A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A well-defined enterprise architecture is an essential tool for leveraging information technology (IT) to transform business and mission operations. GAO's experience has shown that attempting to modernize and evolve IT environments without an architecture to guide and constrain investments results in operations and systems that are duplicative, not well integrated, costly to maintain, and ineffective in supporting mission goals. In light of the importance of enterprise architectures, GAO developed a five stage architecture management maturity framework that defines what needs to be done to effectively manage an architecture program. Under GAO's framework, a fully mature architecture program is one that satisfies all elements of all stages of the framework. As agreed, GAO's objective was to determine the status of major federal department and agency enterprise architecture efforts."

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has developed into a powerful clinical tool for imaging the human body (1). This technique is based on nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) of protons (2, 3) in a static magnetic field B{sub 0}. An applied radiofrequency pulse causes the protons to precess about B{sub 0} at their Larmor frequency {nu}{sub 0} = ({gamma}/2{pi})B{sub 0}, where {gamma} is the gyromagnetic ratio; {gamma}/2{pi} = 42.58 MHz/tesla. The precessing protons generate an oscillating magnetic field and hence a voltage in a nearby coil that is amplified and recorded. The application of three-dimensional magnetic field gradients specifies a unique magnetic field and thus an NMR frequency in each voxel of the subject, so that with appropriate encoding of the signals one can acquire a complete image (4). Most clinical MRI systems involve magnetic fields generated by superconducting magnets, and the current trend is to higher magnetic fields than the widely used 1.5-T systems (5). Nonetheless, there is ongoing interest in the development of less expensive imagers operating at lower fields. Commercially available 0.2-T systems based on permanent magnets offer both lower cost and a more open access than their higher-field counterparts, at the expense of signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) and spatial resolution. …

As the development of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography progresses, interest grows in the extension of traditional optical components to the EUV regime. The strong absorption of EUV by most materials and its extremely short wavelength, however, makes it very difficult to implement many components that are commonplace in the longer wavelength regimes. One such component is the diffractive optical element used, for example, in illumination systems to efficiently generate modified pupil fills. Here we demonstrate the fabrication and characterization of EUV binary phase-only computer-generated holograms allowing arbitrary far-field diffraction patterns to be generated.

Background: Molecular evolutionary studies of noncodingsequences rely on multiple alignments. Yet how multiple alignmentaccuracy varies across sequence types, tree topologies, divergences andtools, and further how this variation impacts specific inferences,remains unclear. Results: Here we develop a molecular evolutionsimulation platform, CisEvolver, with models of background noncoding andtranscription factor binding site evolution, and use simulated alignmentsto systematically examine multiple alignment accuracy and its impact ontwo key molecular evolutionary inferences: transcription factor bindingsite conservation and divergence estimation. We find that the accuracy ofmultiple alignments is determined almost exclusively by the pairwisedivergence distance of the two most diverged species and that additionalspecies have a negligible influence on alignment accuracy. Conservedtranscription factor binding sites align better than surroundingnoncoding DNA yet are often found to be misaligned at relatively shortdivergence distances, such that studies of binding site gain and losscould easily be confounded by alignment error. Divergence estimates frommultiple alignments tend to be overestimated at short divergencedistances but reach a tool specific divergence at which they cease toincrease, leading to underestimation at long divergences. Our moststriking finding was that overall alignment accuracy, binding sitealignment accuracy and divergence estimation accuracy vary greatly acrossbranches in a tree and are most accurate for terminal branches connectingsister taxa and least …

Mineral carbonation is a promising concept for permanent CO{sub 2} sequestration due to the vast natural abundance of the raw materials and the permanent storage of CO{sub 2} in solid form as carbonates. The sequestration of CO{sub 2} through the employment of magnesium silicates--olivine and serpentine--is beyond the proof of concept stage. For the work done in this project, serpentine was chosen as the feedstock mineral due to its abundance and availability. Although the reactivity of olivine is greater than that of serpentine, physical and chemical treatments have been shown to increase greatly the reactivity of serpentine. The primary drawback to mineral carbonation is reaction kinetics. To accelerate the carbonation, aqueous processes are preferred, where the minerals are first dissolved in solution. In aqueous carbonation, the key step is the dissolution rate of the mineral, where the mineral dissolution reaction is likely to be surface-controlled. The relatively low reactivity of serpentine has warranted research into physical and chemical treatments that have been shown to greatly increase its reactivity. The use of sulfuric acid as an accelerating medium for the removal of magnesium from serpentine has been investigated. To accelerate the dissolution process, the mineral can be ground to very fine …

