Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Established in 1949 by the United Nations, UNRWA provides assistance to Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. UNRWA assistance is primarily education, health, and relief and social services. More than 4 million Palestinian refugees are eligible to receive these services in UNRWA's five areas of operation--Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and Gaza. In section 301(c) of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act (PL 87-195) as amended, Congress has directed that "No contributions by the United States shall be made to (UNRWA) except on the condition that (UNRWA) take all possible measures to assure that no part of the United States contribution shall be used to furnish assistance to any refugee who is receiving military training as a member of the so-called Palestine Liberation Army or any other guerrilla type organization or who has engaged in any act of terrorism." To fulfill a legislative mandate, we are reporting on State Department actions and UNRWA's implementation of procedures to address section 301(c)."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Microenterprises--small businesses owned and operated by poor entrepreneurs--have potential to help the world's poorer populations. For this reason, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) included microenterprise development in its programming. In 2001, the agency reported that its was conducting microenterprise projects in 52 countries and had obligated almost $2 billion since 1988 to support its program. The program supports micro loans, among other services, to assist poor entrepreneurs. Since 1996, USAID has annually reported the program's results. To help Congress oversee USAID's management of its microenterprise development program, GAO was asked to (1) determine the extent to which the agency's microfinance activities are meeting the program's key objectives, (2) assess the reliability of USAID's reporting on its overall microenterprise activities, and (3) examine the agency's role in identifying and disseminating microenterprise best practices."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "A well-defined enterprise architecture (EA) is a blueprint for institutional modernization and evolution that consists of models describing how an entity operates today and how it intends to operate in the future, along with a plan for how it intends to transition to this future state. Such architectures are essential tools whose effective development and use are recognized hallmarks of successful organizations. Because of the importance of these architectures, GAO was asked to determine (1) what progress federal agencies have made in effectively developing, implementing, and maintaining their EAs and (2) the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) actions to advance the state of EA development and use across the federal government."

The first three years of RHIC physics, with Au/Au collisions induced at 65, 130 and 200 GeV per nucleon pair, produced dramatic results, particularly with respect to collective observables such as transverse flow and anisotropies in transverse momentum spectra. It has become clear that the data show very strong rescattering at very early times of the reaction, strong enough in fact to be described by the hydrodynamic limit. Therefore, with today's experiments, we are able to investigate the equation of state of hot quark gluon matter, discuss its thermodynamic properties and relate them to experimental observables. At this workshop we came together to discuss our latest efforts both in the theoretical description of heavy ion collisions as well as most recent experimental results that ultimately allow us to extract information on the properties of RHIC matter. About 50 participants registered for the workshop, but many more dropped in from the offices at BNL. The workshop lasted for three days, of which each day was assigned a special topic on which the talks focused. On the first day we dealt with the more general question what the strong collective phenomena observed in RHIC collisions tell us about the properties and the …

Complex networks appear in biology on many different levels: (1) All biochemical reactions taking place in a single cell constitute its metabolic network, where nodes are individual metabolites, and edges are metabolic reactions converting them to each other. (2) Virtually every one of these reactions is catalyzed by an enzyme and the specificity of this catalytic function is ensured by the key and lock principle of its physical interaction with the substrate. Often the functional enzyme is formed by several mutually interacting proteins. Thus the structure of the metabolic network is shaped by the network of physical interactions of cell's proteins with their substrates and each other. (3) The abundance and the level of activity of each of the proteins in the physical interaction network in turn is controlled by the regulatory network of the cell. Such regulatory network includes all of the multiple mechanisms in which proteins in the cell control each other including transcriptional and translational regulation, regulation of mRNA editing and its transport out of the nucleus, specific targeting of individual proteins for degradation, modification of their activity e.g. by phosphorylation/dephosphorylation or allosteric regulation, etc. To get some idea about the complexity and interconnectedness of protein-protein regulations …

Strong evidence for the existence and importance of quadrupole satellite transitions is found in spin-orbit-resolved Xe 4d nondipole photoionization in a combined experimental/theoretical study.

