A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Over 70 million American households receive television service from a cable television operator. In recent years, rates for cable service have increased at a faster pace than the general rate of inflation. GAO agreed to (1) examine the impact of competition on cable rates and service, (2) assess the reliability of information contained in the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) annual cable rate report, (3) examine the causes of recent cable rate increases, (4) assess the impact of ownership affiliations in the cable industry, (5) discuss why cable operators group networks into tiers, and (6) discuss options to address factors that could be contributing to cable rate increases."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The federal fire community's decades old policy of suppressing wildland fires as soon as possible has caused a dangerous increase in vegetation density in our nation's forests. This density increase combined with severe drought over much of the United States has created a significant threat of catastrophic wildfires. In response to this threat, the Forest Service performs activities to reduce the buildup of brush, small trees, and other vegetation on national forest land. With the increased threat of catastrophic wildland fires, there have been concerns about delays in implementing activities to reduce these "forest fuels." Essentially, these concerns focus on the extent to which public appeals and litigation of Forest Service decisions to implement forest fuels reduction activities unnecessarily delay efforts to reduce fuels. The Forest Service does not keep a national database on the number of forest fuels reduction activities that are appealed or litigated. Accordingly, GAO was asked to develop this information for fiscal years 2001 and 2002. Among other things, GAO was asked to determine (1) the number of decisions involving fuels reduction activities and the number of acres affected, (2) the number …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Ineffective oversight and management of the Department of Defense's (DOD) travel card program, which GAO has previously reported on, have led to concerns about DOD's use of first and business class airfares. GAO was asked to (1) identify the magnitude of premium class travel, (2) determine if DOD's key internal control activities operated effectively and provide examples of control breakdowns, and (3) assess DOD's monitoring and key elements of the control environment."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Created in 1984, the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) was charged with developing the federal sentencing guidelines to limit disparities in sentencing among offenders with similar criminal backgrounds found guilty of similar crimes. Judges determine a specific sentence based on an applicable sentencing guideline range, such as 57 to 71 months, provided in the guidelines. Judges may impose sentences that fall anywhere within the range, above it (upward departures), or below it (downward departures). For some offenses, Congress established mandatory minimum sentences. Judges may also sentence below the minimum in certain circumstances. We examined the differences in drug offense departures from sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences among federal courts and the documents the USSC used to record and analyze sentences."

Semiweekly newspaper from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas that includes local, national, and campus news along with advertising.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) continued, in FY03, to be a large user of Omega, using 390 experimental shots. These are roughly broken into 2 groups: those in support of the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) program; and those in support of high energy density sciences (HEDS), which includes materials, equation of state, and physics experiments.

We extend the argument of Gomis and Mehen for violation of unitarity in field theories with space-time noncommutativity to dipole field theories. In dipole field theories with a timelike dipole vector, we present 1-loop amplitudes that violate the optical theorem. A quantum mechanical system with nonlocal potential of finite extent in time also shows violation of unitarity.

The ''Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 23'' is a statistical compendium prepared and published by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) under contract with the Office of Planning, Budget Formulation, and Analysis, under the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) program in the Department of Energy (DOE). Designed for use as a desk-top reference, the data book represents an assembly and display of statistics and information that characterize transportation activity, and presents data on other factors that influence transportation energy use. The purpose of this document is to present relevant statistical data in the form of tables and graphs. The latest editions of the Data Book are available to a larger audience via the Internet (www-cta.ornl.gov/data). This edition of the Data Book has 12 chapters which focus on various aspects of the transportation industry. Chapter 1 focuses on petroleum; Chapter 2--energy; Chapter 3--highway vehicles; Chapter 4--light vehicles; Chapter 5--heavy vehicles; Chapter 6--alternative fuel vehicles; Chapter 7--fleet vehicles; Chapter 8--household vehicles; and Chapter 9--nonhighway modes; Chapter 10--transportation and the economy; Chapter 11--greenhouse gas emissions; and Chapter 12--criteria pollutant emissions. The sources used represent the latest available data. There are also three appendices which include detailed source information for some tables, measures of …

Daily newspaper from Baytown, 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.

Improved ground-imaging capabilities have enormous potential to increase energy, environmental, and economic benefits by improving exploration accuracy and reducing energy consumption during the mining cycle. Seismic tomography has been used successfully to monitor and evaluate geologic conditions ahead of a mining face. A primary limitation to existing seismic tomography, however, is the placement of sensors. The goal of this project is to develop an array of 24 seismic sensors capable of being mounted in either a vertical or horizontal borehole. Development of this technology reduces energy usage in excavation, transportation, ventilation, and processing phases of the mining operation because less waste is mined and the mining cycle suffers fewer interruptions. This new technology benefits all types of mines, including metal/nonmetal, coal, and quarrying. The primary research tasks focused on sensor placement method, sensor housing and clamping design, and cabling and connector selection. An initial design is described in the report. Following assembly, a prototype was tested in the laboratory as well as at a surface stone quarry. Data analysis and tool performance were used for subsequent design modifications. A final design is described, of which several components are available for patent application. Industry partners have shown clear support for this …

Article summarizing major findings of the MetaArchive and AmericanSouth projects, two of the seven projects of the 2001 Mellon Metadata Harvesting Initiative.

