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

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

Daily newspaper from Sapulpa, Oklahoma 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.

Stable and radiocarbon isotope measurements made on CO{sub 2} from high temperature hydrothermal vents on the Endeavour Segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge indicate both magmatic and sedimentary sources of carbon to the hydrothermal system. The Endeavour segment is devoid of overlying sediments and has shown no observable signs of surficial magmatic activity during the {approx}20 years of ongoing studies. The appearance of isotopically heavy, radiocarbon dead CO{sub 2} after a 1999 earthquake swarm requires that this earthquake event was magmatic in origin. Evidence for a sedimentary organic carbon source suggests the presence of buried sediments at the ridge axis. These findings, which represent the first temporally coherent set of radiocarbon measurements from hydrothermal vent fluids, demonstrate the utility of radiocarbon analysis in hydrothermal studies. The existence of a sediment source at Endeavour and the occurrence of magmatic episodes illustrate the extremely complex and evolving nature of the Endeavour hydrothermal system.

The effect of oxygenate molecular structure on soot emissions from a DI diesel engine was examined using carbon-14 ({sup 14}C) isotope tracing. Carbon atoms in three distinct chemical structures within the diesel oxygenate dibutyl maleate (DBM) were labeled with {sup 14}C. The {sup 14}C from the labeled DBM was then detected in engine-out particulate matter (PM), in-cylinder deposits, and CO{sub 2} emissions using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). The results indicate that molecular structure plays an important role in determining whether a specific carbon atom either does or does not form soot. Chemical-kinetic modeling results indicate that structures that produce CO{sub 2} directly from the fuel are less effective at reducing soot than structures that produce CO before producing CO{sub 2}. Because they can follow individual carbon atoms through a real combustion process, {sup 14}C isotope tracing studies help strengthen the connection between actual engine emissions and chemical-kinetic models of combustion and soot formation/oxidation processes.

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Daily newspaper from Chickasha, Oklahoma 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.

This report provides an overview of the major exceptions to the First Amendment.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. . . .” This language restricts government both more and less than it would if it were applied literally. It restricts government more in that it applies not only to Congress, but to all branches of the federal government, and to all branches of state and local government. It restricts government less in that it provides no protection to some types of speech and only limited protection to others. This report provides an overview of the major exceptions to the First Amendment — of the ways that the Supreme Court has interpreted the guarantee of freedom of speech and press to provide no protection or only limited protection for some types of speech.

The Senate publishes its rules, precedents, and other related information so that Senators and their staff have convenient access to the Senate’s legislative procedures and can gauge how those procedures are likely to apply in various situations. Information about the Senate’s legislative procedures is published in four official documents. This report discusses these documents.

The results of this project include: (1) Development of econometrically estimated marginal abatement and associated production curves describing response of agricultural and forestry emissions/sink/offsets enhancements for use in integrated assessments. Curves were developed that reflected agricultural, and forestry production of traditional commodities, carbon and other greenhouse gas offsets and biofuels given signals of general commodity demand, and carbon and energy prices. (2) Integration of the non-dynamic curves from (1) into a version of the PNNL SGM integrated assessment model was done in cooperation with Dr. Ronald Sands at PNNL. The results were reported at the second DOE conference on sequestration in the paper listed and the abstract is in Annex B of this report. (3) Alternative agricultural sequestration estimates were developed in conjunction with personnel at Colorado State University using CENTURY and analyses can operate under the use of agricultural soil carbon data from either the EPIC or CENTURY models. (4) A major effort was devoted to understanding the possible role and applicable actions from agriculture. (5) Work was done with EPA and EIA to update the biofuel data and assumptions resulting in some now emerging results showing the criticality of biofuel assumptions.

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Burnup credit was recently used for the first time in criticality safety analysis to support the handling of the National Institute of Standards and Technology spent fuel assemblies in the L Basin of Savannah River Site. Previous criticality safety analyses were based on the fissile content of fresh, unirradiated fuel assemblies, resulting in handling of a group of 10 or less fuel assemblies at a time. Using burnup credit, it was demonstrated that an isolated configuration of up to 14 NITS fuel assemblies, the maximum number of fuel assemblies in a full basket, submerged in a concrete-lined, water-filled pool is subcritical, resulting in several administrative controls being modified or eliminated without compromising safety.

