Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

A weekly student newspaper from the Rice University in Houston, Texas that includes campus news and commentaries along with advertising.

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Congress asked us to estimate the effect on Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act of 1990 (CARE Act) funding to urban areas if a certain stop-loss provision was enacted. The CARE Act, administered by the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), was enacted to address the needs of jurisdictions, health care providers, and people with human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS). In October 2009, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009 (RWTEA) reauthorized CARE Act programs for fiscal years 2010 through 2013. The stop-loss provision that you asked us to address was contained in a draft consolidated appropriations bill for fiscal year 2011."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Studies have found that Medicare payment rates for home oxygen exceeded other payers' rates. Congress has reduced home oxygen payment rates, capped rental payments after 36 months, and directed the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which administers Medicare, to use competitive bidding. GAO was asked to examine Medicare home oxygen payment policy. GAO describes how Medicare pays for home oxygen; the effect on Medicare's payments of using other methodologies and rates; and changes in beneficiary access. GAO reviewed federal laws and regulations, industry-reported costs, Medicare claims data and payment data from selected private insurers, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and CMS's competitive bidding program."

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.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

This report provides background information and issues for Congress on the modernization of the Coast Guard's polar icebreaker fleet, which performs a variety of missions supporting U.S. interests in polar regions.

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This report provides information about the Insurance and Tax Issues of Corporate Owned Life Insurance (COLI).These policies are distinct and separate from typical from group life policies offered to many employees.

This document contains the calendar year 2011 schedule for the routine collection of samples for the Surface Environmental Surveillance Project and the Drinking Water Monitoring Project. Each section includes sampling locations, sampling frequencies, sample types, and analyses to be performed. In some cases, samples are scheduled on a rotating basis. If a sample will not be collected in 2011, the anticipated year for collection is provided. Maps showing approximate sampling locations are included for media scheduled for collection in 2011.

With DOE Award No. DE-EE00000628, QD Vision developed and demonstrated a cost-competitive solution for increasing the light extraction efficiency of OLEDs with efficient and stable color rendering index (CRI) for solid state lighting (SSL). Solution processable quantum dot (QD) films were integrated into OLED ITO-glass substrates to generate tunable white emission from blue emitting OLED) devices as well as outcouple light from the ITO film. This QD light-enhancement substrate (QD-LED) technology demonstrated a 60% increase in OLED forward light out-coupling, a value which increases to 76% when considering total increase in multi-directional light output. The objective for the first year was an 80% increase in light output. This project seeks to develop and demonstrate a cost-competitive solution for realizing increased extraction efficiency organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) with efficient and stable color rendering index (CRI) for SSL. Solution processible quantum dot (QD) films will be utilized to generate tunable white emission from blue emitting phosphorescent OLED (Ph-OLED) devices.

The conference will present and discuss current science that underlies solar fuels production, and will focus on direct production pathways for production. Thus, recent advances in design and understanding of molecular systems and materials for light capture and conversion of relevance for solar fuels will be discussed. An important set of topics will be homogeneous, heterogeneous and biological catalysts for the multi-electron processes of water oxidation, hydrogen production and carbon dioxide reduction to useful fuels. Also, progress towards integrated and scalable systems will be presented. Attached is a copy of the formal schedule and speaker program and the poster program.

The objective of this project is to detect and locate more microearthquakes using the empirical matched field processing (MFP) method than can be detected using only conventional earthquake detection techniques. We propose that empirical MFP can complement existing catalogs and techniques. We test our method on continuous seismic data collected at the Salton Sea Geothermal Field during November 2009 and January 2010. In the Southern California Earthquake Data Center (SCEDC) earthquake catalog, 619 events were identified in our study area during this time frame and our MFP technique identified 1094 events. Therefore, we believe that the empirical MFP method combined with conventional methods significantly improves the network detection ability in an efficient matter.

This document describes the computational and data systems available at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for use on the US-VISIT Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) project. This system - composed of data, software and hardware - is designed to be as close as a representation of the operational ADIS system as is required to verify and validate US-VISIT methodologies. It is not required to reproduce the computational capabilities of the enterprise-class operational system. During FY10, the test bed was simplified from the FY09 version by reducing the number of database host computers from three to one, significantly reducing the maintenance and overhead while simultaneously increasing system throughput. During the current performance period, a database transfer was performed as a set of Data Pump Export files. The previous RMAN backup from 2007 required the availability of an AIX system which is not required when using data pump. Due to efficiencies in the new system and process, loading of the database refresh was able to be accomplished in a much shorter time frame than was previously required. The FY10 Oracle Test Bed now consists of a single Linux platform hosting two Oracle databases including the 2007 copy as well as the October …

NSTX experiments have explored lithium evaporated on a graphite divertor and other plasma facing components in both L- and H- mode confinement regimes heated by high-power neutral beams. Improvements in plasma performance have followed these lithium depositions, including a reduction and eventual elimination of the HeGDC time between discharges, reduced edge neutral density, reduced plasma density, particularly in the edge and the SOL, increased pedestal electron and ion temperature, improved energy confinement and the suppression of ELMs in the H-mode. However, with improvements in confinement and suppression of ELMs, there was a significant secular increase in the effective ion charge Zeff and the radiated power in H-mode plasmas as a result of increases in the carbon and medium-Z metallic impurities. Lithium itself remained at a very low level in the plasma core, <0.1%. Initial results are reported from operation with a Liquid Lithium Divertor (LLD) recently installed.

