Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Over the years, EPA has had persistent problems in managing its grants. Grants constituted one-half of the agency's annual budget, or about $4.2 billion in fiscal year 2002. EPA uses grants to implement its programs to protect human health and the environment and awards them to over 3,300 recipients, including state and local governments, tribes, universities, and nonprofit organizations. EPA's ability to efficiently and effectively accomplish its mission largely depends on how well it manages its grant resources and builds in accountability. Since 1996, GAO and EPA's Office of Inspector General have repeatedly reported on EPA's problems in managing its grants. Because these problems have persisted, in January 2003, GAO cited grants management as a major management challenge for EPA. GAO is currently reviewing EPA's efforts to improve grants management at the request of the Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and Representative Anne Northup. For this testimony GAO is reporting on results of its previously issued reports and on the grants problems EPA faces, past actions to address these problems, and recently issued EPA policies and a 5-year grants management plan to address its …

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

Bill introduced by the Texas House of Representatives relating to reform of certain procedures and remedies in civil actions.

Bill introduced by the Texas Senate relating to the handling, settling, and use of certain claims in the insurance business; providing penalties.

Bill introduced by the Texas Senate relating to certain insurance rates, forms, and practices; providing penalties

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Authority of a county commissioners court partially to close or, alternatively, limit truck traffic on a county road (RQ-0018-GA)

Large simulation codes can take on the order of hours to compile from scratch. In Kull, which uses generic programming techniques, a significant portion of the time is spent generating and compiling template instantiations. I would like to investigate methods that would decrease the overall compilation time for large codes. These would be methods which could then be applied, hopefully, as standard practice to any large code. Success is measured by the overall decrease in wall clock time a developer spends waiting for an executable. Analyzing the make system of a slow to build project can benefit all developers on the project. Taking the time to analyze the number of processors used over the life of the build and restructuring the system to maximize the parallelization can significantly reduce build times. Distributing the build across multiple machines with the same configuration can increase the number of available processors for building and can help evenly balance the load. Becoming familiar with compiler options can have its benefits as well. The time improvements of the sum can be significant. Initial compilation time for Kull on OSF1 was {approx} 3 hours. Final time on OSF1 after completion is 16 minutes. Initial compilation time …

This report provides a selection of materials for locating information on foreign countries and international organizations. In the general information section, it presents sources giving an overview of politics, economics, and history.

The well-known spatial variation of packing fraction near the outer boundary of a pebble-bed reactor core is cited. The ramifications of this variation are explored with the MCNP computer code. It is found that the variation has negligible effects on the global reactor physics parameters extracted from the MCNP calculations for use in analysis by diffusion-theory codes, but for local reaction rates the effects of the variation are naturally important. Included is some preliminary work in using first-order perturbation theory for estimating the effect of the spatial variation of packing fraction on the core eigenvalue and the fission density distribution.

We were funded by ASR to use data collected during ISDAC and TWP-ICE to evaluate models with a variety of temporal and spatial scales, to evaluate ground-based remote sensing retrievals and to develop cloud parameterizations with the end goal of improving the modeling of cloud processes and properties and their impact on atmospheric radiation. In particular, we proposed to: 1) Calculate distributions of microphysical properties observed in arctic stratus during ISDAC for initializing and evaluating LES and GCMs, and for developing parameterizations of effective particle sizes, mean fall velocities, and mean single-scattering properties for such models; 2) Improve representations of particle sizes, fall velocities and scattering properties for tropical and arctic cirrus using TWP-ICE, ISDAC and M-PACE data, and to determine the contributions that small ice crystals, with maximum dimensions D less than 50 μm, make to mass and radiative properties; 3) Study fundamental interactions between clouds and radiation by improving representations of small quasi-spherical particles and their scattering properties. We were additionally funded 1-year by ASR to use RACORO data to develop an integrated product of cloud microphysical properties. We accomplished all of our goals.

Weekly newspaper from Wylie, 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.

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

Meningiomas are common tumors of the central nervous system, however, the mechanisms under lying their pathogenesis are largely undefined. Two members of the Protein 4.1 super family, the neuro fibromatosis 2 (NF2) gene product (merlin/schwannomin) and Protein 4.1B have been implicated as meningioma tumor suppressors. In this report, we demonstrate that another Protein 4.1 family member, Protein 4.1R, also functions as a meningioma tumor suppressor. Based on the assignment of the Protein 4.1R gene to chromosome 1p32-36, a common region of deletion observed in meningiomas, we analyzed Protein 4.1R expression in meningioma cell lines and surgical tumor specimens. We observed loss of Protein 4.1R protein expression in two meningioma cell lines (IOMM-Lee, CH157-MN) by Western blotting as well as in 6 of 15 sporadic meningioma as by immuno histo chemistry (IHC). Analysis of a subset of these sporadic meningiomas by fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) with a Protein 4.1R specific probe demonstrated 100 percent concordance with the IHC results. In support of a meningioma tumor suppressor function, over expression of Protein 4.1R resulted in suppression of IOMM-Lee and CH157MN cell proliferation. Similar to the Protein 4.1B and merlin meningioma tumor suppressors, Protein 4.1R localization in the membrane fraction increased significantly …

