Email from Sherry Ringler to Eleanor Brown discussing Brown's award from the TX Hall of Fame, Ringler's recent visit to Washington, D.C. with Caro Bosca, and the WWII Memorial Ceremony to be held in April 2005.

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

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

Weekly student newspaper from the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas that includes campus news and commentaries along with advertising.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether section 1702.323(e) of the Occupations Code makes a paralegal or other person working under an attorney’s direct supervision subject to regulation by the Texas Private Security Board (RQ-0232-GA)

A Wolter X-ray optic was the central component of the microscope envisioned to fulfill the imaging requirements of the Characterization SI. After encountering many difficulties and delays, an optic was finally produced that, unfortunately, only partially met its specifications. With the SI halted, and efforts underway to reformulate a LDRD program to support fabrication of X-ray optics, it is useful to examine the previous effort and compile a list of lessons learned during the research.

This report discusses a variety of issues pertaining to energy policy. It includes information about most recent developments, background and analysis broken down into major categories, and relevant legislation.

This report provides an overview of current local, state, and federal policies and programs that support school choice and identifies and summarizes recent federal school choice legislation.

This report discusses soil and water conservation, which were prominent farm policy topics in the 108th Congress as the Administration implemented provisions in the 2002 farm bill (P.L. 107-171). This farm bill increased spending and expanded the scope of the conservation effort by reauthorizing and amending most existing conservation programs and enacting new ones through FY2007.

The susceptibility or Alloy 22 (N06022) to crevice corrosion may depend on environmental or external factors and metallurgical or internal factors. Some of the most important environmental factors are chloride concentration, inhibitors, temperature and potential. The presence of a weld seam or second phase precipitation in the alloy are classified as internal factors. The localized corrosion resistance of Alloy 22 has been extensively investigated in the last five years, however not all affecting factors were considered in the studies. This paper discusses the current findings regarding the effect of many of these variables on the susceptibility (or resistance) of Alloy 22 to crevice corrosion. The effect of variables such as temperature, chloride concentration and nitrate are rather well understood. However there are only limited or no data regarding effect of other factors such as pH, other inhibitive or deleterious species and type of crevicing material and crevice geometry. There are contradictory results regarding the effect of metallurgical factors such as solution heat treatment.

wxWindows is an Open Source, platform independent, User Interface (UI) which has been in development for over eleven years (http://www.wxwindows.org). Currently wxWindows is actively supported for the Linux/Unix (X11, Motif and GTK+), Mac OS 9 and X, all Win32 OSes, MGL, and OS/2 operating systems. wxWindows is written in C++ using an object oriented programming framework; it is a reasonably lightweight API (called wxWidgets) sitting over the native graphics packages of the various platforms it supports. The original version of CALE was written for the basic target platform of Unix using X11 as the graphics package. There have been separate efforts to port the code to Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Win32, Windows Services for Unix (SFU) and CygWin. Each of these used a variety of different graphical interface approaches and build/make systems. For instance Windows SFU and CygWin could still only use X11 graphics. So could the Win32 version, if a X11 server library and client software were installed. A native Win32 version of CALE was contemplated, but never started. The Macintosh versions were completed but never widely distributed to the users. Given the growing code version support issues, and the slow deviation from the portable code model …

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

To predict the behavior of hydrate-bearing sediments and the economic extractability of natural gas from reservoirs containing gas hydrates, we need reservoir simulators that properly represent the processes that occur, as well as accurate parameters. Several codes are available that represent some or all of the expected processes, and values for some parameters are available. Where values are unavailable, modelers have used estimation techniques to help with their predictions. Although some of these techniques are well respected, measurements are needed in many cases to verify the parameters. We have performed a series of experiments in a partially water saturated silica sand sample. The series included methane hydrate formation, and dissociation by both thermal stimulation and depressurization. The sample was 7.6 cm in diameter and 25 cm in length. In addition to measuring the system pressure and temperatures at four locations in the sample, we measured local density within the sample using x-ray computed tomography. Our goals in performing the experiment were to gather information for estimating thermal properties of the medium and to examine nonequilibrium processes.

The high temporal resolution and broad bandwidth of a femtosecond laser system are exploited in a pair of nonlinear optical studies of surfaces. The dephasing dynamics of resonances associated with the adatom dangling bonds of the Si(111)7 x 7 surface are explored by transient second-harmonic hole burning, a process that can be described as a fourth-order nonlinear optical process. Spectral holes produced by a 100 fs pump pulse at about 800 nm are probed by the second harmonic signal of a 100 fs pulse tunable around 800 nm. The measured spectral holes yield homogeneous dephasing times of a few tens of femtoseconds. Fits with a Lorentzian spectral hole centered at zero probe detuning show a linear dependence of the hole width on pump fluence, which suggests that charge carrier-carrier scattering dominates the dephasing dynamics at the measured excitation densities. Extrapolation of the deduced homogeneous dephasing times to zero excitation density yields an intrinsic dephasing time of {approx} 70 fs. The presence of a secondary spectral hole indicates that scattering of the surface electrons with surface optical phonons at 570 cm{sup -1} occurs within the first 200 fs after excitation. The broad bandwidth of femtosecond IR pulses is used to perform …

