A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Farm Service Agency (FSA) within the Department of Agriculture provides financial assistance to farmers and ranchers who are unable to obtain commercial credit at reasonable rates and terms. FSA provides direct government-funded loans and repayment guarantees on farm loans made by commercial lenders. During the 1990s, GAO issued a series of reports highlighting the substantial financial risk associated with FSA's farm loan programs and multibillion-dollar portfolio. GAO recently reviewed FSA's farm loan programs to determine the outstanding principal owed on direct and guaranteed farm loans at the end of fiscal year 2000 and the losses incurred by FSA on direct and guaranteed farm loans in the same year. GAO found that FSA had more than $16.6 billion in outstanding farm loans as of September 2000. Farm loan losses incurred by FSA during fiscal year 2000 totalled about $486 million. Both figures represent a significant decrease when compared to figures for earlier years."

This is a letter report provided to program participants involved in developing the Energy Efficiency Center in the DPRK.

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

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

As directed by a written development plan (CRWMS M&O 1999a), an analysis of the effects of salts and precipitates on the repository chemical environment is to be developed and documented in an Analyses/Model Report (AMR). The purpose of this analysis is to assist Performance Assessment Operations (PAO) and the Engineered Barrier Performance Department in modeling the geochemical environment within a repository drift, thus allowing PAO to provide a more detailed and complete in-drift geochemical model abstraction and to answer the key technical issues (KTI) raised in the NRC Issue Resolution Status Report (IRSR) for the Evolution of the Near Field Environment (NFE) Revision 2 (NRC 1999). The purpose of this ICN is to qualify and document qualification of the AMR's technical products. The scope of this document is to develop a model of the processes that govern salt precipitation and dissolution and resulting water composition in the Engineered Barrier System (EBS). This model is developed to serve as a basis for the in-drift geochemical modeling work performed by PAO and is to be used in subsequent PAO analyses including the EBS physical and chemical model abstraction effort. However, the concepts may also apply to some near and far field geochemical …

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The objective of this five-year project (October 1997--September 2002) was to expand the current research activities of Tulsa University Separation Technology Projects (TUSTP) to multiphase oil/water/gas separation. This project was executed in two phases. Phase I (1997--2000) focused on the investigations of the complex multiphase hydrodynamic flow behavior in a three-phase Gas-Liquid Cylindrical Cyclone (GLCC) Separator. The activities of this phase included the development of a mechanistic model, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulator, and detailed experimentation on the three-phase GLCC. The experimental and CFD simulation results will be suitably integrated with the mechanistic model. In Phase II (2000--2002), the developed GLCC separator will be tested under high pressure and real crude conditions. This is crucial for validating the GLCC design for field application and facilitating easy and rapid technology deployment. Design criteria for industrial applications will be developed based on these results and will be incorporated into the mechanistic model by TUSTP.

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

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

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.

With the increasing availability of massive observational and experimental data sets (across a wide variety of scientific disciplines) there is an increasing need to provide scientists with efficient computational tools to explore such data in a systematic manner. For example, techniques such as classification and clustering are now being widely used in astronomy to categorize and organize stellar objects into groups and catalogs, which in turn provide the impetus for scientific hypothesis formation and discovery (e.g., see Fayyad, Djorgovski and Weir (1996); or Cheeseman and Stutz (1996) or Fayyad and Smyth (1999) in a more general context). Data-driven exploration of massive spatio-temporal data sets is an area where there is particular need of data mining techniques. Scientists are overwhelmed by the vast quantities of data which simulations, experiments, and observational instruments can produce. Analysis of spatio-temporal data is inherently challenging, yet most current research in data mining is focused on algorithms based on more traditional feature-vector data representations. Scientists are often not particularly interested in raw grid-level data, but rather in the phenomena and processes which are ''driving'' the data. In particular, they are often interested in the temporal and spatial evolution of specific ''spatially local'' structures of interest, e.g., …

Spin formed Cu shaped charge liners are known to produce a rotating jet and are used for the spin compensation effect. The causes of spin compensation can be mechanical in nature or can be grounded in microstructural issues such as texture, residual stress, grain size, and morphology variations. This investigation focuses on determining specific microstructural parameters that influence jet rotation and modeling the jet formation process using anisotropic plasticity in a 3-D finite element framework. The experimental texture has been mapped onto a finite element grid for 3-D modeling to obtain the normal-shear deformation coupling information needed to construct a plastic flow potential. Simulations of a collapsing ring and extending rod demonstrate rotation.

