On October 30, 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility (ACRF) sponsored an all-day workshop to assess the status of the ACRF Archive. Focus areas included usability of current functions, plans for revised functions, proposals for new functions, and an overarching discussion of new ideas. Although 13 scientists familiar with ACRF and the ARM Program were invited to the workshop, only 10 scientists were available to attend the workshop. ACRF consists of the infrastructure that was developed to support the ARM Program and includes the ACRF Archive (previously called the ARM Archive). The scientists who participated in the meeting ranged from those who used the Archive frequently to those who seldom or never had accessed the Archive. The group was spread across disciplines, i.e. modelers, conservationists, and others from universities and government laboratories. A few of the participants were funded by the ARM Program, but most were not funded currently by ARM. During the past year, several improvements were made to the ACRF Archive to link it with the ARM/ACRF web pages, add a shopping cart feature, and expand on search parameters. Additional modifications have been proposed and prototypes of these proposals were …

The purpose of this report is to provide a concise but comprehensive overview of Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility (ACRF) instrumentation status. The report is divided into the following four sections: (1) new instrumentation in the process of being acquired and deployed, (2) existing instrumentation and progress on improvements or upgrades, (3) proposed future instrumentation, and (4) SBIR instrument development.

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

The analysis of coherent structures in Rayleigh-Taylor simulations is a challenging task as the lack of a precise definition of these structures is compounded by the massive size of the datasets. In an earlier work, we used techniques from image analysis to count these coherent structures in two high-resolution simulations, one a large-eddy simulation with 30 terabytes of analysis data, and the other a direct numerical simulation with 80 terabytes of analysis data. Our analysis indicated that there were four distinct regimes in the process of the mixing of the two fluids, starting from the initial linear stage, followed by the non-linear stage with weak turbulence, the mixing transition stage, and the final stage of strong turbulence. In this paper, we extend our earlier work to focus on only the rising bubbles and the falling spikes. We first consider different ways in which we can constrain the bubble and spike definitions and then extract various statistics on them. Our results on the rising bubble and falling spike counts again show that there are four regimes in the process of fluid mixing, each characterized by an integer-valued slope. Further, the average bubble heights and spike depths are related to similar results …

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

Semiweekly newspaper from Boerne, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The boundary entropy log(g) of a critical one-dimensional quantum system (or two-dimensional conformal field theory) is known to decrease under renormalization group (RG) flow of the boundary theory. We study instead the behavior of the boundary entropy as the bulk theory flows between two nearby critical points. We use conformal perturbation theory to calculate the change in g due to a slightly relevant bulk perturbation and find that it has no preferred sign. The boundary entropy log(g) can therefore increase during appropriate bulk flows. This is demonstrated explicitly in flows between minimal models. We discuss the applications of this result to D-branes in string theory and to impurity problems in condensed matter.

Weekly student newspaper from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

This report begins by exploring three core concepts: college cost, sticker price and net price. It concludes with an overview of relevant issues for re-authorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965.

The survey activities consisted of visual inspections and radiological surveys including beta and gamma surface scans and surface beta activity measurements.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Randolph-Sheppard and Javits-Wagner-O'Day (JWOD) are two federal programs that provide employment for persons with disabilities through federal contracts. In 2006, participants in the two programs had contracts with the Department of Defense (DOD) worth $465 million annually to provide dining services at military dining facilities. The 2007 National Defense Authorization Act directed GAO to study the two programs. This report examines (1) differences in how the Randolph-Sheppard and JWOD programs provide food services for DOD and (2) differences in how contracts are awarded, prices are set, and program beneficiaries (i.e. persons with disabilities) are compensated. GAO interviewed program officials, conducted a survey of states with Randolph-Sheppard programs, and reviewed eight Randolph-Sheppard and six JWOD contracts."

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

Gen-IV activities in France, Japan and US focus on the development of new structural materials for Gen-IV nuclear reactors. Oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) F/M steels have raised considerable interest in nuclear applications. Promising collaborations can be established seeking fundamental knowledge of relevant Gen-IV ODS steel properties (see attached travel report on MATGEN- IV 'Materials for Generation IV Nuclear Reactors'). Major highlights refer to results on future Ferritic/Martensitic steel cladding candidates (relevant to Gen-IV materials properties for LFR Materials Program) and on thermodynamic and mechanic behavior of metallic FeCr binary alloys, base matrix for future candidate steels (for the LLNL-LDRD project on Critical Issues on Materials for Gen-IV Reactors).

