A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Quality is key to success in U.S. space and missile defense programs, but quality problems exist that have endangered entire missions along with less-visible problems leading to unnecessary repair, scrap, rework, and stoppage; long delays; and millions in cost growth. For space and missile defense acquisitions, GAO was asked to examine quality problems related to parts and manufacturing processes and materials across DOD and NASA. GAO assessed (1) the extent to which parts quality problems affect those agencies' space and missile defense programs; (2) causes of any problems; and (3) initiatives to prevent, detect, and mitigate parts quality problems. To accomplish this, GAO reviewed all 21 systems with mature designs and projected high costs: 5 DOD satellite systems, 4 DOD missile defense systems, and 12 NASA systems. GAO reviewed existing and planned efforts for preventing, detecting, and mitigating parts quality problems. Further, GAO reviewed regulations, directives, instructions, policies, and several studies, and interviewed senior headquarters and contractor officials."

Article discussing the temporal complexity of the order parameter at the phase transition.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

Weekly newspaper from Dallas, Texas that includes local, state, and national news and advertising of interest to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community.

This report examines the legislation and oversight by Congress to protect the United States against terrorist threats, especially from chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons. Radiological dispersal devices (RDDs) are one type of CBRN weapon. Explosive-driven "dirty bombs" are an often-discussed type of RDD, though radioactive material can also be dispersed in other ways. This report also provides background for understanding the RDD threat and responses.

Evaporation rates of K2O, Na2O, and FeO from chondrule-like liquids and the associated potassium isotopic fractionation of the evaporation residues were measured to help understand the processes and conditions that affected the chemical and isotopic compositions of olivine-rich Type IA and Type IIA chondrules from Semarkona. Both types of chondrules show evidence of having been significantly or totally molten. However, these chondrules do not have large or systematic potassium isotopic fractionation of the sort found in the laboratory evaporation experiments. The experimental results reported here provide new data regarding the evaporation kinetics of sodium and potassium from a chondrule-like melt and the potassium isotopic fractionation of evaporation residues run under various conditions ranging from high vacuum to pressures of one bar of H2+CO2, or H2, or helium. The lack of systematic isotopic fractionation of potassium in the Type IIA and Type IA chondrules compared with what is found in the vacuum and one-bar evaporation residues is interpreted as indicating that they evolved in a partially closed system where the residence time of the surrounding gas was sufficiently long for it to have become saturated in the evaporating species and for isotopic equilibration between the gas and the melt. A diffusion …

This poster describes a microchannelplate (MCP)–based, gated x-ray imager developed by National Security Technologies, LLC (NSTec), and Sandia National Laboratories(SNL) over the past several years. The camera consists of a 40 mm × 40 mm MCP, coated with eight 4 mm wide microstrips. The camera is gated by sending subnanosecond high-voltage pulses across the striplines. We have performed an extensive characterization of the camera, the results of which we present here. The camera has an optical gate profile width (time resolution) as narrow as 150 ps and detector uniformity of better than 30% along the length of a strip, far superior than what was achieved in previous designs. The spatial resolution is on the order of 40 microns for imaging applications and a dynamic range of between ~100 and ~1000. We also present results from a Monte Carlo simulation code developed by NSTec over the last several years. Agreement between the simulation results and the experimental measurements is very good.

Evaluating the impacts and effectiveness of energy efficiency programs is likely to become increasingly important for state policymakers and program administrators given legislative mandates and regulatory goals and increasing reliance on energy efficiency as a resource. In this paper, we summarize three activities that the authors have conducted that highlight the expanded role of evaluation, measurement and verification (EM&V): a study that identified and analyzed challenges in improving and scaling up EM&V activities; a scoping study that identified issues involved in developing a national efficiency EM&V standard; and lessons learned from providing technical assistance on EM&V issues to states that are ramping up energy efficiency programs. The lessons learned are summarized in 13 EM&V issues that policy makers should address in each jurisdiction and which are listed and briefly described. The paper also discusses how improving the effectiveness and reliability of EM&V will require additional capacity building, better access to existing EM&V resources, new methods to address emerging issues and technologies, and perhaps foundational documents and approaches to improving the credibility and cross jurisdictional comparability of efficiency investments. Two of the potential foundational documents discussed are a national EM&V standard or resource guide and regional deemed savings and algorithm databases.

On May 9, 2011, ORISE conducted verification survey activities including scans, sampling, and the collection of smears of the remaining soils and off-gas pipe associated with the 802 Fan House within the HFBR (High Flux Beam Reactor) Complex at BNL. ORISE is of the opinion, based on independent scan and sample results obtained during verification activities at the HFBR 802 Fan House, that the FSS (final status survey) unit meets the applicable site cleanup objectives established for as left radiological conditions.

This note was originally one of the parts of the work on a 50 MeV and 500 MeV Rb{sup +} driver and part of work on delay lines for a 60 GeV U{sup +12} driver. It is slightly expanded here to make it more generally applicable. The emphasis is on beam manipulations such as joining and separating beams at the two ends of a driver and providing various time delays between beams as required by the target.

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Photograph taken at the Weekend Festival of Black Dance: Rhythm and Soul of a People sponsored by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Weekend Festival of Black Dance: Rhythm and Soul of a People sponsored by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Weekend Festival of Black Dance: Rhythm and Soul of a People sponsored by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Weekend Festival of Black Dance: Rhythm and Soul of a People sponsored by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Weekend Festival of Black Dance: Rhythm and Soul of a People sponsored by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Weekend Festival of Black Dance: Rhythm and Soul of a People sponsored by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Weekend Festival of Black Dance: Rhythm and Soul of a People sponsored by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Weekend Festival of Black Dance: Rhythm and Soul of a People sponsored by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Weekend Festival of Black Dance: Rhythm and Soul of a People sponsored by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Weekend Festival of Black Dance: Rhythm and Soul of a People sponsored by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.

Photograph taken at the Weekend Festival of Black Dance: Rhythm and Soul of a People sponsored by The Black Academy of Arts and Letters in Dallas, Texas.