Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) plays a vital role in advancing transportation safety by investigating accidents, determining their causes, issuing safety recommendations, and conducting safety studies. To support its mission, NTSB's training center provides training to NTSB investigators and others. It is important that NTSB use its resources efficiently to carry out its mission. In 2006, GAO made recommendations to NTSB in most of these areas. In 2007, an independent auditor made information security recommendations. This testimony addresses NTSB's progress in following leading practices in selected management areas, increasing the efficiency of aspects of investigating accidents and conducting safety studies, increasing the utilization of its training center, and improving information security. This testimony is based on GAO's assessment of agency plans and procedures developed to address these recommendations."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Among the efforts of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies, the agency provides funding to states and organizations that offer abstinence-until-marriage education. GAO was asked to testify on the oversight of federally funded abstinence-until-marriage education programs. This testimony is primarily based on Abstinence Education: Efforts to Assess the Accuracy and Effectiveness of Federally Funded Programs, GAO-07-87 (Oct. 3, 2006). In this testimony, GAO discusses efforts by (1) HHS and states to assess the scientific accuracy of materials used in abstinence-until-marriage education programs and (2) HHS, states, and researchers to assess the effectiveness of abstinence-until-marriage education programs. GAO also discusses a Public Health Service Act requirement regarding medically accurate information about condom effectiveness. GAO focused on the three main federally funded abstinence-until-marriage programs and reviewed documents and interviewed HHS officials in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the Office of Population Affairs (OPA). To update certain information, GAO contacted officials from ACF and OPA."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of the civilian labor force, which is defined as those 16 and older (including federal workers) who are employed or looking for work and are not in the military or institutionalized. In August 2006, GAO reported on factors affecting Hispanic representation in the federal workforce and efforts being taken by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and other agencies, including the Small Business Administration (SBA)--an independent agency that aids, counsels, assists, and protects the interests of small business concerns (GAO-06-832). In May 2007, GAO issued a report that contained data on Hispanic representation in the federal government through fiscal year 2006 (GAO-07-493R). In April 2008, GAO testified on diversity in the Senior Executive Service (SES) and the senior ranks of the U.S. Postal Service (GAO-08-609T). In response to a request to provide updated information on minorities and Hispanics in the federal workforce, GAO is providing demographic data--with an emphasis on Hispanic representation--related to the federal government as a whole and SBA's workforce. GAO obtained these data from OPM's Central Personnel Data File (CPDF)."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Federal agencies are increasingly using electronic mail (e-mail) for essential communication. In doing so, they are potentially creating messages that have the status of federal records, which must be managed and preserved in accordance with the Federal Records Act. To carry out the records management responsibilities established in the act, agencies are to follow implementing regulations that include specific requirements for e-mail records. In view of the importance that e-mail plays in documenting government activities, GAO was asked to testify on issues relating to the preservation of electronic records, including e-mail. As agreed, GAO's statement discusses challenges facing agencies when managing their e-mail records, as well as current policies and practices for managing e-mail messages that qualify as federal records. This testimony is primarily based on preliminary results of ongoing work, in which GAO is examining, among other things, e-mail policies at four agencies of contrasting sizes and structures (the Department of Homeland Security, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development), as well as the practices of selected senior officials."

many GEN-IV candidate designs are currently under investigation. Technical issues related to material, safety and economics are being addressed at research laboratories, industry and in academia. After safety, economic feasibility is likely to be the most important crterion in the success of GEN-IV design(s). Lessons learned from the designers and operators of GEN-II (and GEN-III) reactors must play a vital role in achieving both safety and economic feasibility goals.

