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

We update a discussion of the relation between the weak phase and the rates and CP asymmetries of several K{pi} decays of B{sup +}, B{sup 0}, and B{sub s}. We emphasize the impact of measurements of B{sub s} {yields} K{pi}. Current data indicate large SU(3) breaking in the strong phases or failure of factorization (including its application to penguin amplitudes) in K{pi} modes of B{sup 0} and B{sub s}. SU(3) and factorization only remain approximately valid if the branching ratio for B{sub s} {yields} K{sup -}{pi}{sup +} exceeds its current value of (5.00 {+-} 1.25) x 10{sup -6} by at least 50%, or if a parameter {zeta} describing ratios of form factors and decay constants is shifted from its nominal value by more than twice its estimated error.

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

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Concert Hall in partial fulfillment of the Bachelor of Music (BM) degree.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

Black carbon (BC), a main component of combustion-generated soot, is a strong absorber of sunlight and contributes to climate change. Measurement methods for BC are uncertain, however. This study presents a method for analyzing the BC mass loading on a quartz fiber filter using a modified thermal-optical analysis method, wherein light transmitted through the sample is measured over a spectral region instead of at a single wavelength as the sample is heated. Evolution of the spectral light transmission signal depends on the relative amounts of light-absorbing BC and char, the latter of which forms when organic carbon in the sample pyrolyzes during heating. Absorption selectivities of BC and char are found to be distinct and are used to apportion the amount of light attenuated by each component in the sample. Light attenuation is converted to mass concentration based on derived mass attenuation efficiencies (MAE) of BC and char. The fraction of attenuation due to each component are scaled by their individual MAE values and added together as the total mass of light absorbing carbon (LAC). An iterative algorithm is used to find the MAE values for both BC and char that provide the best fit to the carbon mass remaining …

The development of radiological consequence lookup tables for postulated releases of radionuclides commonly used at Savannah River Site (SRS) and other Department of Energy (DOE) facilities requires the use of the MELCOR Accident Consequence Code System (MACCS)/MACCS2. MACCS2 users input site-specific data: such as stack or ground release, building wake effects, boundary distance from release source, and site-specific meteorological data. MACCS2 also allows the input of more general data such as plume rise and wet and/or dry deposition. The acceptance of such inputs gives the MACCS2 program a broad spectrum of uses at participating DOE facilities. The MACCS2 outputs are converted to an excel spreadsheet to facilitate fast and accurate results for various accident scenarios. Consequence lookup tables can be employed to determine the effects of radiological accident scenarios before they occur. The data is then used by DOE facilities to create regulations and controls to prepare for worst-case scenarios.

The Holdup Measurement System 4 (HMS4) is a portable thallium activated sodium iodide (NaI[Tl]) gamma ray energy spectrometer that, when properly calibrated, is able to make quantifiable assessment of U-235 holdup in the presence of other uranium isotopes and prevailing background radiation. The use and calibration of the HMS4 is based upon the methodologies defined by Russo in La-14206, (Russo 2005), where detection efficiency determination protocols are defined (called Generalized Geometry Holdup [GGH]). The GGH methodology together with attenuation correction algorithms and other modeling parameters are combined in the HMS4 software package to provide a comprehensive tool for conducting in situ gamma-ray measurements. The fundamental principles of these capabilities are discussed.

This report can be divided into two parts: the first part, which is composed of sections 1, 2, and 3, is devoted to report the analyses of fission gas bubbles; the second part, which is in section 4, is allocated to describe the mechanistic model development. Swelling data of irradiated U-Mo alloy typically show that the kinetics of fission gas bubbles is composed of two different rates: lower initially and higher later. The transition corresponds to a burnup of {approx}0 at% U-235 (LEU) or a fission density of {approx}3 x 10{sup 21} fissions/cm{sup 3}. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) shows that gas bubbles appear only on the grain boundaries in the pretransition regime. At intermediate burnup where the transition begins, gas bubbles are observed to spread into the intragranular regions. At high burnup, they are uniformly distributed throughout fuel. In highly irradiated U-Mo alloy fuel large-scale gas bubbles form on some fuel particle peripheries. In some cases, these bubbles appear to be interconnected and occupy the interface region between fuel and the aluminum matrix for dispersion fuel, and fuel and cladding for monolithic fuel, respectively. This is a potential performance limit for U-Mo alloy fuel. Microscopic characterization of the evolution of …