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

In this work, we present the first successful demonstration of a non-contact technique to precisely measure the 3D spatial characteristics of laser induced surface damage sites in fused silica for large aperture laser systems by employing Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT). What makes OCT particularly interesting in the characterization of optical materials for large aperture laser systems is that its axial resolution can be maintained with working distances greater than 5 cm, whether viewing through air or through the bulk of thick optics. Specifically, when mitigating surface damage sites against further growth by CO{sub 2} laser evaporation of the damage, it is important to know the depth of subsurface cracks below the damage site. These cracks are typically obscured by the damage rubble when imaged from above the surface. The results to date clearly demonstrate that OCT is a unique and valuable tool for characterizing damage sites before and after the mitigation process. We also demonstrated its utility as an in-situ diagnostic to guide and optimize our process when mitigating surface damage sites on large, high-value optics.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In general, a fusion center is a collaborative effort to detect, prevent, investigate, and respond to criminal and terrorist activity. Recognizing that fusion centers are a mechanism for information sharing, the federal government--including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Program Manager for the Information Sharing Environment (PM-ISE), which has primary responsibility for governmentwide information sharing and is located in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence--is taking steps to partner with fusion centers. In response to Congressional request, GAO examined (1) the status and characteristics of fusion centers and (2) to what extent federal efforts help alleviate challenges the centers identified. GAO reviewed center-related documents and conducted interviews with officials from DHS, DOJ, and the PM-ISE, and conducted semistructured interviews with 58 state and local fusion centers. The results are not generalizable to the universe of fusion centers. Data are not available on the total number of local fusion centers."

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It is well known that U-6wt.% Nb (U-14at.% Nb) alloy has a microstructure containing martensitic phases supersaturated with Nb that can be obtained by rapid quenching the alloy from {gamma} (bcc)-field solid solution to room temperature. The high cooling rate forces the {gamma}-phase solid solution to transform to variants of the low-temperature {alpha} (orthorhombic) phase in which Nb is forced to retain in the supersaturated solid solution. However, the crystal lattice of supersaturated solution formed by rapid quenching is in unstable conditions and is severely distorted since the solubility of Nb in the {alpha} phase at room temperature is nearly zero under an equilibrium condition. Two variant phases, a monoclinic distortion of {alpha} phase that is designated as {alpha}{double_prime} martensite and a tetragonal distortion of {gamma} phase that is designated as {gamma}{sup o} phase, can form in the as-quenched alloy, as shown in Fig. 1. We have learned from our previous TEM studies on the low-temperature aging of a water-quenched U6Nb (WQ-U6Nb) alloy that there are two possible transformation pathways for phase decomposition of the alloy supersaturated with 14 at.% of Nb upon aging at temperatures below 200 C, i.e., (1) supersaturated solid solution {alpha}{double_prime} {yields} spinodal decomposition {yields} {alpha}{sub …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Because the safety and economic security of the United States depend in substantial part on the security of its 361 seaports, the United States has a vital national interest in maritime security. The Security and Accountability for Every Port Act (SAFE Port Act), modified existing legislation and created and codified new programs related to maritime security. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its U.S. Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have key maritime security responsibilities. This testimony synthesizes the results of GAO's completed work and preliminary observations from GAO's ongoing work related to the SAFE Port Act pertaining to (1) overall port security, (2) security at individual facilities, and (3) cargo container security. To perform this work GAO visited domestic and overseas ports; reviewed agency program documents, port security plans, and post-exercise reports; and interviewed officials from the federal, state, local, private, and international sectors."

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We report on the measurement of the CKM angle {gamma} in B{sup {+-}} {yields} DK{sup {+-}} decays with the BABAR detector. A general overview of different methods of analysis and a critical discussion of the most sensitive methods are presented here.

Patent relating to a method for using field emitter arrays in chemical and biological hazard mitigation and remediation.