant) and Zn+2 ions (chemical insertion and dopant) occupy the same intercalation site inV2O5 xerogel and aerogel(4); (5) the reversible intercalation of Zn+2, Mg+2, and Al+3 in the ARG(11) indicates that these cations are “mobile”, but …

Grant DE-FG02-87ER13714 supported fundamental work on the physical properties of metastable liquids from 6/1/87 to 4/30/08. Renewal proposals were submitted every three years (1990, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005), and included, in every case, a detailed Final Technical Report on the previous three years. Accordingly, the bulk of this report covers the final 2-year period 5/1/06 to 4/30/08 of this grant, which is not covered in any of the previous Final Technical Reports. This is preceded by a brief overview of the main research objectives and principal accomplishments during these very fruitful and productive 21 years of DOE-funded research.

In the campaign to achieve 2 kA of electron beam current, we have made several changes to the DARHT-II injector during 2006-2007. These changes resulted in a significant increase in the beam current, achieving the 2 kA milestone. Until recently (before 2007), the maximum beam current that was produced from the 6.5-inch diameter (612M) cathode was about 1300 A when the cathode was operating at a maximum temperature of 1140 C. At this temperature level, the heat loss was dominated by radiation which is proportional to temperature to the fourth power. The maximum operating temperature was limited by the damage threshold of the potted filament and the capacity of the filament heater power supply, as well as the shortening of the cathode life time. There were also signs of overheating at other components in the cathode assembly. Thus it was clear that our approach to increase beam current could not be simply trying to run at a higher temperature and the preferred way was to operate with a cathode that has a lower work function. The dispenser cathode initially used was the type 612M made by SpectraMat. According to the manufacturer's bulletin, this cathode should be able to produce more …

Historically, salmon stocks from the Columbia River and Snake River formed one of the most valuable fisheries on the west coast of North America. However, salmon and steelhead returns sharply declined during the 1980s and 1990s to reach nearly 1 million fish. Although several factors may be responsible for the decline of Columbia River salmon and steelhead, there is increasing evidence that these drastic declines were primarily attributable to persistently unfavorable ocean conditions. Hence, an understanding of the effects of ocean conditions on salmon production is required to forecast the return of salmon to the Columbia River basin and to assess the efficacy of mitigation measures such as flow regulation on salmon resources in this system. The Canadian Program on High Seas Salmon has been collecting juvenile salmon and oceanographic data off the west coast of British Columbia and Southeast Alaska since 1998 to assess the effects of ocean conditions on the distribution, migration, growth, and survival of Pacific salmon. Here, we present a summary of the work conducted as part of the Canada-USA Salmon Shelf Survival Study during the 2008 fiscal year and compare these results with those obtained from previous years. The working hypothesis of this research is …

The research during the first two years of the project was focused on developing the foundations of a new geophysical technique for mineral exploration and mineral discrimination, based on electromagnetic (EM) methods. The developed new technique is based on examining the spectral induced polarization effects in electromagnetic data using effective-medium theory and advanced methods of 3-D modeling and inversion. The analysis of IP phenomena is usually based on models with frequency dependent complex conductivity distribution. In this project, we have developed a rigorous physical/mathematical model of heterogeneous conductive media based on the effective-medium approach. The new generalized effective-medium theory of IP effect (GEMTIP) provides a unified mathematical method to study heterogeneity, multi-phase structure, and polarizability of rocks. The geoelectrical parameters of a new composite conductivity model are determined by the intrinsic petrophysical and geometrical characteristics of composite media: mineralization and/or fluid content of rocks, matrix composition, porosity, anisotropy, and polarizability of formations. The new GEMTIP model of multi-phase conductive media provides a quantitative tool for evaluation of the type of mineralization, and the volume content of different minerals using electromagnetic data. We have developed a 3-D EM-IP modeling algorithm using the integral equation (IE) method. Our IE forward modeling software …

.A testing program evaluating actual tank waste was developed in response to Task 4 from the M-12 External Flowsheet Review Team (EFRT) issue response plan. The bulk water-insoluble solid wastes that are anticipated to be delivered to the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) were identified according to type such that the actual waste testing could be targeted to the relevant categories. Eight broad waste groupings were defined. Samples available from the 222S archive were identified and obtained for testing. The actual waste-testing program included homogenizing the samples by group, characterizing the solids and aqueous phases, and performing parametric leaching tests. The tributyl phosphate sludge (TBP, Group 7) is the subject of this report. The Group 7 waste was anticipated to be high in phosphorus as well as aluminum in the form of gibbsite. Both are believed to exist in sufficient quantities in the Group 7 waste to address leaching behavior. Thus, the focus of the Group 7 testing was on the removal of both P and Al. The waste-type definition, archived sample conditions, homogenization activities, characterization (physical, chemical, radioisotope, and crystal habit), and caustic leaching behavior as functions of time, temperature, and hydroxide concentration are discussed in this report. …