Petascale systems will present several new challenges to performance and correctness tools. Such machines may contain millions of cores, requiring that tools use scalable data structures and analysis algorithms to collect and to process application data. In addition, at such scales, each tool itself will become a large parallel application--already, debugging the full Blue-Gene/L (BG/L) installation at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory requires employing 1664 tool daemons. To reach such sizes and beyond, tools must use a scalable communication infrastructure and manage their own tool processes efficiently. Some system resources, such as the file system, may also become tool bottlenecks. In this paper, we present challenges to petascale tool development, using the Stack Trace Analysis Tool (STAT) as a case study. STAT is a lightweight tool that gathers and merges stack traces from a parallel application to identify process equivalence classes. We use results gathered at thousands of tasks on an Infiniband cluster and results up to 208K processes on BG/L to identify current scalability issues as well as challenges that will be faced at the petascale. We then present implemented solutions to these challenges and show the resulting performance improvements. We also discuss future plans to meet the debugging …

This report presents the United States "Flag Code" as found in Title 4 of the United States 4 of the United States Code and the section of Title 36 which designates the Star-Spangled Banner as the national anthem and provides instructions on how to display the flag during its rendition. This report also addresses several of the frequently asked questions concerning the flag.

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

Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) studies are extensively used for mission critical systems (e.g., weapons systems) to predict the RAM parameters at the preliminary design phase. A RAM methodology is presented for predicting facility/laboratory inherent availability (i.e., availability that only considers the steady-state effects of design) at the preliminary design phase in support of Department of Energy (DOE) Order 430.1A (Life Cycle Asset Management) and DOE Order 420.1B (Facility Safety). The methodology presented identifies the appropriate system-level reliability and maintainability metrics and discusses how these metrics are used in a fault tree analysis for predicting the facility/laboratory inherent availability. The inherent availability predicted is compared against design criteria to determine if changes to the facility/laboratory preliminary design are necessary to meet the required availability objective in the final design.

The fracture toughness properties of Type 21-6-9 stainless steel were measured for forgings in the unexposed, hydrogen-exposed, and tritium-exposed-and-aged conditions. Fracture toughness samples were cut from conventionally-forged and high-energy-rate-forged forward-extruded cylinders and mechanically tested at room temperature using ASTM fracture-toughness testing procedures. Some of the samples were exposed to either hydrogen or tritium gas (340 MPa, 623 K) prior to testing. Tritium-exposed samples were aged for up to seven years and tested periodically in order to measure the effect on fracture toughness of {sup 3}He from radioactive tritium decay. The results show that hydrogen-exposed and tritium-exposed samples had lower fracture- toughness values than unexposed samples and that fracture toughness decreased with increasing decay {sup 3}He content. Forged steels were more resistant to the embrittling effects of tritium and decay {sup 3}He than annealed steels, although their fracture-toughness properties depended on the degree of sensitization that occurred during processing. The fracture process was dominated by microvoid nucleation, growth and coalescence; however, the size and spacing of microvoids on the fracture surfaces were affected by hydrogen and tritium with the lowest-toughness samples having the smallest microvoids and finest spacing.

In contrast to previous analyses, we demonstrate a Bayesian approach to the estimation of the CKM phase {alpha} that is invariant to parameterization. We also show that in addition to computing the marginal posterior in a Bayesian manner, the distribution must also be interpreted from a subjective Bayesian viewpoint. Doing so gives a very natural interpretation to the distribution. We also comment on the effect of removing information about {beta}{sup 00}.