A commercial surface carburization treatment that shows promise for hardening the surfaces of the stainless steel target vessel of the Spallation Neutron Source against cavitation erosion and pitting caused by the action of pulsed pressure waves in the liquid mercury target has been investigated. To verify promotional claims for the treatment and to uncover any factors that might be of concern for the integrity of a carburized target vessel, some characterization tests of the nature of the surface layers of carburized austenitic 316LN stainless steel were conducted. The findings support most of the claims. The carburized layer is about 35 {micro}m thick. Its indentation hardness is about five times larger than that of the substrate steel and declines rapidly with depth into the layer. The surface is distorted by the treatment, and the austenite lattice is enlarged. The corrosion resistance of the carburized layer in an acid medium is greater than that for untreated austenite. The layer is not brittle; it is plastically deformable and is quite resistant to cracking during straining. Contrary to the provider's assertations, the maximum carbon content of the layer is much less than 6-7 wt% carbon, and the carbon is not simply contained in supersaturated …

Introduction: No reliable method currently exists for quantifying the degree of warm ischemia in kidney grafts prior to transplantation. We describe a method for evaluating pretransplant warm ischemia time using optical spectroscopic methods. Methods: Lewis rat kidney vascular pedicles were clamped unilaterally in vivo for 0, 5, 10, 20, 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes; 8 animals were studied at each time point. Injured and contra-lateral control kidneys were then flushed with Euro-Collins solution, resected and placed on ice. 335 nm excitation autofluorescence as well as cross polarized light scattering images were taken of each injured and control kidney using filters of various wavelengths. The intensity ratio of the injured to normal kidneys was compared to ischemia time. Results: Autofluorescence intensity ratios through a 450 nm filter and light scattering intensity ratios through an 800 nm filter both decreased significantly with increasing ischemia time (p < 0.0001 for each method, one-way ANOVA). All adjacent and non-adjacent time points between 0 and 90 minutes were distinguishable using one of these two modalities by Fisher's PLSD. Conclusions: Optical spectroscopic methods can accurately quantify warm ischemia time in kidneys that have been subsequently hypothermically preserved. Further studies are needed to correlate results with …

The availability of a genome-wide set of Saccharomyces deletion mutants provides a chance to identify all the yeast genes involved in DNA repair. Using X-rays, we are screening these mutants to identify additional genes that show increased sensitivity to the lethal effects of ionizing radiation. For each mutant identified as sensitive, we are confirming that the sensitivity phenotype co-segregates with the deletion allele and are obtaining multipoint survival-versus-dose assays in at least two haploid and one homozygous diploid strains. We present data for deletion mutants involving the genes DOT1, MDM20, NAT3, SPT7, SPT20, GCN5, HFI1, DCC1 and VID21/EAF1, and discuss their potential roles in repair. Eight of these genes have a clear radiation-sensitive phenotype when deleted, but the ninth, GCN5, has at most a borderline phenotype. None of the deletions confer substantial sensitivity to ultra-violet radiation, although one or two may confer marginal sensitivity. The DOT1 gene is of interest because its only known function is to methylate one lysine residue in the core of the histone H3 protein. We find that histone H3 mutants (supplied by K. Struhl) in which this residue is replaced by other amino-acids are also X-ray sensitive, seeming to confirm that methylation of the lysine-79 …

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

Fragments, bullets or projectiles can initiate a detonation in a high explosive (HE). For this to happen certain critical conditions need to be exceeded. For a given explosive, these critical conditions are the projectile velocity, the projectile size and shape, and the projectile material properties. A lot of work has been done in the area of metal shaped charge jets and individual fragments impacting the HE. One major gap in understanding initiation phenomena is the effect of multiple fragment impact. This study shows that multiple fragments can lower the fragment size and the kinetic energy thresholds.

