A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In the 1990's, states sued major tobacco companies to obtain reimbursement for health impairments caused by the public's use of tobacco. In 1998, four of the nation's largest tobacco companies signed a Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) to make annual payments to 46 states in perpetuity as reimbursement for past tobacco-related health care costs. Some states have arranged to receive advance proceeds based on the amounts that tobacco companies owe by issuing bonds backed by future payments. The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 requires GAO to report annually, through fiscal year 2006, on how states use MSA payments made by tobacco companies. To conduct this study, GAO surveys the 46 states. This is the fifth and final of a series of reports that provides information on the payments the 46 states received in fiscal year 2005 and expect to receive in fiscal year 2006 and states' allocations of these funds to various program categories and changes from prior years."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1979, Egypt has received about $60 billion in military and economic assistance with about $34 billion in the form of foreign military financing (FMF) grants that enable Egypt to purchase U.S.-manufactured military goods and services. In this report, GAO (1) describes the types and amounts of FMF assistance provided to Egypt; (2) assesses the financing arrangements used to provide FMF assistance to Egypt; and (3) evaluates how the U.S. assesses the program's contribution to U.S. foreign policy and security goals."

This research effort examines the post-detonation environmental, safety, health and operational aspects of experimental explosive tests with mercury. Specific experimental information is necessary for the evaluation of post-detonation by-products in comparison with those potentially resulting from mercury-bearing material accumulation in biomass accumulation areas, such as landfills, from batteries, electrical switches, thermometers, and fluorescent lights (Lindberg et al 2001). This will assist in determining appropriate abatement techniques for cleaning the work environment and environmental mitigation to determine waste stream components and risk assessment protocol. Determination of the by-products for personal protection equipment and personal exposure monitoring parameters are also part of this experimental work.

Enclosed is the report summarizing the metals analysis results at the Contained Firing Facility (CFF), during SQTS 01 - 05. This metals analysis includes evaluation of a bulk dust and surface swipe sampling protocol during the testing series that obtained samples at 3 primary locations in the CFF chamber area. The sampling protocol for each of the bulk dust samples involves an assessment of the concentration for 20 different metals, the oxidation state of selected metals, a particle size selective analysis, and morphological information. In addition, surface swipes were taken during SQTS 05 on the equipment and personnel door frames to indicate the characteristics of airborne metals due to leakage past the gasket seals. The bulk dust metals analysis indicates a nearly complete conversion of the aluminum casing to an oxide form with an even split between spherical and non-spherical morphology. Size selective analysis shows 83% of the particulates are in the inhalable size range of less than 100 microns and 46% are in the respirable range of less than 10 microns. Combining metals analysis and leakage results indicate the potential for a problematic personal exposure to metals external to the chamber unless modifications are made. Please feel free to …

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New corrosion-resistant, iron-based amorphous metals have been identified from published data or developed through combinatorial synthesis, and tested to determine their relative thermal phase stability, microstructure, mechanical properties, damage tolerance, and corrosion resistance. Some alloy additions are known to promote glass formation and to lower the critical cooling rate [F. Guo, S. J. Poon, Applied Physics Letters, 83 (13) 2575-2577, 2003]. Other elements are known to enhance the corrosion resistance of conventional stainless steels and nickel-based alloys [A. I. Asphahani, Materials Performance, Vol. 19, No. 12, pp. 33-43, 1980] and have been found to provide similar benefits to iron-based amorphous metals. Many of these materials can be cast as relatively thick ingots, or applied as coatings with advanced thermal spray technology. A wide variety of thermal spray processes have been developed by industry, and can be used to apply these new materials as coatings. Any of these can be used for the deposition of the formulations discussed here, with varying degrees of residual porosity and crystalline structure. Thick protective coatings have now been made that are fully dense and completely amorphous in the as-sprayed condition. An overview of the High-Performance Corrosion Resistant Materials (HPCRM) Project will be given, with particular …

Non-negligible dark energy density at high redshifts would indicate dark energy physics distinct from a cosmological constant or"reasonable'" canonical scalar fields. Such dark energy can be constrained tightly through investigation of the growth of structure, with limits of<~;;2percent of total energy density at z>> 1 for many models. Intermediate dark energy can have effects distinct from its energy density; the dark ages acceleration can be constrained to last less than 5percent of a Hubble e-fold time, exacerbating the coincidence problem. Both the total linear growth, or equivalently sigma 8, and the shape and evolution of the nonlinear mass power spectrum for z<2 (using the Linder-White nonlinear mapping prescription) provide important windows. Probes of growth, such as weak gravitational lensing, can interact with supernovae and CMB distance measurements to scan dark energy behavior over the entire range z=0-1100.

