A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) multibillion-dollar effort to modernize the nation's air traffic control (ATC) system has resulted in cost, schedule, and performance shortfalls for over two decades and has been on GAO's list of high-risk federal programs since 1995. According to FAA, performance shortfalls were due, in part, to restrictions imposed by federal acquisition and personnel regulations. In response, Congress granted FAA exemptions in 1995 and directed it to develop a new acquisition management system. In this report, GAO compared FAA's AMS with (1) the FAR and (2) commercial best practices for major acquisitions, and (3) examined FAA's implementation of AMS and its progress in resolving problems with major acquisitions."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Servicemembers who leave the military and file disability claims with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) may be subject to potentially duplicative physical exams in order to meet requirements of both the Department of Defense's (DOD) military services and VA. To streamline the process for these servicemembers, the military services and VA have attempted to coordinate their physical exam requirements by developing a single separation exam program. In 1998, VA and DOD signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) instructing local units to establish single separation exam programs. This report examines (1) VA's and the military services' efforts to establish single separation exam programs, and (2) the challenges to establishing single separation exam programs. To obtain this information, GAO interviewed VA and military service officials about establishing the program; evaluated existing programs at selected military installations; and visited selected installations that did not have programs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO was asked to assess the effectiveness of nursing home oversight by considering the effect of a unique Arkansas law that requires county coroners to investigate all nursing home deaths. Coroners refer cases of suspected neglect to the state survey agency and law enforcement entities such as the state Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU). The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) contracts with survey agencies in every state to periodically inspect nursing homes and investigate allegations of poor care or neglect. MFCUs are charged with investigating and prosecuting resident neglect. GAO examined (1) the results of Arkansas coroner investigations, (2) the state survey agency's experience in investigating coroner referrals, and (3) whether weaknesses in state and federal nursing home oversight identified in prior GAO reports were evident in the survey agency's investigation of coroner referrals."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Evaluations of past censuses show that certain groups were undercounted compared to other groups, a problem known as "coverage error." To address this, the Census Bureau included in its 2000 Census design the Accuracy and Coverage Evaluation Program (A.C.E.) to (1) measure coverage error and (2) use the results to adjust the census, if warranted. However, the Bureau found the A.C.E. results inaccurate and decided not to adjust or plan for adjustment in 2010. Congress asked GAO to determine (1) factors contributing to A.C.E.'s reported failure to accurately estimate census coverage error, and (2) the reliability of the revised coverage error estimates the Bureau subsequently produced. To do this, GAO examined three sets of Bureau research published in March 2001, October 2001, and March 2003 and interviewed Bureau officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A lack of servicemember health and deployment data hampered investigations into the nature and causes of illnesses reported by many servicemembers following the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War. Public Law 105-85, enacted in November 1997, required the Department of Defense (DOD) to establish a system to assess the medical condition of servicemembers before and after deployments. Following its September 2003 report examining Army and Air Force compliance with DOD's force health protection and surveillance policies for Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Joint Guardian (OJG), GAO was asked in November 2003 to also determine (1) the extent to which the services met DOD's policies for Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and, where applicable, compare results with OEF/OJG; and (2) what steps DOD has taken to establish a quality assurance program to ensure that the military services comply with force health protection and surveillance policies."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Every year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), through its Federal Housing Administration (FHA), insures billions of dollars in home mortgage loans made by private lenders. Oversight of lenders has historically been a challenge for HUD. In January 2003, GAO reported that, due in part to poor lender oversight, HUD's single-family mortgage insurance programs remained a high-risk area. This report examines (1) how well HUD follows its guidance when granting lenders direct endorsement authority (the ability to underwrite loans and determine their eligibility for FHA mortgage insurance without HUD's prior review), (2) the extent to which HUD uses a risk-based approach when monitoring FHA lenders, and (3) the extent to which HUD holds accountable lenders that it identifies as not complying with its performance requirements."

Simulation results are presented that illustrate the formation and decay of a spheromak plasma driven by a coaxial electrostatic plasma gun, and that model the energy confinement of the plasma. The physics of magnetic reconnection during spheromak formation is also illuminated. The simulations are performed with the three-dimensional, time-dependent, resistive magnetohydrodynamic NIMROD code. The dimensional, simulation results are compared to data from the SSPX spheromak experiment at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The simulation results are tracking the experiment with increasing fidelity (e.g., improved agreement with measurements of the magnetic field, fluctuation amplitudes, and electron temperature) as the simulation has been improved in its representations of the geometry of the experiment (plasma gun and flux conserver), the magnetic bias coils, and the detailed time dependence of the current source driving the plasma gun, and uses realistic parameters. The simulations are providing a better understanding of the dominant physics in SSPX, including when the flux surfaces close and the mechanisms limiting the efficiency of electrostatic drive.