The scale-up performance of sintered stainless steel crossflow filter elements planned for use at the Pretreatment Engineering Platform (PEP) and at the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP) were characterized in partial fulfillment (see Table S.1) of the requirements of Test Plan TP RPP WTP 509. This test report details the results of experimental activities related only to filter scale-up characterization. These tests were performed under the Simulant Testing Program supporting Phase 1 of the demonstration of the pretreatment leaching processes at PEP. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) conducted the tests discussed herein for Bechtel National, Inc. (BNI) to address the data needs of Test Specification 24590-WTP-TSP-RT-07-004. Scale-up characterization tests employ high-level waste (HLW) simulants developed under the Test Plan TP-RPP-WTP-469. The experimental activities outlined in TP-RPP-WTP-509 examined specific processes from two broad areas of simulant behavior: 1) leaching performance of the boehmite simulant as a function of suspending phase chemistry and 2) filtration performance of the blended simulant with respect to filter scale-up and fouling. With regard to leaching behavior, the effect of anions on the kinetics of boehmite leaching was examined. Two experiments were conducted: 1) one examined the effect of the aluminate anion on the rate of …

We address the problem of estimating the relative pose, i.e. translation and rotation, of two calibrated cameras from image point correspondences. Our approach is to factor the nonlinear algebraic pose error functional into translational and rotational components, and to optimize translation and rotation independently. This factorization admits subproblems that can be solved using direct methods with practical guarantees on global optimality. That is, for a given translation, the corresponding optimal rotation can directly be determined, and vice versa. We show that these subproblems are equivalent to computing the least eigenvector of second- and fourth-order symmetric tensors. When neither translation or rotation is known, alternating translation and rotation optimization leads to a simple, efficient, and robust algorithm for pose estimation that improves on the well-known 5- and 8-point methods.

Structural chromosome aberrations are known hallmarks of many solid tumors. In the papillary form of thyroid cancer (PTC), for example, activation of the receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) genes, RET and neurotrophic tyrosine kinase receptor type I (NTRK1) by intra- and interchromosomal rearrangements has been suggested as a cause of the disease. However, many phenotypically similar tumors do not carry an activated RET or NTRK-1 gene or express abnormal ret or NTRK-1 transcripts. Thus, we hypothesize that other cellular RTK-type genes are aberrantly expressed in these tumors. Using fluorescence in situ hybridization-based methods, we are studying karyotype changes in a relatively rare subgroup of PTCs, i.e., tumors that arose in children following the 1986 nuclear accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine. Here, we report our technical developments and progress in deciphering complex chromosome aberrations in case S48TK, an aggressively growing PTC cell line, which shows an unusual high number of unbalanced translocations.

The purpose of this project was to manage the Western Resources Project, which included a comprehensive, basin-wide set of experiments investigating the impacts of coal bed methane (CBM; a.k.a. coal bed natural gas, CBNG) production on surface and groundwater in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming. This project included a number of participants including Apache Corporation, Conoco Phillips, Marathon, the Ucross Foundation, Stanford University, the University of Wyoming, Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, and Western Research Institute.

We present a variable line-space grating spectrometer for soft x-rays that covers the photon energy range between 130 and 650 eV. The optical design is based on the Hettrick-Underwood principle and tailored to synchrotron-based studies of radiation-sensitive biological samples. The spectrometer is able to record the entire spectral range in one shot, i.e., without any mechanical motion, at a resolving power of 1200 or better. Despite its slitless design, such a resolving power can be achieved for a source spot as large as 30x3000 mu m2, which is important for keeping beam damage effects in radiation-sensitive samples low. The high spectrometer efficiency allows recording of comprehensive two-dimensional resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering (RIXS) maps with good statistics within several minutes. This is exemplarily demonstrated for a RIXS map of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite, which was taken within 10 min.

This report focuses on the creation of the Transatlantic Economic Council; the role of legislatures in the regulatory process; and the Transatlantic Legislators' Dialogue and its new role as an advisor to transatlantic regulatory efforts.

This report discusses section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), the specific requirements of which must be met in order for the United States to engage in civilian nuclear cooperation with other states. The AEA also provides for exemptions to these requirements, export control licensing procedures, and criteria for terminating cooperation.

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

This report describes cash balance plans, discusses the claims that cash balance plans do and do not violate the pre-Act age discrimination provisions, and provides an overview of the pension protection act, as it applies to this issue.

Funeral program for Deacon Emeritus James Bibbs, born January 9, 1927 and died March 2, 2009. The funeral was held March 9, 2009 at Friendship Baptist Church, officiated by Rev. Hamice R. James, Pastor. Funeral arrangements were made through Lewis Funeral Home and he was buried in Meadowlawn Cemetery.

This report discusses issues related to peace in the Middle East, including post-Gulf War negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon; U.S. interest in these and continuing negotiations and peacetalks between Middle Eastern countries; and the role of the U.S., the U.N., the European Union, and Russia in Middle Eastern relations.

This report discusses the earned pension benefits under one of two retirement plans for the federal employees with permanent appointments.

This report discusses the global financial crisis and resulting geopoligical situation in detail. It also discusses individual efforts by both the U.S. and European Union (EU) to combat the effects of the crisis by attempting to resolve the financial crisis while stimulating domestic demand to stem the economic downturn.

A faculty recital performed at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall.

Daily publication of the U.S. Office of the Federal Register contains rules and regulations, proposed legislation and rule changes, and other notices, including "Presidential proclamations and Executive Orders, Federal agency documents having general applicability and legal effect, documents required to be published by act of Congress, and other Federal agency documents of public interest" (p. ii). Table of Contents starts on page iii.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Master of Music (MM) degree.