Bi-monthly report on average prices paid for standing timber in Texas, calculated based on reported timber sales.

Monthly bulletin issued to address topics related to law enforcement. This issue discusses "Missing Child Investigations" including a history of investigations, previous research findings, and specialized units.

Monthly publication documenting statistics related to economic information in the Mexico-Texas border areas including types of border crossings, employment, customs revenues, and other related data.

Monthly newsletter documenting statistics related to employment in Texas including nonagricultural job trends, labor force numbers, and other relevant indicators as well as information on related topics.

Newsletter of the Texas Hunter Education Program discussing various events, news, and other information related to the program or of interest to hunters in Texas.

Magazine discussing natural resources, parks, hunting and fishing, and other information related to the outdoors in Texas.

Monthly travel magazine discussing locations and events in Texas to encourage travel within the state.

Monthly newsletter from the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy regarding updates and information pertaining to Texas CPAs.

Newsletter published by the Texas Department of Transportation for TxDOT employees including information about the organization, projects throughout the state, and other topics related to transportation in Texas.

This report details the petroleum lease sales and development in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico (GOM) Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) through estimated physical and economic measures. Physical performance is measured in ways such as the prospectivity index, expeditious index, and development productivity. Economic performance is measured in ways such as a profitability index and internal rate of return.

Summary describing the work completed at Northeast Fisheries Science Center National Marine Fisheries Service for 'Sperm Whale Acoustic Monitoring Program (SWAMP).' It includes background information on the project funding and sponsorship, goals, methodology, and findings.

Offshore structures are required to be removed within a year after production ceases and recently the Minerals Management Service has asked for removal of structures no longer "economically viable." This paper seeks to identify the amount of idle iron that exists in the Gulf of Mexico as well as describe the geographic distribution and ownership patterns.

This report is based on the needs of the National Marine Fisheries Service and Minerals Management Service to gain data about the Sperm Whale population, comparing the population in the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Twelve whales were tagged and observed to gather various types of data about their population and environment.

Summary describing the work completed at Louisiana State University for 'Do Joint Exposures to Heavy Metals and Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbon Elicit Nonadditive Responses in Benthic Invertebrates?' It includes background information on the project funding and sponsorship, goals, methodology, and findings.

This is a study on the possible effects of metals and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons elevated due to possible proximity to oil and gas production platforms.

This report summarizes the reauthorization act to provide for the conservation and management of the fisheries, and for other purposes.

This Topical Report summarizes progress on Cooperative Agreement DE-FC26-04NT42309, 'Field Testing of a Wet FGD Additive'. The objective of the project is to demonstrate the use of a flue gas desulfurization (FGD) additive, Degussa Corporation's TMT-15, to prevent the reemission of elemental mercury (Hg{sup 0}) in flue gas exiting wet FGD systems on coal-fired boilers. Furthermore, the project intends to demonstrate whether the additive can be used to precipitate most of the mercury (Hg) removed in the wet FGD system as a fine TMT salt that can be separated from the FGD liquor and bulk solid byproducts for separate disposal. The project is conducting pilot- and full-scale tests of the TMT-15 additive in wet FGD absorbers. The tests are intended to determine required additive dosages to prevent Hg{sup 0} reemissions and to separate mercury from the normal FGD byproducts for three coal types: Texas lignite/Power River Basin (PRB) coal blend, high-sulfur Eastern bituminous coal, and low-sulfur Eastern bituminous coal. The project team consists of URS Group, Inc., EPRI, TXU Generation Company LP, Southern Company, and Degussa Corporation. TXU Generation has provided the Texas lignite/PRB cofired test site for pilot FGD tests, Monticello Steam Electric Station Unit 3. Southern Company is …

The cylindrical thruster differs significantly in its underlying physical mechanisms from the conventional annular Hall thruster. It features high ionization efficiency, quiet operation, ion acceleration in a large volume-to-surface ratio channel, and performance comparable with the state-of-the-art conventional Hall thrusters. Very significant plume narrowing, accompanied by the increase of the energetic ion fraction and improvement of ion focusing, led to 50%–60% increase of the thruster anode efficiency. These improvements were achieved by overrunning the discharge current in the magnetized thruster plasma.