A study was installed in the Upper Coastal Plain of South Carolina, USA, that sought to examine the impact of incorporating downed slash materials into subsoil layers on soil chemical and physical properties as compared with the effect of slash materials left on the soil surface. Baseline levels of slash were estimated by establishing transects within harvested stands and estimating the quantity of down wood and stumps. An equivalent quantity of biomass and two times the baseline levels were incorporated into subsurface soil layers by a CMI RS 500B reclaimer/stabilizer. Two sites were examined which differed in soil textural composition: sandy vs. clay. Site differences had no impact on machine productivity and machine costs were estimated at $US 521 ha-1 and $US 633 ha-1 on the ''sandy'' and ''clay'' sites, respectively. The feasibility of the CM1 for biomass incorporation is low due to high unit area costs but increased machine productivity would reduce costs and improve its potential. Biomass incorporation improved carbon and nutrient content of each site, especially on the sandy site. Slash levels had an impact on nutrient content but the differences were not statistically significant. For the sandy site, improvements in soil physical properties were evident in …

To test experimentally, the prior theoretical deduction that active-site residue Lys166 of ribulose-bisphosphate carboxylase participates in the carboxylation step of overall catalysis, site-directed mutants and chemically rescued site-directed mutants were characterized by kinetics and product analysis. Although position-166 mutants are able to catalyze normal enolization of ribulose bisphosphate, the enediol intermediate does not undergo carboxylation but rather eliminates phosphate. Furthermore, the chemically rescued mutant (aminoethylation of the severely impaired Lys66Cys mutant) generates a highly active mimic, which displays an enhanced carboxylation/oxygenation partition ratio. These two distinct lines of experimentation document a crucial role of Lys166 in carboxylation and in discrimination between CO{sub 2} and O{sub 2}. To ascertain whether Lys166 functions as an acid or base in facilitation of enolization, the chemically rescued mutant bearing {sup 15}N was titrated by NM R. From pH 6.5-9.5, the amino group of Lys166 remains unprotonated, indicating that it promotes enolization by hydrogen bonding to the ketone group of the substrate.

Our component of this project focuses on the reaction of contaminant-containing fluids with carbonate mineral surfaces in order to better understand the dissolution-growth and related solid-solution processes that ultimately affect contaminant mobility in settings containing carbonates or carbonate grain coatings. Our collaborators (Stanford, PNNL) have focused on other aspects of carbonate and carbonate mineral surfaces as part of the overall project. Because some of the sediments through which contaminants leaking from the Hanford waste have carbonate grain coatings; better understanding the chemistry of carbonate-contaminant interaction constitutes fundamental chemistry needed in order to construct better models of contaminant transport through carbonate-containing sediments.

The Fermilab computing farms grew substantially in 2001 and 2002. This reflected primarily the CDF and D0 computing demand increase as run 2 began and the two detectors and the accelerator performed steadily better, leading to more data and a greater demand for reconstruction computing. In addition, the ''fixed-target'' farms evolved away from the old model of direct tape input and output to a system that uses Enstore and dcache (network-based) as the I/O mechanism. This was part of a more general trend away from a large server used for all of the I/O and many common services and many workers to a model with many smaller systems serving as I/O systems with distributed disk storage. Other major technological achievements include the use of dfarm, a disk caching mechanism, throughout the farms, the upgrades of FBSNG, NGOP for monitoring the farms systems, and generally a more sophisticated management of the machines that constitute these farms. The growth in systems was quite substantial, from a total of 314 dual PCs in early 2001 to 649 duals in early 2003. This does not include the farms that were purchased for CDF and D0 analysis--the CAF and the CAB, nor does it include …

Our Phase II research evaluated health risks associated with inhaled plutonium. Our research objectives were to: (1) extend our stochastic model for deposition of plutonium in the respiratory tract to include additional key variability and uncertainty; (2) generate and analyze risk distributions for deterministic effects in the lung from inhaled plutonium that reflect risk model uncertainty; (3) acquire an improved understanding of key physiological effects of inhaled plutonium, based on evaluations of clinical data (e.g., hematological, respiratory function, chromosomal aberrations in lymphocytes) for Mayak workers in Russia who inhaled plutonium-239; (4) develop biological dosimetry for plutonium-239 that was inhaled by some Mayak workers (with unknown intake) based on clinical data for other workers with known plutonium-239 intake; (5) critically evaluate the validity of the linear no-threshold (LNT) risk model as it relates to cancer risks from inhaled plutonium-239 (base d on Mayak worker data); and (6) evaluate respirator filter penetration frequencies for airborne plutonium aerosols using surrogate high-density metals.

Hadron colliders can be an abundant source of heavy flavor, but pose a challenge to isolate the physics signals from the high backgrounds. The upgraded CDFII detector, with its precise tracking capabilities and powerful trigger system, is well equipped for this task. The detector is described with an emphasis on actual performance and on techniques to maximize the heavy flavor yield. Some first heavy flavor results are summarized.

Structural protein 4.1, which has crucial interactions within the spectin-actin lattice of the human red cell membrane skeleton, also is widely distributed at diverse intracellular sites in nucleated cells. We previously showed that 4.1 is essential for assembly of functional nuclei in vitro and that the capacity of 4.1 to bind actin is required. Here we report that 4.1 and actin colocalize in mammalian cell nuclei using fluorescence microscopy and, by higher resolution cell whole mount electron microscopy, are associated on nuclear filaments. We also devised a cell-free assay using Xenopus egg extract containing fluorescent actin to follow actin during nuclear assembly. By directly imaging actin under non-perturbing conditions, the total nuclear actin population is retained and is visualized in situ relative to intact chromatin. We detected actin initially when chromatin and nuclear pores began assembling. As the nuclear lamina assembled, but preceding DNA synthesis, a discrete actin network formed throughout the nucleus. Protein 4.1 epitopes also were detected when actin began to accumulate in nuclei, producing a diffuse coincident pattern. As nuclei matured, actin was detected both coincident with and also independent of 4.1 epitopes. To test whether acquisition of nuclear actin is required for nuclear assembly, the actin …

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Daily newspaper from Baytown, 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.