The underlying hypothesis of this project was that optimal alpha emitter-based radioimmunotherapy (RAIT) could be achieved by pairing the physical half-life of the radioisotope to the biological half-life of the targeting vehicle. The project had two specific aims. The first aim was to create and optimize the therapeutic efficacy of 211At-SAPS-C6.5 diabody conjugates. The second aim was to develop bispecific-targeting strategies that increase the specificity and efficacy of alpha-emitter-based RAIT. In the performance of the first aim, we created 211At-SAPS-C6.5 diabody conjugates that specifically targeted the HER2 tumor associated antigen. In evaluating these immunoconjugates we determined that they were capable of efficient tumor targeting and therapeutic efficacy of established human tumor xenografts growing in immunodeficient mice. We also determined that therapeutic doses were associated with late renal toxicity, likely due to the role of the kidneys in the systemic elimination o f these agents. We are currently performing more studies focused on better understanding the observed toxicity. In the second aim, we successfully generated bispecific single-chain Fv (bs-scFv) molecules that co-targeted HER2 and HER3 or HER2 and HER4. The in vitro kinetics and in vivo tumor-targeting properties of these molecules were evaluated. These studies revealed that the bs-scFv molecules selectively …

Limited research is available on potential adverse effects of school environments on academic performance, despite strong public concern. We examine the scientific evidence relevant to this relationship by reviewing available research relating schools and other indoor environments to human performance or attendance. As a primary focus, we critically review evidence for direct relationships between indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in buildings and performance or attendance. As a secondary focus, we summarize, without critique, evidence on potential connections indirectly linking IEQ to performance or attendance: relationships between IEQ and health, between health and performance or attendance, and between attendance and performance. The most persuasive direct evidence showed increases in indoor concentrations of nitrogen dioxide and outdoor concentrations of several specific pollutants to be related to reduced school attendance. The most persuasive indirect evidence showed indoor dampness and microbiologic pollutants to be related to asthma and respiratory infections, which have in turn been related to reduced performance and attendance. Furthermore, a substantial scientific literature links poor IEQ (e.g., low ventilation rate, excess moisture or formaldehyde) with respiratory and other health effects in children and adults. Overall, evidence suggests that poor IEQ in schools can influence the performance and attendance of students, primarily through …

The processing rate of Savannah River Site high level waste decontamination processes are limited by the flow rate of the solid-liquid separation. The baseline process, using a 0.1 micron cross flow filter, produces 0.02 gpm/ft2 of filtrate under expected operating conditions. Savannah River National Laboratory personnel identified the rotary microfilter as a technology that could significantly increase filter flux, with throughput improvements of as much as 10X for that specific operation. With funding from the Department of Energy Office of Cleanup Technologies, SRNL personnel are evaluating and developing the rotary microfilter for radioactive service at SRS. This work includes pilot-scale and actual waste testing to evaluate system reliability, the impact of radiation on system components, the filter flux for a variety of waste streams, and relative performance for alternative filter media.

Interview with Allen H. Benton, World War II-era veteran of the 112th Cavalry, Texas National Guard. The interview includes Benton's personal experiences about childhood in upstate New York and the Depression-era economy, education at Cornell University, drafting into the U.S. Army Infantry and service at several stateside bases, transferring to Cavalry and combat in the Pacific Theater, and having a career as an author of biological field guides. The interview also includes Benton's memories of the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay as well as his opinions on war in general.

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

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

The discovery that ultra-intense laser pulses (I > 10{sup 18} W/cm{sup 2}) can produce short pulse, high energy proton beams has renewed interest in the fundamental mechanisms that govern particle acceleration from laser-solid interactions. Experiments have shown that protons present as hydrocarbon contaminants on laser targets can be accelerated up to energies > 50 MeV. Different theoretical models that explain the observed results have been proposed. One model describes a front-surface acceleration mechanism based on the ponderomotive potential of the laser pulse. At high intensities (I > 10{sup 18} W/cm{sup 2}), the quiver energy of an electron oscillating in the electric field of the laser pulse exceeds the electron rest mass, requiring the consideration of relativistic effects. The relativistically correct ponderomotive potential is given by U{sub p} = ([1 + I{lambda}{sup 2}/1.3 x 10{sup 18}]{sup 1/2} - 1) m{sub o}c{sup 2}, where I{lambda}{sup 2} is the irradiance in W {micro}m{sup 2}/cm{sup 2} and m{sub o}c{sup 2} is the electron rest mass. At laser irradiance of I{lambda}{sup 2} {approx} 10{sup 20} W {micro}m{sup 2}/cm{sup 2}, the ponderomotive potential can be of order several MeV. A few recent experiments--discussed in Chapter 3 of this thesis--consider this ponderomotive potential sufficiently strong to accelerate …

We focus on improving the angular discretization of the angular flux for the one-dimensional (1D) spherical geometry neutron transport equation. Unlike the conventional SN method, we model the angular dependence of the flux with a Petrov-Galerkin finite element approximation for the differencing of the angular variable in developing the 1D spherical geometry S{sub N} equations. That is, we use both a piecewise bi-linear and a quadratic function in each angular bin to approximate the angular dependence of the flux. This new algorithm that we have developed shows faster convergence with angular resolution than conventional SN algorithms. (U)