Bill introduced by the Texas Senate relating to the application of the open meetings law to certain health maintenance organizations.

Bill introduced by the Texas Senate relating to the purpose, powers, and duties of Harris County Improvement District No. 1; authorizing the issuance of bonds.

Bill introduced by the Texas Senate relating to tax increment financing under the Tax Increment Financing Act in certain cities that border Mexico.

Bill introduced by the Texas Senate relating to the availability of a legislative continuance in a judicial matter.

Toroidal plasmas created with negative magnetic shear in the core region offer advantages in terms of MHD stability properties. These plasmas, transiently created in several tokamaks, have exhibited high performance as measured by normalized stored energy and neutron production rates. A critical issue with extending the duration of these plasmas is the need to maintain the off-axis-peaked current distribution required to support the minimum in the safety factor q at large radii. We present equilibrium and transport simulations that explore the use of electron cyclotron heating and current drive to maintain this negative shear configuration. Using parameters consistent with DIII-D tokamak operation, we find that with sufficiently high injected power, it is possible to achieve steady-state conditions employing well aligned electron cyclotron and bootstrap current drive in fully non-inductively current-driven configurations.

Photograph of Mica Willingham giving a talk entitled "Magic Realism as a Basis for Choreographic Work and Choreographic Studies" at the World Dance Alliance V General Assembly of The Americas held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in April 2003.

Photograph of Ruth K. Abrahams, then ex-president of the World Dance Alliance, providing a welcome to attendees at the World Dance Alliance V General Assembly of The Americas held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in April 2003.

Photograph of Adrienne Kaeppler providing the introduction to the World Dance Alliance V General Assembly of The Americas held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in April 2003.

Photograph of Alan Stark giving a talk entitled "Contemporary Traditions: A Personal View of Survival and Revival" at World Dance Alliance V General Assembly of The Americas held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in April 2003.

Photograph of Keitha Manning giving a talk entitled "The Integrating of Dance Technology into Artistic Training and Creative Process" at World Dance Alliance V General Assembly of The Americas held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in April 2003.

Photograph of Kari Schroeder giving a talk entitled "Salsa Culture Redefined: A Sexual, Political and Cultural Exploration" at World Dance Alliance V General Assembly of The Americas held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in April 2003.

Weekly newspaper from Albany, Texas that includes local, county, and state news along with extensive advertising.

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

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

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

The gasification of coal and other carbon-containing fuels provides the opportunity to produce energy more efficiently, and with significantly less environmental impact, than more-conventional combustion-based processes. In addition, the synthesis gas that is the product of the gasification process offers the option of ''polygeneration,'' i.e., the production of alternative products instead of power should it be economically favorable to do so. Because of these advantages, gasification is viewed as one of the key processes in the U.S. Department of Energy's Vision 21 power system. However, issues with both the reliability and the economics of gasifier operation will have to be resolved before gasification will be widely adopted by the power industry. Central to both enhanced reliability and economics is the development of materials with longer service lives in gasifier systems that can provide extended periods of continuous, trouble-free gasifier operation. The focus of the Advanced Refractories for Gasification project at the Albany Research Center is to develop improved refractory materials capable of withstanding the harsh, high-temperature environment created by the gasification reaction, and includes both the refractory lining that protects and insulates the slagging gasifier, as well as the thermocouple assemblies that are utilized to monitor gasifier operating temperatures. Current …

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that convert the available chemical free energy directly into electrical energy, without going through heat exchange process. Of all different types of fuel cells, the Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is one of the most promising power sources for stand-alone utility and electric vehicle applications. Platinum (Pt) Catalyst is used for both fuel and air electrodes in PEMFCs. However, carbon monoxide (CO) contamination of H{sub 2} greatly affects electro catalysts used at the anode of PEMFCs and decreases cell performance. The irreversible poisoning of the anode can occur even in CO concentrations as low as few parts per million (ppm). In this work, we have synthesized several novel elctrocatalysts (Pt/C, Pt/Ru/C, Pt/Mo/C, Pt/Ir and Pt/Ru/Mo) for PEMFCs. These catalysts have been tested for CO tolerance in the H{sub 2}/air fuel cell, using CO concentrations in the H{sub 2} fuel that varies from 10 to 100 ppm. The performance of the electrodes was evaluated by determining the cell potential against current density. The effects of catalyst composition and electrode film preparation method on the performance of PEM fuel cell were also studied. It was found that at 70 C and 3.5 atm pressure at the …

An electron beam diagnostic system for measuring the charge distribution of an ion beam without changing its properties is presently under development for Heavy Ion Fusion (HIF) beam physics studies. Conventional diagnostics require temporary insertion of sensors into the beam, but these capture it, or significantly alter its properties. In this new diagnostic a low energy, low current electron beam is scanned transversely across the ion beam; the measured electron beam deflection is used to calculate the line-integrated charge density of the ion beam, assuming at present a circular charge distribution that is functionally dependent only on radius. The initial application of this diagnostic is being made to the Neutralized Transport Experiment (NTX), which is exploring the physics of space charge dominated beam focusing through neutralizing plasma onto a small spot. The diagnostic system is able to scan an ion beam of up to 3 cm radius. Design and performance of this diagnostic system is presented.

