A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the management and oversight of the U.S. Special Operations Forces' overseas deployments to train with the armed forces and other security forces of friendly foreign countries, focusing on: (1) whether the Department of Defense (DOD) has implemented the Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) program in accordance with legislation; (2) whether DOD and the Department of State are providing civilian oversight to ensure that JCET activities are consistent with U.S. foreign policy objectives in countries that GAO included in its review; and (3) how DOD is implementing recent legislation that restricts it from training with foreign forces involved in human rights abuses."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Department of Defense's (DOD) base closure accounts and its budget request for base closure activities, focusing on: (1) the opportunities available to offset the fiscal year (FY) 2000 budget request; and (2) certain base realignment and closure (BRAC) funding practices that could make it difficult for Congress to discern DOD's actual funding requirements and priorities."

A Texas Commission on the Arts award summary for the North Texas Institute for Educators on the Visual Arts, University of North Texas. The pages have been printed out from the TCA webpage as they were filled out by members of NTIVEA.

An application filled out by North Texas Institute for Educators on the Visual Arts to apply for a Texas Commission on the Arts grant. The following pages are filled out with sensitive information on the North Texas Institute for Educators on the Visual Arts organization as they request support for the period of September 1, 1999 to August 1, 2000.

Weekly newspaper from Sulphur Springs, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Semi-weekly newspaper from Clifton, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

We generally use large-scale hydrocodes to study the dynamic response of targets to influence pulsed radiation loads. However, for many applications where the desired solution does not require a detailed specification of pressure- or velocity-time histories, there are simple analytic approaches that can yield surprisingly accurate results. Examples include determining either the final velocity of a radiation-driven flying plate or the impulse delivered to a structural element. These methods are all based on relatively straightforward use of conservation of mass and momentum, but they typically need one scaling-law parameter. In this context, short pulse means short compared to the characteristic time of the desired response, which allows for the phenomena to be essentially uncoupled. High fluence means that the input energy is great enough to yield vaporization or blowoff of one or more portions of the configuration. We discuss some of these methods, give examples, and suggest limitations and criteria for their use.

Characterization tools have been developed to study the performance characteristics and reliability of surface micromachined actuators. These tools include (1) the ability to electrically stimulate or stress the actuator, (2) the capability to visually inspect the devices in operation, (3) a method for capturing operational information, and (4) a method to extract performance characteristics from the operational information. Additionally, a novel test structure has been developed to measure electrostatic forces developed by a comb drive actuator.

Heavy ion TOF ERD combined with energy detection (E-TOF-ERD) is a powerful analytical technique taking advantage of the following facts: the scattering cross section is usually very high ({approximately}10{sup {minus}21} cm{sup 2}/sr) compared to regular He RBS ({approximately}10{sup {minus}25} cm{sup 2}/sr), contrary to what happens with the energy resolution in ordinary surface solid barrier detectors, time resolution is almost independent of the atomic mass of the detected element, and the detection in coincidence of time and energy signals allows for the mass separation of overlapping signals with the same energy (or time of flight). Measurements on several oxides have been performed with the E-TOF-ERD set up at Sandia National Laboratories using an incident beam of 10-15 MeV Au. The information on the composition of the sample is obtained from the time domain spectrum, which is converted to energy domain, and then, using existing software codes, the analysis is performed. During the quantification of the results, they have found problems related to the interaction of the beam with the sample and to the tabulated values of the stopping powers for heavy ions.

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.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) efforts to reduce future federal reimbursements of states' administrative costs for the Food Stamp Program, focusing on: (1) HHS' administrative cost determinations, related estimates provided by the states to HHS, and the reasons for any differences between HHS' determinations and the states' estimates; (2) the reliability of HHS' determinations; and (3) what portion of common administrative costs could have been charged to the Food Stamp Program."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the savings claims from the National Performance Review (NPR), which has been renamed the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, focusing on how the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) estimated savings from selected NPR recommendations targeted toward individual agencies."

The Natural Resources Authority of Jordan (NRA), the USGS and LLNL have a collaborative project to improve the calibration of seismic propagation in Jordan and surrounding regions. This project serves common goals of CTBT calibration and earthquake hazard assessment in the region. These objectives include accurate location of local and regional earthquakes, calibration of magnitude scales, and the development of local and regional propagation models. In the CTBT context, better propagation models and more accurately located events in the Dead Sea rift region can serve as (potentially GT5) calibration events for generating IMS location corrections. The detection and collection of mining explosions underpins discrimination research. The principal activity of this project is the deployment of two broadband stations at Hittiyah (south Jordan) and Ruweishid (east Jordan). These stations provide additional paths in the region to constrain structure with surface wave and body wave tomography. The Ruweishid station is favorably placed to provide constraints on Arabian platform structure. Waveform modeling with long-period observations of larger earthquakes will provide constraints on 1-D velocity models of the crust and upper mantle. Data from these stations combined with phase observations from the 26 short-period stations of the Jordan National Seismic Network (JNSN) may allow …

The velocity structures and source parameters estimated by waveform modeling provide valuable information for CTBT monitoring. The inferred crustal and uppermost mantle structures advance understanding of tectonics and guides regionalization for event location and identification efforts. Estimation of source parameters such as seismic moment, depth and mechanism (whether earthquake, explosion or collapse) is crucial to event identification. In this paper we briefly outline some of the waveform modeling research for CTBT monitoring performed in the last year. In the future we will estimate structure for new regions by modeling waveforms of large well-observed events along additional paths. Of particular interest will be the estimation of velocity structure in aseismic regions such as most of Africa and the Former Soviet Union. Our previous work on aseismic regions in the Middle East, north Africa and south Asia give us confidence to proceed with our current methods. Using the inferred velocity models we plan to estimate source parameters for smaller events. It is especially important to obtain seismic moments of earthquakes for use in applying the Magnitude-Distance Amplitude Correction (MDAC; Taylor et al., 1999) to regional body-wave amplitudes for discrimination and calibrating the coda-based magnitude scales.

