A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

Report that discusses the current status of Central Asian states and U.S. policy, which has been aimed at facilitating their cooperation with U.S. and NATO stabilization efforts in Afghanistan and their efforts to combat terrorism, proliferation, and trafficking in arms, drugs, and persons.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) fee basis care spending increased from about $3.04 billion in fiscal year 2008 to about $4.48 billion in fiscal year 2012. The slight decrease in fiscal year 2012 spending from the fiscal year 2011 level was due to VA's adoption of Medicare rates as its primary payment method for fee basis providers. VA's fee basis care utilization also increased from about 821,000 veterans in fiscal year 2008 to about 976,000 veterans in fiscal year 2012."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has a structured process for awarding Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) exchange and rate review grants to states. These grants are designed to help states establish exchanges--new health insurance marketplaces through which individuals and small businesses can obtain insurance--and review issuers' proposed rate increases. The grant award process consists of a series of steps during which the agency solicits, screens, and evaluates grant applications, and then makes funding awards. Once HHS deems that applications meet program eligibility criteria, applications go through various reviews, including a review by independent experts and HHS officials. On the basis of these reviews, HHS determines whether states' proposed activities are allowable, and if so, whether the associated requests for grant funding are reasonable. Based on recommendations from the reviews, HHS determines whether to award grants to states, and if so, the amounts of any grants to be awarded."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) did not establish minimum national standards for the accreditation of suppliers of advanced diagnostic imaging (ADI) services, which cover the production of images for computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and nuclear medicine services. While CMS adopted the broad criteria from the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (MIPPA) for ADI accreditation, it relied on the three accrediting organizations it selected to establish their own standards for quality and safety. To establish a framework for assessing the ADI standards currently in use, GAO developed a list of nine standards based on recommendations from 11 organizations with imaging expertise from which GAO obtained information. Two of the three accrediting organizations that CMS selected use all nine standards, while the third organization uses six of the nine standards. For example, while two of the organizations evaluate suppliers' patient images, the third said that it instead assesses suppliers' compliance with other standards necessary to maintain image quality, such as those related to inspection and testing of imaging equipment. As a result of these significant differences among the accrediting organizations, …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has invested more than $68 million in 80 projects in fiscal years 2005 through 2010 to demonstrate new technology addressing infrastructure-related corrosion, but project managers have not submitted all required reports on the results of these efforts to the Corrosion Policy and Oversight Office (Corrosion Office). The DOD Corrosion Prevention and Mitigation Strategic Plan requires project managers to submit a final report when a project is complete, and submit a follow-on report within two years after the military department implements the technology. As of November 2012, GAO found that project managers had not submitted final reports for 50 of the 80 projects (63 percent) funded in fiscal years 2005 through 2010. Also, project managers had not submitted follow-on reports for 15 of the 41 projects (37 percent) funded in fiscal years 2005 through 2007. GAO found that the Corrosion Office’s tracking system lacks key information to help ensure that project managers meet reporting requirements. Furthermore, the Corrosion Office is not fully exercising its authority to identify and implement options or incentives to address funding and other reasons given for not meeting …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2007, the Forest Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Park Service have taken steps to establish strategic directions for addressing climate change adaptation. For example, the Forest Service developed a strategic framework document that established climate change adaptation as a central agency priority and another document, known as "the roadmap," which identified actions that national forest managers were taking or could take to implement the direction outlined in the framework, including re-vegetating ecosystems that had been affected by fire with plant species that are better adapted to current and future climates. These four agencies have also developed guidance, training, and other tools for managers to use in adapting to climate change. For example, the National Park Service is developing guidance for park-based climate change adaptation plans that includes steps such as identifying conservation targets and conducting vulnerability assessments. The Bureau of Land Management has not established a strategic direction for addressing climate change impacts but is planning to develop a high-level climate change adaptation strategy by the end of the summer 2013. In addition, GAO …

This report examines how automatic spending reductions triggered by the Budget Control Act (BCA) might affect health reform appropriations acts.

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This report analyzes U.S. and international sanctions against Iran and, in so doing, provides examples, based on a wide range of open source reporting, of companies and countries that conduct business with Iran.

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In this project generic anticline structures have been used for numerical modeling analyses to study the influence of geometrical parameters, fluid flow boundary conditions, in situ stress regime and inter-bedding friction coefficient on geomechanical risks such as fracture reactivation and fracture generation. The resulting stress states for these structures are also used to determine safe drilling directions and a methodology for wellbore trajection optimization is developed that is applicable for non-Andersonian stress states. The results of the fluid flow simulation show that the type of fluid flow boundary condition is of utmost importance and has significant impact on all injection related parameters. It is recommended that further research is conducted to establish a method to quantify the fluid flow boundary conditions for injection applications. The results of the geomechanical simulation show that in situ stress regime is a crucial, if not the most important, factor determining geomechanical risks. For extension and strike slip stress regimes anticline structures should be favored over horizontally layered basin as they feature higher ΔP{sub c} magnitudes. If sedimentary basins are tectonically relaxed and their state of stress is characterized by the uni-axial strain model the basin is in exact frictional equilibrium and fluids should not …

