2008 Annual Report measuring and updating the accomplishments and priorities of the Department of Defense (DoD) in regards to business transformation and the Military Health System. The report offers extensive documentation of the DoD Business Enterprise Priorities, reporting on milestones, modernization, property accountability, and visibility in regards to personnel, acquisitions, and finances.

Video recording from The Black Academy of Arts and Letters recorded during the evening with Eryah Badu concert closing the 72nd NASDA conference on March 15th, 2007. The footage show Badu performing neo-soul style with songs from her new album on the Naomi Bruton main stage. The end of the tape captures the post concert reception.

Where Martian rocks have been exposed to liquid water, chemistry versus depth profiles could elucidate both Martian climate history and potential for life. The persistence of primary minerals in weathered profiles constrains the exposure time to liquid water: on Earth, mineral persistence times range from {approx}10 ka (olivine) to {approx}250 ka (glass) to {approx}1Ma (pyroxene) to {approx}5Ma (plagioclase). Such persistence times suggest mineral persistence minima on Mars. However, Martian solutions may have been more acidic than on Earth. Relative mineral weathering rates observed for basalt in Svalbard (Norway) and Costa Rica demonstrate that laboratory pH trends can be used to estimate exposure to liquid water both qualitatively (mineral absence or presence) and quantitatively (using reactive transport models). Qualitatively, if the Martian solution pH > {approx}2, glass should persist longer than olivine; therefore, persistence of glass may be a pH-indicator. With evidence for the pH of weathering, the reactive transport code CrunchFlow can quantitatively calculate the minimum duration of exposure to liquid water consistent with a chemical profile. For the profile measured on the surface of Humphrey in Gusev Crater, the minimum exposure time is 22 ka. If correct, this estimate is consistent with short-term, episodic alteration accompanied by ongoing surface …

Semi-weekly newspaper from Bastrop, 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.

Fenton's reagent, a solution of hydrogen peroxide and ferrous iron catalyst, is used for an in-situ chemical oxidation of organic contaminants. Sulfuric acid is commonly used to create an acidic condition needed for catalytic oxidation. Fenton's reaction often involves pressure buildup and precipitation of reaction products, which can cause safety hazards and diminish efficiency. We selected citric acid, a food-grade substance, as an acidifying agent to evaluate its efficiencies for organic contaminant removal in Fenton's reaction, and examined the impacts of using citric acid on the unwanted reaction products. A series of batch and column experiments were performed with varying H{sub 2}O{sub 2} concentrations to decompose selected chlorinated ethylenes. Either dissolved iron from soil or iron sulfate salt was added to provide the iron catalyst in the batch tests. Batch experiments revealed that both citric and sulfuric acid systems achieved over 90% contaminant removal rates, and the presence of iron catalyst was essential for effective decontamination. Batch tests with citric acid showed no signs of pressure accumulation and solid precipitations, however the results suggested that an excessive usage of H{sub 2}O{sub 2} relative to iron catalysts (Fe{sup 2+}/H{sub 2}O{sub 2} < 1/330) would result in lowering the efficiency of contaminant …

Discussion of a written sample from an SIL writing workshop. The purpose is to understand the writing system and to learn about grammatical constructions from a variety of speakers.

It is well known that at present, exact averaging of the equations for flow and transport in random porous media have been proposed for limited special fields. Moreover, approximate averaging methods--for example, the convergence behavior and the accuracy of truncated perturbation series--are not well studied, and in addition, calculation of high-order perturbations is very complicated. These problems have for a long time stimulated attempts to find the answer to the question: Are there in existence some, exact, and sufficiently general forms of averaged equations? Here, we present an approach for finding the general exactly averaged system of basic equations for steady flow with sources in unbounded stochastically homogeneous fields. We do this by using (1) the existence and some general properties of Green's functions for the appropriate stochastic problem, and (2) some information about the random field of conductivity. This approach enables us to find the form of the averaged equations without directly solving the stochastic equations or using the usual assumption regarding any small parameters. In the common case of a stochastically homogeneous conductivity field we present the exactly averaged new basic nonlocal equation with a unique kernel-vector. We show that in the case of some type of global …

She flew the swift P-51 and the capricious P-38, but the heavy, four-engine B-17 bomber and C-54 transport were her forte. This is the story of Nancy Harkness Love who, early in World War II, recruited and led the first group of twenty-eight women to fly military aircraft for the U.S. Army. Love was hooked on flight at an early age. At sixteen, after just four hours of instruction, she flew solo “a rather broken down Fleet biplane that my barnstorming instructor imported from parts unknown.” The year was 1930: record-setting aviator Jacqueline Cochran (and Love’s future rival) had not yet learned to fly, and the most famous woman pilot of all time, Amelia Earhart, had yet to make her acclaimed solo Atlantic flight. When the United States entered World War II, the Army needed pilots to transport or “ferry” its combat-bound aircraft across the United States for overseas deployment and its trainer airplanes to flight training bases. Most male pilots were assigned to combat preparation, leaving few available for ferrying jobs. Into this vacuum stepped Nancy Love and her civilian Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS). Love had advocated using women as ferry pilots as early as 1940. Jackie Cochran …

Email informing members that the Stonewall Democrats of Austin held an election for new officials.

Interview with John Ike Walton, a musician who has been inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame, from Kerrville, Texas. Mr. Walton talks about his music career, briefly talks about music and LSD, and music culture in general. Mr. Walton's wife, Alice Delery Walton is present for the interview and inserts comments from time to time.

Interview with John Ike Walton from Beeville, Texas. The interview includes his stories of his family and growing up.

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

This work compares two novel techniques for the fabrication of ceramic scaffolds for bone tissue engineering with complex porosity: robocasting and freeze casting. Both techniques are based on the preparation of concentrated ceramic suspensions with suitable properties for the process. In robocasting, the computer-guided deposition of the suspensions is used to build porous materials with designed three dimensional (3-D) geometries and microstructures. Freeze casting uses ice crystals as a template to form porous lamellar ceramic materials. Preliminary results on the compressive strengths of the materials are also reported.

Email containing an address update from Kristopher Banks.

Video recording from The Black Academy of Arts and Letters recorded during their Roundtable Writer's Breakfast event in 2008. This video shows a breakfast discussion between members of TBAAL and playwrights Micki Grant, P.J. Gibson, and Je Franklin. This video is Part 1 of 2 of the event.

Video recording from The Black Academy of Arts and Letters recorded during their Roundtable Writer's Breakfast event in 2008. This video shows a breakfast discussion between members of TBAAL and playwrights Micki Grant, P.J. Gibson, and Je Franklin. This video is Part 2 of 2 of the event.

Photograph taken at the Roundtable Writer's Breakfast held by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Roundtable Writer's Breakfast held by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Roundtable Writer's Breakfast held by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Roundtable Writer's Breakfast held by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Roundtable Writer's Breakfast held by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Roundtable Writer's Breakfast held by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Roundtable Writer's Breakfast held by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.