The reaction of ozone with the (100) plane of solid potassium iodide (KI) was investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The reaction forming potassium iodate (KIO{sub 3}) initiates at step edges prior to reacting on the flat terraces. Small domains of KIO{sub 3}, initially 3.8 {angstrom} in height are formed on the top of step edges. Following reaction at the step edge, domains of KIO{sub 3} are formed across the terraces. With prolonged exposure to ozone, KIO{sub 3} domains nucleate further growth until the surface is evenly covered with KIO{sub 3} particles that are 4-6 nm in height, at which point the surface is passivated and the reaction terminates.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Phil Perabo. Perabo joined the Navy in 1941. He trained and served as a fighter pilot. Beginning in 1942 he was assigned to the fleet aboard the USS Bogue (CVE-9), where he worked with a strike group. They sunk the first German sub in the Atlantic. Perabo later joined Fighter Squadron VF-82 in the Pacific and served aboard the USS Bennington (CV-20). He completed 25 mission and in May of 1945 he was shot down and taken prisoner at Ōfuna Camp in Japan for 113 days prior to the end of the war. He received two Distinguished Flying Crosses, five Air Medals and one Purple Heart. Perabo had a career in the Navy, promoted to full commander by 1957 and retired in 1968.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Phil Perabo. Perabo joined the Navy in 1941. He trained and served as a fighter pilot. Beginning in 1942 he was assigned to the fleet aboard the USS Bogue (CVE-9), where he worked with a strike group. They sunk the first German sub in the Atlantic. Perabo later joined Fighter Squadron VF-82 in the Pacific and served aboard the USS Bennington (CV-20). He completed 25 mission and in May of 1945 he was shot down and taken prisoner at Ōfuna Camp in Japan for 113 days prior to the end of the war. He received two Distinguished Flying Crosses, five Air Medals and one Purple Heart. Perabo had a career in the Navy, promoted to full commander by 1957 and retired in 1968.

This report outlines the history of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), the changing positions of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), pertinent case law, and other provisions of the Internal Revenue Code (IRC). Several possible approaches to the taxation of CRP payments are discussed.

This report discusses the Global Fund to Fight AIDS and its progress to date, describes the funding procedure, details U.S. contributions to the organization, and presents some issues regarding the level of U.S. contributions that Congress might consider.

Dose reconstruction for studies of the health effects of ionizing radiation have been carried out for many decades. Major studies have included Japanese bomb survivors, atomic veterans, downwinders of the Nevada Test Site and Hanford, underground uranium miners, and populations of nuclear workers. For such studies to be credible, significant effort must be put into applying the best science to reconstructing unbiased absorbed doses to tissues and organs as a function of time. In many cases, more and more sophisticated dose reconstruction methods have been developed as studies progressed. For the example of the Japanese bomb survivors, the dose surrogate “distance from the hypocenter” was replaced by slant range, and then by TD65 doses, DS86 doses, and more recently DS02 doses. Over the years, it has become increasingly clear that an equal level of effort must be expended on the quantitative assessment of uncertainty in such doses, and to reducing and managing uncertainty. In this context, this paper reviews difficulties in terminology, explores the nature of Berkson and classical uncertainties in dose reconstruction through examples, and proposes a path forward for Joint Coordinating Committee for Radiation Effects Research (JCCRER) Project 2.4 that requires a reasonably small level of effort for …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Congress mandated that the United States Trade Representative (USTR) annually assess China's trade compliance and report its findings to Congress. In addition, USTR conducted an interagency "top-to-bottom review" of U.S. trade policies toward China. USTR's resulting February 2006 report outlined U.S objectives and action items. GAO was asked to (1) evaluate USTR's annual China trade compliance reports to Congress and the degree to which they present information necessary to fully understand China's compliance situation and (2) examine the status of the plans presented in USTR's February 2006 top-to-bottom report. GAO systematically analyzed the contents of USTR's compliance reports from 2002 to 2007 and reviewed information on the status of agencies' monitoring and enforcement activities."

Concert presented at the UNT College of Music Concert Hall.