Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Biomonitoring, which measures chemicals in people's tissues or body fluids, has shown that the U.S. population is widely exposed to chemicals used in everyday products. Some of these have the potential to cause cancer or birth defects. Moreover, children may be more vulnerable to harm from these chemicals than adults. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is authorized under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to control chemicals that pose unreasonable health risks. One crucial tool in this process is chemical risk assessment, which involves determining the extent to which populations will be exposed to a chemical and assessing how this exposure affects human health This testimony, based on GAO's prior work, reviews the (1) extent to which EPA incorporates information from biomonitoring studies into its assessments of chemicals, (2) steps that EPA has taken to improve the usefulness of biomonitoring data, and (3) extent to which EPA has the authority under TSCA to require chemical companies to develop and submit biomonitoring data to EPA."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "We recently reported that Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) workers applied for U.S. Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) occupational disability benefits at a rate 12 times higher than workers from the other commuter railroads covered under the Railroad Retirement Act. RRB provides an occupational disability benefit to eligible workers whose physical or mental impairments prevent them from performing their specific railroad jobs. For example, a railroad engineer who cannot frequently climb, bend, or reach, as required by the job, may be found occupationally disabled. On March 18, 2009, Congress asked us to conduct a systematic review of RRB's occupational disability program. Per our discussions following the release of our September 2009 report on LIRR and commuter rail workers' experience with the program, Congress refined its request. It told us that its primary interest was quickly determining whether unusual patterns in claims like those exhibited at LIRR exist elsewhere across the rail industry, including class I, II, and III railroads. This letter formally conveys the information we provided during a briefing with Congress on December 2, 2009. In summary, we found that no other rail employers in our analysis had …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Port Aransas, Texas on Mustang Island that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Daily student newspaper from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

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

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

A ferrocene-based biscatecholamide ligand was prepared and investigated for the formation of metal-ligand supramolecular assemblies with different metals. Reaction with Ge(IV) resulted in the formation of a variety of Ge{sub n}L{sub m} coordination complexes, including [Ge{sub 2}L{sub 3}]{sup 4-} and [Ge{sub 2}L{sub 2}({mu}-OMe){sub 2}]{sup 2-}. The ligand's ability to swivel about the ferrocenyl linker and adopt different conformations accounts for formation of many different Ge{sub n}L{sub m} species. This study demonstrates why conformational ligand rigidity is essential in the rational design and directed self-assembly of supramolecular complexes.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

The Waste Acceptance Product Specifications (WAPS) 1.2 require that ''The Producer shall report the inventory of radionuclides (in Curies) that have half-lives longer than 10 years and that are, or will be, present in concentrations greater than 0.05 percent of the total inventory for each waste type indexed to the years 2015 and 3115''. As part of the strategy to comply with WAPS 1.2, the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) will report for each waste type, all radionuclides (with half-lives greater than 10 years) that have concentrations greater than 0.01 percent of the total inventory from time of production through the 1100 year period from 2015 through 3115. The initial listing of radionuclides to be included is based on the design-basis glass as identified in the Waste Form Compliance Plan (WCP) and Waste Form Qualification Report (WQR). However, it is required that this list be expanded if other radionuclides with half-lives greater than 10 years are identified that may meet the greater than 0.01% criterion for Curie content. Specification 1.6 of the WAPS, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safeguards Reporting for High Level Waste (HLW), requires that the ratio by weights of the following uranium and plutonium isotopes be reported: …

The National Ignition Facility (NIF) will be impacted by electromagnetic pulse (EMP) during normal long-pulse operation, but the largest impacts are expected during short-pulse operation utilizing the Advanced Radiographic Capability (ARC). Without mitigation these impacts could range from data corruption to hardware damage. We describe our EMP measurement systems on Titan and NIF and present some preliminary results and thoughts on mitigation.