Aluminide coatings are of interest for many high temperature applications because of the possibility of improving the oxidation of structural alloys by forming a protective external alumina scale. In order to develop a comprehensive lifetime evaluation approach for aluminide coatings used in fossil energy systems, some of the important issues have been addressed in this report for aluminide coatings on Fe-based alloys (Task I) and on Ni-based alloys (Task II). In Task I, the oxidation behavior of iron aluminide coatings synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) was studied in air + 10vol.% H{sub 2}O in the temperature range of 700-800 C and the interdiffusion behavior between the coating and substrate was investigated in air at 500-800 C. Commercial ferritic (Fe-9Cr-1Mo) and type 304L (Fe-18Cr-9Ni, nominally) austenitic stainless steels were used as the substrates. For the oxidation study, the as-deposited coating consisted of a thin (<5 {micro}m), Al-rich outer layer above a thicker (30-50 {micro}m), lower Al inner layer. The specimens were cycled to 1000 1-h cycles at 700 C and 500 1-h cycles at 800 C, respectively. The CVD coating specimens showed excellent performance in the water vapor environment at both temperatures, while the uncoated alloys were severely attacked. These …

Interview with W. W. Hughes, a Texas National Guard WWII veteran from Grand Prarie, Texas. Hughes discusses growing up in the Great Depression, joining the National Guard and equestrian service in the 112th Cavalry at Fort Clark, the start of war and deployment to New Caledonia and Australia, preparations for combat, amphibious landings at Arawe Island off New Britain, scout patrols and combat, operations in New Guinea at the Driniumor River, Japanese POWs, actions in the Philippines at Leyte and Luzon, returning to the US as an instructor, and reflections on his service.

Since 1996, excess CO{sub 2} from the Sleipner natural gas field has been sequestered and injected underground into a porous saline aquifer 1000 m below the seafloor. In 2002, we carried out a high precision micro-gravity survey on the seafloor in order to monitor the injected CO{sub 2}. A repeatability of 5 {micro}Gal in the station averages was observed. This is considerably better than pre-survey expectations. These data will serve as the baseline for time-lapse gravity monitoring of the Sleipner CO{sub 2} injection site. A three-week trip to Statoil Research Centre in Trondheim, Norway, was made in the summer of 2003. This visit consisted of gathering data and collaborating with scientists working on the Sleipner project. The trip ended with a presentation of the seafloor gravity results to date at a SACS2 (Saline Aquifer CO{sub 2} Storage 2) meeting. This meeting provided the perfect opportunity to meet and gather information from the world's experts on the Sleipner project.

In situ vacuum extraction, air or steam sparging, and vitrification are widely used to remediate soil contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs). All of these processes produce a VOC-laden air stream from which the VOC must be removed before the air can be discharged or recycled to the generating process. Treatment of these off-gases is often a major portion of the cost of the remediation project. Currently, carbon adsorption and catalytic incineration are the most common methods of treating these gas streams. Membrane Technology and Research, Inc. (MTR) proposed an alternative treatment technology based on selective membranes that separate the organic components from the gas stream, producing a VOC-free air stream. This technology can be applied to off-gases produced by various remediation activities and the systems can be skid-mounted and automated for easy transportation and unattended operation. The target performance for the membrane systems is to produce clean air (less than 10 ppmv VOC) for discharge or recycle, dischargeable water (less than 1 ppmw VOC), and a concentrated liquid VOC phase. This report contains the results obtained during Phase II of a two-phase project. In Phase I, laboratory experiments were carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach. …

The development of practical fusion energy plants based on inertial confinement with ultraviolet laser beams requires durable, stable final optics that will withstand the harsh fusion environment. Aluminum-coated reflective surfaces are fragile, and require hard overcoatings resistant to contamination, with low optical losses at 248.4 nanometers for use with high-power KrF excimer lasers. This program addresses the definition of requirements for IFE optics protective coatings, the conceptual design of the required deposition equipment according to accepted contamination control principles, and the deposition and evaluation of diamondlike carbon (DLC) test coatings. DLC coatings deposited by Plasma Immersion Ion Processing were adherent and abrasion-resistant, but their UV optical losses must be further reduced to allow their use as protective coatings for IFE final optics. Deposition equipment for coating high-performance IFE final optics must be designed, constructed, and operated with contamination control as a high priority.

Insulation is one of the most important elements of magnet design, which determines the electrical, mechanical, and thermal performance as well as lifetime of the magnet. The exposure to high radiation loads especially for the proposed LHC second-generation interaction region Nb{sub 3}Sn quadrupoles further limits the choices of the insulation materials. Traditionally Nb{sub 3}Sn magnets were impregnated with epoxy to improve both the mechanical and electrical properties. However, the acceptable radiation limit for epoxy is low which reduces the lifetime of the magnet. The paper presents the results of the feasibility study to replace epoxy with high radiation-resistant material during vacuum impregnation. The mechanical, thermal and electrical properties of samples impregnated with Matrimid were measured and compared with epoxy-impregnated samples.

