The Senate of United States Committee and Subcommittee Assignments for the 108th Congress.

Reports - DOD Medical Joint Cross - Service Group - Military Value Report - April 26, 2005

BRAC Commission Material – BRAC Staff Support Handbook 2006. 177 page document dated April 2006

2005 BRAC Commission Final COBRA Run - Tab 3 INTEL-0010 COBRA Reports - 167 - Defense Intelligence Agency

Biodiesel is defined as fatty acid mono-alkylesters and is produced from triacylglycerols. In the current article we provide an overview of the structure, diversity and regulation of the metabolic pathways leading to intracellular fatty acid and triacylglycerol accumulation in three types of organisms (bacteria, algae and fungi) of potential biotechnological interest and discuss possible intervention points to increase the cellular lipid content. The key steps that regulate carbon allocation and distribution in lipids include the formation of malonyl-CoA, the synthesis of fatty acids and their attachment onto the glycerol backbone, and the formation of triacylglycerols. The lipid biosynthetic genes and pathways are largely known for select model organisms. Comparative genomics allows the examination of these pathways in organisms of biotechnological interest and reveals the evolution of divergent and yet uncharacterized regulatory mechanisms. Utilization of microbial systems for triacylglycerol and fatty acid production is in its infancy; however, genomic information and technologies combined with synthetic biology concepts provide the opportunity to further exploit microbes for the competitive production of biodiesel.

EUV lithography (EUVL) employs illumination wavelengths around 13.5 nm, and in many aspects it is considered an extension of optical lithography, which is used for the high-volume manufacturing (HVM) of today's microprocessors. The EUV wavelength of illumination dictates the use of reflective optical elements (mirrors) as opposed to the refractive lenses used in conventional lithographic systems. Thus, EUVL tools are based on all-reflective concepts: they use multilayer (ML) coated optics for their illumination and projection systems, and they have a ML-coated reflective mask.

"This brochure has been prepared by the staff of the Texas State Securities Board (the "Agency") to provide a brief introduction to the Agency and how it functions, and to give practical suggestions to investors about how to protect themselves from fraud" (Mission of Texas State Securities Board page).

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) eighth annual Information Resources Catalog can help keep you up-to-date on the research, development, opportunities, and available technologies in energy efficiency and renewable energy. The catalog includes five main sections with entries grouped according to subject area.

As 3D volumetric images of the human body become an increasingly crucial source of information for the diagnosis and treatment of a broad variety of medical conditions, advanced techniques that allow clinicians to efficiently and clearly visualize volumetric images become increasingly important. Interaction has proven to be a key concept in analysis of medical images because static images of 3D data are prone to artifacts and misunderstanding of depth. Furthermore, fading out clinically irrelevant aspects of the image while preserving contextual anatomical landmarks helps medical doctors to focus on important parts of the images without becoming disoriented. Our goal was to develop a tool that unifies interactive manipulation and context preserving visualization of medical images with a special focus on diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data. At each image voxel, DTI provides a 3 x 3 tensor whose entries represent the 3D statistical properties of water diffusion locally. Water motion that is preferential to specific spatial directions suggests structural organization of the underlying biological tissue; in particular, in the human brain, the naturally occuring diffusion of water in the axon portion of neurons is predominantly anisotropic along the longitudinal direction of the elongated, fiber-like axons [MMM+02]. This property has made DTI …

When fractures in otherwise hard rocks are filled with fluids (oil, gas, water, CO{sub 2}), the type and physical state of the fluid (liquid or gas) can make a large difference in the wave speeds and attenuation properties of seismic waves. The present work summarizes methods of deconstructing theses effects of fractures, together with any fluids contained within them, on wave propagation as observed in reflection seismic data. Additional studies of waves in fluid-saturated granular media show that the behavior can be quite different from that for fractured media, since these materials are typically much softer mechanically than are the fractured rocks (i.e., having a very small drained moduli). Important fluid effects in such media are often governed as much by fluid viscosity as by fluid bulk modulus.

In this article we provide a detailed description of a technique to obtain a simple parameterization for different exceptional Lie groups, such as G{sub 2}, F{sub 4} and E{sub 6}, based on their fibration structure. For the compact case, we construct a realization which is a generalization of the Euler angles for SU(2), while for the non compact version of G{sub 2(2)}/SO(4) we compute the Iwasawa decomposition. This allows us to obtain not only an explicit expression for the Haar measure on the group manifold, but also for the cosets G{sub 2}/SO(4), G{sub 2}/SU(3), F{sub 4}/Spin(9), E{sub 6}/F{sub 4} and G{sub 2(2)}/SO(4) that we used to find the concrete realization of the general element of the group. Moreover, as a by-product, in the simplest case of G{sub 2}/SO(4), we have been able to compute an Einstein metric and the vielbein. The relevance of these results in physics is discussed.