Gas chromatography is a prominent technique for separating complex gases and then analyzing the relative quantities of the separate components. This analytical technique is popular with scientists in a wide range of applications, including environmental restoration for air and water pollution, and chemical and biological analysis. Today the analytical instrumentation community is to working towards moving the analysis away from the laboratory to the point of origin of the sample (''the field'') to achieve real-time data collection and lower analysis costs. The Microtechnology Center of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has developed a hand-held, real-time detection gas chromatograph (GC) through Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) technology. The total weight of this GC is approximately 8 pounds, and it measures 8 inches by 5 inches by 3 inches. It consumes approximately 12 watts of electrical power and has a response time on the order of 2 minutes. The current detector is a glow discharge detector with a sensitivity of parts per billion. The average retention time is about 30 to 45 seconds. Under optimum conditions, the calculated effective plate number is 40,000. The separation column in the portable GC is fabricated completely on silicon wafers. Silicon is a good thermal conductor and provides rapid heating …

Damage growth in optical materials used in large aperture laser systems is an issue of great importance when determining component lifetime and therefore cost of operation. Understanding the mechanisms and photophysical processes associated with damage growth are important in order to devise mitigation techniques. In this work we examined plasma-modified material and cracks for their correlation to damage growth on fused silica and DKDP samples. We employ an in-situ damage testing optical microscope that allows the acquisition of light scattering and fluorescence images of the area of interest prior to, and following exposure to a high fluence, 355-nm, 3-ns laser pulse. In addition, high-resolution images of the damage event are recorded using the associated plasma emission. Experimental results indicate that both aforementioned features can initiate plasma formation at fluences as low as 2 J/cm{sup 2}. The intensity of the recorded plasma emission remains low for fluences up to approximately 5 J/cm{sup 2} but rapidly increases thereafter. Based on the experimental results, we propose as possible mechanisms leading to damage growth the initiation of avalanche ionization by defects at the damage modified material and presence of field intensification due to cracks.

Head Start is a federal program that has provided comprehensive early childhood development services to low-income children since 1965. Services provided to preschool-aged children include child development, educational, health, nutritional, social and other activities, intended to prepare low-income children for entering kindergarten. This report contains information on the background and funding of the program.

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We introduce a new simple advection scheme for capturing multi-material interfaces. A material interface is tracked by solving a scalar transport equation of the volume of fluid. The method is developed by modifying the Hyper-C flux limiter and it does not require material interface reconstruction. A new single step unsplit advection scheme is developed by including corner flux monotonically. The algorithm is designed to minimize the necessary mixed zones as well as to preserve sharp and stable interfaces. Numerical tests show improvements compared to other existing methods such as Tipton's method.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Ray Tirey. Tirey joined the Navy in July of 1943. He served as Third-Class Quartermaster during his ship travels. He deployed to Scotland, where he was assigned to a British Landing Craft, Tank. Tirey provided direct fire support during amphibious landings during the invasions of Normandy, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He was assigned to USS LCS(L)(3)-54 for the Pacific invasions. He was discharged around late 1945.

Transcript of an oral interview with Don Peterson. Mr Peterson was drafted into the Army but didn't want to do that so he joined the Navy because he wanted to fly. After Basic Training in Kansas City he got his wings in Corpus Christi. After flight training, he was sent to Astoria, Oregon and assigned to the USS Matanikua (CVE). He was assigned to the ship as a ship's officer, a line officer. He was also on the commissioning crew of another CVE (Commencement Bay), as part of the ship's company. He never had the opportunity to fly off a carrier or land on a carrier. He served as a test pilot in Bremerton, Washington while waiting for the Commencement Bay. The planes had come in for repair and maintenance. He went with the Commencement Bay to the South Pacific; he was the Flight Deck Officer and was qualified as the Officer of the Deck. Peterson tells the story of having to relieve the Captain as they were coming into port when he was the Officer of the Deck; afterwards, he was confined to his quarters. He was severely injured while serving as a Flight Deck Officer onboard the Commencement …

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

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

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

Transcript of an oral interview with Don Peterson. Mr Peterson was drafted into the Army but didn't want to do that so he joined the Navy because he wanted to fly. After Basic Training in Kansas City he got his wings in Corpus Christi. After flight training, he was sent to Astoria, Oregon and assigned to the USS Matanikua (CVE). He was assigned to the ship as a ship's officer, a line officer. He was also on the commissioning crew of another CVE (Commencement Bay), as part of the ship's company. He never had the opportunity to fly off a carrier or land on a carrier. He served as a test pilot in Bremerton, Washington while waiting for the Commencement Bay. The planes had come in for repair and maintenance. He went with the Commencement Bay to the South Pacific; he was the Flight Deck Officer and was qualified as the Officer of the Deck. Peterson tells the story of having to relieve the Captain as they were coming into port when he was the Officer of the Deck; afterwards, he was confined to his quarters. He was severely injured while serving as a Flight Deck Officer onboard the Commencement …

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Ray Tirey. Tirey joined the Navy in July of 1943. He served as Third-Class Quartermaster during his ship travels. He deployed to Scotland, where he was assigned to a British Landing Craft, Tank. Tirey provided direct fire support during amphibious landings during the invasions of Normandy, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He was assigned to USS LCS(L)(3)-54 for the Pacific invasions. He was discharged around late 1945.