A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past decade, the executive branch has taken steps to improve the management of used federal electronics. Notably, in 2003, EPA helped to pilot the Federal Electronics Challenge (FEC)—a voluntary partnership program that encourages federal facilities and agencies to purchase environmentally friendly electronic products, reduce the impacts of these products during their use, and manage used electronics in an environmentally safe way. EPA also led an effort and provided initial funding to develop third-party certification so that electronics recyclers could show that they are voluntarily adhering to an adopted set of best practices for environmental protection, worker health and safety, and security practices. In 2006, GSA issued its Personal Property Disposal Guide to assist agencies in understanding the hierarchy for disposing of excess personal property, including used electronic products: reutilization, donation, sale, and abandonment or destruction. In 2007 and 2009, executive orders were issued that, among other things, established improvement goals and directed agencies to develop and implement improvement plans for the management of used electronics. The Office of Management and Budget, the Council on Environmental Quality, and the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Although the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security utilize various processes to prevent and reduce investment in duplicative programs and systems, potentially duplicative IT investments exist. Further complicating agencies’ ability to identify and address duplicative investments is miscategorization of investments within agencies. Each of the agencies has recently initiated plans to address many of these investments. DHS’s efforts have resulted in the identification and elimination of duplication, but DOD’s and DOE’s initiatives have not yet led to the elimination or consolidation of duplicative investments or functionality. Until DOD and DOE demonstrate progress on their efforts to identify and eliminate duplicative investments, and correctly categorize investments, it will remain unclear whether they are avoiding investment in unnecessary systems. Each of the agencies we reviewed has IT investment management processes in place that are, in part, intended to prevent, identify, and eliminate unnecessary duplicative investments. Even with such investment review processes, of the 810 investments we reviewed,we identified 37 potentially duplicative investments at DOD and DOE within three FEA categories (Human Resource Management, Information and Technology Management, and Supply Chain Management)."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Although the Departments of Defense (DOD) and Energy (DOE) use various investment review processes to identify duplicative investments, GAO found that 37 of its sample of 810 investments were potentially duplicative. These investments account for about $1.2 billion in total information technology (IT) spending for fiscal years 2007 through 2012. For example, GAO identified four DOD Navy personnel assignment investments—one system for officers, one for enlisted personnel, one for reservists, and a general assignment system—each of which is responsible for managing similar functions. While GAO did not identify any potentially duplicative investments at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) within its sample, DHS officials have independently identified several duplicative investments and systems."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Among the 15 million workers who lost jobs from 2007 to 2009, half received Unemployment Insurance (UI), and about one-fourth of the recipients exhausted UI benefits by January 2010. This represents 2 million displaced workers who exhausted UI as of early 2010, the most recent survey data available. Labor estimated that about an additional 3-1/2 million individuals exhausted benefits in 2010 and 2011."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "CNCS officials expect that most grantees from its main programs will adopt at least 1 of the agency’s 16 agency-wide performance measures. Specifically, officials told us that AmeriCorps State and National and VISTA grantees will adopt at least 1 of CNCS’s performance measures by fiscal year 2012, and Senior Corps grantees will adopt at least 1 measure by fiscal year 2013. However, officials also said that they plan to fund some activities that do not fall under the performance measures, particularly activities that meet local needs and/or are innovative. For example, CNCS has funded grantees in the state of Washington to carry out gang violence prevention activities to address this community challenge. This could present challenges for CNCS as it balances accountability, using its performance measures to assess the impact of grantees’ service activities, with flexibility, allowing grantees to take on projects that meet local needs. CNCS may find it difficult to demonstrate the effectiveness of its service activities that fall outside its performance measures. Additionally, CNCS faces challenges using its performance measures to promote accountability among its Senior Corps grantees, as legal restrictions make it …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Dallas, Texas that includes local, state, and national news and advertising of interest to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community.

We apply the Basis Light-Front Quantization (BLFQ) approach to the Hamiltonian field theory of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) in free space. We solve for the mass eigenstates corresponding to an electron interacting with a single photon in light-front gauge. Based on the resulting non-perturbative ground state light-front amplitude we evaluate the electron anomalous magnetic moment. The numerical results from extrapolating to the infinite basis limit reproduce the perturbative Schwinger result with relative deviation less than 1.2%. We report significant improvements over previous works including the development of analytic methods for evaluating the vertex matrix elements of QED.

Calibration parameters from the Connolly et al. (2007) algorithm cannot be applied to the Department of Energy's (DOE) CPI because the DOE CPI is version 2.0. Thus, Dr. Junshik Um and Prof. Greg McFarquhar brought the DOE CPI to the University of Manchester, UK, where facilities for calibrating it were available. In addition, two other versions of CPIs (1.0 and 1.5) were available on-site at the University of Manchester so that an intercomparison of three different versions of the CPI was possible. The three CPIs (versions 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0) were calibrated by moving glass calibration beads and ice analogues of known size parallel to the object plane. The distance between the object plane and a particle, the particle's focus, its apparent maximum dimension, and a background image were measured in order to derive calibration parameters for each CPI version. The calibration parameters are used in two empirical equations that are applied to in situ CPI data to determine particle size and depth of field, and hence particle size distributions (PSDs). After the tests with the glass calibration beads to derive the calibration parameters, the three CPIs were installed at the base of the Manchester Ice Cloud Chamber and connected …

The behavior of the longitudinal wake fields excited by a very short bunch in the SLAC S-band constant gradient accelerating structures has been studied. Wake potential calculations were performed for a bunch length of 10 microns using the author's code to obtain a numerical solution of Maxwell's equations in the time domain. We have calculated six accelerating sections in the series (60-ft) to find the stationary solution. While analyzing the computational results we have found a new formula for the Green's function. Wake potentials, which are calculated using this Green's function are in amazingly good agreement with numerical results over a wide range of bunch lengths. The Green's function simplifies the wake potential calculations and can be easily incorporated into the tracking codes. This is very useful for beam dynamics studies of the linear accelerators of LCLS and FACET.