In an effort to develop a QA/QC protocol to be used in the development of new pads, we are employing a tabletop unilateral NMR relaxometer called the NMR MOUSE (MObile Universal Surface Explorer). Model materials of varying crosslink density first demonstrated the applicability of the method. Analysis of deformed pads returned from service has been shown to be clearly distinguishable by the NMR MOUSE. Finally, we have quantified the variables associated with taking the relevant measurements and believe that the NMR MOUSE is a viable production and surveillance tool for screening of future DC745 parts.

Weekly student newspaper from San Antonio College in San Antonio, Texas that includes campus news along with advertising.

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

Target designs are described that are meant to achieve ignition on the National Ignition Facility. Simulations of recent indirect drive cryogenic capsule designs indicate dramatically reduced growth of short wavelength hydrodynamic instabilities, resulting from two changes in the designs. First, better optimization results from systematic mapping of the ignition target performance over the parameter space of ablator and DT-ice thickness combinations, using techniques developed by one of us (Herrmann). After the space is mapped with one-dimensional simulations, exploration of it with two-dimensional simulations quantifies the dependence of instability growth on target dimensions. Low modes and high modes grow differently in different regions of the space, allowing a trade-off of the two regimes of growth. Significant improvement in high-mode stability can be achieved, relative to previous designs, with only insignificant increase in low-mode growth. This procedure produces capsule designs that, in simulations, tolerate several times the surface roughness that could be tolerated by capsules optimized by older more heuristic techniques. Another significant reduction in instability growth, by another factor of several, is achieved with ablators with 'graded dopants.' In this type of capsule the mid-Z dopant, which is needed in the ablator to minimize x-ray preheat at the ablator-ice interface, is …

This program is the development of germanium strip detectors for environmental remediation. It is a collaboration between the Naval Research Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. The goal is to develop detectors that are simultaneously capable of excellent spectroscopy and imaging of gamma radiation.

In celebration of John von Neumann's 100th birthday, a series of four lectures were presented on the evening of February 10, 2003 during the SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering in San Diego. The venue was appropriate because von Neumann spent much of the later part of his life, in the 1950's, as an unofficial ambassador for computational science. He was then the only senior American scientist who had experience with the new computers (digital, electronic, and programmable) and a vision of their future importance. No doubt he would have relished the chance to attend a meeting such as this. The first speaker, William Aspray, described the ''interesting times'' during which computers were invented. His remarks were based on his history [1] of this period in von Neumann's life. We were honored to have John von Neumann's daughter, Marina von Neumann-Whitman, as our second speaker. Other accounts of von Neumann's life can be found in books by two of his colleagues [2] and [3]. Our third speaker, Peter Lax, provided both mathematical and international perspectives on John von Neumann's career. Finally, Pete Stewart spoke about von Neumann's numerical error analysis [4] in the context of later work; this talk …

A new, highly energy efficient approach for using catalytic oxidation chemistry in multiple fields of technology has been pursued. The new catalysts, called TAML® activators, catalyze the reactions of hydrogen peroxide and other oxidants for the exceptionally rapid decontamination of noninfectious simulants (B. atrophaeus) of anthrax spores, for the energy efficient decontamination of thiophosphate pesticides, for the facile, low temperature removal of color and organochlorines from pulp and paper mill effluent, for the bleaching of dyes from textile mill effluents, and for the removal of recalcitrant dibenzothiophene compounds from diesel and gasoline fuels. Highlights include the following: 1) A 7-log kill of Bacillus atrophaeus spores has been achieved unambiguously in water under ambient conditions within 15 minutes. 2) The rapid total degradation under ambient conditions of four thiophosphate pesticides and phosphonate degradation intermediates has been achieved on treatment with TAML/peroxide, opening up potential applications of the decontamination system for phosphonate structured chemical warfare agents, for inexpensive, easy to perform degradation of stored and aged pesticide stocks (especially in Africa and Asia), for remediation of polluted sites and water bodies, and for the destruction of chemical warfare agent stockpiles. 3) A mill trial conducted in a Pennsylvanian bleached kraft pulp mill …

