A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "As result of ongoing concerns about the adequacy of disclosures provided to investors about the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) and investors' responsibilities to protect their investments, GAO issued a report in 2001 entitled Securities Investor Protection: Steps Needed to Better Disclose SIPC Policies to Investors (GAO-01-653). GAO was asked to determine the status of recommendations made to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and SIPC in that report. GAO was also asked to review a number of issues involving excess SIPC insurance, private insurance securities firms purchase to cover accounts that are in excess of SIPC's statutory limits."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The way in which the federal government views the defense of the United States has dramatically changed since September 11, 2001. Consequently, the Department of Defense (DOD) has adjusted its strategic and operational focus to encompass not only traditional military concerns posed by hostile states overseas but also the asymmetric threats directed at our homeland by both terrorists and hostile states. GAO was asked to review DOD's domestic missions, including (1) how DOD's military and nonmilitary missions differ; (2) how DOD's military and nonmilitary missions have changed since September 11, 2001; (3) how the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act affects DOD's nonmilitary missions; and (4) the extent to which DOD's organizations, plans, and forces are adequate for domestic military missions and the consequent sustainability of the current mission approach."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The heightened visibility of advanced U.S. weapons in military conflicts has prompted foreign countries to seek to purchase such weaponry. In 2001, transfers of U.S. weapons and technologies to foreign governments totaled over $12 billion. The potential loss of U.S. technological advantage has been raised as an issue in recently approved transfers of advanced military weapons and technologies--such as military aircraft that were reported in the media to contain superior radar and avionics than those in the Department of Defense's (DOD) inventory. GAO looked at how releasability of advanced weapons is determined, how U.S. technological advantage is considered and protected, and what information is needed to make informed decisions on the potential release of advanced weapons."

This first CMSN project has been operating since the summer of 1999. The main achievement of the project was to bring together a community of materials scientists, physicists and mathematicians who share a common interest in the properties of interfaces and the impact of those properties on microstructural evolution. Six full workshops were held at Carnegie Mellon (CMU), Northwestern (NWU), Santa Fe, Northeastern University (NEU), National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), Ames Laboratory, and at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD) respectively. Substantial scientific results were obtained through the sustained contact between the members of the project. A recent issue of Interface Science (volume 10, issue 2/3, July 2002) was dedicated to the output of the project. The results include: the development of methods for extracting anisotropic boundary energy and mobility from molecular dynamics simulations of solid/liquid interfaces in nickel; the extraction of anisotropic energies and mobilities in aluminum from similar MD simulations; the application of parallel computation to the calculation of interfacial properties; the development of a method to extract interfacial properties from the fluctuations in interface position through consideration of interfacial stiffness; the use of anisotropic interface properties in studies of abnormal grain growth; the …

Bill introduced by the Texas House of Representatives relating to medical information on a driver's license.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a legislator may engage ina business providing consulting, marketing, and public relation services to business clients that have dealings with local and federal officials and local governmental bodies (RQ-0016-GA)

Pathological detonation waves with velocities greater than Chapman-Jouguet (C-J) have been proposed theoretically but never observed experimentally in gaseous, liquid or solid explosives. Two types of pathological chemical reaction zones have been identified within the Zeldovich-von Neumann-Doring (ZND) model: an exothermic chemical decomposition with a mole decrease during from the von Neumann spike state to the C-J state and an exothermic reaction followed by an endothermic reaction (eigenvalue detonation). The high temperatures reached in detonation reaction zones cause sufficient radial and atom formation to insure overall mole increases in gaseous H{sub 2} + O{sub 2} detonations. Aluminized explosives exhibit a slight mole decrease when the solid aluminum particles are oxidized, but this does not negate the large mole increase that occurs during explosive decomposition. Porous solid explosives whose products form with more cold compression energy than that of the solid are an unlikely possibility for pathological detonation. Eigenvalue detonations have been postulated for H{sub 2} + Cl{sub 2} gas phase detonations and for plastic bonded solid explosives if endothermic binder decomposition follows exothermic explosive decomposition. Chemical kinetic and physical arguments are presented to eliminate these possible pathological detonations. In the case of H{sub 2} + Cl{sub 2}, highly vibrationally excited …

We have limited a CPT-violating correlation in annihilationsof polarized ortho-positronium. We searched for an asymmetry in thetriple correlations dot k1 cross k2, where k1 and k2 are the two largestphoton momenta, and s is the spin of the positronium. Using theGammasphere array of Compton-suppressed high-purity germanium detectors,we detected 2.65e7 events of ortho-Ps annihila tion. The amplitude of aCPT-violating asymmetry in the data set is found to be 0.0026 plus orminus 0.0031, a factor of 6 smaller than previousexperiments.

