Article on ab initio transport properties of nanostructures from maximally localized Wannier functions.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In 1936, the Social Security Administration (SSA) established the Social Security number (SSN) to track workers' earnings for Social Security benefit purposes. However, the SSN is also used for a myriad of non-Social Security purposes. Today, public and private sector entities view the SSN as a key piece of information that enables them to conduct their business and deliver services. However, given the apparent rise in identity crimes as well as the rapidly increasing availability of information over the Internet, Congress has raised concern over how certain private sector entities obtain, use, and safeguard SSN data. In previous reports, we discussed the benefits of government and commercial entities using SSNs. We also examined how certain private sector entities and the government obtain, use, and safeguard SSNs. This report provides additional information on private sector uses of SSNs. The Chairman, Subcommittee on Social Security, House Committee on Ways and Means, asked that GAO examine the private sector use of SSNs by businesses most likely to obtain and use them including information resellers, consumer reporting agencies (CRAs), and health care organizations. Specifically, our objectives were to (1) describe …

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

With the advent of nanotechnology, predictive simulations of nanoscale systems have become in great demand. In some cases nanoscale systems can be simulated directly at the level of atoms. The atomistic techniques used range from models based on a quantum mechanical treatment of the electronic bonds to those based on more empirical descriptions of the interatomic forces. In many cases, however, even nanoscale systems are too big for a purely atomistic approach, typically because the nanoscale device is coupled to its surroundings, and it is necessary to simulate the entire system comprising billions of atoms. A well-known example is the growth of nanoscale epitaxial quantum dots in which the size, shape and location of the dot is affected by the elastic strain developed in a large volume of the substrate as well as the local atomic bonding. The natural solution is to model the surroundings with a more coarse-grained description, suitable for the intrinsically longer length scale. The challenge then is to develop the computational methodology suitable for this kind of concurrent multiscale modeling, one in which the simulated length scale can be changed smoothly and seamlessly from one region of the simulation to another while maintaining the fidelity of …

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

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

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

Semi-weekly newspaper from Livingston, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with advertising.

This research was conducted in support of two branches of the EPA ENERGY STAR program, whose overall goal is to reduce, through voluntary market-based means, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted in the U.S. The primary objective was to collect data for the ENERGY STAR Office Equipment program on the after-hours power state of computers, monitors, printers, copiers, scanners, fax machines, and multi-function devices. We also collected data for the ENERGY STAR Commercial Buildings branch on the types and amounts of ''miscellaneous'' plug-load equipment, a significant and growing end use that is not usually accounted for by building energy managers. This data set is the first of its kind that we know of, and is an important first step in characterizing miscellaneous plug loads in commercial buildings. The main purpose of this study is to supplement and update previous data we collected on the extent to which electronic office equipment is turned off or automatically enters a low power state when not in active use. In addition, it provides data on numbers and types of office equipment, and helps identify trends in office equipment usage patterns. These data improve our estimates of typical unit energy consumption and savings for each …

In support of the accelerated cleanup challenge, personnel at the Savannah River Site have been working diligently to identify and acquire cost-effective waste containers that can be used to package a voluminous amount of low level radioactive waste that needs to be disposed. In so doing, personnel have transformed their paradigm in packaging low level radioactive waste in traditional 45-cubic-foot and 90-cubic-foot containers and utilizing refurbished intermodal containers instead. The transition has increased efficiencies in the processing, packaging, transportation, storage, and disposal of low level radioactive waste, while providing decreased procurement costs. Since large items do not have to be size-reduced to fit into the large containers, additional cost savings are being realized by minimizing void space, labor, time, equipment, and risks if size reduction techniques were performed. Cost savings for fiscal year 2003 exceeded one million dollars. Additional savings are estimated to be between 3 million dollars and 4 million dollars through fiscal year 2006.

The primary purpose of this project was to employ two geophysical imaging techniques, electrical resistivity tomography and cross-borehole ground penetrating radar, to image a controlled infiltration of a saline tracer under unsaturated flow conditions. The geophysical techniques have been correlated to other more traditional hydrologic measurements including neutron moisture measurements and induction conductivity logs. Images that resulted during two successive infiltrations indicate the development of what appear to be preferential pathways through the finer grained materials, although the results could also be produced by cationic capture of free ions in clays. In addition the site as well as the developing solute plume exhibits electrical anisotropy which is likely related to flow properties. However the geologic significance of this phenomenon is still under investigation.

Gas Technology Institute is developing a novel concept of membrane gasifier for high efficiency, clean and low cost production of hydrogen from coal. The concept incorporates a hydrogen-selective membrane within a gasification reactor for direct extraction of hydrogen from coal synthesis gases. The objective of this project is to determine the technical and economic feasibility of this concept by screening, testing and identifying the potential candidate membranes under high temperature, high pressure, and harsh environments of the coal gasification conditions. The best performing membranes will be selected for preliminary reactor design and cost estimates. To evaluate the candidate membrane performance under the gasification conditions, a high temperature/high pressure hydrogen permeation unit will be constructed in this project. During this reporting period, the design of this unit was completed. The unit will be capable of operating at temperatures up to 1100 C and pressures to 60 atm for evaluation of ceramic membranes such as mixed ionic conducting membrane. The membranes to be tested will be in disc form with a diameter of about 3 cm. By operating at higher temperatures and higher hydrogen partial pressures, we expect to demonstrate commercially relevant hydrogen flux, 10 {approx} 50 cc/min/cm{sup 2}, from the membranes …

