Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "We have performed the procedures contained in the enclosure to this report, which we agreed to perform and with which the Inspector General (IG) concurred, solely to assist it in ascertaining whether the net excise tax revenue distributed to the Airport and Airway Trust Fund (AATF) for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2003, is supported by the underlying records. As agreed, we evaluated fiscal year 2003 activity affecting distributions to the AATF."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Inspector General (IG) of the Department of Transportation requested that GAO perform procedures to assist the IG's office in ascertaining whether the net excise tax revenue distributed to the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2003, is supported by the underlying records. GAO evaluated fiscal year 2003 activity affecting distributions to the HTF."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Commercial aviation has been a long-standing target for terrorists. Since the tragic attacts of September 11, 2001, substantial changes have been made to enhance security--including the creation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the federalization of the passenger screener workforce. However, despite these changes, vulnerabilities in aviation security continue to exist. Accordingly, GAO was asked to describe TSA's efforts to (1) measure the effectiveness of its aviation security initiatives, (2) strengthen its passenger screening program, and (3) address additional challenges in further enhancing aviation security."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 1993, Congress authorized the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program as an alternative to the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). While the Direct Loan Program was originally mandated to replace FFELP, Congress revised the law allowing both loan programs to continue. Since that time, competition between the programs has been credited with improving borrower benefits and service for schools. The Department of Education's (Education) Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) and its contractors administer the Direct Loan Program, and one of its goals is to improve customer service. In light of the upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA), which authorizes the loan programs, this report examines the extent to which schools participate in the Direct Loan Program, factors that influenced schools' decision to begin--and for some schools end--participation, and steps that FSA has taken to increase the userfriendliness of the program."

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

The slow-roll inflation is a beautiful paradigm, yet the inflaton potential can hardly be sufficiently flat when unknown gravitational effects are taken into account. However, the hybrid inflation models constructed in D = 4 N = 1 supergravity can be consistent with N = 2 supersymmetry, and can be naturally embedded into string theory. This article discusses the gravitational effects carefully in the string model, using D = 4 supergravity description. We adopt the D3--D7 system of Type IIB string theory compactified on K3 x T^2/Z_2 orientifold for definiteness. It turns out that the slow-roll parameter can be sufficiently small despite the non-minimal Kahler potential of the model. The conditions for this to happen are clarified in terms of string vacua. We also find that the geometry obtained by blowing up singularity, which is necessary for the positive vacuum energy, is stabilized by introducing certain 3-form fluxes.

Newspaper clipping discussing the 40th anniversary of the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy and the aftermath it had on the city of Dallas.

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

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

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

Straight-field-line coordinates are constructed for nearly integrable magnetic fields. The coordinates are based on the robust, noble-irrational rotational-transform surfaces, whose existence is determined by an application of Greene's residue criterion. A simple method to locate these surfaces is described. Sequences of surfaces with rotational-transform converging to low order rationals maximize the region of straight-field-line coordinates.

OAK B263 Glomalin is an operationally defined soil protein, produced by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), with importance in soil carbon sequestration through its relationship with soil aggregation. The goal of the project was to further explore the natural history of glomalin and to address several questions regarding basic behavior of this compound in soil (production, incorporation, decomposition). We have obtained a significant amount of novel information on the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal soil protein, concerning factors controlling its production to mechanisms of incorporation and decomposition. These findings have resulted in 10 publications in peer-reviewed journals, with several more submitted or in preparation, and 16 contributed presentations at meetings. I have sought collaborative opportunities whenever they fit within the research proposed to enhance our productivity. Additionally, although not part of the original proposed work, we have made a significant effort to elucidate the molecular biology of glomalin (in response to Program Officer suggestions). In addition to peer-reviewed publications there have also been a number of invited presentations, including a keynote address delivered by the PI at the International Conference on Mycorrhizae (ICOM4) in Montreal, summer 2003. Two Master's students have been trained (and graduated), and a postdoctoral associate has been mentored, as …

Recent H-mode experiments on Alcator C-Mod [I.H. Hutchinson, et al., Phys. Plasmas 1 (1994) 1511] which exhibit an internal transport barrier (ITB), have been examined with flux tube geometry gyrokinetic simulations, using the massively parallel code GS2 [M. Kotschenreuther, G. Rewoldt, and W.M. Tang, Comput. Phys. Commun. 88 (1995) 128]. The simulations support the picture of ion/electron temperature gradient (ITG/ETG) microturbulence driving high xi/ xe and that suppressed ITG causes reduced particle transport and improved ci on C-Mod. Nonlinear calculations for C-Mod confirm initial linear simulations, which predicted ITG stability in the barrier region just before ITB formation, without invoking E x B shear suppression of turbulence. Nonlinear fluxes are compared to experiment, which both show low heat transport in the ITB and higher transport within and outside of the barrier region.

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

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

Funeral program for Mr. Edgar J. Russell, Jr., born February 17, 1942 and died November 14, 2003. The funeral was held Thursday, November 20, 2003 at Rector Memorial United Methodist Church, officiated by Rev. Danette Howell. Funeral arrangements were made through Lewis Funeral Home and he was buried in Meadowlawn Memorial Park in San Antonio, Texas.

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

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

Typically, the number of genetic analyses performed on a sample of DNA has been limited by the amount of starting material. For example, the small quantity of DNA obtained from the cells within a fingerprint meant that only a five to ten reactions could be performed off a single sample. We demonstrate a process wherein total genomic DNA is amplified before forensic typing analysis. The process requires as few as 8 cells and produces sufficient material for up to 20,000 subsequent PCR reactions. The technique is particularly useful to enhance current methods of latent print analysis and has been shown to be compatible with common forensic print visualization and removal techniques including dye staining and powders.

We present wavelength measurements of K-shell resonance lines of O V and O VI, using the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory EBIT-I electron beam ion trap. The wavelength accuracy of better than 140 ppm is sufficient to determine gas outflow velocities of warm absorbers associated with AGNs to within 40 km/s and better. Our measurements confirm that the outflow velocities associated with NGC 5548 and derived from O V and O VI lines are similar to those derived from the O VII lines. These kinematic measurements make for further evidence that the X-ray and UV absorbers in these systems are truly two manifestations of the same physical outflow.

We report the deflagration behavior of several HMX-based explosives at pressure from 10-600 MPa and temperatures from 20-180 C. We have made laminar burn rate measurements with the LLNL High Pressure Strand Burner, in which burn wires are used to record the time-of-arrival of the burn front in the cylindrical sample as a function of pressure. The explosive samples are 6.4 mm in diameter and 63 mm long, with ten burn wires embedded at different positions in the sample. Burning on the cylindrical surface is inhibited with an epoxy layer. With this direct measurement we do not have to account for product gas equation of state or heat losses in the system, and the burn wires allow detection of irregular burning. We find that formulation details are very important to overall deflagration behavior - the presence of 10% or less by weight of binder leads to physical deconsolidation and rapid deflagration at high pressures, and a larger particle size distribution leads to slower deflagration. High temperatures have a relatively minor effect on the deflagration rate until the beta-to-delta phase transition temperature is reached, beyond which the deflagration rate increases approximately 40-fold.

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