The core focus of this hydroacoustic research is to develop a better understanding of hydroacoustic blockage to better predict those stations that can be used in discrimination analysis for any particular event. The research involves two approaches: (1) model-based assessment of blockage and (2) ground-truth data-based assessment of blockage. The goal is to reliably determine all hydroacoustic stations that can be brought to bear on a discrimination analysis from any event location in the world s oceans. An important aspect of this capability is to include reflected T-phases where they reliably occur since reflected T-phases can allow station utilization when the direct path is otherwise completely blocked. We have conceptually designed an approach to automate assessment procedures that will allow both model-based and data-based methodologies to be utilized and in the future, integrated. We have modified the HydroCAM model-based network assessment code to include variable density bathymetry grids. This will improve the reliability of model-based blockage assessment as dense bathymetry grids are added to the bathymetry database where available and needed. We are also running the HydroCAM code to produce blockage grids in the Indian Ocean for many different blockage criteria. We have been building the database necessary to begin …

Adaptive optics uses signal processing techniques and deformable mirrors to minimize image degradation caused by phase aberrations. In the case of telescope imaging, the atmosphere causes phase aberrations. In the case of satellite imaging, errors due to the ultra-light-weight characteristics of the primary mirror cause phase aberrations. Scene-based Shack-Hartmann Wave Front Sensing takes the correlation between successive wavelets to determine these phase aberrations. A large problem with the scene-based approach is that motion, such as a moving car, can cause the correlation of two lenslets to peak, not where the scenes align, but where the moving object in each frame aligns. As such, the continued use of scene-based Wave Front Sensing necessitates successful isolation of moving objects from a stationary background scene. With the knowledge of which pixels are immobile, one should avoid the problem of locking onto a moving object when taking the correlation of two successive frames in time. Two main requirements of isolation are consistency and efficiency. In this document I will discuss the different edge detection algorithms explored for moving object isolation and how I came to the conclusion that, for our purposes of scene-based Shack-Hartmann WFS, edge detection is too inconsistent to be of any …

Experiments that investigate thermal and nearby explosion scenarios are needed to provide essential data to models for accurate predictions. A porous LX-04 (85/15 wt% HMX/Viton) sample was heated in a heavily confined donor charge until it thermally exploded. The reaction accelerated a steel cover plate across a 10 cm gap into a preheated gauged acceptor cylinder (near its theoretical maximum density) of LX-04. The carbon resistor gauges in the acceptor measured the resulting multi-dimensional ramp wave as it propagated through the pre-heated LX-04. Detonation of the LX-04 acceptor does not occur. Results are compared to similar experiments with acceptors at room temperature.

LX-04 is a widely used HMX-based plastic bonded explosive, which contains 85 weight % HMX and 15 weight % Viton binder. The sensitivity of LX-04 to a single stimulus such as heat, impact, and shock has been previously studied. However, hazard scenarios can involve multiple stimuli, such as heating to temperatures close to thermal explosion conditions followed by fragment impact, producing a shock in the hot explosive. The sensitivity of HMX at elevated temperatures is further complicated by the beta to delta solid-state phase transition, which occurs at approximately 165 C. This paper presents the results of shock initiation experiments conducted with LX-04 preheated to 190 C, as well as density measurements and small scale safety test results of the {delta} phase HMX at room temperature. This work shows that LX-04 at 190 C is more shock sensitive than LX-04 at 150 C or 170 C due to the volume increase during the {beta} to {delta} solid phase transition, which creates more hot spots, and the faster growth of reaction during shock compression.

