A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Reserve System's Federal Reserve Banks (FRB) serve as fiscal agents of the U.S. government when they are directed to do so by the Secretary of the Treasury. In this capacity, the FRBs operate and maintain several mainframe and distributed-based systems--including the systems that support the Department of the Treasury's auctions of marketable securities--on behalf of the department's Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD). Effective security controls over these systems are essential to ensure that sensitive and financial information is adequately protected from inadvertent or deliberate misuse, disclosure, or destruction. In support of its audit of BPD's fiscal year 2005 Schedule of Federal Debt, GAO assessed the effectiveness of information system controls in protecting financial and sensitive auction information on key mainframe and distributed-based systems that the FRBs maintain and operate for BPD. To do this, GAO observed and tested FRBs' security controls."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a component within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is responsible for overseeing the Medicare and Medicaid programs--the nation's largest health insurance programs--which benefit about one in every four Americans. CMS relies on a contractor-owned and operated network to facilitate communication and data transmission among CMS business related entities. Effective information security controls are essential to protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of this sensitive information. At Congress's request, GAO assessed the effectiveness of information security controls over the communication network used by CMS by conducting a technical assessment of the information security controls that are currently in place."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) authorized about $7.9 billion in commitment authority, through fiscal year 2009, for the Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) New Starts program, which is used to select fixed guideway transit projects, such as rail and trolley projects, and to award full funding grant agreements (FFGAs). The New Starts program serves as an important source of federal funding for the design and construction of transit projects throughout the country. SAFETEA-LU requires GAO to report each year on FTA's New Starts process. As such, GAO examined (1) the number of projects that were evaluated, rated, and proposed for FFGAs for the fiscal year 2007 evaluation cycle and the proposed funding commitments for the fiscal year 2007 budget; (2) procedural changes that FTA proposed for the New Starts program beginning with the fiscal year 2008 evaluation cycle; and (3) changes SAFETEA-LU made to the New Starts program and FTA's implementation of these changes. GAO reviewed New Starts documents and interviewed FTA officials and project sponsors, among other things, as part of its review. GAO is not making recommendations …

The threats of bio-terrorism and newly emerging infectious diseases pose serious challenges to the national security infrastructure. Rapid detection and diagnosis of infectious disease in human populations, as well as characterizing pathogen biology, are critical for reducing the morbidity and mortality associated with such threats. One of the key challenges in managing an infectious disease outbreak, whether through natural causes or acts of overt terrorism, is detection early enough to initiate effective countermeasures. Much recent attention has been directed towards the utility of biomarkers or molecular signatures that result from the interaction of the pathogen with the host for improving our ability to diagnose and mitigate the impact of a developing infection during the time window when effective countermeasures can be instituted. Host responses may provide early signals in blood even from localized infections. Multiple innate and adaptive immune molecules, in combination with other biochemical markers, may provide disease-specific information and new targets for countermeasures. The presence of pathogen specific markers and an understanding of the molecular capabilities and adaptations of the pathogen when it interacts with its host may likewise assist in early detection and provide opportunities for targeting countermeasures. An important question that needs to be addressed is …

We are developing a frequency-multiplexed readout for arrays of high-resolution Gamma detectors based on superconducting transition edge sensors (TESs). Each sensor is part of an LCR resonant circuit and is biased at an identifying carrier frequency. Several carrier signals are added and amplified with a single SQUID preamplifier at 4 K. Gamma absorption modulates the amplitude of the carrier, and demodulation at room temperature retrieves the initial temperature evolution of the sensor. This multiplexing system has originally been developed to read out large arrays of bolometers for cosmic microwave background studies. To accommodate the faster Gamma-ray signals, its demodulator bandwidth is being extended to 20 kHz to allow reading out up to eight TESs with a detector bandwidth of 10 kHz. Here we characterize the system noise performance and show how this multiplexing scheme can be adapted to read out arrays of superconducting Gamma-ray detectors.

