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

Lecture given Tuesday, February 21, 2006, 2:00 PM at Abilene Christian University: "In missions, we have cloned churches for many years, planting American' style churches in other cultures. Church leaders must have the courage to plant the Gospel in other cultures."

Lecture given Tuesday, February 21, 2006, 8:30 AM at Abilene Christian University: "This class deals with the relocation and transformation of the Midtown Church of Christ in Fort Worth, Texas, now the Heritage Church of Christ in Keller, Texas. How a church changed from a declining and dying entity into a thriving and growing church in a vibrant neighborhood."

Lecture given Tuesday, February 21, 2006, 8:30 AM at Abilene Christian University: "We learn what it means to be truly human as we follow Jesus into the gracious life of God. Come and hear how the practice of spiritual direction aids Christians in the pursuit of becoming truly human."

Lecture given Tuesday, February 21, 2006, 9:45 AM at Abilene Christian University: "Churches fell stymied by crisis, conflict or lack of direction. The Gospel gives us reason to avoid seeing these trouble spots as obstacles. Instead, they are the means by which God reconnects us to the mission and to the authentic life of the church."

Medicaid is a joint federal-state entitlement program that pays for medical services on behalf of certain groups of low-income persons. It is the third largest social program in the federal budget, exceeded only by Social Security and Medicare and is typically the second largest spending item for states. This report discusses prescription drug policies under the program.

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

We construct black hole attractor solutions for a wide class of N = 2 compactifications. The analysis is carried out in ten dimensions and makes crucial use of pure spinor techniques. This formalism can accommodate non-Kaehler manifolds as well as compactifications with flux, in addition to the usual Calabi-Yau case. At the attractor point, the charges fix the moduli according to {Sigma}f{sub k} = Im(C{Phi}), where {Phi} is a pure spinor of odd (even) chirality in IIB (A). For IIB on a Calabi-Yau, {Phi} = {Omega} and the equation reduces to the usual one. Methods in generalized complex geometry can be used to study solutions to the attractor equation.

We use an integrated approach consisting of experiments and complementary pore-scale network modeling to investigate the occurrence of sparsely connected pore spaces in rock matrices at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, and their implications for matrix diffusion. Imbibition results indicate that pore spaces in devitrified tuff are not well-connected, and that this lack of connectivity is further compounded by episodic flow in fractured devitrified tuff with low matrix permeability. A rigorous methodology for investigating chemical transport in fractured rock under episodic conditions, employing a suite of both sorbing and non-sorbing tracers (including radionuclides U-235, Np-237, and Pu-242), has been developed and implemented. In addition, gas diffusion and synchrotron microtomography techniques have been under development to examine the scaling issues of diffusion and pore connectivity. Preliminary results from experiments and modeling work are presented in this paper, confirming the need to reexamine our understanding of matrix diffusion and to evaluate the impact on diffusive radionuclide retardation of episodic fracture flow and low pore connectivity.

Lecture given Tuesday, February 21, 2006, 8:30 AM at Abilene Christian University: "Whether impacted by the massive AIDS epidemic, or abducted from their homes, children in sub-Sahara Africa face a dangerous existence. What can and should Christians do to save these 'little ones?'"

The United States and its allies are helping Afghanistan emerging from more than 22 years of warfare, although substantial risk to Afghan stability remains. Before the U.S. military campaign against the orthodox Islamist Taliban movement began on October 7, 2001, Afghanistan had been mired in conflict since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The defeat of the Taliban has enabled the United States and its coalition partners to send forces throughout Afghanistan to search for Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters and leaders that remain at large, including Osama bin Laden. As the war against remaining Al Qaeda and Taliban elements winds down, the United States is shifting its military focus toward stabilizing the interim government, including training a new Afghan national army, and supporting the international security force (ISAF) that is helping the new government provide security.