A new experimental apparatus has been developed for performing shear tests on specimens held under moderately high hydrostatic pressures (on the order of 4 GPa). This testing procedure experimentally determines the pressure-dependent shear strength of thin foil specimens. The experiments provide calibration data for models of materials subjected to extreme pressures such as the Steinberg-Guinan hardening model and can assist in model validation for discrete dislocation dynamics simulations, among others. This paper reports the development of the experimental procedures and the results of initial experiments on thin foils of polycrystalline Ta performed under hydrostatic pressures ranging from 1 to 4 GPa. Both yielding and hardening behavior of Ta are observed to be sensitive to the imposed pressure.

GEMS are to the outer solar system what chondrules are to the inner solar system. Ten years after it was first proposed that GEMS are the long-sought interstellar amorphous silicates, ion microprobe measurements have confirmed that some of them are indeed interstellar amorphous silicates. The new challenges are to obtain even higher precision isotope measurements from these submicrometer-sized objects and to clarify how and where they originally formed. Individual GEMS exhibit a strikingly narrow (0.1-0.5 {micro}m diameter) size distribution and they are systematically depleted from solar abundances in S/Si, Mg/Si, Ca/Si and Fe/Si, implying that they formed by a common mechanism. Mineralogical and petrographic evidence suggest that irradiation processing may be that mechanism. Recent nanometer-scale compositional mapping using new-generation transmission electron microscopes reveals that truly pristine GEMS may be relatively rare and new metrics need to be developed to distinguish the primordial properties of GEMS from more recent secondary alteration effects.

Jose Angel Gutierrez was a founding member of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) in San Antonio in 1967, and a founding member and past president of the Raza Unida Party, a Mexican-American third party movement that supported candidates for elective office in Texas, California, and other areas of the Southwestern and Midwestern United States. In this photo, he is standing in a crowd, holding two handwritten signs.

Jose Angel Gutierrez was a founding member of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) in San Antonio in 1967, and a founding member and past president of the Raza Unida Party, a Mexican-American third party movement that supported candidates for elective office in Texas, California, and other areas of the Southwestern and Midwestern United States. In this photo, he is in the midst of a crowd, holding handwritten signs.

This report provides Background and Legislative Issues about Export-Import Bank. The Export-Import Bank is a U.S chief government agency which finance American exports.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Raul Treto. Treto was born in Harlingen, Texas 4 November 1921. In September 1942 he was drafted into the Army and sent to Camp Robinson, Arkansas for eighteen weeks of basic training. Upon completion of basic he was assigned to the 98th Signal Battalion and sent to Camp Blanding, Florida for advanced training. In June 1944 the battalion traveled by troop train to Camp Stoneman, California. Boarding a liberty ship, they proceeded on a thirty day voyage to Aitape, Papua New Guinea. Upon arrival in New Guinea, Treto was assigned to a radio platoon. While on New Guinea he saw a USO Show put on by Bob Hope. He tells of going to Morotai as well as taking part in the invasion of Luzon. During August 1945 he was selected to go aboard the USS Mount Olympus (AGC-8) as part of the crew manning the radios and was on board in Tokyo Bay when the surrender of Japan was officially accepted. He returned to his unit which was stationed outside Yokohama. He returned to the United States and was discharged December 1945.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Albert Finley. Finley joined the Marine Corps around December of 1943. He provides vivid details of his boot camp experiences. He served with Headquarters Company, 4th Marines, as a radar mechanic on Corsairs, repairing radio and radar gear. Beginning in September of 1944 they traveled to Guam, Kwajalein, Pearl Harbor and Majuro in the Marshall Islands. Finley shares a number of anecdotal stories, including working with POWs. He was discharged in the fall of 1946.

The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Albert Finley. Finley joined the Marine Corps around December of 1943. He provides vivid details of his boot camp experiences. He served with Headquarters Company, 4th Marines, as a radar mechanic on Corsairs, repairing radio and radar gear. Beginning in September of 1944 they traveled to Guam, Kwajalein, Pearl Harbor and Majuro in the Marshall Islands. Finley shares a number of anecdotal stories, including working with POWs. He was discharged in the fall of 1946.

