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

Daily newspaper from Perry, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

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

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

Daily newspaper from Chickasha, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Student newspaper of the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma that includes national, local, and campus news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Sapulpa, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

CH2M Hill Hanford Group, Inc. is identifying and developing supplemental process technologies to accelerate the Hanford tank waste cleanup mission. Bulk vitrification, containerized grout, and steam reforming are three technologies under consideration for treatment of the radioactive saltcake wastes in 68 single-shell tanks. To support development and testing of these technologies, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) was tasked with developing a cold dissolved saltcake simulant formulation to be representative of an actual saltcake waste stream, preparing a 25-L batch of the simulant, and analyzing the composition of the batch to assure conformance to formulation targets. Lacking a defined composition for dissolved actual saltcake waste, PNNL used available tank waste composition information and an equilibrium chemistry model (Environmental Simulation Program, ESP) to predict the concentrations of analytes in solution. Observations of insoluble solids in initial laboratory preparations for the model predicted formulation prompted minor modifications in the concentration of phosphate and silicon in the final simulant formulation. The analytical results for the 25-L simulant batch agree within the expected measurement accuracy (~10%) of the target concentrations and are highly consistent for replicate measurements, with a few minor exceptions. The instrumental analyses indicate that the batch of solution adequately reflects the as-formulated …

It is well recognized that half the countries in the world will face significant fresh water shortages in the next 20 years, due largely to growing populations and increased agricultural and industrial demands. These shortages will significantly limit economic growth, decrease the quality of life and human health for billions of people, and could potentially lead to violence and conflict over securing scarce supplies of water. These concerns are not limited to the water-poor countries, of course, as many parts of China and the US face similar problems. Such problems can be exacerbated by fluctuating imbalances between need and supply, poor management practices, and pollution. The future is one that will require significant scientific and technological advances in conservation, preservation, and movement of fresh water, as well as in the development of new or alternative supplies. As an example, these issues are discussed in terms of California, and a case study related to the scientific issues associated with a groundwater banking project in Southern California is provided.

d on 25 Feb 2003 (v1), last revised 10 Apr 2003 (this version, v2))We estimate the Coulomb energy of static quarks from a Monte Carlo calculation of the correlator of timelike link variables in Coulomb gauge. We find, in agreement with Cucchieri and Zwanziger, that this energy grows linearly with distance at large quark separations. The corresponding string tension, however, is several times greater than the accepted asymptotic string tension, indicating that a state containing only static sources, with no constituent gluons, is not the lowest energy flux tube state. The Coulomb energy is also measured on thermalized lattices with center vortices removed by the de Forcrand-D'Elia procedure. We find that when vortices are removed, the Coulomb string tension vanishes.

Explicit supersymmetry breaking is studied in higher dimensional theories by having boundaries respect only a subgroup of the bulk symmetry. If the boundary symmetry is the maximal subgroup allowed by the boundary conditions imposed on the fields, then the symmetry can be consistently gauged; otherwise gauging leads to an inconsistent theory. In a warped fifth dimension, an explicit breaking of all bulk supersymmetries by the boundaries is found to be inconsistent with gauging; unlike the case of flat 5D, complete supersymmetry breaking by boundary conditions is not consistent with supergravity. Despite this result, the low energy effective theory resulting from boundary supersymmetry breaking becomes consistent in the limit where gravity decouples, and such models are explored in the hope that some way of successfully incorporating gravity can be found. A warped constrained standard model leads to a theory with one Higgs boson with mass expected close to the experimental limit. A unified theory in a warped fifth dimension is studied with boundary breaking of both SU(5) gauge symmetry and supersymmetry. The usual supersymmetric predictionfor gauge coupling unification holds even though the TeV spectrum is quite unlike the MSSM. Such a theory may unify matter and Higgs in the same SU(5) …

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

This report includes background and analysis of the United States postal reform. Causes of financial crisis, transformative plans, and activity from past congresses are also discussed in this report.

This report will focus on the second issue by examining the economics of financial privacy in the context of the opt-out/opt-in debate, and consider the implications of a regulatory change.

This report provides an overview of the implementation phase of the department organization and management of the Homeland Security.

