Bi-monthly report on average prices paid for standing timber in Texas, calculated based on reported timber sales.

Monthly publication documenting statistics related to economic information in the Mexico-Texas border areas including types of border crossings, employment, customs revenues, and other related data.

"This supplement to the annual Texas Education Agency report on grade-level retention in Texas public schools provides data by district and grade and by district characteristic for the 2007-08 school year."

Annual report of compiled data regarding student retention in Texas public schools, broken down by grade levels, various demographic criteria, and participation in special programs, as well as information regarding data collection and analysis.

Annual handbook documenting information for college students about the Texas Guaranteed Tuition Plan, including general information about the program and how it works, fees and scholarships, how the plan applies to various institutions, and other information about using the program.

Periodic newsletter issued by the Texas Education Agency providing updates about Texas State Board of Education meetings as well as agency news, announcements, and other information related to education.

Magazine discussing natural resources, parks, hunting and fishing, and other information related to the outdoors in Texas.

Newsletter dedicated to traveling in Texas, including information about news, locations, and events of interest to visitors as well as statistics and summaries of travel in the state.

Monthly travel magazine discussing locations and events in Texas to encourage travel within the state.

Transcript of a public hearing held by the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq & Afghanistan held March 29, 2010 in Washington, D.C.. This hearing includes testimony from governmental agencies and contractors on the return of 100,000 contractor employees in Iraq as the United States reduces its military forces there.

Transcript of a public hearing held by the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq & Afghanistan held March 1, 2010 in Washington, D.C. This hearing includes testimony from the U.S.Departments of Defense and State, and from the U.S. Agency for International Development on coordinating reconstruction and stabilization in Contingency Operations.

March report of the U.S. Congressional Oversight Panel describing their activities and findings regarding the state of the General Motors Acceptance Corporation during the 2007-2008 financial crisis and the financial assistance received by the firm by the federal government.

Report on the first phase of the effort to develop a Flood Protection Planning Study of Bastrop County, Texas. Focuses on the acquisition, quality control, and assurance of Light Detection and Ranging data for Bastrop County and the creation of a county wide, 2 foot contour dataset.

Newsletter published by the Texas Department of Transportation for TxDOT employees including information about the organization, projects throughout the state, and other topics related to transportation in Texas.

Newsletter from the University of Texas System Cancer Center, M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute discussing cancer care and research to inform physicians of recent developments in the field.

Microfield exposure tools (METs) play a crucial role in the development of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) resists and masks, One of these tools is the SEMATECH Berkeley 0.3 numerical aperture (NA) MET, Using conventional illumination this tool is limited to approximately 22-nm half pitch resolution. However, resolution enhancement techniques have been used to push the patterning capabilities of this tool to half pitches of 18 nm and below, This resolution was achieved in a new imageable hard mask which also supports contact printing down to 22 nm with conventional illumination. Along with resolution, line-edge roughness is another crucial hurdle facing EUV resists, Much of the resist LER, however, can be attributed to the mask. We have shown that intenssionally aggressive mask cleaning on an older generation mask causes correlated LER in photoresist to increase from 3.4 nm to 4,0 nm, We have also shown that new generation EUV masks (100 pm of substrate roughness) can achieve correlated LER values of 1.1 nm, a 3x improvement over the correlated LER of older generation EUV masks (230 pm of substrate roughness), Finally, a 0.5-NA MET has been proposed that will address the needs of EUV development at the 16-nm node and beyond, The …

The goal of modern high explosive slow heat cookoff modeling is to understand the level of mechanical violence. This requires understanding the coupled thermal-mechanical-chemical system that such an environment creates. Recent advances have improved our ability to predict the time to event, and we have been making progress on predicting the mechanical response. By adding surface tension to the product gas pores in the high explosive, we have been able to reduce the current model's tendency to overpressurize confinement vessels. We describe the model and demonstrate how it affects a LX-10 STEX experiment. Issues associated with current product gas equations of state are described and examined.

Genome sequences of diverse free-living protists are essential for understanding eukaryotic evolution and molecular and cell biology. The free-living amoeboflagellate Naegleria gruberi belongs to a varied and ubiquitous protist clade (Heterolobosea) that diverged from other eukaryotic lineages over a billion years ago. Analysis of the 15,727 protein-coding genes encoded by Naegleria's 41 Mb nuclear genome indicates a capacity for both aerobic respiration and anaerobic metabolism with concomitant hydrogen production, with fundamental implications for the evolution of organelle metabolism. The Naegleria genome facilitates substantially broader phylogenomic comparisons of free-living eukaryotes than previously possible, allowing us to identify thousands of genes likely present in the pan-eukaryotic ancestor, with 40% likely eukaryotic inventions. Moreover, we construct a comprehensive catalog of amoeboid-motility genes. The Naegleria genome, analyzed in the context of other protists, reveals a remarkably complex ancestral eukaryote with a rich repertoire of cytoskeletal, sexual, signaling, and metabolic modules.