A method is proposed for the calculation of the short-range wake field potentials of an ultra-relativistic bunch passing near some irregularities in a beam pipe. The method is based on the space-time domain integration of Maxwell's equations using Kirchhoff's formulation. We demonstrate this method on two cases where we obtain the wake potentials for the energy loss of a bunch traversing an iris-collimator in a beam pipe and for a cavity. Likewise, formulas are derived for Green's functions that describe the transverse force action of wake fields. Simple formulas for the total energy loss of a bunch with a Gaussian charge density distribution are derived as well. The derived estimates are compared with computer results and predictions of other models.

This report summarizes results from pulse jet mixing (PJM) tests with noncohesive solids in Newtonian liquid. The tests were conducted during FY 2007 and 2008 to support the design of mixing systems for the Hanford Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant (WTP). Tests were conducted at three geometric scales using noncohesive simulants, and the test data were used to develop models predicting two measures of mixing performance for full-scale WTP vessels. The models predict the cloud height (the height to which solids will be lifted by the PJM action) and the critical suspension velocity (the minimum velocity needed to ensure all solids are suspended off the floor, though not fully mixed). From the cloud height, the concentration of solids at the pump inlet can be estimated. The predicted critical suspension velocity for lifting all solids is not precisely the same as the mixing requirement for 'disturbing' a sufficient volume of solids, but the values will be similar and closely related. These predictive models were successfully benchmarked against larger scale tests and compared well with results from computational fluid dynamics simulations. The application of the models to assess mixing in WTP vessels is illustrated in examples for 13 distinct designs and selected …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Bi-weekly student newspaper from Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

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

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

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

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

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

None

We study the maximally supersymmetric Kondo model obtained by adding a fermionic impurity to N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. While the original Kondo problem describes a defect interacting with a free Fermi liquid of itinerant electrons, here the ambient theory is an interacting CFT, and this introduces qualitatively new features into the system. The model arises in string theory by considering the intersection of a stack of M D5-branes with a stack of N D3-branes, at a point in the D3 worldvolume. We analyze the theory holographically, and propose a dictionary between the Kondo problem and antisymmetric Wilson loops in N = 4 SYM. We perform an explicit calculation of the D5 fluctuations in the D3 geometry and determine the spectrum of defect operators. This establishes the stability of the Kondo fixed point together with its basic thermodynamic properties. Known supergravity solutions for Wilson loops allow us to go beyond the probe approximation: the D5s disappear and are replaced by three-form flux piercing a new topologically non-trivial S3 in the corrected geometry. This describes the Kondo model in terms of a geometric transition. A dual matrix model reflects the basic properties of the corrected gravity solution in its eigenvalue …

Sludge samples from the DWPF Slurry Mix Evaporator (SME) heating coil frame and coil surface were characterized to identify differences that might help identify heat transfer fouling materials. The SME steam coils have seen increased fouling leading to lower boil-up rates. Samples of the sludge were taken from the coil frame somewhat distant from the coil (bulk tank material) and from the coil surface (coil surface sample). The results of the analysis indicate the composition of the two SME samples are very similar with the exception that the coil surface sample shows {approx}5-10X higher mercury concentration than the bulk tank sample. Elemental analyses and x-ray diffraction results did not indicate notable differences between the two samples. The ICP-MS and Cs-137 data indicate no significant differences in the radionuclide composition of the two SME samples. Semi-volatile organic analysis revealed numerous organic molecules, these likely result from antifoaming additives. The compositions of the two SME samples also match well with the analyzed composition of the SME batch with the exception of significantly higher silicon, lithium, and boron content in the batch sample indicating the coil samples are deficient in frit relative to the SME batch composition.

Parker Precision Cooling Business Unit was awarded a Department of Energy grant (DE-EE0000412) to support the DOE-ITP goal of reducing industrial energy intensity and GHG emissions. The project proposed by Precision Cooling was to accelerate the development of a cooling technology for high heat generating electronics components. These components are specifically related to power electronics found in power drives focused on the inverter, converter and transformer modules. The proposed cooling system was expected to simultaneously remove heat from all three of the major modules listed above, while remaining dielectric under all operating conditions. Development of the cooling system to meet specific customer's requirements and constraints not only required a robust system design, but also new components to support long system functionality. Components requiring further development and testing during this project included pumps, fluid couplings, cold plates and condensers. All four of these major categories of components are required in every Precision Cooling system. Not only was design a key area of focus, but the process for manufacturing these components had to be determined and proven through the system development.