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

Funeral program for Jewell Arthelia (Brooks) Bedford, born March 25, 1922 and died October 17, 2003. The funeral was held Friday, October 24, 2003 at E. T. Dixon United Methodist Church, officiated by Robert Glenn. Funeral arrangements were made through Sutton-Sutton Mortuary, Inc. and she was buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery near San Antonio, Texas.

Objective: {sm_bullet} Provide guidance to industry in the reduction of aerodynamic drag of heavy truck vehicles. {sm_bullet} Establish a database of experimental, computational, and conceptual design information, and demonstrate potential of new drag-reduction devices.

The authors present density functional and quantum Monte Carlo calculations of the stability and optical properties of semiconductor nanomaterials with reconstructed surfaces. they predict the relative stability of silicon nanostructures with reconstructed and unreconstructed surfaces, and show that surface step geometries unique to highly curved surfaces dramatically reduce the optical gaps and decrease excitonic lifetimes. These predictions provide an explanation of both the variations in the photoluminescence spectra of colloidally synthesized nanoparticles and observed deep gap levels in porous silicon.

We continue to explore Quiescent Double Barrier (QDB) operation on DIII-D to address issues of critical importance to internal transport barrier (ITB) plasmas. QDB plasmas exhibit both a core transport barrier and a quiescent, H-mode edge barrier. Both experiments and modeling of these plasmas are leading to an increased understanding of this regime and it's potential advantages for advanced-tokamak (AT) burning-plasma operation. These near steady plasma conditions have been maintained on DIII-D for up to 4s, times greater than 35{tau}{sub E}, and exhibit high performance with {beta}{sub N} > 2.5 and neutron production rates S{sub n} {approx} 1 x 10{sup 16}s{sup -1}. Recent experiments have been directed at exploring both the current profile modification effects of electron cyclotron current drive (ECCD) and electron cyclotron (ECH) heating-induced changes in temperature, density and impurity profiles. We use model-based analysis to determine the effects of both heating and current drive on the q-profile in these QDB plasmas. Experiments based on predictive modeling achieved a significant modification to the q-profile evolution [1] resulting from the non-inductive current drive effects due to direct ECCD and changes in the bootstrap and neutral beam current drive components. We observe that the injection of EC power inside the …

Imagine having 2,304 Xeon processors running day and night solving complex problems. With a theoretical peak of 11.2 teraflops, that is just what the MCR cluster at Lawrence Livermore National Labs (LLNL) is doing. Over the past several years, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has deployed a series of increasingly large and powerful Intel-based Linux clusters. The most significant of these is a cluster known as the MCR (Multiprogrammactic Capability Resource). With 1,152 Intel Xeon (2.4 GHz) dual-processor nodes from Linux NetworX and a high performance interconnect from Quadrics, LTD., the MCR currently ranks third on the 21st Top 500 Supercomputer Sites List and is the fastest Linux cluster in the world. This feat was accomplished with a total system cost (hardware including maintenance, in-reconnect, global file system storage) of under $14 million. Although production clusters like the MCR are still custom built supercomputers that require as much artistry as skill, the experiences of LLNL have helped clear an important path for other clusters to follow.

The cloudy boundary layer under stormy conditions during the summertime Arctic has been studied using observation from the SHEBA experiment and large-eddy simulations (LES). On 29 July 1998, a stable Arctic cloudy boundary layer event was observed after passage of a synoptic low. The local dynamic and thermodynamic structure of the boundary layer was determined from aircraft measurement including analysis of turbulence, cloud microphysics and radiative properties. After the upper cloud layer advected over the existing cloud layer, the turbulent kinetic energy budget indicated that the cloud layer below 200 m was maintained predominantly by shear production. Observations of longwave radiation showed that cloud top cooling at the lower cloud top has been suppressed by radiative effects of the upper cloud layer. Our LES results demonstrate the importance of the combination of shear mixing near the surface and radiative cooling at the cloud top in the storm-driven cloudy boundary layer. Once the low-level cloud reaches a certain height, depending on the amount of cloud-top cooling, the two sources of TKE production begin to separate in space under continuous stormy conditions, suggesting one possible mechanism for the cloud layering. The sensitivity tests suggest that the storm-driven cloudy boundary layer is flexibly …

This Corrective Action Decision Document identifies and rationalizes the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Site Office's selection of a recommended corrective action alternative (CAA) appropriate to facilitate the closure of Corrective Action (CAU) 5: Landfills, Nevada Test Site (NTS), Nevada, under the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order. Located in Areas 5, 6, 12, 20, and 23 of the NTS, CAU 5 is comprised of eight corrective action sites (CASs). The corrective action investigation (CAI) of CAU 5 was conducted from October 7, 2002 through January 30, 2003, with geophysical surveys completed from March 6 through May 8, 2002, and topographic surveys conducted from March 11 through April 29, 2003. Contaminants of concern (COCs) were identified only at CAS 12-15-01. Those COCs included total petroleum hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds. Based on the evaluation of analytical data from the CAI, review of future and current operations in Areas 5, 6, 12, 20, and 23 of the Nevada Test Site, and the detailed and comparative analysis of the potential CAAs, the following single alternative was developed for consideration. Close in Place with Administrative Controls is the recommended alternative for all of the CASs in CAU 5. This …

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

Tri-weekly student newspaper from Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

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