Flow dynamics in large wind projects are influenced by the turbines located within. The turbine wakes, regions characterized by lower wind speeds and higher levels of turbulence than the surrounding free stream flow, can extend several rotor diameters downstream, and may meander and widen with increasing distance from the turbine. Turbine wakes can also reduce the power generated by downstream turbines and accelerate fatigue and damage to turbine components. An improved understanding of wake formation and transport within wind parks is essential for maximizing power output and increasing turbine lifespan. Moreover, the influence of wakes from large wind projects on neighboring wind farms, agricultural activities, and local climate are all areas of concern that can likewise be addressed by wake modeling. This work describes the formulation and application of an actuator disk model for studying flow dynamics of both individual turbines and arrays of turbines within wind projects. The actuator disk model is implemented in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, which is an open-source atmospheric simulation code applicable to a wide range of scales, from mesoscale to large-eddy simulation. Preliminary results demonstrate the applicability of the actuator disk model within WRF to a moderately high-resolution large-eddy simulation study …

The Laser Inertial Fusion-based Energy (LIFE) project at LLNL includes development of hybrid fusion-fission systems for energy generation. These hybrid LIFE engines use high-energy neutrons from laser-based inertial confinement fusion to drive a subcritical blanket of fission fuel that surrounds the fusion chamber. The fission blanket contains TRISO fuel particles packed into pebbles in a flowing bed geometry cooled by a molten salt (flibe). LIFE engines using a thorium fuel cycle provide potential improvements in overall fuel cycle performance and resource utilization compared to using depleted uranium (DU) and may minimize waste repository and proliferation concerns. A preliminary engine design with an initial loading of 40 metric tons of thorium can maintain a power level of 2000 MW{sub th} for about 55 years, at which point the fuel reaches an average burnup level of about 75% FIMA. Acceptable performance was achieved without using any zero-flux environment 'cooling periods' to allow {sup 233}Pa to decay to {sup 233}U; thorium undergoes constant irradiation in this LIFE engine design to minimize proliferation risks and fuel inventory. Vast reductions in end-of-life (EOL) transuranic (TRU) inventories compared to those produced by a similar uranium system suggest reduced proliferation risks. Decay heat generation in discharge fuel …

Emerging knowledge of whole prokaryotic transcriptomes could validate a number of theoretical concepts introduced in the early days of genomics. What are the rules connecting gene expression levels with sequence determinants such as quantitative scores of promoters and terminators? Are translation efficiency measures, e.g. codon adaptation index and RBS score related to gene expression? We used the whole transcriptome shotgun sequencing of a bacterial pathogen Bacillus anthracis to assess correlation of gene expression level with promoter, terminator and RBS scores, codon adaptation index, as well as with a new measure of gene translational efficiency, average translation speed. We compared computational predictions of operon topologies with the transcript borders inferred from RNA-Seq reads. Transcriptome mapping may also improve existing gene annotation. Upon assessment of accuracy of current annotation of protein-coding genes in the B. anthracis genome we have shown that the transcriptome data indicate existence of more than a hundred genes missing in the annotation though predicted by an ab initio gene finder. Interestingly, we observed that many pseudogenes possess not only a sequence with detectable coding potential but also promoters that maintain transcriptional activity.

The FY 2009 Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Annual Report is a compendium of the diverse research performed to develop and ensure the INL's technical capabilities can support the future DOE missions and national research priorities. LDRD is essential to the INL - it provides a means for the laboratory to pursue novel scientific and engineering research in areas that are deemed too basic or risky for programmatic investments. This research enhances technical capabilities at the laboratory, providing scientific and engineering staff with opportunities for skill building and partnership development. Established by Congress in 1991, LDRD proves its benefit each year through new programs, intellectual property, patents, copyrights, publications, national and international awards, and new hires from the universities and industry, which helps refresh the scientific and engineering workforce. The benefits of INL's LDRD research are many as shown in the tables below. Last year, 91 faculty members from various universities contributed to LDRD research, along with 7 post docs and 64 students. Of the total invention disclosures submitted in FY 2009, 7 are attributable to LDRD research. Sixty three refereed journal articles were accepted or published, and 93 invited presentations were attributable to LDRD research conducted in FY …

Microbial communities in aquatic environments are spatially and temporally dynamic due to environmental fluctuations and varied external input sources. A large percentage of the urban watersheds in the United States are affected by fecal pollution, including human pathogens, thus warranting comprehensive monitoring. Using a high-density microarray (PhyloChip), we examined water column bacterial community DNA extracted from two connecting urban watersheds, elucidating variable and stable bacterial subpopulations over a 3-day period and community composition profiles that were distinct to fecal and non-fecal sources. Two approaches were used for indication of fecal influence. The first approach utilized similarity of 503 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) common to all fecal samples analyzed in this study with the watershed samples as an index of fecal pollution. A majority of the 503 OTUs were found in the phyla Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria. The second approach incorporated relative richness of 4 bacterial classes (Bacilli, Bacteroidetes, Clostridia and a-proteobacteria) found to have the highest variance in fecal and non-fecal samples. The ratio of these 4 classes (BBC:A) from the watershed samples demonstrated a trend where bacterial communities from gut and sewage sources had higher ratios than from sources not impacted by fecal material. This trend was also …

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is currently funding research and development of a new high temperature gas cooled reactor (HTGR) that is capable of providing high temperature process heat for industry. The steam generator of the HTGR will consist of an evaporator economizer section in the lower portion and a finishing superheater section in the upper portion. Alloy 800H is expected to be used for the superheater section, and 2.25Cr 1Mo steel is expected to be used for the evaporator economizer section. Dissimilar metal welds (DMW) will be needed to join these two materials. It is well known that failure of DMWs can occur well below the expected creep life of either base metal and well below the design life of the plant. The failure time depends on a wide range of factors related to service conditions, welding parameters, and alloys involved in the DMW. The overall objective of this report is to review factors associated with premature failure of DMWs operating at elevated temperatures and identify methods for extending the life of the 2.25Cr 1Mo steel to alloy 800H welds required in the new HTGR. Information is provided on a variety of topics pertinent to DMW failures, including …