Controls on the solution chemistry (minimum nitrite and hydroxide concentrations) are in place to prevent the initiation and propagation of pitting and stress corrosion cracking in high level waste (HLW) tanks. These controls are based upon a series of experiments performed on carbon steel coupons in simulated waste solutions. An experimental program was undertaken to investigate reducing the minimum molar nitrite concentration required to confidently inhibit pitting. A statistical basis to quantify the probability of pitting for the tank wall, when exposed to various dilute solutions, is being developed. Electrochemical and coupon testing are being performed within the framework of the statistical test matrix to determine the minimum necessary inhibitor concentrations and develop a quantitative model to predict pitting propensity. A subset of the original statistical test matrix was used to develop an applied understanding of the corrosion response of the carbon steel in the various environments. The interim results suggest that there exists some critical nitrite concentration that sufficiently inhibits against localized corrosion mechanisms due to nitrates/chlorides/sulfates, beyond which further nitrite additions are unnecessary. The combination of visual observation and the cyclic potentiodynamic polarization scans indicate the potential for significant inhibitor reductions without consequence specifically at nitrate concentrations near …

The Data group provides data analysis and visualization support to its customers. This consists primarily of the development and support of VisIt, a data analysis and visualization tool. Support ranges from answering questions about the tool, providing classes on how to use the tool, and performing data analysis and visualization for customers. The Information Management and Graphics Group supports and develops tools that enhance our ability to access, display, and understand large, complex data sets. Activities include applying visualization software for terascale data exploration; running two video production labs; supporting graphics libraries and tools for end users; maintaining PowerWalls and assorted other displays; and developing software for searching, managing, and browsing scientific data. Researchers in the Center for Applied Scientific Computing (CASC) work on various projects including the development of visualization techniques for terascale data exploration that are funded by the ASC program, among others. The researchers also have LDRD projects and collaborations with other lab researchers, academia, and industry. During the past year we have completed our visualization cluster strategy of converting to Opteron/IB clusters. We support a 128-node Opteron/IB cluster providing a visualization production server for our unclassified systems and a 256-node Opteron/IB cluster for the classified systems, …

This project is for the design of a wind turbine that can generate most or all of the net energy required for homes and small businesses in moderately windy areas. The purpose is to expand the current market for residential wind generators by providing cost effective power in a lower wind regime than current technology has made available, as well as reduce noise and improve reliability and safety. Robert W. Preus’ experience designing and/or maintaining residential wind generators of many configurations helped identify the need for an improved experience of safety for the consumer. Current small wind products have unreliable or no method of stopping the wind generator in fault or high wind conditions. Consumers and their neighbors do not want to hear their wind generators. In addition, with current technology, only sites with unusually high wind speeds provide payback times that are acceptable for the on-grid user. Abundant Renewable Energy’s (ARE) basic original concept for the ARE660 was a combination of a stall controlled variable speed small wind generator and automatic fail safe furling for shutdown. The stall control for a small wind generator is not novel, but has not been developed for a variable speed application with a …

Light-Front Holography is a remarkable consequence of the correspondence between string theory in AdS space and conformal field theories in physical-space time. It allows string modes {Phi}(z) in the AdS fifth dimension to be precisely mapped to the light-front wavefunctions of hadrons in terms of a specific light-front impact variable {zeta} which measures the separation of the quark and gluonic constituents within the hadron. This mapping was originally obtained by matching the exact expression for electromagnetic current matrix elements in AdS space with the corresponding exact expression for the current matrix element using light-front theory in physical space-time. More recently we have shown that one obtains the identical holographic mapping using matrix elements of the energy-momentum tensor, thus providing an important consistency test and verification of holographic mapping from AdS to physical observables defined on the light-front. The resulting light-front Schrodinger equations predicted from AdS/QCD give a good representation of the observed meson and baryon spectra and give excellent phenomenological predictions for amplitudes such as electromagnetic form factors and decay constants.

Dust production and accumulation impose safety and operational concerns for ITER. Diagnostics to monitor dust levels in the plasma as well as in-vessel dust inventory are currently being tested in a few tokamaks. Dust accumulation in ITER is likely to occur in hidden areas, e.g. between tiles and under divertor baffles. A novel electrostatic dust detector for monitoring dust in these regions has been developed and tested at PPPL. In DIII-D tokamak dust diagnostics include Mie scattering from Nd:YAG lasers, visible imaging, and spectroscopy. Laser scattering resolves size of particles between 0.16-1.6 {micro}m in diameter; the total dust content in the edge plasmas and trends in the dust production rates within this size range have been established. Individual dust particles are observed by visible imaging using fast-framing cameras, detecting dust particles of a few microns in diameter and larger. Dust velocities and trajectories can be determined in 2D with a single camera or 3D using multiple cameras, but determination of particle size is problematic. In order to calibrate diagnostics and benchmark dust dynamics modeling, pre-characterized carbon dust has been injected into the lower divertor of DIII-D. Injected dust is seen by cameras, and spectroscopic diagnostics observe an increase of carbon …

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This transcript is the record of an interview with Paula Sibilia about how technology affects her work as part of a lecture series, "Women Art Technology." During the interview, Sibilia discusses her research into how technological body modifications affect the cultural, social, and philosophical aspects of the human body. The transcript includes a brief introduction with a biography of Sibilia and general information about the lecture series and the specific interview. A list of 'Suggested reading' materials is also listed at the end of the transcript.