Two separate test matrices were developed as part if the EM-21 Glass Matrix Crucible Testing. The first matrix, developed using a single component-at-a-time design method and covering glasses of interest primarily to Hanford, is addressed in this data package. This data package includes methods and results from glass fabrication, chemical analysis of glass compositions, viscosity, electrical conductivity, liquidus temperature, canister centerline cooling, product consistency testing, and the toxicity characteristic leach procedure.

In their Contributed Article, Nyein et al. (1,2) present numerical simulations of blast waves interacting with a helmeted head and conclude that a face shield may significantly mitigate blast induced traumatic brain injury (TBI). A face shield may indeed be important for future military helmets, but the authors derive their conclusions from a much smaller explosion than typically experienced on the battlefield. The blast from the 3.16 gm TNT charge of (1) has the following approximate peak overpressures, positive phase durations, and incident impulses (3): 10 atm, 0.25 ms, and 3.9 psi-ms at the front of the head (14 cm from charge), and 1.4 atm, 0.32 ms, and 1.7 psi-ms at the back of a typical 20 cm head (34 cm from charge). The peak pressure of the wave decreases by a factor of 7 as it traverses the head. The blast conditions are at the threshold for injury at the front of the head, but well below threshold at the back of the head (4). The blast traverses the head in 0.3 ms, roughly equal to the positive phase duration of the blast. Therefore, when the blast reaches the back of the head, near ambient conditions exist at the …

A system of customized spatial light modulators has been installed onto the front end of the laser system at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The devices are capable of shaping the beam profile at a low-fluence relay plane upstream of the amplifier chain. Their primary function is to introduce 'blocker' obscurations at programmed locations within the beam profile. These obscurations are positioned to shadow small, isolated flaws on downstream optical components that might otherwise limit the system operating energy. The modulators were designed to enable a drop-in retrofit of each of the 48 existing Pre Amplifier Modules (PAMs) without compromising their original performance specifications. This was accomplished by use of transmissive Optically Addressable Light Valves (OALV) based on a Bismuth Silicon Oxide photoconductive layer in series with a twisted nematic liquid crystal (LC) layer. These Programmable Spatial Shaper packages in combination with a flaw inspection system and optic registration strategy have provided a robust approach for extending the operational lifetime of high fluence laser optics on NIF.

A PAssively Cooled, Electrically heated hydride (PACE) Bed has been deployed into tritium service in the Savannah River Site (SRS) Tritium Facilities. The bed design, absorption and desorption performance, and cold (non-radioactive) in-bed accountability (IBA) results have been reported previously. Six PACE Beds were fitted with instrumentation to perform the steady-state, flowing gas calorimetric inventory method. An IBA inventory calibration curve, flowing gas temperature rise ({Delta}T) versus simulated or actual tritium loading, was generated for each bed. Results for non-radioactive ('cold') tests using the internal electric heaters and tritium calibration results are presented. Changes in vacuum jacket pressure significantly impact measured IBA {Delta}T values. Higher jacket pressures produce lower IBA {Delta}T values which underestimate bed tritium inventories. The exhaust pressure of the IBA gas flow through the bed's U-tube has little influence on measured IBA {Delta}T values, but larger gas flows reduce the time to reach steady-state conditions and produce smaller tritium measurement uncertainties.

The development of a technically sound protocol for detecting the subsurface release of noble gas radionuclides is critical to the successful operation of an on site inspection (OSI) under the CTBT and has broad ramifications for all aspects of the OSI regime including the setting of specifications for both sampling and analysis equipment used during an OSI. With NA-24 support, we are investigating a variety of issues and concerns that have significant bearing on policy development and technical guidance regarding the detection of noble gases and the creation of a technically justifiable OSI concept of operation. The work at LLNL focuses on optimizing the ability to capture radioactive noble gases subject to the constraints of possible OSI scenarios. This focus results from recognizing the difficulty of detecting gas releases in geologic environments - a lesson we learned previously from the LLNL Non-Proliferation Experiment (NPE). Evaluation of a number of important noble gas detection issues, potentially affecting OSI policy, has awaited the US re-engagement with the OSI technical community. Thus, there have been numerous issues to address during the past 18 months. Most of our evaluations of a sampling or transport issue necessarily involve computer simulations. This is partly due to …

We describe two methods which rely on bidirectional scattering distribution functions (BSDFs) to model the daylighting performance of complex fenestration systems (CFS), enabling greater flexibility and accuracy in evaluating arbitrary assemblies of glazing, shading, and other optically-complex coplanar window systems. Two tools within Radiance enable a) efficient annual performance evaluations of CFS, and b) accurate renderings of CFS despite the loss of spatial resolution associated with low-resolution BSDF datasets for inhomogeneous systems. Validation, accuracy, and limitations of the methods are discussed.

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