Ab initio molecular dynamics calculations are adapted to treat dense plasmas for temperatures exceeding the electronic Fermi temperature. Extended electronic states are obtained in a plane wave basis by using pseudopotentials for the ion cores in the local density approximation to density functional theory. The method reduces to conventional first principles molecular dynamics at low temperatures with the expected high level of accuracy. The occurrence of thermally excited ion cores at high temperatures is treated by means of final state pseudopotentials. The method is applied to the shock compression Hugoniot equation of state for aluminum. Good agreement with experiment is found for temperatures ranging from zero through 105K.

Last year, the X27A beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) became dedicated solely to X-Ray Computed Microtomography (XCMT). This is a third-generation instrument capable of producing tomographic volumes of 1-2 micron resolution over a 2-3mm field of view. Recent enhancements will be discussed. These have focused on two issues: the desire for real-time data acquisition and processing and the need for highly monochromatic beam (.1 % energy bandpass). The latter will permit k-edge subtraction studies and will provide improved image contrast from below the Cr (6 keV) up to the Cs (36 keV) k-edge. A range of applications that benefit from these improvements will be discussed as well. These two goals are somewhat counterproductive, however; higher monochromaticity yields a lower flux forcing longer data acquisition times. To balance the two, a more efficient scintillator for X-ray conversion is being developed. Some testing of a prototype scintillator has been performed; preliminary results will be presented here. In the meantime, data reconstruction times have been reduced, and the entire tomographic acquisition, reconstruction and volume rendering process streamlined to make efficient use of synchrotron beam time. A Fast Filtered Back Transform (FFBT) reconstruction program recently developed helped to reduce the time …

We have summarized the advantages and disadvantages of a variety of techniques for depth and mechanism estimation and suggest that significant work remains to be done for events with magnitudes of interest for test ban monitoring. We also describe a new, waveform modeling-based tool for fast and accurate, high-resolution depth and mechanism estimation. Significant features of this tool include its speed and accuracy and its applicability at relatively high frequencies. These features allow a user to rapidly determine accurate, high-resolution depth estimates and constraints on source mechanism for relatively small magnitude (mb-4.5) events. Based on the accuracy of depth estimates obtained with this tool, we conclude it is useful for both the analysis of unusual or suspect events and for event screening. We also find that this tool provides significant constraints on source mechanism and have used it to develop ''ground-truth'' estimates of depth and mechanism for a set of events in the Middle East and North Africa. These ''ground-truth'' depths and mechanisms should be useful for regional calibration.

Every individual channels information differently based on their preference of the sensory modality or representational system (visual auditory or kinesthetic) we tend to favor most (our primary representational system (PRS)). Therefore, some of us access and store our information primarily visually first, some auditorily, and others kinesthetically (through feel and touch); which in turn establishes our information processing patterns and strategies and external to internal (and subsequently vice versa) experiential language representation. Because of the different ways we channel our information, each of us will respond differently to a task--the way we gather and process the external information (input), our response time (process), and the outcome (behavior). Traditional human models of decision making and response time focus on perception, cognitive and motor systems stimulated and influenced by the three sensory modalities, visual, auditory and kinesthetic. For us, these are the building blocks to knowing how someone is thinking. Being aware of what is taking place and how to ask questions is essential in assessing performance toward reducing human errors. Existing models give predications based on time values or response times for a particular event, and may be summed and averaged for a generalization of behavior(s). However, by our not establishing …

This study reports on the ongoing investigation of surface wave group velocity dispersion across the Middle East and North Africa. Using broadband data gathered from various sources, we have measured group velocity using a multiple narrow-band filter method. To date, we have examined over 13,500 seismograms and made quality measurements for about 6500 Rayleigh and 3500 Love wave paths. A conjugate gradient method is used to perform the group velocity tomography at several periods. There is excellent agreement between short period structure and large known sedimentary features. Longer period structure is sensitive to crustal thickness, particularly the contrast between continental and oceanic regions and thicker crusts found beneath erogenic zones. We also find slow upper mantle velocities along rift systems. Correlation between the inversion results and known major tectonic features gives us confidence in our surface wave group velocities. Accurate group velocity maps can be used to construct phase matched filters. The filters can improve weak surface waves by compressing the dispersed signal. We are particularly interested in using the filters to calculate regionally determined M{sub s} measurements, which we hope can be used to extend the threshold of m{sub b}:M{sub s} discriminants to lower magnitude levels. A preliminary analysis …

Funeral program for Mrs. Carolyn Anita James, born March 10, 1945 and died July 18, 1999. The funeral was held Friday, July 23, 1999 at Friendship Baptist Church, officiated by Rev. R. L. Archield, Sr. Funeral arrangements were made through Lewis Funeral Home and she was buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery near San Antonio, Texas.

This report discusses Treasury, Postal Service, Executive Office of the President, and General Government Appropriations for FY2000.

Semiweekly newspaper from Boerne, 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.

Program for Robert Harling's production of "Steel Magnolias" held to benefit the Turtle Creek Chorale. The cover of the program shows a photograph of costumed performers posing around a salon chair.