Bi-monthly report on average prices paid for standing timber in Texas, calculated based on reported timber sales.

Monthly publication documenting statistics related to economic information in the Mexico-Texas border areas including types of border crossings, employment, customs revenues, and other related data.

Monthly newsletter documenting statistics related to employment in Texas including nonagricultural job trends, labor force numbers, and other relevant indicators as well as information on related topics.

Magazine discussing natural resources, parks, hunting and fishing, and other information related to the outdoors in Texas.

The U.S. Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP) is a multi-agency planning and coordinating entity, led by the U.S. Department of Energy that aims to accelerate the development and facilitate the adoption of technologies to address climate change. In late 2005, CCTP asked Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Energetics Incorporated to organize and coordinate a review of the CCTP R&D portfolio using structured workshops. Each workshop focused on one of CCTP's six strategic goals: 1.Reduce emissions from energy end-use and infrastructure 2.Reduce emissions from energy supply 3.Capture and sequester carbon dioxide 4.Reduce emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases (GHG) 5.Improve capabilities to measure and monitor GHG emissions 6.Bolster basic science contributions to technology development To promote meaningful dialogue while ensuring broad coverage, a group of broadly experienced professionals with expertise in fields relevant to each CCTP goal were asked to participate in the portfolio reviews and associated workshops. A total of 75 experts participated in the workshops; 60 of these participants represented non-Federal organizations. This report summarizes the findings of the workshops and the results of the Delphi assessment of the CCTP R&D portfolio.

Bimonthly publication of the Texas Veterans Commission discussing specific topics of relevance to veterans in Texas. This pamphlet lists commonly used forms from the VA, Texas Veterans Commission (TVA), and DoD.

Monthly travel magazine discussing locations and events in Texas to encourage travel within the state.

Appendices to accompany a study to assess benthic impacts of drilling at four sites along the Gulf of Mexico's continental slope. Objectives studied are cuttings accumulations, seabed changes from anchors and mooring systems, debris accumulations, chemical modification of sediments, and effects on benthic organisms.

Summary describing the work completed at PBS&J for 'Study to Conduct National Register of Historic Places: Evaluations Submerged Sites on the Gulf of Mexico Outer Continental Shelf.' It includes background information on the project funding and sponsorship, goals, methodology, and findings.

This is a study to assess benthic impacts of drilling at four sites along the Gulf of Mexico's continental slope. Objectives studied are cuttings accumulations, seabed changes from anchors and mooring systems, debris accumulations, chemical modification of sediments, and effects on benthic organisms.

Summary describing the work completed at Louisiana State University, Center for Energy Studies for Accounting for Economic Change in the Gulf of Mexico: Developing a Comparative Context for Regional Economic Analysis and History. It includes background information on the project funding and sponsorship, goals, methodology, and findings.

Executive summary describing a study to assess benthic impacts of drilling at four sites along the Gulf of Mexico's continental slope. Objectives studied are cuttings accumulations, seabed changes from anchors and mooring systems, debris accumulations, chemical modification of sediments, and effects on benthic organisms.

Chapter from the National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency documenting key findings from energy efficiency programs that have been successfully operating for many years.

This report presents policy recommendations for creating a national commitment to energy efficiency through gas and electric utilities, utility regulators, and partner organizations.

Newsletter describing the work of the Texas Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program (TX CLPPP) regarding the surveillance of blood lead in children younger than 15 years of age in the state of Texas.

We examine the utility of very high redshift Type Ia supernovae for cosmology and systematic uncertainty control. Next generation space surveys such as the Supernova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP) will obtain thousands of supernovae at z>1.7, beyond the design redshift for which the supernovae will be exquisitely characterized. We find that any z gtrsim 2 standard candles' use for cosmological parameter estimation is quite modest and subject to pitfalls; we examine gravitational lensing, redshift calibration, and contamination effects in some detail. The very high redshift supernovae - both thermonuclear and core collapse - will provide copious interesting information on star formation, environment, and evolution. However, the new observational systematics that must be faced, as well as the limited expansion of SN-parameter space afforded, does not point to high value for 1.7<z<3 SNe Ia in controlling evolutionary systematics relative to what SNAP can already achieve at z<1.7. Synergy with observations from JWST and thirty meter class telescopes afford rich opportunities for advances throughout astrophysics.

The purpose of this report is to provide a concise but comprehensive overview of Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program Climate Research Facility instrumentation status. The report is divided into four sections: (1) new instrumentation in the process of being acquired and deployed, (2) existing instrumentation and progress on improvements or upgrades, (3) proposed future instrumentation, and (4) Small Business Innovation Research instrument development. New information is highlighted in blue text.

The simulation of core collapse supernovae calls for the time accurate solution of the (Euler) equations for inviscid hydrodynamics coupled with the equations for neutrino transport. The time evolution is carried out by evolving the Euler equations explicitly and the neutrino transport equations implicitly. Neutrino transport is modeled by the multi-group Boltzmann transport (MGBT) and the multi-group flux limited diffusion (MGFLD) equations. An implicity time stepping scheme for the MGBT and MGFLD equations yields Jacobian systems that necessitate scaling and reconditioning. Two types of preconditioners, namely a sparse approximate inverse (SPAI) preconditioner and a preconditioner based on the alternatingdirection implicit iteration (ADI-like) have been fond to be effective for the MGFLD and MGBT formulations. This paper compares these two preconditioners. The ADI-like preconditioner performs well with both MGBT and MGFLD systems. For the MGBT system tested, the SPAI preconditioner did not give competitive results. However, since the MGBT system in our experiments had a high condition number before scaling and since we used a sequential platform, care must be taken in evaluating these results.

