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; Whether the Texas Residential Construction Act excludes from its definition of "builder" businesses and individuals engaged in residential construction and licensed by a municipality, and whether the Texas Residential Construction Commission may seek to enjoin builders who have failed to obtain a certificate of registration from the Commission (RQ-0176-GA)

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; Whether, under section 1551.114 of the Insurance Code, an eligible retiree of a community supervision and corrections department may participate in the Employees Retirement System group benefits program after meeting the requirements of subsection (c)(2), with no further requirements, such as the "rule of 80" set out in section 1551.102 (RQ-0213-GA)

This report describes FY 2003 technical studies conducted by the Chemical Biology and Nuclear Science Division (CBND) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in support of the Hydrologic Resources Management Program (HRMP) and the Underground Test Area (UGTA) Project. These programs are administered by the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Site Office (NNSA/NSO) through the Defense Programs and Environmental Restoration Divisions, respectively. HRMP-sponsored work is directed toward the responsible management of the natural resources at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), enabling its continued use as a staging area for strategic operations in support of national security. UGTA-funded work emphasizes the development of an integrated set of groundwater flow and contaminant transport models to predict the extent of radionuclide migration from underground nuclear testing areas at the NTS. The present report is organized on a topical basis and contains five chapters that reflect the range of technical work performed by LLNL-CBND during FY 2003. Although we have emphasized investigations that were led by CBND, we also participated in a variety of collaborative studies with other UGTA and HRMP contract organizations including the Energy and Environment Directorate at LLNL (LLNL-E&E), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the Desert Research …

The two broad categories of fiber-reinforced composite liner repair and deposited weld metal repair technologies were reviewed and evaluated for potential application for internal repair of gas transmission pipelines. Both are used to some extent for other applications and could be further developed for internal, local, structural repair of gas transmission pipelines. Principal conclusions from a survey of natural gas transmission industry pipeline operators can be summarized in terms of the following performance requirements for internal repair: (1) Use of internal repair is most attractive for river crossings, under other bodies of water, in difficult soil conditions, under highways, under congested intersections, and under railway. (2) Internal pipe repair offers a strong potential advantage to the high cost of horizontal direct drilling when a new bore must be created to solve a leak or other problem. (3) Typical travel distances can be divided into three distinct groups: up to 305 m (1,000 ft.); between 305 m and 610 m (1,000 ft. and 2,000 ft.); and beyond 914 m (3,000 ft.). All three groups require pig-based systems. A despooled umbilical system would suffice for the first two groups which represents 81% of survey respondents. The third group would require an onboard …

Gas phase negative ion chemistry methods are employed to determine enthalpies of formation of hydrocarbon radicals that are important in combustion processes and to investigate the dynamics of ion-molecule reactions. Using guided ion beam tandem mass spectrometry, we measure collisional threshold energies of endoergic proton transfer and hydrogen atom transfer reactions of hydrocarbon molecules with negative reagent ions. The measured reaction threshold energies for proton transfer yield the relative gas phase acidities. In an alternative methodology, competitive collision-induced dissociation of proton-bound ion-molecule complexes provides accurate gas phase acidities relative to a reference acid. Combined with the electron affinity of the R {center_dot} radical, the gas phase acidity yields the RH bond dissociation energy of the corresponding neutral molecule, or equivalently the enthalpy of formation of the R{center_dot} organic radical, using equation: D(R-H) = {Delta}{sub acid}H(RH) + EA(R) - IE(H). The threshold energy for hydrogen abstraction from a hydrocarbon molecule yields its hydrogen atom affinity relative to the reagent anion, providing the RH bond dissociation energy directly. Electronic structure calculations are used to evaluate the possibility of potential energy barriers or dynamical constrictions along the reaction path, and as input for RRKM and phase space theory calculations. In newer experiments, we …

We report the observation and systematic investigation of the space charge effect and mirror charge effect in photoemission spectroscopy. When pulsed light is incident on a sample, the photoemitted electrons experience energy redistribution after escaping from the surface because of the Coulomb interaction between them (space charge effect) and between photoemitted electrons and the distribution of mirror charges in the sample (mirror charge effect). These combined Coulomb interaction effects give rise to an energy shift and a broadening which can be on the order of 10 meV for a typical third-generation synchrotron light source. This value is comparable to many fundamental physical parameters actively studied by photoemission spectroscopy and should be taken seriously in interpreting photoemission data and in designing next generation experiments.