Understanding and predicting mass transfer coupled with solute transport in permeable media is central to several energy-related programs at the US Department of Energy (e.g., CO{sub 2} sequestration, nuclear waste disposal, hydrocarbon extraction, and groundwater remediation). Mass transfer is the set of processes that control movement of a chemical between mobile (advection-dominated) domains and immobile (diffusion- or sorption-dominated) domains within a permeable medium. Consequences of mass transfer on solute transport are numerous and may include (1) increased sequestration time within geologic formations; (2) reduction in average solute transport velocity by as much as several orders of magnitude; (3) long ''tails'' in concentration histories during removal of a solute from a permeable medium; (4) poor predictions of solute behavior over long time scales; and (5) changes in reaction rates due to mass transfer influences on pore-scale mixing of solutes. Our work produced four principle contributions: (1) the first comprehensive visualization of solute transport and mass transfer in heterogeneous porous media; (2) the beginnings of a theoretical framework that encompasses both macrodispersion and mass transfer within a single set of equations; (3) experimental and analytical tools necessary for understanding mixing and aqueous reaction in heterogeneous, granular porous media; (4) a clear experimental …

The project ''Reinforcement of Aluminum Casting with Dissimilar Metal'' was a Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) between Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Cummins Inc. This project, technologies have been developed to reinforce aluminum castings with steel insert. Defect-free bond between the steel insert and the aluminum casting has been consistently obtained. The push-out experiment indicated that the bond strength is higher than that of the Al-Fin method. Two patents have been granted to the project team that is comprised of Cummins Inc. and ORNL. This report contains four sections: the coating of the steel pins, the cast-in method, microstructure characterization, and the bond strength. The section of the coating of the steel pins contains coating material selection, electro-plating technique for plating Cu and Ni on steel, and diffusion bonding of the coatings to the steel. The section of cast-in method deals with factors that affecting the quality of the metallurgical bond between the coated steel and the aluminum castings. The results of microstructure characteristics of the bonding are presented in the microstructure characterization section. A push-out experiment and the results obtained using this method is described in the section of bond strength/mechanical property.

The Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) is planning to initiate vitrification of Sludge Batch 3 (SB3) in combination with Sludge Batch 2 (SB2) in the spring of 2004. The contents of Sludge Batch 3 will be a mixture of the heel remaining from Sludge Batch 1B, sludge from Tank 7F (containing coal, sand, and sodium oxalate), and sludge materials from Tank 18F. The sludge materials in Tank 18F contain part of a mound of zeolitic material transferred there from Tank 19F. This mound was physically broken up and transfers were made from Tank 19F to Tank 18F for vitrification into SB3. In addition, excess Pu and Am/Cm materials were transferred to Tank 51H to be processed through the DWPF as part of SB3. Additional Pu material and a Np stream from the Canyons are also planned to be added to SB3 before processing of this batch commences at DWPF. The primary objective of this task was to assess the impacts of the excess zeolite mound material in Tank 19F on the predicted glass and processing properties of interest when the zeolite becomes part of SB3. The two potential impacts of the Tank 19F zeolite mound on DWPF processing relates to …

The Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) is planning to initiate vitrification of Sludge Batch 3 (SB3) in combination with Sludge Batch 2 (SB2) in the spring of 2004. The contents of Sludge Batch 3 will be a mixture of the heel remaining from Sludge Batch 1B, sludge from Tank 7F (containing coal, sand, and sodium oxalate), and sludge materials from Tank 18F. The sludge materials in Tank 18F contain part of a mound of zeolitic material transferred there from Tank 19F. This mound was physically broken up and transfers were made from Tank 19F to Tank 18F for vitrification into SB3. In addition, excess Pu and Am/Cm materials were transferred to Tank 51H to be processed through the DWPF as part of SB3. Additional Pu material and a Np stream from the Canyons are also planned to be added to SB3 before processing of this batch commences at DWPF. The primary objective of this task was to assess the impacts of the excess zeolite mound material in Tank 19F on the predicted glass and processing properties of interest when the zeolite becomes part of SB3. The two potential impacts of the Tank 19F zeolite mound on DWPF processing relates to …