Colorado School of Mines conducted research and training in the development and validation of an advanced CO{sub 2} GS (Geological Sequestration) probabilistic simulation and risk assessment model. CO{sub 2} GS simulation and risk assessment is used to develop advanced numerical simulation models of the subsurface to forecast CO2 behavior and transport; optimize site operational practices; ensure site safety; and refine site monitoring, verification, and accounting efforts. As simulation models are refined with new data, the uncertainty surrounding the identified risks decrease, thereby providing more accurate risk assessment. The models considered the full coupling of multiple physical processes (geomechanical and fluid flow) and describe the effects of stochastic hydro-mechanical (H-M) parameters on the modeling of CO{sub 2} flow and transport in fractured porous rocks. Graduate students were involved in the development and validation of the model that can be used to predict the fate, movement, and storage of CO{sub 2} in subsurface formations, and to evaluate the risk of potential leakage to the atmosphere and underground aquifers. The main major contributions from the project include the development of: 1) an improved procedure to rigorously couple the simulations of hydro-thermomechanical (H-M) processes involved in CO{sub 2} GS; 2) models for the hydro-mechanical …

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The helium coolant in high-temperature reactors inevitably contains low levels of impurities during steady-state operation, primarily consisting of small amounts of H{sub 2}, H{sub 2}O, CH{sub 4}, CO, CO{sub 2}, and N{sub 2} from a variety of sources in the reactor circuit. These impurities are problematic because they can cause significant long-term corrosion in the structural alloys used in the heat exchangers at elevated temperatures. Currently, the primary candidate materials for intermediate heat exchangers are Alloy 617, Haynes 230, Alloy 800H, and Hastelloy X. This project will evaluate the role of impurities in helium coolant on the stress-assisted grain boundary oxidation and creep crack growth in candidate alloys at elevated temperatures. The project team will: • Evaluate stress-assisted grain boundary oxidation and creep crack initiation and crack growth in the temperature range of 500-850°C in a prototypical helium environment. • Evaluate the effects of oxygen partial pressure on stress-assisted grain boundary oxidation and creep crack growth in impure helium at 500°C, 700°C, and 850°C respectively. • Characterize the microstructure of candidate alloys after long-term exposure to an impure helium environment in order to understand the correlation between stress-assisted grain boundary oxidation, creep crack growth, material composition, and impurities in the …

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One of the greatest technological hurdles to deployment of fuel cells relates to the sluggish activity, low durability and the high cost of the catalysts that are currently employed. For automotive PEM fuel cells to become commercially viable, the Pt-specific power density would need to be reduced to less than 0.2gPt/kW (at cell voltages >0.65 V). This would require the Pt loadings to be less than 0.15 mgPt/cm2MEA within the membrane electrode assembly. This could be achieved by enhancing the catalytic activity at the cathode, thus lowering its overpotential. Various different Pt-alloys have shown 2-4 times enhanced activities over Pt alone but still suffer some of the same durability issues as that of the pure Pt. There is a general loss of active Pt due to dissolution and sintering. While there have been a number of elegant fundamental experimental and theoretical studies on ideal single crystal Pt and Pt alloy surfaces which have helped to elucidate the factors that control the activity, there have been very few fundamental studies focused on the stability, reactivity and durability of well-defined Pt nanoparticles. We carried out ab initio density functional theory together with a novel double reference method that we developed to simulate …

Corn is the highest yielding crop on earth and probably the most valuable agricultural product of the United States. Because it converts sun energy through photosynthesis into starch and proteins, we addressed energy savings by focusing on protein quality. People and animals require essential amino acids derived from the digestion of proteins. If proteins are relatively low in certain essential amino acids, the crop becomes nutritionally defective and has to be supplemented. Such deficiency affects meat and fish production and countries where corn is a staple. Because corn seed proteins have relatively low levels of lysine and methionine, a diet has to be supplemented with soybeans for the missing lysine and with chemically synthesized methionine. We therefore have studied genes expressed during maize seed development and their chromosomal organization. A critical technical requirement for the understanding of the molecular structure of genes and their positional information was DNA sequencing. Because of the length of sequences, DNA sequencing methods themselves were insufficient for this type of analysis. We therefore developed the so-called “DNA shotgun sequencing” strategy, where overlapping DNA fragments were sequenced in parallel and used to reconstruct large DNA molecules via overlaps. Our publications became the most frequently cited ones …

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In contrast to the nuclear charge densities, which have been accurately measured with electron scattering, the knowledge of neutron densities still lack precision. Previous model-dependent hadron experiments suggest the difference between the neutron radius, R{sub n}, of a heavy nucleus and the proton radius, R{sub p}, to be in the order of several percent. To accurately obtain the difference, R{sub n}-R{sub p}, which is essentially a neutron skin, the Jefferson Lab Lead ({sup 208}Pb) Radius Experiment (PREX) measured the parity-violating electroweak asymmetry in the elastic scattering of polarized electrons from {sup 208}Pb at an energy of 1.06 GeV and a scattering angle of 5{degrees}#14;. Since Z{sup 0} boson couples mainly to neutrons, this asymmetry provides a clean measurement of R{sub n} with respect to R{sub p}. PREX was conducted at the Jefferson lab experimental Hall A, from March to June 2010. The experiment collected a final data sample of 2x#2;10{sup 7} helicity-window quadruplets. The measured parity-violating electroweak asymmetry A{sub PV} = 0.656 {+-}#6; 0.060 (stat) {+-}#6; 0.014 (syst) ppm corresponds to a difference between the radii of the neutron and proton distributions, R{sub n}-R{sub p} = 0.33{sup +0.16}{sub -0.18} fm and provides the #12;first electroweak observation of the neutron skin …

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