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A more urgent need now exists since 9/11 to protect vital assets at nuclear plants from physical security threats. Any approach to successful defense must result in the best possible risk profile , while also performing this defense against credible threats within the context of limited personnel and materiel resources. Engineered solutions need to be well thought out, and take advantage of each plant's available organic strengths and opportunities. A robust, well trained/equipped highly motivated protective force will help reduce concerns where there are weaknesses making the plant vulnerable to threats. A thorough risk assessment takes into account the proper combination of both deterministic and probabilistic application of resources as a most advantageous approach; this is postulated to be development of integrated protection methods and plans, which blend solid engineering design with the highest caliber of protection forces. By setting a clear and ambitious objective to shield the nuclear assets with this type of dynamic full spectrum defense in depth, the risk of harm-breach or likelihood of any opponent's threat being realized should be reduced to the lowest practicable levels.

In the past funding period we have concentrated in developing new 99mTc labeled MIBG analogs. Basic chemistry of ligand synthesis, radiochemistry of Re and 99mTc complex formation, separation of stereoisomers and in vitro stability were investigated. We have prepared a number of new MIBG derivatives containing chelating moiety N2S2 and additional groups to increase lipophilicity. Unfortunately none of the new 99mTc labeled MIBG analogs showed promise as an imaging agent for myocardial neuronal function. Radioactive-iodine-labeled meta-iodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) is currently being used as an in vivo imaging agent to evaluate neuroendocrine tumors as well as the myocardial sympathetic nervous system in patients with myocardial infarct and cardiomyopathy. It is generally accepted that MIBG is an analog of norepinephrine and its uptake in the heart corresponds to the distribution of norepinephrine and the density of sympathetic neurons. A series of MIBG derivatives containing suitable chelating functional groups N2S2 for the formation of [Tcv0]+3N2S2 complex was successfully synthesized and the 99mTc-labeled complexes were prepared and tested in rats. One of the compounds, [99mTc]M2, tested showed significant, albeit lower, heart uptakes post iv injection in rats (0.18% dose/organ at 4 hours) as compared to [l25l]MIBG (1.4% dose/organ at 4 hours). The heart uptake of …

Today, each utility or country operating nuclear power plants can select between two long-term spent fuel management policies: either, spent fuel is considered as waste to dispose of through direct disposal or, spent fuel is considered a resource of valuable material through reprocessing-recycling. Reading and listening to what is said in the nuclear community, we understand that most people consider that the choice of policy is, actually, a choice among two technical paths to handle spent fuel: direct disposal versus reprocessing. This very simple situation has been recently challenged by analysis coming from countries where both policies are on survey. For example, ONDRAF of Belgium published an interesting study showing that, economically speaking for final disposal, it is worth treating spent fuel rather than dispose of it as a whole, even if there is no possibility to recycle the valuable part of it. So, the question is raised: is there such a one-to-one link between long term spent fuel management political option and industrial option? The purpose of the presentation is to discuss the potential advantages and drawbacks of spent fuel treatment as an implementation of the policy that considers spent fuel as waste to dispose of. Based on technical …

With several military base closures resulting in property transfer to public use and the decommissioning of many legacy waste facilities, the opportunity for remediation of older buildings is increasing. Along with these projects, come several problems that could give the potential remediator some surprises. During the preconstruction and planning phases of the original construction activities, several generations of drawings were most likely produced for approval and permit submittal. Over the years, buildings may undergo several renovations with or without the full characterization or remediation that should be done when radioactive materials are used on a site. New walls or floors may be built over the original construction materials. Contamination in and around the building may have resulted from processes that were accepted at the time or from inadvertent activities that may have been covered up, including accidental spills. Many buildings contain hidden rooms or accesses that over time became useless and have been closed up or over, these areas may not be very obvious. When characterizing a building the effluents of the building are usually forgotten, sewer lines are important areas to investigate. All these items could cause a remediator to overlook a potentially highly contaminated area. With more of …

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently developed a searchable database and website for the Environmental Radiation Ambient Monitoring System (ERAMS) data. This site contains nationwide radiation monitoring data for air particulates, precipitation, drinking water, surface water and pasteurized milk. This site provides location-specific as well as national information on environmental radioactivity across several media. It provides high quality data for assessing public exposure and environmental impacts resulting from nuclear emergencies and provides baseline data during routine conditions. The database and website are accessible at www.epa.gov/enviro/. This site contains (1) a query for the general public which is easy to use--limits the amount of information provided, but includes the ability to graph the data with risk benchmarks and (2) a query for a more technical user which allows access to all of the data in the database, (3) background information on ER AMS.