A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has not been consistently processing cases within statutory time limits, creating backlogs. Because the backlogs are of concern to the Congress, this report provides information on how many cases were processed within statutory time limits, the actions taken by OSC to address case processing delays and backlog, and the agency's perspective on the adequacy of its resources and our analysis of this perspective."

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This document contains a survey to identify and classify many of the conditions found on web sites that influence the harvesting of content and the quality of an archival crawl.

The objective of this research was to use a simple model of soil C and N dynamics to predict nutrient thresholds to ecosystem recovery on degraded soils at Fort Benning, Georgia, in the southeastern USA. The model calculates aboveground and belowground biomass, soil C inputs and dynamics, soil N stocks and availability, and plant N requirements. A threshold is crossed when predicted soil N supplies fall short of predicted N required to sustain biomass accrual at a specified recovery rate. Four factors were important to development of thresholds to recovery: (1) initial amounts of aboveground biomass, (2) initial soil C stocks (i.e., soil quality), (3) relative recovery rates of biomass, and (4) soil sand content. Thresholds to ecosystem recovery predicted by the model should not be interpreted independent of a specified recovery rate. Initial soil C stocks influenced the predicted patterns of recovery by both old field and forest ecosystems. Forests and old fields on soils with varying sand content had different predicted thresholds to recovery. Soil C stocks at barren sites on Fort Benning generally lie below predicted thresholds to 100% recovery of desired future ecosystem conditions defined on the basis of aboveground biomass (18000 versus 360 g m{sup …

This document describes the architectural design for the GENII-V2 software package. This document defines details of the overall structure of the software, the major software components, their data file interfaces, and specific mathematical models to be used. The design represents a translation of the requirements into a description of the software structure, software components, interfaces, and necessary data. The design focuses on the major components and data communication links that are key to the implementation of the software within the operating framework. The purpose of the GENII-V2 software package is to provide the capability to perform dose and risk assessments of environmental releases of radionuclides. The software also has the capability of calculating environmental accumulation and radiation doses from surface water, groundwater, and soil (buried waste) media when an input concentration of radionuclide in these media is provided. This report represents a detailed description of the capabilities of the software product with exact specifications of mathematical models that form the basis for the software implementation and testing efforts. This report also presents a detailed description of the overall structure of the software package, details of main components (implemented in the current phase of work), details of data communication files, and …

Ferroelectric plasma sources in vacuum are known as sources of ablative plasma, formed due to surface discharge. In this paper, observations of a gas discharge mode of operation of the ferroelectric plasma sources (FPS) are reported. The gas discharge appears at pressures between approximately 20 and approximately 80 Torr. At pressures of 1-20 Torr, there is a transition from vacuum surface discharge to the gas discharge, when both modes coexist and the surface discharges sustain the gas discharge. At pressures between 20 and 80 Torr, the surface discharges are suppressed, and FPS operate in pure gas discharge mode, with the formation of almost uniform plasma along the entire surface of the ceramics between strips. The density of the expanding plasma is estimated to be about 1013 cm-3 at a distance of 5.5 mm from the surface. The power consumption of the discharge is comparatively low, making it useful for various applications. This paper also presents direct measurements of the yield of secondary electron emission from ferroelectric ceramics, which, at low energies of primary electrons, is high and dependent on the polarization of the ferroelectric material

The objective of this work was to develop predictive models for the Low Activity Waste (LAW) melter offgas flammability assessment and to conduct case studies in support of the on-going safety analysis efforts for the River Protection Project Waste Treatment Plant (RPPWTP). This required that Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC) personnel develop process models that are comprehensive enough to explicitly describe the effects of key melter operating variables such as total organic carbon (TOC) in the feed, melter air purge, and vapor space temperature on the offgas flammability.