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

Funeral program for Herman H. Stokes, Sr., born January 16, 1926 and died November 11, 2003. The funeral was held November 17, 2003 at Bethel A. M. E. Church, officiated by Dr. Sarah F. Davis. Funeral arrangements were made through the Lewis Funeral Home and he was buried in Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery near San Antonio, Texas.

This report discusses air pollutants (petroleum, natural gas, and coal), which account for about two-thirds of U.S. electricity generation. These gases include several pollutants that directly pose risks to human health and welfare. The report also discusses the utilities that are subject to an array of environmental regulations.

Bio-molecular networks lack the top-down design. Instead, selective forces of biological evolution shape them from raw material provided by random events such as gene duplications and single gene mutations. As a result individual connections in these networks are characterized by a large degree of randomness. One may wonder which connectivity patterns are indeed random, while which arose due to the network growth, evolution, and/or its fundamental design principles and limitations? Here we introduce a general method allowing one to construct a random null-model version of a given network while preserving the desired set of its low-level topological features, such as, e.g., the number of neighbors of individual nodes, the average level of modularity, preferential connections between particular groups of nodes, etc. Such a null-model network can then be used to detect and quantify the non-random topological patterns present in large networks. In particular, we measured correlations between degrees of interacting nodes in protein interaction and regulatory networks in yeast. It was found that in both these networks, links between highly connected proteins are systematically suppressed. This effect decreases the likelihood of cross-talk between different functional modules of the cell, and increases the overall robustness of a network by localizing effects …

Arithmetic coding achieves a superior coding rate when encoding a binary source, but its lack of speed makes it an inferior choice when true high-performance encoding is needed. We present our work on a practical implementation of fast entropy coders for binary messages utilizing only bit shifts and table lookups. To limit code table size we limit our code lengths with a type of variable-to-variable (VV) length code created from source string merging. We refer to these codes as ''merged codes''. With merged codes it is possible to achieve a desired level of speed by adjusting the number of bits read from the source at each step. The most efficient merged codes yield a coder with a worst-case inefficiency of 0.4%, relative to the Shannon entropy. Using a hybrid Golomb-VV Bin Coder we are able to achieve a compression ratio that is competitive with other state-of-the-art coders, at a superior throughput.

This report considers the AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean and Central America. The report measures the support the region has received from countries outside of it along with which agencies within the U.S. have been leading the charge. Moreover, the report examines the additional consequences an epidemic of this size could have on the region.

Concert presented at the UNT College of Music Kenton Hall.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Larry Caid. Caid joined the Army in September of 1944. He served as a light machine gun specialist with the 33rd Infantry Division. He arrived in the Philippines in February of 1945, participating in the Battle of Luzon and the liberation of the islands. He served on occupation duty in Honshu, Japan after the war ended. He was discharged in 1946, though continued his service in the Reserves, retiring as a colonel in the Field Artillery in 1974.

The work detailed within this report is a continuation of earlier work carried out under contract number 1DX-SY382V. The earlier work comprises a literature review of the sources and types of defects found principally in Fe-based ODS alloys as well as experimental work designed to identify defects in the prototype ODS-Fe{sub 3}Al alloy, deduce their origins and to recommend methods of defect reduction. The present work is an extension of the experimental work already reported and concentrates on means of reduction of defects already identified rather than the search for new defect types. This report also includes work regarding the manipulation of grain structures via deformation processing and further results gathered during powder separation trials involving the separation of different metallic powders in terms of their differing densities. The scope and objectives of the present work were laid out in the technical proposal ''Reduction in Defect Content in ODS Alloys-IV''. All the work proposed in the ''Statement of Work'' section of the technical proposal has been carried out except for some of that dependent on the acquisition of materials from other sources. However, wherever omissions from the ''Plan of Action'' detailed in the ''Statement of Work'' have occurred due to …

Poster advertising a concert by UNT Jazz Repertory Ensemble on November 17, 2003, at Kenton Hall. The UNT Jazz Repertory Ensemble is pictured in the Music Library with their favorite Miles Davis library materials.

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

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Larry Caid. Caid joined the Army in September of 1944. He served as a light machine gun specialist with the 33rd Infantry Division. He arrived in the Philippines in February of 1945, participating in the Battle of Luzon and the liberation of the islands. He served on occupation duty in Honshu, Japan after the war ended. He was discharged in 1946, though continued his service in the Reserves, retiring as a colonel in the Field Artillery in 1974.