Contaminants in soil can impact human health and the environment through a complex web of interactions. Soils exist where the atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere, and biosphere converge. Soil is the thin outer zone of the earth's crust that supports rooted plants and is the product of climate and living organisms acting on rock. A true soil is a mixture of air, water, mineral, and organic components. The relative proportions of these components determine the value of the soil for agricultural and for other human uses. These proportions also determine, to a large extent, how a substance added to soil is transported and/or transformed within the soil (Spositio, 2004). In mass-balance models, soil compartments play a major role, functioning both as reservoirs and as the principal media for transport among air, vegetation, surface water, deeper soil, and ground water (Mackay, 2001). Quantifying the mass transport of chemicals within soil and between soil and atmosphere is important for understanding the role soil plays in controlling fate, transport, and exposure to multimedia pollutants. Soils are characteristically heterogeneous. A trench dug into soil typically reveals several horizontal layers having different colors and textures. As illustrated in Figure 1, these multiple layers are often divided into …

The final report of the evaluation of the Compressed Air Challenge (CAC) Training Program. The training program is designed to provide plant personnel and compressed air system vendors with knowledge and tools required to effect improvements to the energy efficiency and overall performance of plant compressed air systems. As of May 2001, 3,029 individuals had attended the CAC Fundamentals of Compressed Air Training Systems and 925 individuals had attended ''Advanced Management of Compressed Air Systems''. These individuals represented 1,400-1,500 separate business establishments. The evaluation is based on three main research tasks: analysis of the CAC registration database, interviews with 100 end-user personnel who attended the CAC training, and interviews with 100 compressed air system vendors and consulting engineers who attended the training sessions.

Physical and chemical agents in the environment, those used in clinical applications, or encountered during recreational exposures to sunlight, induce damages in DNA. Understanding the biological impact of these agents requires quantitation of the levels of such damages in laboratory test systems as well as in field or clinical samples. Alkaline gel electrophoresis provides a sensitive (down to {approx} a few lesions/5Mb), rapid method of direct quantitation of a wide variety of DNA damages in nanogram quantities of non-radioactive DNAs from laboratory, field, or clinical specimens, including higher plants and animals. This method stems from velocity sedimentation studies of DNA populations, and from the simple methods of agarose gel electrophoresis. Our laboratories have developed quantitative agarose gel methods, analytical descriptions of DNA migration during electrophoresis on agarose gels (1-6), and electronic imaging for accurate determinations of DNA mass (7-9). Although all these components improve sensitivity and throughput of large numbers of samples (7,8,10), a simple version using only standard molecular biology equipment allows routine analysis of DNA damages at moderate frequencies. We present here a description of the methods, as well as a brief description of the underlying principles, required for a simplified approach to quantitation of DNA damages by …

Proceedings of the sixth Mountain Lion workshop including research and status reports, abstracts, and workshop agenda.

Manual/guide providing information/instructions about revisions to the standards and guidelines for school library programs, including the six major components of school library programs, strategies for librarians, output measures, and outcome-based evaluations.

Neutrons are an invaluable probe in a wide range of scientific, medical and commercial endeavors. Many of these applications require the recording of an image of the neutron signal, either in one-dimension or in two-dimensions. We summarize the reactions of neutrons with the most important elements that are used for their detection. A description is then given of the major techniques used in neutron imaging, with emphasis on the detection media and position readout principle. Important characteristics such as position resolution, linearity, counting rate capability and sensitivity to gamma-background are discussed. Finally, the application of a subset of these instruments in radiology and tomography is described.

"This manual is a tool to facilitate the implementation of the Crash Records Information System (CRIS) in Texas and to guide peace officers in the completion of the Texas Peace Officer's Crash Report and the Commercial Motor Vehicle Supplement to the Texas Peace Officer's Crash Report" (p. 1)

NREL PV Working With Industry is a quarterly newsletter devoted to the research, development, and deployment performed by NREL staff in concert with their industry and university partners. The Fourth Quarter, 1999 issue, titled ''Knowledge is PV Power'' focuses on the contribution of the university-based subcontractors to the PV Program. The editorialist is Robert Birkmire, Director of the Institute of Energy Conversion, which is affiliated with the University of Delaware.

McStain Enterprises' new cottage-style homes built under the U.S. Department of Energy's Building America program are designed to greatly reduce energy costs and improve indoor air quality for their customers in Longmont, Colorado. In addition, energy-efficient features in the homes provide owners with greater durability and value, allow some buyers to qualify for special energy-efficient mortgages, and can result in higher resale values. Features include improved building envelope and air distribution systems, high-efficiency heating and cooling systems, improved indoor air quality, and Green Builder concepts from Colorado's Green Builder Program.

This brochure presents the capabilities that the Measurements and Characterization Division has in Electro-Optical Characterization, in which a variety of spectroscopy, ellipsometry, and capacitance techniques are used to probe the fundamental electrical and optical properties of solid-state materials.

Technology fact sheet on installing insulation and providing ventilation through ceilings and attics.

This brochure presents the capabilities that the Measurements and Characterization Division has for transferring secure characterization data to clients over the Web, and for collaborating in R and D via the Web over distances (i.e., working as a virtual lab).

A small brochure about solar electricity for the general public to be handed out on Earth Day 2000.