This report summarizes the work done during the fifth quarter of the project. Effort was directed in two areas: (1) Further development of the model on the role of connectivity on ionic conductivity of porous bodies, including the role of grain boundaries and space charge region. (2) Fabrication of porous samaria-doped ceria (SDC) and investigation of the effect of thermal treatment on its conductivity. The model developed accounts for transport through three regions: (a) Transport through the bulk of the grain, RI, which includes parallel transport through space charge region. (b) Transport through the space charge region adjacent to the neck (grain boundary), RII. (c) Transport through the structural part of the neck (grain boundary), RIII. The work on the model development involves calculation RI, RII, RIII, and the sum of these three terms, which is the total resistance, as a function of the grain radius ranging between 0.5 and 5 microns and as a function of the relative neck size, described in terms of the angle theta, ranging between 5 and 45{sup o}. Three values of resistivity of the space charge region were chosen; space charge resistivity greater than grain resistivity, equal to grain resistivity, and lower than grain …

Argonne performs research and development in many areas of science and technology. General fields of research at Argonne include, but are not limited to, biosciences, biotechnology, chemical engineering, chemistry, decision and information sciences, energy systems and technology, high energy physics, materials science, math and computer science, nuclear reactors, physics, and environmental science. Argonne is not, and never has been, a weapons laboratory. Several missions provide focus for Argonne scientists. Basic research helps better understand the world, and applied research helps protect and improve it. For example, the prairies of Argonne provide sites for environmental studies that provide valuable information about invader species and the food webs within ecosystems. Argonne also operates world-class research facilities, such as the Advanced Photon Source (APS), which is a national research facility funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Scientists use high brilliance X-rays from the APS for basic and applied research in many fields. Argonne also seeks to ensure our energy future. Currently, scientists and engineers are developing cleaner and more efficient energy sources, such as fuel cells and advanced electric power generation. Argonne has spent much of its history on developing nuclear reactor technology. That research is now being applied to American …

An article, written by Debra Rosenberg and Mark Miller for Newsweek, about President George W. Bush's support of the marriage amendment that would ban gay and lesbian marriages at the federal level. It includes the response of Charles C. Francis and other gay and lesbian Republicans. An advertisement follows the article.

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

This report contains a brief review of the budget sequesters.

A chemical ionization mass spectrometry (CIMS) technique has been developed for precise in situ measurements of hydrochloric acid (HCl) from a high-altitude aircraft. In measurements at subtropical latitudes, minimum HCl values found in the upper troposphere (UT) are often near or below the 0.005-ppbv detection limit of the measurements, indicating that background HCl values are much lower than a global mean estimate. However, significant abundances of HCl were observed in many UT air parcels as a result of stratosphere-to-troposphere transport events. A method for diagnosing the amount of stratospheric ozone in these UT parcels was developed using the compact linear correlation of HCl with ozone found throughout the lower stratosphere (LS). Expanded use of this method will lead to improved quantification of cross-tropopause transport events and validation of global chemical transport models.

Unresolved transitions in the nuclear {gamma}-ray cascade produced in the decay of excited nuclei are best described by statistical concepts: a continuous radiative strength function (RSF) and level density yield mean values of transition matrix elements. Data on the soft (E{sub {gamma}} < 3-4 MeV) RSF for transitions between warm states (i.e. states several MeV above the yrast line) have, however, remained elusive.

A real-time radiological sensor network for emergency response was developed and deployed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The Real-Time Radiological Area Monitoring (RTRAM) network is comprised of 16 Geiger-Mueller (GM) sensors positioned on the LLNL Livermore site perimeter to continuously monitor for a radiological condition resulting from a terrorist threat to site security and the health and safety of LLNL personnel. The RTRAM network sensor locations coincide with wind sector directions to provide thorough coverage of the one square mile site. These low-power sensors are supported by a central command center (CCC) and transmit measurement data back to the CCC computer through the LLNL telecommunications infrastructure. Alarm conditions are identified by comparing current data to predetermined threshold parameters and are validated by comparison with plausible dispersion modeling scenarios and prevailing meteorological conditions. Emergency response personnel are notified of alarm conditions by automatic radio and computer based notifications. A secure intranet provides emergency response personnel with current condition assessment data that enable them to direct field response efforts remotely. The RTRAM network has proven to be a reliable system since initial deployment in August 2001 and maintains stability during inclement weather conditions.

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It is known that focusing of an acoustic field by a time-reversal mirror (TRM) is equivalent to a spatio-temporal matched filter under conditions where the Green's function of the field satisfies reciprocity and is time invariant, i.e. the Green's function is independent of the choice of time origin. In this letter, it is shown that both reciprocity and time invariance can be replaced by a more general constraint on the Green's function that allows a TRM to implement the spatio-temporal matched filter even when conditions are time varying.

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This report provides background information and a description of the Adoption Incentives program, with references to recent legislative action, sizes of incentive payments earned, and adoption trends.

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B-roll video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.

B-roll video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.

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