The 17th International Conference on Arabidopsis Research was held at the University of Madison, Wisconsin from June 27- July 2, 2006. ICAR-2006 included approximately 625 scientists from across the world. The scientific program was of excellent quality featuring 73 talks, including 30 from invited speakers. There were also 6 community-organized workshops (facilitated by conference staff) featuring additional talks on topics including ‘Submitting data to long-term repositories,’ ‘TAIR introductory workshop,’ ‘Web services and demonstration,’ ‘Public engagement: broadening the impact of your research,’ ‘Systems biology approaches to analysis of metabolic and regulatory networks of Arabidopsis,’ and ‘Mechanotransduction in Arabidopsis.’ Approximately 440 posters were presented in general topic areas including, among others, Development, Modeling/Other Systems, Energy, Environment, and Genetic/Epigenetic mechanisms. Graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, junior faculty, and underrepresented minorities made up a significant portion of the oral presentations thereby promoting the training of young scientists and facilitating important career development opportunities for speakers. Several poster sessions provided an opportunity for younger participants to freely meet with more established scientists. The North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee (NAASC) continued its outreach effort and again sponsored two special luncheons to encourage personal and professional development of young scientists and also underrepresented minorities. The ‘Emerging Scientists Luncheon’ …

Description. Individual raw data streams from instrumentation at the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program Climate Research Facility (ACRF) fixed and mobile sites are collected and sent to the Data Management Facility (DMF) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) for processing in near real time. Raw and processed data are then sent daily to the ACRF Archive, where they are made available to users. For each instrument, we calculate the ratio of the actual number of data records received daily at the Archive to the expected number of data records. The results are tabulated by (1) individual data stream, site, and month for the current year; and (2) site and fiscal year dating back to 1998.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is shipping, for disposition purposes, bulk quantities of fissile materials, primarily highly enriched uranium (HEU). The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) specification 6M container has been the workhorse for NNSA and many other shippers of radioactive material since the 1980s. However, the 6M does not conform to the packaging requirements in the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR 71) and, for that reason, is being phased out for use in the DOE secure transportation system by the end of 2006. BWXT Y-12 developed and licensed the ES-3100 container to replace the DOT 6M. The ES-3100 was certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in April 2006. The process of deploying the new package began in June 2005 and is planned to be completed in July 2006. The package will be fully operational and completely replace the DOT 6M at the Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12) by October 2006. This paper reviews the deployment process and the mock loading station that was installed at National Transportation Research Center (NTRC) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Specialized equipment, tools, and instrumentation that support the handling and loading operations of the ES-3100 are …

This document is a compilation of characterization data for the AGR-1 variant 3 coated particle composite LEU01-49T, a composite of three batches of TRISO-coated 350 {micro}m diameter 19.7% low enrichment uranium oxide/uranium carbide kernels (LEUCO). The AGR-1 TRISO-coated particles consist of a spherical kernel coated with a {approx} 50% dense carbon buffer layer (100 {micro}m nominal thickness) followed by a dense inner pyrocarbon layer (40 {micro}m nominal thickness) followed by a SiC layer (35 {micro}m nominal thickness) followed by another dense outer pyrcoarbon layer (40 {micro}m nominal thickness). The coated particles were produced by ORNL for the Advanced Gas Reactor Fuel Development and Qualification (AGR) program to be put into compacts for the fuel shakedown irradiation (AGR-1) experiment. The kernels were obtained from BWXT and identified as composite G73D-20-6302. The BWXT kernel lot G73D-20-69302 was riffled into sublots for characterization and coating by ORNL and identified as LEUO01-?? (where ?? is a series of integers beginning with 01).

The coupling of energetic metallic multilayers (a.k.a. flash metal) with energetic sol-gel synthesis and processing is an entirely new approach to forming energetic devices for several DoD and DOE needs. They are also practical and commercially viable manufacturing techniques. Improved occupational safety and health, performance, reliability, reproducibility, and environmentally acceptable processing can be achieved using these methodologies and materials. The development and fielding of this technology will enhance mission readiness and reduce the costs, environmental risks and the necessity of resolving environmental concerns related to maintaining military readiness while simultaneously enhancing safety and health. Without sacrificing current performance, we will formulate new impact initiated device (IID) compositions to replace materials from the current composition that pose significant environmental, health, and safety problems associated with functions such as synthesis, material receipt, storage, handling, processing into the composition, reaction products from testing, and safe disposal. To do this, we will advance the use of nanocomposite preparation via the use of multilayer flash metal and sol-gel technologies and apply it to new small IIDs. This work will also serve to demonstrate that these technologies and resultant materials are relevant and practical to a variety of energetic needs of DoD and DOE. The goal …

Following our earlier study on the dynamics of low energy electron attachment to formic acid, we report the results of elastic low-energy electron collisions with formic acid. Momentum transfer and angular differential cross sections were obtained by performing fixed-nuclei calculations employing the complex Kohn variational method. We make a brief description of the technique used to account for the polar nature of this polyatomic target and compare our results with available experimental data.