Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In the midst of the global war on terrorism and recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Department of Defense (DOD) is working to make U.S. forces more agile and expeditionary. This transformation involves a shift from a Cold War era defense posture to a military that can surge quickly to trouble spots around the globe. In order to accomplish this transformation, it is vital for U.S. forces to train as they intend to fight. New advances in technology, coupled with this shift in force posture, mean that DOD needs to continually update and maintain its training ranges. Military training ranges vary in size from a few acres--for small arms training--to over a million acres for large maneuver exercises and weapons testing, as well as broad open ocean areas that provide for offshore training and testing. These ranges face ever increasing limitations and restrictions on land, water, and airspace as residential, commercial, and industrial development continues to expand around and encroach upon once remote military training and testing installations. Section 366 of the Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003, dated December 2, 2002, required …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Women aged 65 and over will account for a growing segment of the U.S. population over the next several decades. Despite increases in women's workforce behavior in the past 65 years, elderly women have persistently high rates of poverty. Thus, it is important to understand the differences between men's and women's retirement income, and how women may fare given future reforms to Social Security and pensions. GAO was asked to examine (1) how women's retirement income compares with men's and the reasons for differences; (2) how certain life events such as divorce, widowhood, and workforce interruptions affect women's retirement income; and (3) the possible effect on women's retirement income of certain changes to Social Security and pensions that seek to mitigate the effects of differences in workforce participation patterns. To address these objectives, GAO reviewed the relevant literature, interviewed academics and other retirement experts, and used a microsimulation model to project future retirement income. GAO provided a draft of this report to the departments of Labor and Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Social Security Administration. Cognizant agency officials provided technical comments which were incorporated …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) maintains a consolidated watch list of known or appropriately suspected terrorists and sends records from the list to agencies to support terrorism-related screening. Because the list is an important tool for combating terrorism, GAO examined (1) standards for including individuals on the list, (2) the outcomes of encounters with individuals on the list, (3) potential vulnerabilities and efforts to address them, and (4) actions taken to promote effective terrorism-related screening. To conduct this work, GAO reviewed documentation obtained from and interviewed officials at TSC, the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center, the Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies that perform terrorism-related screening."

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Daily student newspaper from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

Weekly Jewish newspaper from Fort Worth, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

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Plants utilize carbon by partitioning the reduced carbon obtained through photosynthesis into different compartments and into different chemistries within a cell and subsequently allocating such carbon to sink tissues throughout the plant. Since the phytohormones auxin and cytokinin are known to influence sink strength in tissues such as roots (Skoog & Miller 1957, Nordstrom et al. 2004), we hypothesized that altering the expression of genes that regulate auxin-mediated (e.g., AUX/IAA or ARF transcription factors) or cytokinin-mediated (e.g., RR transcription factors) control of root growth and development would impact carbon allocation and partitioning belowground (Fig. 1 - Renewal Proposal). Specifically, the ARF, AUX/IAA and RR transcription factor gene families mediate the effects of the growth regulators auxin and cytokinin on cell expansion, cell division and differentiation into root primordia. Invertases (IVR), whose transcript abundance is enhanced by both auxin and cytokinin, are critical components of carbon movement and therefore of carbon allocation. Thus, we initiated comparative genomic studies to identify the AUX/IAA, ARF, RR and IVR gene families in the Populus genome that could impact carbon allocation and partitioning. Bioinformatics searches using Arabidopsis gene sequences as queries identified regions with high degrees of sequence similarities in the Populus genome. These Populus …

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Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

The goal of this research is to establish credible disruption mitigation scenarios based on the technique of massive gas injection. Disruption mitigation seeks to minimize or eliminate damage to internal components that can occur due to the rapid dissipation of thermal and magnetic energy during a tokamak disruption. In particular, the focus of present research is extrapolating mitigation techniques to burning plasma experiments such as ITER, where disruption-caused damage poses a serious threat to the lifetime of internal vessel components. A majority of effort has focused on national and international collaborative research with large tokamaks: DIII-D, Alcator C-Mod, JET, and ASDEX Upgrade. The research was oriented towards empirical trials of gas-jet mitigation on several tokamaks, with the goal of developing and applying cohesive models to the data across devices. Disruption mitigation using gas jet injection has proven to be a viable candidate for avoiding or minimizing damage to internal components in burning plasma experiments like ITER. The physics understanding is progress towards a technological design for the required gas injection system in ITER.

