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

Laser interactions have traditionall been at thec center of nanomaterials science, providing highly nonequilibrium growth conditions to enable the syn- thesis of novel new nanoparticles, nanotubes, and nanowires with metastable phases. Simultaneously, lasers provide unique opportunities for the remote char- acterization of nanomaterial size, structure, and composition through tunable laser spectroscopy, scattering, and imaging. Pulsed lasers offer the opportunity, there- fore, to supply the required energy and excitation to both control and understand the growth processes of nanomaterials, providing valuable views of the typically nonequilibrium growth kinetics and intermediates involved. Here we illustrate the key challenges and progress in laser interactions for the synthesis and in situ diagnostics of nanomaterials through recent examples involving primarily carbon nanomaterials, including the pulsed growth of carbon nanotubes and graphene.

Social unrest represents a major challenge for policy makers around the globe, as it can quickly escalate from small scale disturbances to highly public protests, riots and even civil war. This research was motivated by a need to understand social instability and to unpack the comments made during a spring 2013 conference hosted by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Center for Global Security and the U.S. Institute for Peace, where policymakers noted that models considering social instability are often not suitable for decision-making. This analysis shows that existing state level models of instability could be improved in spatial scale to the city level, even without significantly improved data access. Better data would make this analysis more complete and likely improve the quality of the model. Another challenge with incorporating modeling into decision-making is the need to understand uncertainty in a model. Policy makers are frequently tasked with making decisions without a clear outcome, so characterization of uncertainty is critical. This report describes the work and findings of the project. It took place in three phases: a literature review of social stability research, a “hindsight scan” that looked at historical data, and a “foresight scan” looking at future scenarios.

Residential construction practices are progressing toward higher levels of energy efficiency. A proven strategy to save energy is to simultaneously increase building insulation levels and reduce outdoor air infiltration. Tight homes require intentional mechanical ventilation to ensure healthy indoor air. Overall, this strategy results in a shift in the mix of latent and sensible space conditioning loads, requiring proportionally more moisture to be removed compared to standard homes. There is currently not sufficient information available at a wide enough range of operating points to design dehumidification systems for high performance homes in hot-humid climates. The only industry information available on dehumidifier moisture removal and energy consumption are performance ratings conducted at a single test condition, which does not provide a full representation of dehumidifier operation under real-world conditions. Winkler et al. (2011) developed steady state performance maps to predict dehumidifier performance at a variety of indoor conditions. However, installed heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) equipment rarely operates at steady state. Part load performance testing of residential dehumidifiers is not mandated by current test standards. Therefore, we tested the part load performance of four residential dehumidifiers in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) Advanced HVAC Systems Laboratory . The part load …

The exclusive electro-production process $ep\to e^{\prime}n\pi^+$ was measured in the range of the invariant mass for $n\pi^+$ system $1.6~\rm{GeV}\le W \le 2.0~\rm{GeV}$, and the photon virtuality $1.8~\rm{GeV^2}\le Q^2\le4.0~\rm{GeV^2}$ using CLAS. For the first time, these kinematics are probed in exclusive $\pi^+$ production from the protons with nearly full coverage in the azimuthal and polar angles of the $n\pi^+$ center-of-mass system. In this experiment, approximately 39,000 differential cross-section data points were measured. In this proceeding, preliminary results of our latest analysis work are presented on differential cross sections and structure functions as well as Legendre Moments.

Measurement results of photoproduced excited hyperon states using the CLAS detector at Jefferson Lab are shown. The invariant mass distribution of the {Lambda}(1405) has recently been shown to be different for each of the three Sigma pi channels that it decays to, showing that there is prominent interference between the isospin I=0 and I=1 isospin amplitudes. Measurements of the differential and total cross sections of the three hyperons {Lambda}(1405), {Sigma}{sup 0}(1385), and Lambda(1520) are presented and compared. Prospects of future studies using a 12 GeV beam with the GlueX detector are briefly given.

Psuedo-scalar meson photo production measurements have been carried out with longitudinally-polarized neutrons using the circularly and linearly polarized photon beams and the CLAS at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jlab). The experiment aims to obtain a complete set of spin observables on an efficient neutron target. Preliminary E asymmetries for the exclusive reaction, gamma + n(p)--> pi- + p(p), selecting quasi free neutron kinematics are discussed.

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

Clean Cities' National Clean Fleets Partnership establishes strategic alliances with large fleets to help them explore and adopt alternative fuels and fuel economy measures to cut petroleum use. The initiative leverages the strength of nearly 100 Clean Cities coalitions, nearly 18,000 stakeholders, and more than 20 years of experience. It provides fleets with top-level support, technical assistance, robust tools and resources, and public acknowledgement to help meet and celebrate fleets' petroleum-use reductions.

NetMOD (Network Monitoring for Optimal Detection) is a Java-based software package for conducting simulation of seismic networks. Specifically, NetMOD simulates the detection capabilities of seismic monitoring networks. Network simulations have long been used to study network resilience to station outages and to determine where additional stations are needed to reduce monitoring thresholds. NetMOD makes use of geophysical models to determine the source characteristics, signal attenuation along the path between the source and station, and the performance and noise properties of the station. These geophysical models are combined to simulate the relative amplitudes of signal and noise that are observed at each of the stations. From these signal-to-noise ratios (SNR), the probability of detection can be computed given a detection threshold. This manual describes how to configure and operate NetMOD to perform seismic detection simulations. In addition, NetMOD is distributed with a simulation dataset for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) International Monitoring System (IMS) seismic network for the purpose of demonstrating NetMOD's capabilities and providing user training. The tutorial sections of this manual use this dataset when describing how to perform the steps involved when running a simulation.