The second quarter of the project was dedicated to convert the conceptual designs for the wireless tool and power generator into mechanical and electrical drawings as well as software code to create the new system. The tasks accomplished during this report period were: (1) Basic mechanical design for the wireless communications system was created and the detailed drawings were started. (2) Basic design for the power generator system was created and the detailed machining drawings were started. The generator design was modified to provide a direct action between the wellbore fluid flow and the piezoelectric stack to generate energy. The new design eliminates the inefficiencies related to picking up outside the tubing wall the pressure fluctuations occurring inside the tubing walls. (3) The new piezoelectric acoustic generator design was created and ordered from the manufacturer. The system will be composed of 40 ceramic wafers electrically connected in parallel and compressed into a single generator assembly. (4) The acoustic two-way communications requirements were also defined and the software and hardware development were started. (5) The electrical hardware development required to transmit information to the surface and to receive commands from the surface was started.

The need for environmental resistance is a critical material barrier to the operation of fossil systems with the improved energy efficiencies and emissions performance described by the goals of the Vision 21 concept of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy. All fossil fuel-derived processes contain reactive species and high-temperature degradation arising from reactions of solids with gases and condensible products often limits performance or materials lifetimes such that efficiency, emission, and/or economic targets or requirements are not realized. Therefore, historically, the development of materials for fossil-fuel combustion and conversion systems has been closely linked to corrosion studies of alloys and ceramics in appropriate environments. This project is somewhat different from such studies in that it focuses on the feasibility of new routes to controlling the critical chemical and mechanical phenomena that collectively form the basis for environmental protection in relevant fossil environments by exploring compositional and microstructural manipulations and cooperative phenomena that have not necessarily been examined in any detail to date. This can hopefully lead to concepts for ''smart'' coatings or materials that have the ability to sense and respond appropriately to a particular set or series of environmental conditions in order to provide high-temperature corrosion …

Many scientific applications generate large spatio-temporal datasets. A common way of exploring these datasets is to identify and track regions of interest. Usually these regions are defined as contiguous sets of points whose attributes satisfy some user defined conditions, e.g. high temperature regions in a combustion simulation. At each time step, the regions of interest may be identified by first searching for all points that satisfy the conditions and then grouping the points into connected regions. To speed up this process, the searching step may use a tree based indexing scheme, such as a kd-tree or an octree. However, these indices are efficient only if the searches are limited to one or a small number of selected attributes. Scientific datasets often contain hundreds of attributes and scientists frequently study these attributes incomplex combinations, e.g. finding regions of high temperature yet low shear rate and pressure. Bitmap indexing is an efficient method for searching on multiple criteria simultaneously. We apply a bitmap compression scheme to reduce the size of the indices. In addition, we show that the compressed bitmaps can be used efficiently to perform the region growing and the region tracking operations. Analyses show that our approach scales well and …

Technology roadmapping is a strategic planning method used by companies to identify and plan the development of technologies necessary for new products. The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Environmental Management has used this same method to refine requirements and identify knowledge and tools needed for completion of defined missions. This paper describes the process of applying roadmapping to clarify mission requirements and identify enhancing technologies for the Long-Term Stewardship (LTS) of polluted sites after site cleanup has been completed. The nature of some contamination problems is such that full cleanup is not achievable with current technologies and some residual hazards remain. LTS maintains engineered contaminant barriers and land use restriction controls, and monitors residual contaminants until they no longer pose a risk to the public or the environment. Roadmapping was used to clarify the breadth of the LTS mission, to identify capability enhancements needed to improve mission effectiveness and efficiency, and to chart out the research and development efforts to provide those enhancements. This paper is a case study of the application of roadmapping for program planning and technical risk management. Differences between the planned and actual application of the roadmapping process are presented along with lessons learned. Both …

The goal of the U.S. Department of Energy cooperative research project is to define, describe, and validate, a process to utilize salt caverns to receive and store the cargoes of LNG ships. The project defines the process as receiving LNG from a ship, pumping the LNG up to cavern injection pressures, warming it to cavern compatible temperatures, injecting the warmed vapor directly into salt caverns for storage, and distribution to the pipeline network. The performance of work under this agreement is based on U.S. Patent 5,511,905, and other U.S. and Foreign pending patent applications. The cost sharing participants in the research are The National Energy Technology Laboratory (U.S. Department of Energy), BP America Production Company, Bluewater Offshore Production Systems (U.S.A.), Inc., and HNG Storage, L.P. Initial results indicate that a salt cavern based receiving terminal could be built at about half the capital cost, less than half the operating costs and would have significantly higher delivery capacity, shorter construction time, and be much more secure than a conventional liquid tank based terminal. There is a significant body of knowledge and practice concerning natural gas storage in salt caverns, and there is a considerable body of knowledge and practice in handling …

''Intelligent Extruder'' described in this report is a software system and associated support services for monitoring and control of compounding extruders to improve material quality, reduce waste and energy use, with minimal addition of new sensors or changes to the factory floor system components. Emphasis is on process improvements to the mixing, melting and de-volatilization of base resins, fillers, pigments, fire retardants and other additives in the :finishing'' stage of high value added engineering polymer materials. While GE Plastics materials were used for experimental studies throughout the program, the concepts and principles are broadly applicable to other manufacturers materials. The project involved a joint collaboration among GE Global Research, GE Industrial Systems and Coperion Werner & Pleiderer, USA, a major manufacturer of compounding equipment. Scope of the program included development of a algorithms for monitoring process material viscosity without rheological sensors or generating waste streams, a novel detection scheme for rapid detection of process upsets and an adaptive feedback control system to compensate for process upsets where at line adjustments are feasible. Software algorithms were implemented and tested on a laboratory scale extruder (50 lb/hr) at GE Global Research and data from a production scale system (2000 lb/hr) at GE …