Weak scale supersymmetry is often said to be fine-tuned, especially if the matter content is minimal. This is not true if there is a large {Alpha} term for the top squarks. We present a systematic study on fine-tuning in minimal supersymmetric theories and identify low energy spectra that do not lead to severe .ne-tuning. Characteristic features of these spectra are: a large {Alpha} term for the top squarks, small top squark masses, moderately large tan {beta}, and a small {mu} parameter. There are classes of theories leading to these features, which are discussed. In one class, which allows a complete elimination of fine-tuning, the Higgsinos are the lightest among all the superpartners of the standard model particles, leading to three nearly degenerate neutralino/chargino states. This gives interesting signals at the LHC--the dilepton invariant mass distribution has a very small endpoint and shows a particular shape determined by the Higgsino nature of the two lightest neutralinos. We demonstrate that these signals are indeed useful in realistic analyses by performing Monte Carlo simulations, including detector simulations and background estimations. We also present a method that allows the determination of all the relevant superparticle masses without using input from particular models, despite the …

Transcript of an oral interview with Thomas Koltoniak. He joined the Navy despite being underage. He was assigned to the USS Texas (BB-35), first in the radio division, then in the aerial division. He shares an anecdote about visiting a munitions dump in Iceland on one of the ship's Atlantic crossings. He mentions the radio broadcast of General Dwight Eisenhower?s ?Voice of Freedom? message from the Texas while off the coast of North Africa. He participated in aerial photography missions along the French coast in preparation for the invasion of Normandy, France. He relates that the Texas was hit by two German shells, one of which failed to explode, during the Battle of Cherbourg. He describes the invasion of Iwo Jima. He also describes the processes of taking-off and landing on an aircraft carrier. He discusses attacks by kamikazes at Okinawa as well as the capture of a kamikaze pilot.

Transcript of an oral interview with Thomas Koltoniak. He joined the Navy despite being underage. He was assigned to the USS Texas (BB-35), first in the radio division, then in the aerial division. He shares an anecdote about visiting a munitions dump in Iceland on one of the ship's Atlantic crossings. He mentions the radio broadcast of General Dwight Eisenhower?s ?Voice of Freedom? message from the Texas while off the coast of North Africa. He participated in aerial photography missions along the French coast in preparation for the invasion of Normandy, France. He relates that the Texas was hit by two German shells, one of which failed to explode, during the Battle of Cherbourg. He describes the invasion of Iwo Jima. He also describes the processes of taking-off and landing on an aircraft carrier. He discusses attacks by kamikazes at Okinawa as well as the capture of a kamikaze pilot.

Tribological coatings must provide lubrication for moving components of the control drive mechanism for a space reactor and prevent seizing due to friction or diffusion welding to provide highly reliable and precise control of reflector position over the mission lifetime. Several coatings were evaluated based on tribological performance at elevated temperatures and in ultrahigh vacuum environments. Candidates with proven performance in the anticipated environment are limited primarily to disulfide materials. Irradiation data for these coatings is nonexistent. Compatibility issues between coating materials and structural components may require the use of barrier layers between the solid lubricant and structural components to prevent deleterious interactions. It would be advisable to consider possible lubricant interactions prior to down-selection of structural materials. A battery of tests was proposed to provide the necessary data for eventual solid lubricant/coating selection.

Lecture given Tuesday, February 21, 2006, 9:45 AM at Abilene Christian University: "John's numerous themes are not only different, but are developed in unique ways. John also poses chronological problems - the clearing of the temple, the anointing at Bethany, the Last Supper, and so forth. What about these Johannine differences?"

The Energy and Environment Directorate (E& ED) is one of 13 directorates at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), which is operated by the University of California (UC) for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). We operate in the context of a national security laboratory and focus on meeting major national needs, especially from a long-term perspective. In the LLNL context, E&ED is a hybrid ''program'' and ''discipline'' directorate, combining the program development responsibilities in the national energy and environment arenas to the benefit of the entire Laboratory and also serving as the Laboratory's science base of atmospheric, earth, environmental, and energy science. This Status Report is part of the annual evaluation process required by the Department of Energy (DOE) as part of its contract with UC. The annual review typically will focus on about one third of the activities and programs of a directorate, so that the entire organization is evaluated over a three-year window. This year's review is focused on the basic science foundations for the directorate and two major program areas in the directorate, with an update from a third program. The programs for review are: (1) Earth System Science and Engineering; (2) Nuclear …

Lecture given Tuesday, February 21, 2006, 9:45 AM at Abilene Christian University: "The story of the man of God who believes a lie and is punished for it (1 Kings 13) raises questions for some about God's actions. A literary reading suggests there is as much grace in the narrative as judgment."