Results of three-dimensional numerical simulations of field-reversed configurations (FRCs) are presented. Emphasis of this work is on the nonlinear evolution of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities in kinetic FRCs and the new FRC formation method by the counter-helicity spheromak merging. Kinetic simulations show nonlinear saturation of the n = 1 tilt mode, where n is the toroidal mode number. The n = 2 and n = 3 rotational modes are observed to grow during the nonlinear phase of the tilt instability due to the ion spin-up in the toroidal direction. The ion toroidal spin-up is shown to be related to the resistive decay of the internal flux, and the resulting loss of particle confinement. Three-dimensional MHD simulations of counter-helicity spheromak merging and FRC formation show good agreement with results from the SSX-FRC experiment. Simulations show formation of an FRC in about 30 Alfven times for typical experimental parameters. The growth rate of the n = 1 tilt mode is shown to be significantly reduced compared to the MHD growth rate due to the large plasma viscosity and field-line-tying effects.

In the DOE award, DE-FG02-00ER45823, we have used molecular dynamics (MD) computer simulations of the intergranular films (IGFs) present in alumina and silicon nitride materials to address specific questions such as: What is the atomistic structure of the glassy silicate phase? Because of the extremely thin nature of the IGF, do bulk-like glass structure and properties prevail? Does distortion exist in the silicate bonds (which affects bond strength and reactivity) and how is this structure affected by the separation distance between the crystals and/or by the composition of the IGF? Does a structural ordering caused by epitaxial adsorption occur at the IGF/crystal interface? What is the correlation length of this order perpendicular to the interface? How is this ordering affected by composition of the IGF or by the crystals in question? In all simulations, a specific number of ions in stoichiometric ratio were placed as the IGF between two similar crystals, with, in some cases, different crystallographic orientations. The IGF compositions coincided with some of those observed experimentally (calcium aluminosilicate (CAS) glasses in the alumina case, calcium silicon oxy-nitride in the nitride case). The number of ions in the IGF was varied to allow for different thicknesses, although the X …

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

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

The production of supersonic jets of material via the interaction of a strong shock wave with a spatially localized density perturbation is a common feature of inertial confinement fusion and astrophysics. The behavior of two-dimensional (2D) supersonic jets has previously been investigated in detail [J. M. Foster et. al, Phys. Plasmas 9, 2251 (2002)]. In three-dimensions (3D), however, there are new aspects to the behavior of supersonic jets in compressible media. In this paper, the commissioning activities on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) [J. A. Paisner et al., Laser Focus World 30, 75 (1994)] to enable hydrodynamic experiments will be presented as well as the results from the first series of hydrodynamic experiments. In these experiments, two of the first four beams of NIF are used to drive a 40 Mbar shock wave into millimeter scale aluminum targets backed by 100 mg/cc carbon aerogel foam. The remaining beams are delayed in time and are used to provide a point-projection x-ray backlighter source for diagnosing the three-dimensional structure of the jet evolution resulting from a variety of 2D and 3D features. Comparisons between data and simulations using several codes will be presented.

None

A new approach to the study of material strength of metals at extreme pressures has been developed on the Omega laser, using a ramped plasma piston drive. The laser drives a shock through a solid plastic reservoir that unloads at the rear free surface, expands across a vacuum gap, and stagnates on the metal sample under study. This produces a gently increasing ram pressure, compressing the sample nearly isentropically. The peak pressure on the sample, inferred from VISAR measurements of velocity, can be varied by adjusting the laser energy and pulse length, gap size, and reservoir density, and obeys a simple scaling relation. In an important application, using in-flight x-ray radiography, the material strength of solid-state samples at high pressure can be inferred by measuring the reductions in the growth rates (stabilization) of Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) unstable interfaces. This paper reports the first attempt to use this new laser-driven, quasi-isentropic technique for determining material strength in high-pressure solids. Modulated foils of Al-6061-T6 were accelerated and compressed to peak pressures of 200 kbar. Modulation growth was recorded at a series of times after peak acceleration and well into the release phase. Fits to the growth data, using a Steinberg-Guinan (SG) constitutive strength …

None

A successful ignition campaign will depend in part upon having highly characterized hohlraums and shells for target assemblies. Regarding holhraums, properties of interest include dimensions, surface features and chemical composition. This report outlines the metrology needs for hohlraums and provides a timeline for capital as well as FTE expenditures through '07. The topics discussed include hohlraum metrology, windows and tenting metrology, with comments on support of other areas including cryo-related development efforts. Although there is a strong interest in non-destructive characterization, this report also investigates the use of destructive techniques for providing critical information for process development and improvement.

This report provides analysis of Current law and Legislative proposals related to Foreign investment and Tax incentives.