The accepted micro-mechanical picture of the build-up of detonation in solid explosives from a shock is that imperfections are a source of hot spots. The hot spots ignite and link up in the reaction zone by high-pressure deflagration. Although the deflagration is subsonic, there are so many ignition sites that the pressure build-up is rapid enough to strengthen the initial shock. Quantitative advances in this research require a detailed understanding of deflagration at the high pressure, 1 to 50 GPa, which is present in the reaction zone. We performed direct numerical simulations of high-pressure deflagrations using a simplified global (3-reaction) chemical kinetics scheme. We used ALE-3D to calculate coupled chemical reactions, heat transfer, and hydrodynamic flow for finite-difference zones comprising a mixture of reactants and products at pressure and temperature equilibrium. The speed of isobaric deflagrations depends on the pressure and initial temperature. We show how this dependence changes with kinetic parameters, including the order of the last reaction step and the heat of formation of the species formed, relative to the reactant.

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We report results from the second year of our project (ROA0101-35) to collect seismic event and waveform data recorded in and around the Arabian Peninsula. This effort involves several elements. We have a temporary broadband seismic station operating near the IMS primary array site (PS38) in central Saudi Arabia. We recently installed two temporary broadband stations in the United Arab Emirates (funded by NNSA NA-24 Office of Non-Proliferation & International Security). We are working with King Abdulaziz city for Science and Technology to collect and analyze data from the Saudi National Seismic Network, that consist of 37 digital three-component stations (26 broadband and 11 short-period). We are collaborating with Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) to analyze data from their 8 station national seismic network. We participated in the Workshop on Reference Events odnear the Dead Sea Rift held in Paris, France in October 2002. In this paper we present results of these efforts including integration of the raw data into LLNL's Seismic Research Database and preliminary analysis of event locations and source parameters and inference of earth structure.

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The terahertz (THz) region of the electromagnetic spectrum is attracting interest for a broad range of applications ranging from diagnosing electron beams to biological imaging. Most sources of short pulse THz radiation utilize excitation of biased semiconductors or electro-optic crystals by high peak power lasers. For example, this was done by using an un-doped InAs wafer irradiated by a femtosecond free-electron laser (FEL) at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. Microwatt levels of THz radiation were detected when excited with FEL pulses at 1.06 mm wavelength and 10W average power. Recently substantially higher powers of femtosecond THz pulses produced by synchrotron emission were extracted from the electron beamline. Calculations and measurements confirm the production of coherent broadband THz radiation from relativistic electrons with an average power of nearly 20W, a world record in this wavelength range by a factor of 10,000. We describe the source, presenting theoretical calculations and their experimental verification. Potential applications of this exciting new source include driving new non-linear phenomena, performing pump-probe studies of dynamical properties of novel materials, and studying molecular vibrations and rotations, low frequency protein motions, phonons, superconductor band gaps, electronic scattering, collective electronic excitations (e.g., charge density waves), and spintronics.

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.

At the APS Retreat in May 2002, G. Rosenbaum proposed a method for increasing the effective vertical emittance of the APS beam. His proposal, illustrated in Figure 1, is to use a rapidly-modulated four-magnet vertical position bump in a single straight section. The proposed modulation frequency is a 10-kHz triangle wave, with a kick angle of 0.65 mrad. There are several aspects of this proposal that may be problematical: (1) The high modulation frequency will require the use of a ceramic chamber with a thin conductive coating, similar to what is used for the injection kicker magnets. This is not necessarily a problem, but the following aspects need to be examined: (a) The chamber coating needs to be specified correctly to ensure that the beam motion reflects the desired triangle-wave pattern. (b) The effect of the eddy currents in the chamber on the multipole content of the magnetic field needs to be computed, to ensure that the system does not have undesirable effects on the beam. (2) The magnets and their chambers will require careful matching in order to ensure that the beam is not disturbed outside of the bump. We know from experience with the APS kickers that this …

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Among the current issues in U.S.-Egyptian relations are the shared concerns over the terrorist attacks against Egyptian police, religious, government, and tourist facilities, and what those attacks maysignal for Egypt’s domestic stability. The two nations may disagree over Egypt’s interpretation of applying human rights practices to Islamic terrorists. The two countries disagree over the speed and depth, but not the need for some of Egypt’s economic reforms. Egypt and the United States agree on the importance of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the need to continue current Arab-Israel peace talks, and the need for regional stability. The two nations agree on Egypt’s determination to introduce democratic reforms to Egypt.

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