IBACOS explored the relationships between pressure and physical configurations of flexible duct junction boxes by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to predict individual box parameters and total system pressure, thereby ensuring improved HVAC performance. Current Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) guidance (Group 11, Appendix 3, ACCA Manual D, Rutkowski 2009) allows for unconstrained variation in the number of takeoffs, box sizes, and takeoff locations. The only variables currently used in selecting an equivalent length (EL) are velocity of air in the duct and friction rate, given the first takeoff is located at least twice its diameter away from the inlet. This condition does not account for other factors impacting pressure loss across these types of fittings. For each simulation, the IBACOS team converted pressure loss within a box to an EL to compare variation in ACCA Manual D guidance to the simulated variation. IBACOS chose cases to represent flows reasonably correlating to flows typically encountered in the field and analyzed differences in total pressure due to increases in number and location of takeoffs, box dimensions, and velocity of air, and whether an entrance fitting is included. The team also calculated additional balancing losses for all cases due to …

We describe a new type of models for nucleon generalized parton distributions (GPDs) H and E. They are heavily based on the fact nucleon GPDs require to use two forms of double distribution (DD) representations. The outcome of the new treatment is that the usual DD+D-term construction should be amended by an extra term, {xi} E{sub +}{sup 1} (x,{xi}) which has the DD structure {alpha}/{beta} e({beta},{alpha}, with e({beta},{alpha}) being the DD that generates GPD E(x,{xi}). We found that this function, unlike the D-term, has support in the whole -1 <= x <= 1 region. Furthermore, it does not vanish at the border points |x|={xi}.

Recent advancements in utility-scale wind turbine technology and pricing have vastly increased the potential land area where turbines can be deployed in the United States. This presentation quantifies the new developable land potential (e.g., capacity curves), visually identifies new areas for possible development (e.g., new wind resource maps), and begins to address deployment barriers to wind in new areas for modern and future turbine technology.

This paper presents a numerical implementation and examination of new wind turbine blade finite element model based on Geometrically Exact Beam Theory (GEBT) and a high-order spectral finite element method. The displacement-based GEBT is presented, which includes the coupling effects that exist in composite structures and geometric nonlinearity. Legendre spectral finite elements (LSFEs) are high-order finite elements with nodes located at the Gauss-Legendre-Lobatto points. LSFEs can be an order of magnitude more efficient that low-order finite elements for a given accuracy level. Interpolation of the three-dimensional rotation, a major technical barrier in large-deformation simulation, is discussed in the context of LSFEs. It is shown, by numerical example, that the high-order LSFEs, where weak forms are evaluated with nodal quadrature, do not suffer from a drawback that exists in low-order finite elements where the tangent-stiffness matrix is calculated at the Gauss points. Finally, the new LSFE code is implemented in the new FAST Modularization Framework for dynamic simulation of highly flexible composite-material wind turbine blades. The framework allows for fully interactive simulations of turbine blades in operating conditions. Numerical examples showing validation and LSFE performance will be provided in the final paper.

New development demonstrates that inexpensive and robust metal oxide photoabsorbers hold great promise as photoanodes for water oxidation.

NREL supports standard data transfer protocol to streamline communication of home performance tracking systems and upgrade analysis software.

NREL analysis identifies potential cost-effective scenarios for using small fuel cell power units to increase the range of medium-duty battery electric vehicles.

Monthly newspaper from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national financial news along with advertising pertinent to The Oklahoma Bankers Association.

Single spin asymmetries, A{sub N} , for inclusive particle production in pp collisions are considered within a generalized parton model with inclusion of spin and tranverse momentum effects. We consider the potential role of the Sivers effect in A{sub N} , as extracted from a careful analysis of azimuthal asymmetries in SIDIS, and discuss its phenomenological consequences in connection with a recently updated study of the Collins effect.

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

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

We are on the threshold of a transformative change in the basic architecture of highperformance computing. The use of accelerator processors, characterized by large core counts, shared but asymmetrical memory, and heavy thread loading, is quickly becoming the norm in high performance computing. These accelerators represent significant challenges in updating our existing base of software. An intrinsic problem with this transition is a fundamental programming shift from message passing processes to much more fine thread scheduling with memory sharing. Another problem is the lack of stability in accelerator implementation; processor and compiler technology is currently changing rapidly. This report documents the results of our three-year ASCR project to address these challenges. Our project includes the development of the Dax toolkit, which contains the beginnings of new algorithms for a new generation of computers and the underlying infrastructure to rapidly prototype and build further algorithms as necessary.

We report on the extraction of Polarization Observables Spin Density Matrix Elements (SDMEs), and Beam Asymmetry Sigma for omega meson photoproduction using a beam of linearly polarized photons in the photon energy region of Egamma = 1.3 to 1.7 GeV, by means of the angular distributions of the daughter pions from omega decay. These preliminary results are from the g8b dataset, which were collected with the CLAS detector in Hall B of Jefferson Lab.

Semiweekly newspaper from Port Lavaca, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.