The authors present results on time-dependent CP asymmetries in f{sub 0}(980)({yields} {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -})K{sub S}{sup 0} and B{sup 0} {yields} K{sup +}K{sup -}K{sup 0}. The measurements use a data sample consisting of approximately 209(f{sub 0}(980)({yields} {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -})K{sub S}{sup 0}) and 227(B{sup 0} {yields} K{sup +}K{sup -}K{sup 0}) million B-meson pairs recorded at the {Upsilon}(4S) resonance with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II B-meson Factory at SLAC.

This document updates a previous calculation of the temperature distributions in a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) ion exchange column.1 LANL operates two laboratory-scale anion exchange columns, in series, to extract Pu-238 from nitric acid solutions. The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board has requested an updated analysis to calculate maximum temperatures for higher resin loading capacities obtained with a new formulation of the Reillex HPQ anion exchange resin. The increased resin loading capacity will not exceed 118 g plutonium per L of resin bed. Calculations were requested for normal operation of the resin bed at the minimum allowable solution feed rate of 30 mL/min and after an interruption of flow at the end of the feed stage, when one of the columns is fully loaded. The object of the analysis is to demonstrate that the decay heat from the Pu-238 will not cause resin bed temperatures to increase to a level where the resin significantly degrades. At low temperatures, resin bed temperatures increase primarily due to decay heat. At {approx}70 C a Low Temperature Exotherm (LTE) resulting from the reaction between 8-12 M HNO{sub 3} and the resin has been observed. The LTE has been attributed to an irreversible oxidation …

This research project was to improve the prompt gamma-ray neutron activation analysis (PGNAA) measurement approach for bulk analysis, oil well logging, and small sample thermal enutron bean applications.

Recent results on hadronic decays of tau from BaBar are reviewed. The branching fraction of {tau}{sup -} {yields} 3h{sup -} 2h{sup +}{nu}{sub {tau}} is measured to be (8.56 {+-} 0.05{sub stat} {+-} 0.42{sub sys}) x 10{sup -4}. The underlaying substructure of this decay exposes strong contribution from {rho} resonance. The decay {tau}{sup -} {yields} f{sub 1}(1285){pi}{sup -} {nu}{sub {tau}} with f{sub 1}(1285) {yields} 2{pi}{sup -}2{pi}{sup +} is observed and the corresponding branching fraction is measured to be (3.9 {+-} 0.7{sub stat} {+-} 0.5{sub sys}) x 10{sup -4}. The search for {tau}{sup -} {yields} 4{pi}{sup -}3{pi}{sup +}({pi}{sup 0}){nu}{sub {tau}} decay was performed and without evidence of the signal the upper limit of B({tau}{sup -} {yields} 4{pi}{sup -}3{pi}{sup +}({pi}{sup 0}){nu}{sub {tau}}) is estimated to be 3.0 x 10{sup -7} at 90% confidence limit. The upper limits on branching fractions for the exclusive decays {tau}{sup -} {yields} 4{pi}{sup -}3{pi}{sup +}{nu}{sub {tau}} and {tau}{sup -} {yields} 4{pi}{sup -}3{pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup 0}{nu}{sub {tau}} are found to be 4.3 x 10{sup -7} and 2.5 x 10{sup -7} at 90% confidence limit, respectively.

Six parties (EU, Japan, Russia, US, Korea, China) will build ITER. The US proposed to deliver at least 4 out of 7 modules of the Central Solenoid. Phillip Michael (MIT) and I were tasked by DoE to assist ITER in development of the ITER CS and other magnet systems. We work to help Magnets and Structure division headed by Neil Mitchell. During this visit I worked on the selected items of the CS design and carried out other small tasks, like PF temperature margin assessment.

The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, in collaboration with Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), developed a series of seminars, ''The New Biology: Challenges and Opportunities'', to stimulate dialogue between leaders in science, medicine, law, biotechnology and senior government policymakers on matters that will shape much of the genomic revolution's impact on individuals and institutions in this country.

A flier advertising the Lavender Lunch hosted by the UNT Division of Equity and Diversity. Dr. Edra Bogle will be speaking at the event about her experience in the DFW area LGBT political community and as a now-retired UNT faculty leader.