Magnesium diboride (MgB{sub 2}) has a transition temperature (T{sub c}) of {approx}40 K, i.e., about 4 times as high as that of niobium (Nb).We have been evaluating MgB{sub 2} as a candidate material for radio-frequency (RF) cavities for future particle accelerators. Studies in the last 3 years have shown that it could have about one order of magnitude less RF surface resistance (Rs) than Nb at 4 K. A power dependence test using a 6 GHz TE011 mode cavity has shown little power dependence up to {approx}12 mT (120 Oe), limited by available power, compared to other high-Tc materials such as YBCO. A recent study showed, however, that the power dependence of Rs is dependent on the coating method. A film made with on-axis pulsed laser deposition (PLD) has showed rapid increase in Rs compared to the film deposited by reactive evaporation method. This paper shows these results as well as future plans.

Dark current generation and capture are of great importance in high gradient accelerating structure R&D especially for the NLC which aims to operate at 65 MV/m with specific limits on dark current and RF breakdown rates. Although considerable effort has been devoted to building and testing various types of structures to meet these requirements, few theoretical studies have been done to understand these effects in actual structures. This paper focuses on the simulation of dark current in a NLC test structure for which experimental data are available. The parallel time-domain field solver Tau3P and the parallel particle tracking code Track3P are used together to simulate, for the first time, a dark current pulse to compare with the data measured downstream. Results from SLAC X-band 30-cell constant impedance structure for RF drive pulses with different rise times are presented and discussed.

We present methods for the analysis of dark matter annihilation in the smooth halo of the Milky Way galaxy. We model the diffuse gamma-ray background using GALPROP, and model the halo using an NFW profile and the gamma-ray spectrum for WIMP pair annihilation. We plan to combine these models with the point source catalog and a simple model for the extragalactic gamma ray background. Using the downhill simplex method to converge on the maximum likelihood value, we can vary key parameters in these models and fit them to the gamma-ray data. Through the use of the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method we can then map out the likelihood as a function of the model parameters to estimate the correlated errors on these parameters.

The GLAST Large Area Telescope (LAT) is expected to detect gamma-ray emission from over a thousand active galaxies, many of which will be flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs). A commonly assumed ingredient of leptonic models of FRSQs is the contribution to the gamma-ray flux from external inverse-Compton (EIC) scattering of photons from the broad line region (BLR) material by relativistic electrons and positrons in the jet. Here we explore the effect of the BLR geometry on the high-energy emission from FSRQs.

Several Slurry-Fed Melt Rate Furnace (SMRF) tests with earlier projections of the Sludge Batch 4 (SB4) composition have been performed.1,2 The first SB4 SMRF test used Frits 418 and 320, however it was found after the test that the REDuction/OXidation (REDOX) correlation at that time did not have the proper oxidation state for manganese. Because the manganese level in the SB4 sludge was higher than previous sludge batches tested, the impact of the higher manganese oxidation state was greater. The glasses were highly oxidized and very foamy, and therefore the results were inconclusive. After resolving this REDOX issue, Frits 418, 425, and 503 were tested in the SMRF with the updated baseline SB4 projection. Based on dry-fed Melt Rate Furnace (MRF) tests and the above mentioned SMRF tests, two previous frit recommendations were made by the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) for processing of SB4 in the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF). The first was Frit 503 based on the June 2006 composition projections.3 The recommendation was changed to Frit 418 as a result of the October 2006 composition projections (after the Tank 40 decant was implemented as part of the preparation plan). However, the start of SB4 processing was …

Because this DOE grant was abruptly terminated without warning, this group was not able to accomplish the insertion of the biosensor genes into the mouse lines. They have been able to generate some of the mouse lines but have not been able to complete the ones that would give them the model systems that would allow them to investigate metastasis real-time in living tumors at the cellular level. Nonetheless, until the loss of funding, they have made progress in applications of the equipment to biological problems involving RNA and protein movement in living cells. The following products were delivered: (1) Imaging of gene expression in living cells and tissues, Singer RH, Lawrence DS, Ovryn B, Condeelis J, J Biomed Optics 10:0514061-0514069, 2005. This paper describes the method for activating single genes within cells and tissues. (2) Single Cell Gene Expression Profiling: Multiplexed Expression Fluorescence in situ Hybridization (FISH): Application to the Analysis of Cultured Cells. Levsky JM, Braut SA, Singer RH, Cell Biology: A Laboratory Handbook Volume 4, eds Celis JE, et al, 121-130. Academic Press, 2005. This paper describes the methodology for single cell expression profiling in tissues. (3) Spatial regulation of beta-actin translation by Src-dependent phosphorylation of ZBP1, …

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

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