The use of reduced order models to describe a dynamical system is pervasive in science and engineering. Often these models are used without an estimate of their error or range of validity. In this paper we consider dynamical systems and reduced models built using proper orthogonal decomposition. We show how to compute estimates and bounds for these errors, by a combination of small sample statistical condition estimation and error estimation using the adjoint method. Most importantly, the proposed approach allows the assessment of regions of validity for reduced models, i.e., ranges of perturbations in the original system over which the reduced model is still appropriate. Numerical examples validate our approach: the error norm estimates approximate well the forward error while the derived bounds are within an order of magnitude.

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

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

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

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

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

An analytical method that employs ion chromatography has been developed to more fully exploit the use of fluorobenzoic acids (FBAs) and halides as hydrologic tracers. In a single run, this reliable, sensitive, and robust method can simultaneously separate and quantify halides (fluoride, chloride, bromide, and iodide) and up to seven FBAs from other common groundwater constituents (e.g., nitrate and sulfate). The usefulness of this ion chromatographic (IC) analytical method is demonstrated in both field and laboratory tracer experiments. Field experiments in unsaturated tuff featuring fractures or a fault show that this efficient and cost-effective method helps achieve the objectives of tracer studies that use multiple FBAs and/or diffusivity tracers (simultaneous use of one or more FBA and halide). The field study examines the hydrologic response of fractures and the matrix to different flow rates and the contribution of matrix diffusion in chemical transport. Laboratory tracer experiments with eight geologic media from across the United States--mostly from Department of Energy facilities where groundwater contamination is prevalent and where subsurface characterization employing tracers has been ongoing or is in need--reveal several insights about tracer transport behavior: (1) Bromide and FBAs are not always transported conservatively. (2) The delayed transport of these anionic …

Texture features have long been used in remote sensing applications to represent and retrieve image regions similar to a query region. Various representations of texture have been proposed based on the Fourier power spectrum, spatial co-occurrence, wavelets, Gabor filters, etc. These representations vary in their computational complexity and their suitability for representing different region types. Much of the work done thus far has focused on panchromatic imagery at low to moderate spatial resolutions, such as images from Landsat 1-7 which have a resolution of 15-30 m/pixel, and from SPOT 1-5 which have a resolution of 2.5-20 m/pixel. However, it is not clear which texture representation works best for the new classes of high resolution panchromatic (60-100 cm/pixel) and multi-spectral (4 bands for red, green, blue, and near infra-red at 2.4-4 m/pixel) imagery. It is also not clear how the different spectral bands should be combined. In this paper, we investigate the retrieval performance of several different texture representations using multi-spectral satellite images from IKONOS. A query-by-example framework, along with a manually chosen ground truth dataset, allows different combinations of texture representations and spectral bands to be compared. We focus on the specific problem of retrieving inhabited regions from images of …

We report the status and test results of the High Temperature Superconductor (HTS) cable and magnet R&D at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). If successful, this will enhance the performance and reduce the cost of operation of magnets that must absorb a large amount of energy. The need for developing this technology has been seen in a number of high field magnet applications for high energy colliders, and a medium field application in the proposed Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA). The likelihood of the future use of HTS is improving because of the availability of longer and more uniform length tapes and cables and because of the ongoing construction and test experience at BNL and elsewhere. The design of a super-ferric quadrupole, that must survive the very high radiation environment of RIA, and operate at 20-40 K, is also presented.

With the trend towards needing information about chemistry at conditions significantly different from 298K and 1 atm., methods need to be developed to generate and interpret this data. This demand for information about chemistry at extreme conditions comes from many fields. The study of atmospheric chemistry requires knowledge of unusual species that are formed when molecules are exposed to ultraviolet radiation. Studying of energetic materials requires knowledge of the thermochemical and structural properties of a myriad of chemical species under a wide range of temperatures. Basic scientific understanding of the very nature of a chemical bond requires detailed information. Studying these problems computationally requires multiple capabilities. The methodology used must provide both high accuracy and computational efficiency. Studying extreme chemistry also suffers from all the challenges of studying chemistry under non-extreme conditions. Therefore, either a new method must be developed or an old method must be applied in an innovative way. The method we have chosen to use is path integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) for the nuclear degrees of freedom and ab initio electronic structure methods for the electronic degrees of freedom. PIMC and ab initio electronic structure are methods of treating the quantum nature of particles. These methods have …

A question in the current debate over chemical and biological terrorism is: how well do current United States policies limit opportunities to terrorist groups for acquisition of such weapons? The domestic purchase and use of “dual-use” biological equipment, such as fermenters, centrifuges, and other equipment, is one area suggested as potentially providing opportunities for terrorist, biological weapons development. Dual-use equipment has both legitimate civilian and military use. Regulating international sale of dual-use equipment is used as a nonproliferation policy tool. Similar regulation of domestic sales has not been employed. This report will discuss the difficulties of applying domestic controls on dual-use biological equipment and the potential advantages and disadvantages of doing so.

Weekly newspaper from Tulsa, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.