Many areas in the world are experiencing significant fresh water shortages due to drought, growing populations, increased agricultural and industrial demands, and extensive forms of pollution or water quality degradation. Many more are expected to face similar predicaments in the next 20 years. Water shortages will significantly limit economic growth, decrease the quality of life and human health for billions of people, degrade the ecologic health of natural environments, and could potentially lead to violence and conflict over securing scarce supplies of water. These concerns are not limited to the economically poor countries, of course, as many parts of the United States face similar dilemmas. These problems can be exacerbated by fluctuating imbalances between need and supply, poor water management or land use practices, social, economic, political, and trans-boundary disputes, as well as factors related to climate change. The future is one that will require significant technological advances to support the conservation, preservation, and movement of fresh water, as well as in the development of new or alternative supplies. It is also one that will also require concomitant improvements in the use of practical solutions and the ways in which the broader scientific and technical community interacts with policy-makers, water-related …

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

The chemical inertness typically observed for Au does not imply a general inability to form stable bonds with non-metals but is rather a consequence of high reaction barriers. The Au-S interaction is probably the most intensively studied interaction of Au surfaces with non-metals as, for example, it plays an important role in Au ore formation, and controls the structure and dynamics of thiol-based self-assembled-monolayers (SAMs). In recent years a quite complex picture of the interaction of sulfur with Au(111) surfaces emerged, and a variety of S-induced surface structures was reported under different conditions. The majority of these structures were interpreted in terms of a static Au surface, where the positions of the Au atoms remain essentially unperturbed. Here we demonstrate that the Au(111) surface exhibits a very dynamic character upon interaction with adsorbed sulfur: low sulfur coverages modify the surface stress of the Au surface leading to lateral expansion of the surface layer; large-scale surface restructuring and incorporation of Au atoms into a growing two-dimensional AuS phase were observed with increasing sulfur coverage. These results provide new insight into the Au-S surface chemistry, and reveal the dynamic character of the Au(111) surface.

This report outlines the international market for remittances. Of all forms of international capital flows, remittances - or monies sent home by foreign workers overseas - is the most stable, reacting least to international politics or events. For many countries, remittances are a major, and sometimes the primary, source of income for consumption and investment.

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A Working Group Meeting on Heavy Vehicle Aerodynamic Drag was held in Portland, Oregon on July 1, 2004. The purpose of the meeting was to provide a summary of achievements, discuss pressing issues, present a general overview of future plans, and to provide a forum for dialogue with the Department of Energy (DOE) and industry representatives. The meeting was held in Portland, because the DOE Aero Team participated in an exclusive session on Heavy Truck Vehicle Aerodynamic Drag at the 34th AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference and Exhibit in Portland on the morning of July 1st, just preceding our Working Group meeting. Even though the paper session was on the last day of the Conference, the Team presented to a full room of interested attendees.

This article investigates the use of a multi-conjugate adaptive optics system to improve the field-of-view for the system. The emphasis of this research is to develop techniques to improve the performance of optical systems with applications to horizontal imaging. The design and wave optics simulations of the proposed system are given. Preliminary results from the multi-conjugate adaptive optics system are also presented. The experimental system utilizes a liquid-crystal spatial light modulator and an interferometric wave-front sensor for correction and sensing of the phase aberrations, respectively.

High-power Free-Electron Lasers were made possible by advances in superconducting linac operated in an energy-recovery mode. In order to get to much higher power levels, say a fraction of a megawatt average power, many technological barriers are yet to be broken. We describe work on CW, high-current and high-brightness electron beams. This will include a description of a superconducting, laser-photocathode RF gun employing a new secondary-emission multiplying cathode, an accelerator cavity, both capable of producing of the order of one ampere average current and plans for an ERL based on these units.

Video footage from the NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story. This story aired at 10 P.M.

Video footage from the NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story. This story aired at 10 P.M.

Video footage from the NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story. This story aired at 5 P.M.

Video footage from the NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story. This story aired at 6 P.M.

Video footage from the NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story. This story aired at 4 P.M.

Video footage from the NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.

Video footage from the NBC 5 television station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story. This story aired at 10 P.M.

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

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

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