A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Membership in a terrorist organization does not prohibit a person from owning a gun under current law. Thus, during presale screening of prospective firearms purchasers, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System historically did not utilize terrorist watch list records. However, for homeland security and other purposes, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and applicable state agencies began receiving notices (effective February 3, 2004) when such screening involved watch lists records. GAO determined (1) how many checks have resulted in valid matches with terrorist watch list records, (2) procedures for providing federal counterterrorism officials relevant information from valid-match background checks, and (3) the extent to which the FBI monitors or audits the states' handling of such checks."

This report presents the results of measurements and simulations performed with 12 small plastic scintillation detectors manufactured by Scionix for imaging applications. The scintillator is equivalent to a Bicron BC-420 plastic scintillator. A gamma calibration is presented to determine the voltage to be applied on each detector to ensure uniform detector operation. Time of flight measurements performed with a Cf-252 source are also presented. Comparisons between experimental data and data from the Monte Carlo simulations show good agreement for time lags of 0 to 70 ns.

None

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

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

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; Authority of the Railroad Commission to use monies from the Oil Field Cleanup Fund to plug oil and gas wells and perform other activities (RQ-0253-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: Operation of the ex officio road commissioner system and allocation of road and bridge funds in Denton County (RQ-0254-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 the Texas Commission of Fire Protection may provide reimbursement for room and board as part of a Fire Department Emergency Program tuition scholarship for students who attend a training school (RQ-0255-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 Local Government Code section 214.212(c)(1), which permits a municipality to adopt local amendments to the International Residential Code, limits the municipality to adopting only amendments that are equivalent to or more stringent than the the standards of the International Residential Code (RQ-0256-GA)

None

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Environmental surveillance of the Hanford Site and surrounding areas is conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Sampling is conducted to evaluate levels of radioactive and nonradioactive pollutants in the Hanford environs. This document contains the calendar year 2005 schedules for the routine and non-routine collection of samples for the Surface Environmental Surveillance Project (SESP) and Drinking Water Monitoring Project.

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

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

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

This presentation was given at the DOE Office of Science-Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP) High-Level Waste Workshop held on January 19-20, 2005 at the Savannah River Site.

This presentation was given at the DOE Office of Science-Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP) High-Level Waste Workshop held on January 19-20, 2005 at the Savannah River Site.

This presentation was given at the DOE Office of Science-Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP) High-Level Waste Workshop held on January 19-20, 2005 at the Savannah River Site.

''Hidden'' geothermal systems are systems devoid of obvious surface hydrothermal manifestations. Emissions of moderate-to-low solubility gases may be one of the primary near-surface signals from these systems. We investigate the potential for CO2 detection and monitoring below and above ground in the near-surface environment as an approach to exploration targeting hidden geothermal systems. We focus on CO2 because it is the dominant noncondensible gas species in most geothermal systems and has moderate solubility in water. We carried out numerical simulations of a CO2 migration scenario to calculate the magnitude of expected fluxes and concentrations. Our results show that CO2 concentrations can reach high levels in the shallow subsurface even for relatively low geothermal source CO2 fluxes. However, once CO2 seeps out of the ground into the atmospheric surface layer, winds are effective at dispersing CO2 seepage. In natural ecological systems in the absence of geothermal gas emissions, near-surface CO2 fluxes and concentrations are predominantly controlled by CO2 uptake by photosynthesis, production by root respiration, microbial decomposition of soil/subsoil organic matter, groundwater degassing, and exchange with the atmosphere. Available technologies for monitoring CO2 in the near-surface environment include the infrared gas analyzer, the accumulation chamber method, the eddy covariance method, hyperspectral …

Spent nuclear fuels from foreign and domestic research and test reactors are being returned to the Savannah River Site for storage with other nuclear materials in the L-Basin. Recent efforts have consolidated the fuel storage systems and L-Basin has become the SRS site for wet storage of spent nuclear fuels. Corrosion surveillance of coupons in this basin is being performed to provide assurance of safe storage of spent fuel. This paper describes the highlights of recent studies on these aluminum coupons after immersion for more than 7 years in L-Basin. Selected coupons were metallurgically characterized to establish the existence of general corrosion and pitting. Minor pitting corrosion was observed on the intentionally galvanically coupled samples and creviced coupons, thus demonstrating that localized concentration cells were formed during the exposure period. In these cases, the susceptibility to pitting was not attributed to aggressive basin water chemistry but to localized conditions--crevices and galvanic coupling--that allowed the development of oxygen and/or metal ion concentration cells that produced locally aggressive waters. General corrosion was also observed on some of the coupons. None of the coupons were pre-oxidized to form a protective oxide as compared to the spent fuel which was oxidized during reactor operations. …

This presentation was given at the DOE Office of Science-Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP) High-Level Waste Workshop held on January 19-20, 2005 at the Savannah River Site.

This presentation was given at the DOE Office of Science-Environmental Management Science Program (EMSP) High-Level Waste Workshop held on January 19-20, 2005 at the Savannah River Site.

A new parsimony analysis of 27 complete mitochondrial genomic sequences is conducted to investigate the phylogenetic relationships of plethodontid salamanders. This analysis focuses on the amount of character conflict between phylogenetic trees recovered from newly conducted parsimony searches and the Bayesian and maximum likelihood topology reported by Mueller et al. (2004, PNAS, 101, 13820-13825). Strong support for Hemidactylium as the sister taxon to all other plethodontids is recovered from parsimony analyses. Plotting area relationships on the most parsimonious phylogenetic tree suggests that eastern North America is the origin of the family Plethodontidae supporting the ''Out of Appalachia'' hypothesis. A new taxonomy that recognizes clades recovered from phylogenetic analyses is proposed.