Photograph of a lady placing a price sign on a variety of vegetables at a farmers market. There are two cargo trucks parked behind the lady.

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Photograph of a woman arranging vegetables at a farmers market. There are several cardboard signs shown on the vegetables and cloves of garlic are visible hanging from the roof. There are two trucks parked behind the lady.

Photograph of a woman arranging vegetables at a farmers market. There are two cargo trucks parked behind the lady.

Photograph of a man at a farmers market grabbing lettuce from a pile of produce. Two other employees are shown behind the pile of produce.

Photograph of a man at a farmers market with buckets of fruit placed in front of him. Two cardboard signs are also shown in the photograph describing the fruit prices.

Photograph of a man at a farmers market with buckets of fruit placed in front of him. Two cardboard signs are also shown in the photograph describing the fruit prices.

None

Photograph of a lady paying for produce at a farmers market with a plastic bag on her left hand. The employee is handing over a plastic bag to the lady with her right hand while reaching for the payment with her left hand. A variety of vegetables are shown stacked in the photograph and cardboard signs describing prices.

Photograph of a man at a farmers market with a variety of vegetables visible. The man is handing over a bag of produce to a female customer.

Photograph of a man at a farmers market grabbing lettuce from a pile of produce. Two other employees are shown behind the pile of produce.

None

Photograph of a lady placing a price sign on a variety of vegetables at a farmers market. There are two cargo trucks parked behind the lady.

Photograph of a man at a farmers market with buckets of fruit placed in front of him. Two cardboard signs are also shown in the photograph describing the fruit prices.

Photograph of a man at a farmers market with buckets of fruit placed in front of him. Two cardboard signs are also shown in the photograph describing the fruit prices.

Photograph of a man at a farmers market with buckets of fruit placed in front of him. Two cardboard signs are also shown in the photograph describing the fruit prices.

Photograph of a man at a farmers market pointing towards a stack of produce. Two employees are shown behind the stack of produce and one of them is looking toward where the man is pointing.

NAA using {sup 252}Cf is used to address important areas of applied interest at SRS. Sensitivity needs for many of the applications are not severe; analyses are accomplished using a 21 mg {sup 252}Cf NAA facility. Because NAA allows analysis of bulk samples, it offers strong advantages for samples in difficult-to-digest matrices when its sensitivity is sufficient. Following radiochemical separation with stable carrier addition, chemical yields for a number methods are determined by neutron activation of the stable carrier. In some of the cases where no suitable stable carriers exist, the source has been used to generate radioactive tracers to yield separations.

The present final report describes technical progress made in regards to evaluating niobium oxide/alumina as a high temperature seal material. Fabrication and characterization of specimens comprising niobium oxide and alumina composites of various compositions was performed. The goal was to identify regions where a glass formed. There were no experimental conditions where a glassy phase was unequivocally identified. However, the results led to the formation of an interesting class of fibrous composites which may have applications where high compliance and high toughness are needed. It is clear that vapor phase sintering is an active mass transport mechanism in Nb{sub 2}O{sub 5}-Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} composites (Figure 1), and it may be possible to design porous materials by utilizing vapor phase sintering. The compositions evaluated in the present work are 52, 60, 73, 82 and 95 mol. % Nb{sub 2}O{sub 5} with the remainder Al{sub 2}O{sub 3}. These were chosen so that some eutectic composition was present during cooling, in an attempt to encourage glass formation. However, the presence of large, elongated crystals, both in the slow cool and the quench experiments indicates that the driving force for crystallization is very high. Several joints were formed between high purity alumina with two …