The Dallas/Fort Worth Metropolitan Area, along with most other regions of the country, has witnessed some tough economic times. Telecom layoffs, the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the national economic downturn have reduced the region's employment by about 100,000 since 2000. Dallas' current economic stress is best evidenced by its declining per capita income. Still, as this report illustrates, even allowing for the region's current economic vicissitudes, the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex has been one of the most dynamic urban areas in the nation since 1990 and this report presents the information surrounding these topics with the figures and data found by the University of North Texas Center for Economic Development and Research.

This lecture script examines the nature and role of standards for the emerging 21st century library. Given the dynamic character of the networked environment, when are standards appropriate and how can they be developed in a manner consistent with the volatility of information technologies and changing library services? What are the roles and responsibilities of standards developing organizations, technology vendors, content creators, and librarians for standards? Do local practices of libraries threaten standards-based resource sharing and resource access technologies? Can local needs be balanced with broader library community responsibilities, and how do standards affect this balance? The speaker's assumption is that adherence to standards has never been more critical, yet his implementation experience with Z39.50 and MARC suggests that the commitment to national and international standards by librarians, technology vendors, and content creators are often an example of good intentions rather than actual practice. This standards disconnect threatens the emerging 21st century library's ability to deliver fundamental services in appropriate ways to their users.

Article on signals for local and systemic responses of plants to pathogen attack.

Article on community-oriented policing in a multicultural milieu and the case of loitering and disorderly conduct in East Arlington, Texas.

This article discusses the use of tree-based models to identify subgroups and increase power to detect linkage to cardiovascular disease traits.

In this article, the authors consider the low-frequency limit (homogenization) for propagation of sound waves in periodic elastic medium (phononic crystals).

This report discusses the Z39.50 interoperability testbed and serves as an interim report for the Z-Interop Project as of December 31, 2003.