This report documents the status of Fiscal Year 2009 groundwater monitoring performed in Waste Area Group 10 at the U.S. Department of Energy Idaho National Laboratory Site, as identified in the Groundwater Monitoring and Field Sampling Plan for Operable Unit 10-08. Twelve of the fourteen required wells were sampled, and all ten required intervals from the Westbay wells were sampled. Two wells were not sampled because they were in the process of being converted into multiple-sample-interval Westbay wells by the U.S. Geological Survey. Groundwater samples were analyzed for volatile organic compounds identified on the Contract Laboratory Program target analyte list as well as metals (filtered), anions, and radionuclides (i.e., I-129, tritium, Tc-99, gross alpha, gross beta, and Sr-90). No contaminant exceeded maximum contaminant levels in wells along the southern boundary of the Idaho National Laboratory Site or in guard wells. Iron was above its secondary maximum contaminant level of 300 ug/L in one well. The cause of the elevated iron concentration is uncertain. Lead was detected just below its action level. However, the zinc concentration was also elevated in these wells, and the source of the lead is probably galvanized riser pipe in the wells. Once the galvanized pipe is …

This report outlines the science, awards and honors, and publications that resulted during the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2010 at EMSL.

Proposals for ground-based laser remediation of space debris rely on the creation of appropriately directed ablation-driven impulses to either divert the fragment or drive it into an orbit with a perigee allowing atmospheric capture. For a spherical fragment, the ablation impulse is a function of the orbital parameters and the laser engagement angle. If, however, the target is irregularly shaped and arbitrarily oriented, new impulse effects come into play. Here we present an analysis of some of these effects.

The Discrete Groundwater Sampling Project is conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) on behalf of CH2M HILL Plateau Remediation Company. The project is focused on delivering groundwater samples from proscribed horizons within select groundwater wells residing in the 200-BP-5 Operable Unit (200-BP-5 OU) on the Hanford Site. This document provides the scope, schedule, methodology, and other details of the PNNL discrete sampling effort.

The centromere is the most characteristic landmark of eukaryotic chromosomes. Centromeres function as the site for kinetochore assembly and spindle attachment, allowing for the faithful pairing and segregation of sister chromatids during cell division. Characterization of centromeric DNA is not only essential to understand the structure and organization of plant genomes, but it is also a critical step in the development of plant artificial chromosomes. The centromeres of most model eukaryotic species, consist predominantly of long arrays of satellite DNA. Determining the precise DNA boundary of a centromere has proven to be a difficult task in multicellular eukaryotes. We have successfully cloned and sequenced the centromere of rice chromosome 8 (Cen8), representing the first fully sequenced centromere from any multicellular eukaryotes. The functional core of Cen8 spans ~800 kb of DNA, which was determined by chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) using an antibody against the rice centromere-specific H3 histone. We discovered 16 actively transcribed genes distributed throughout the Cen8 region. In addition to Cen8, we have characterized eight additional rice centromeres using the next generation sequencing technology. We discovered four subfamilies of the CRR retrotransposon that is highly enriched in rice centromeres. CRR elements are constitutively transcribed and different CRR subfamilies are …

Optical components within high energy laser systems are susceptible to laser-induced material modification when the breakdown threshold is exceeded or damage is initiated by pre-existing impurities or defects. These modifications are the result of exposure to extreme conditions involving the generation of high temperatures and pressures and occur on a volumetric scale of the order of a few cubic microns. The response of the material following localized energy deposition, including the timeline of events and the individual processes involved during this timeline, is still largely unknown. In this work, we investigate the events taking place during the entire timeline in both bulk and surface damage in fused silica using a set of time-resolved microscopy systems. These microscope systems offer up to 1 micron spatial resolution when imaging static or dynamic effects, allowing for imaging of the entire process with adequate temporal and spatial resolution. These systems incorporate various pump-probe geometries designed to optimize the sensitivity for detecting individual aspects of the process such as the propagation of shock waves, near-surface material motion, the speed of ejecta, and material transformations. The experimental results indicate that the material response can be separated into distinct phases, some terminating within a few tens of …

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

This report discusses the current political conditions of Kenya, which has long been an important ally of the United States. The report focuses particularly on the December 2007 elections, which many international observers have declared as rigged and deeply flawed. The report also discusses violence that erupted once election results were announced, as well as U.S. efforts to urge Kenya toward election reforms.

This report looks at international investing patterns and impacts, and ends with considerations on this topic for Congress.

This report covers the background and recent history on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). This committee has recently emerged from obscurity due to concerns involving foreign investments in U.S. companies and national security.