Coaxial Helicity Injection (CHI) has been successfully used in the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) for a demonstration of closed flux current generation without the use of the central solenoid. The favorable properties of the Spherical Torus (ST) arise from its very small aspect ratio. However, small aspect ratio devices have very restricted space for a substantial central solenoid. Thus methods for initiating the plasma current without relying on induction from a central solenoid are essential for the viability of the ST concept. CHI is a promising candidate for solenoid-free plasma startup in a ST. The method has now produced closed flux current up to 160 kA verifying the high current capability of this method in a large ST built with conventional tokamak components.

This paper presents a holistic approach that illustrates how the semantic hurdle for integration of biological databases might be overcome when mapping sources that provide information on individual genes and complete genomes to sources that provide information on the biological resources from which these sequences where derived, and vice versa. In particular we will explain how each of the completed and ongoing whole-genome sequencing projects in the Genomes OnLine Database and each of the ribosomal RNA sequences in the SILVA ribosomal RNA database have been persistently cross-referenced with the StrainInfo.net bioportal, serving both a genome centric and an organism centric view to the life on our blue planet as one more stepping stone towards the establishment of fully integrated and flexible biological information networks.

This is a letter report summarizing the energy analysis of slab insulation requirements which are no longer in IECC 2006 for Montana climate zone. Based on energy analysis using Equest, we calculated energy consumption and annual energy cost for various insulation configurations. This information will be used by the Montana Energy office during the upcoming code hearings.

The objective of this task is to identify issues relevant to ASME Section III, Subsection NH [1], and related Code Cases that must be resolved for licensing purposes for VHTGRs (Very High Temperature Gas Reactor concepts such as those of PBMR, Areva, and GA); and to identify the material models, design criteria, and analysis methods that need to be added to the ASME Code to cover the unresolved safety issues. Subsection NH was originally developed to provide structural design criteria and limits for elevated-temperature design of Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) systems and some gas-cooled systems. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and its Advisory Committee for Reactor Safeguards (ACRS) reviewed the design limits and procedures in the process of reviewing the Clinch River Breeder Reactor (CRBR) for a construction permit in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and identified issues that needed resolution. In the years since then, the NRC and various contractors have evaluated the applicability of the ASME Code and Code Cases to high-temperature reactor designs such as the VHTGRs, and identified issues that need to be resolved to provide a regulatory basis for licensing. This Report describes: (1) NRC and ACRS safety concerns raised during …

The emergence of portable telecommunication, computer equipment and ultimately hybrid electric vehicles has created a substantial interest in manufacturing rechargeable batteries that are less expensive, non-toxic, operate for longer time, small in size and weigh less. Li-ion batteries are taking an increasing share of the rechargeable battery market. The present commercial battery is based on a layered LiCoO{sub 2} cathode and a graphitized carbon anode. LiCoO{sub 2} is expensive but it has the advantage being easily manufactured in a reproducible manner. Other low cost layered compounds such as LiNiO{sub 2}, LiNi{sub 0.85}Co{sub 0.15}O{sub 2} or cubic spinels such as LiMn{sub 2}O{sub 4} have been considered. However, these suffer from cycle life and thermal stability problems. Recently, some battery companies have demonstrated a new concept of mixing two different types of insertion compounds to make a composite cathode, aimed at reducing cost and improving self-discharge. Reports clearly showed that this blending technique can prevent the decline in ·capacity caused by cycling or storage at elevated temperatures. However, not much work has been reported on the charge-discharge characteristics and phase transitions for these composite cathodes. Understanding the structure and structural changes of electrode materials during the electrochemical cycling is the key to …

The work presented in this thesis is the search for Randall-Sundrum (RS) gravitons from an analysis of approximately 1 fb{sup -1} data collected with the D0 detector at Fermilab. The standard model has been a great success in explaining all experimental observations in particle physics. However, we also know that it has fundamental problems. One of these problems, called the hierarchy problem, is related to the large difference between the electroweak scale and the Planck scale. The model proposed by Randall and Sundrum presents a possible solution to the hierarchy problem by introducing physics beyond the standard model. Randall and Sundrum's theory postulates the existence of a 4th spatial dimension in addition to the conventional (3+1)-dimensional space. Gravity is localized on a 3+1 dimensional subspace, called a brane (Planck brane) that is separated in this new 4th spatial dimension from the standard model brane. As one moves away from this Planck brane, gravity is exponentially suppressed and this explains why gravity appears so weak at the standard model brane. In the simplest RS model, the only particles that propagate in the extra dimension are gravitons. The graviton manifests itself on the standard model brane as a series of excited states …