Three examples illustrate the versatility and usefulness of biothermodynamics. The first example concerns calculation of a phase diagram for aqueous lysozyme with a new potential of mean force that takes the Hofmeister effect into account; such calculations may be useful for design of a separation process where addition of a salt to an aqueous protein mixture precipitates a target protein. The second example concerns thermodynamic studies to elucidate the effect of an organic cosolvent on the mechanism of crystallizing aqueous insulin. The final example concerns a thermodynamic contribution to mitigating the AIDS epidemic; it indicates how isothermal-titration-calorimetry studies are helpful for choosing an optimum inhibitor that is effective not only for the wild-type HIV protease but also for at least some of its mutants.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

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

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

Monthly report written by the Texas Daily Newspaper Association's (TDNA's) office manager, Darla Thompson, to Ken Whalen providing a summary of revenues and account balances, programs, meetings, and other activities in the office during the previous months.

This report examines characteristics of both the insured and the uninsured people.

This report provides Emergency an Overview and Options for Congress on Emergency Management Preparedness Standards which includes major recommendations like adoption and use of emergency response standards, mutual aid provisions, private sector preparedness.

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Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), a ground-based telescope currently under development, will allow a thorough study of dark energy by measuring, more completely and accurately than previously, the rate of expansion of the universe and the large-scale structure of the matter in it. The telescope utilizes a broadband photometric system of six wavelength bands to measure the redshifts of distant objects. The earth's atmosphere makes it difficult to acquire accurate data, since some of the light passing through the atmosphere is scattered or absorbed due to Rayleigh scattering, molecular absorption, and aerosol scattering. Changes in the atmospheric extinction distribution due to each of these three processes were simulated by altering the parameters of a sample atmospheric distribution. Spectral energy distributions of standard stars were used to simulate data acquired by the telescope. The effects of changes in the atmospheric parameters on the photon flux measurements through each wavelength band were observed in order to determine which atmospheric conditions must be monitored most closely to achieve the desired 1% uncertainty on flux values. It was found that changes in the Rayleigh scattering parameter produced the most significant variations in the data; therefore, the molecular volume density (pressure) must be measured …

The Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) initially installed in the Instrumented Flux Return (IFR) of the BABAR particle detector have proven unreliable and inefficient for detecting muons and neutral hadrons. In the summer of 2004, the BABAR Collaboration began replacing the RPCs with Limited Streamer Tubes (LSTs). LST operation requires a mixture of very pure gases and an operating voltage of 5500 V to achieve maximum efficiency. In the past, the gas supplies obtained by the BABAR Collaboration have contained contaminants that caused the efficiency of the IFR LSTs to drop from approximately 90% to approximately 60%. Therefore, it was necessary to develop a method for testing this gas for contaminants. An LST test system was designed and built using two existing LSTs, one placed 1 cm above the other. These LSTs detect cosmic muons in place of particles created during the BABAR experiment. The effect of gas contamination was mimicked by reducing the operating voltage of the test system in order to lower the detection efficiency. When contaminated gas was simulated, the coincidence rate and the percent coincidence between the LSTs in the test system dropped off significantly, demonstrating that test system can be used as an indicator of gas …

Characterization of stratigraphic sequences (T-R cycles or sequences) included outcrop studies, well log analysis and seismic reflection interpretation. These studies were performed by researchers at the University of Alabama, Wichita State University and McGill University. The outcrop, well log and seismic characterization studies were used to develop a depositional sequence model, a T-R cycle (sequence) model, and a sequence stratigraphy predictive model. The sequence stratigraphy predictive model developed in this study is based primarily on the modified T-R cycle (sequence) model. The T-R cycle (sequence) model using transgressive and regressive systems tracts and aggrading, backstepping, and infilling intervals or sections was found to be the most appropriate sequence stratigraphy model for the strata in the onshore interior salt basins of the Gulf of Mexico to improve petroleum stratigraphic trap and specific reservoir facies imaging, detection and delineation. The known petroleum reservoirs of the Mississippi Interior and North Louisiana Salt Basins were classified using T-R cycle (sequence) terminology. The transgressive backstepping reservoirs have been the most productive of oil, and the transgressive backstepping and regressive infilling reservoirs have been the most productive of gas. Exploration strategies were formulated using the sequence stratigraphy predictive model and the classification of the known petroleum …