This is a summary of the refractory metal processing experienced by candidate Prometheus materiats as they were fabricated into specimens destined for testing within the JOYO test reactor, ex-reactor testing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), or testing within the NRPCT. The processing is described for each alloy from the point of inception to the point where processing was terminated due to the cancellation of Naval Reactor's involvement in the Prometheus Project. The alloys included three tantalum-base alloys (T-111, Ta-10W, and ASTAR-811C), a niobium-base alloy, (FS-85), and two molybdenum-rhenium alloys, one containing 44.5 w/o rhenium, and the other 47.5 w/o rhenium. Each of these alloys was either a primary candidate or back-up candidate for cladding and structural applications within the space reactor. Their production was intended to serve as a forerunner for large scale production ingots that were to be procured from commercial refractory metal vendors such as Wah Chang.

Technologically important nanomaterials come in all shapes and sizes. They can range from small molecules to complex composites and mixtures. Depending upon the spatial dimensions of the system and properties under investigation computer modeling of such materials can range from equilibrium and nonequilibrium Quantum Mechanics, to force-field-based Molecular Mechanics and kinetic Monte Carlo, to Mesoscale simulation of evolving morphology, to Finite-Element computation of physical properties. This brief review illustrates some of the above modeling techniques through a number of recent applications with carbon nanotubes: nano electromechanical sensors (NEMS), chemical sensors, metal-nanotube contacts, and polymer-nanotube composites.

Lecture given Tuesday, February 21, 2006, 9:45 AM at Abilene Christian University: "This class is making the case that the biblical call is for people to imitate Christ, not his first century church's methods or practices. When people who are in community with each other, they are a Church of Christ."

Lecture given Tuesday, February 21, 2006, 2:00 PM at Abilene Christian University: "This will be a study of the first half of John's Gospel, paying special attention to the way John develops his narrative of Jesus' life through signs that either result in belief or disbelief. The central themes of John's Gospel will be examined through the recurring narrative patterns of the Gospel."

The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) program has been the most controversial nuclear weapon program in Congress for the last several years. Supporters argue that it is needed to attack hard and deeply buried targets (such as leadership bunkers) in countries of concern, thereby deterring or defeating challenges from such nations; critics assert that RNEP would lower the threshold for use of nuclear weapons and prompt other nations to develop nuclear weapons to deter U.S. attack. This report presents a brief technical background on RNEP, then discusses the history of RNEP in Congress and the Administration for the FY2005 and FY2006 budget cycles.

In this paper a new approach to photochemical modeling is investigated and a lagrangian particle model named Photochemical Lagrangian Particle Model (PLPM) is described. Lagrangian particle models are a consolidated tool to deal with the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere. Good results have been obtained dealing with inert pollutants. In recent years, a number of pioneering works have shown as Lagrangian models can be of great interest when dealing with photochemistry, provided that special care is given in the reconstruction of chemicals concentration in the atmosphere. Density reconstruction can be performed through the so called ''box counting'' method: an Eulerian grid for chemistry is introduced and density is computed counting particles in each box. In this way one of the main advantages of the Lagrangian approach, the grid independence, is lost. Photochemical reactions are treated in PLPM by means of the complex chemical mechanism SAPRC90 and four density reconstruction methods have been developed, based on the kernel density estimator approach, in order to obtain grid-free accurate concentrations. These methods are all fully grid-free but they differ each other in considering local or global features of the particles distribution, in treating the Cartesian directions separately or together and in being …