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

Weekly student newspaper from Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Texas that includes campus and local news along with advertising.

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

Weekly student newspaper from Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Texas that includes campus and local news along with advertising.

This report examines Latin America’s current political environment and its apparent effect on energy production in the region. It also discusses efforts to help many Latin American and Caribbean countries dependent on energy imports, including Venezuela’s preferential oil programs, the Mexico-led Meso-American Energy Integration Program, and U.S.-Brazilian cooperation on biofuels. The report also examines policy approaches that have been proposed for increased hemispheric energy cooperation, congressional interest in the topic of hemispheric energy security, and related legislative initiatives.

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Coincident {gamma} rays from a {sup 252}Cf source were measured using an array of six segmented high-purity germanium (HPGe) Clover detectors each enclosed by 16 bismuth-germanate (BGO) detectors. The detectors were arranged in a cubic pattern around a 1 {micro}Ci {sup 252}Cf source to cover a large solid angle for {gamma}-ray measurement with a reasonable reconstruction of the multiplicity. Neutron multiplicity was determined in certain cases by identifying the prompt {gamma} rays from individual fission fragment pairs. Multiplicity distributions from previous experiments and theoretical models were convolved with the response function of the array and compared to the present results. These results suggest a {gamma}-ray multiplicity spectrum broader than previous measurements and models, and provide no evidence of correlation with neutron multiplicity.

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Particle-in-cell simulation of Hall thruster plasmas reveals a plasma-sheath instability manifesting itself as a rearrangement of the plasma sheath near the thruster channel walls accompanied by a sudden change of many discharge parameters. The instability develops when the sheath current as a function of the sheath voltage is in the negative conductivity regime. The major part of the sheath current is produced by beams of secondary electrons counter-streaming between the walls. The negative conductivity is the result of nonlinear dependence of beam-induced secondary electron emission on the plasma potential. The intensity of such emission is defined by the beam energy. The energy of the beam in crossed axial electric and radial magnetic fields is a quasi-periodical function of the phase of cyclotron rotation, which depends on the radial profile of the potential and the thruster channel width. There is a discrete set of stability intervals determined by the final phase of the cyclotron rotation of secondary electrons. As a result, a small variation of the thruster channel width may result in abrupt changes of plasma parameters if the plasma state jumps from one stability interval to another.

We have explored surface water mixing in the Lombok Strait through a {approx}bimonthly resolved surface water {Delta}{sup 14}C time-series reconstructed from a coral in the Lombok Strait that spans 1937 through 1990. The prebomb surface water {Delta}{sup 14}C average is -60.5{per_thousand} and individual samples range from -72{per_thousand} to 134{per_thousand}. The annual average post-bomb maximum occurs in 1973 and is 122{per_thousand}. The timing of the post-bomb maximum is consistent with a primary subtropical source for the surface waters in the Indonesian Seas. During the post-bomb period the coral records regular seasonal cycles of 5-20{per_thousand}. Seasonal high {Delta}{sup 14}C occur during March-May (warm, low salinity), and low {Delta}{sup 14}C occur in September (cool, higher salinity). The {Delta}{sup 14}C seasonality is coherent and in phase with the seasonal {Delta}{sup 14}C cycle observed in Makassar Strait. We estimate the influence of high {Delta}{sup 14}C Makassar Strait (North Pacific) water flowing through the Lombok Strait using a two endmember mixing model and the seasonal extremes observed at the two sites. The percentage of Makassar Strait water varies between 16 and 70%, and between 1955 and 1990 it averages 40%. During La Nina events there is a higher percentage of Makassar Strait (high {Delta}{sup 14}C) water …

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