This report provides a summary of groundwater monitoring at the K Basins during April, May, and June 2006

The International Linear Collider (ILC) is a proposed electron-positron collider, expected to provide insight into important questions in particle physics. A part of the global R&D effort for the ILC is the design of its electron gun and electron bunching system. The present design of the bunching system has two sub-harmonic bunchers, one operating at 108 MHz and one at 433MHz, and two 5-cell 1.3 GHz (L-band) bunchers. This bunching system has previously been simulated using the Phase and Radial Motion in Electron Linear Accelerators (PARMELA) software, and those simulations indicated that the design provides sufficient bunching and acceleration. Due to the complicated dynamics governing the electrons in the bunching system we decided to verify and expand the PARMELA results using the more recent and independent simulation software General Particle Tracer (GPT). GPT tracks the motion and interactions of a set of macro particles, each of which represent a number of electrons, and provides a variety of analysis capabilities. To provide initial conditions for the macro particles, a method was developed for deriving the initial conditions from detailed simulations of particle trajectories in the electron gun. These simulations were performed using the Egun software. For realistic simulation of the L-band …

In several past studies, model independent analysis, in conjunction with a virtual accelerator model, has been successful in improving PEP-II linear geometric optics. In many cases, optics improvement yielded an increase in machine luminosity. In this study, an updated characterization of linear optics is presented. With the PEP-II beam position monitor (BPM) system, four independent beam centroid orbits were extracted and used to determine phase advances and linear Green's functions among BPM locations. A magnetic lattice model was then constructed with a singular value decomposition-enhanced least-square fitting of phase advances and Green's functions, which are functions of quadrupole strengths, sextupole feed-downs, as well as BPM errors, to the corresponding measured quantities. The fitting process yielded a machine model that matched the measured linear optics of the real machine and was therefore deemed the virtual accelerator. High beta beat, as well as linear coupling, was observed in both LER and HER of the virtual accelerator. Since there was higher beta beating in LER, focus was shifted to the improvement of this ring. By adjusting select quadrupoles of the virtual LER and fitting the resulting beta functions and phase advances to those of the desired lattice, the average beta beat of the …

The Isotope Separator and Accelerator (ISAC) facility located at the TRIUMF laboratory in Vancouver, Canada, is one of the world's most advanced ISOL-type radioactive ion beam facilities. An extensive {gamma}-ray spectroscopy program at ISAC is centered around two major research facilities: (1) the 8{pi} {gamma}-ray spectrometer for {beta}-delayed {gamma}-ray spectroscopy experiments with the low-energy beams from ISAC-I, and (2) the next-generation TRIUMF-ISAC Gamma-Ray Escape Suppressed Spectrometer (TIGRESS) for in-beam experiments with the accelerated radioactive ion beams. An overview of these facilities and recent results from the diverse program of nuclear structure and fundamental interaction studies they support is presented.

We report on the first measurements to the angle {gamma} of the Unitarity Triangle in B meson decays collected by the BABAR detector at the SLAC PEP-II asymmetric-energy B factory in the years 1999-2004.

Powder diffraction is a specialized technique whose investigatory limits are constrained by the scale of the crystallized substance being scanned versus the probe beam used. When disparate in scale, with the photon spot size larger than the crystal being probed, many are employed, the resulting diffraction image being cast from all possible incident angles, constructing {chi}-arcs containing information about the crystalline structure of the material under examination. Of particular interest to our collaboration is the structure of Nitinol, a superelastic Nickel-Titanium alloy, whose phase transformations and load bearing deformations can be studied by usage of diffraction, with wide sweeping biomedical uses. Analysis of this data is complicated by phase transformation and material fluorescence, which make difficult the computational modeling of the peaks within concentric {chi}-arcs. We endeavored to construct a series of computational tools (the amalgamation of them known as 2DPeakFinder) for refining and extracting this relevant data, toward the end of employing previously developed algorithms in the material's structural analysis. We succeeded to a large degree with the use of an iterative algorithm to navigate radial complexity of the signal and manage to retain a distinction between useful signal and superfluous background noise. The tools developed in this project …