A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Women and children refugees, who comprise 80 percent of the estimated 12 million refugees worldwide, are among the world's most vulnerable populations. They are subject to gender-based violence, including physical harm, rape, and unequal access to humanitarian assistance. GAO was asked to (1) assess efforts by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to protect refugees, especially with regard to women and girls; (2) determine what steps U.N. and international organizations have taken to prevent sexual exploitation of refugee women by humanitarian workers; and (3) describe U.S. government efforts to support adequate protection for vulnerable populations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Because of concerns that not enough students who start college are completing a bachelor's degree, we examined (1) the extent to which students who enroll in a 4-year college complete a bachelor's degree and identify the factors that affect completion; (2) what states and 4-year colleges and universities are doing to foster bachelor's degree completion; and (3) what the Department of Education (Education) is doing to foster degree completion."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The federal government has a long-term commitment to helping states construct, improve, and repair roads and bridges to meet the nation's mobility needs. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) expects to provide states about $20 billion for highway construction projects in fiscal year 2003. State departments of transportation are primarily responsible for initiating and completing projects. Many federal and state agencies with environmental responsibilities (called resource agencies) help ensure that environmental issues are considered. The environmental review of a federally funded highway project can take from several days to several years. GAO is reporting on the (1) activities involved in the environmental reviews of federally funded highway projects and (2) stakeholders' views on the aspects of environmental review, if any, that unduly add time to gaining environmental approval. GAO obtained stakeholder views from 16 transportation improvement and 12 environmental officials from a variety of federal, state, and private organizations with responsibilities for or interests in constructing federally funded highways. The Department of Transportation had no comments on a draft of this report. Other agencies provided either technical comments or did not respond to our request for comments."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Coordination of federal programs to combat terrorism overseas became even more critical as a result of the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. In response to these attacks, the federal government has taken unprecedented political, diplomatic, legal, law enforcement, financial, military, and intelligence actions to combat terrorism abroad. Among these actions is the publication of a series of new national strategies to combat terrorism. Congress asked that we develop baseline information identifying and describing federal programs and activities to combat terrorism overseas. This report describes the interagency framework and policies for planning and coordinating federal efforts to counter international terrorism. It identifies the relationships between and among the new national strategies to combat terrorism. It also describes the federal programs and activities governmentwide to detect and prevent terrorism, disrupt and destroy terrorist organizations, and respond to terrorist incidents overseas. Finally, it provides detailed matrices of selected departments' programs and activities to combat terrorism overseas. We briefed Congress previously on the preliminary results of our work and issued an interim report on Combating Terrorism: Department of State Programs to Combat Terrorism Abroad. This …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense's Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is developing a ballistic missile defense system designed to counter a wide spectrum of ballistic missile threats. A future element of this system is the Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS). STSS will eventually be composed of a constellation of satellites that will work together to detect and track missiles throughout all phases of their flight. GAO was asked to analyze MDA's approach to demonstrate capabilities for STSS."

This report summarizes the activities and major accomplishments for the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) Advanced Radiotherapy Research Program for calendar year 2002. Topics covered include computational dosimetry and treatment planning software development, medical neutron source development and characterization, and boron analytical chemistry.

In this reporting period, a milestone was achieved by commencement of testing and operation of the sub-scale hybrid direct fuel cell/turbine (DFC/T{reg_sign}) power plant. The operation was initiated subsequent to the completion of the construction of the balance-of-plant (BOP) and implementation of process and control tests of the BOP for the subscale DFC/T hybrid system. The construction efforts consisted of finishing the power plant insulation and completion of the plant instrumentation including the wiring and tubing required for process measurement and control. The preparation work also included the development of procedures for facility shake down, conditioning and load testing of the fuel cell, integration of the microturbine, and fuel cell/gas turbine load tests. At conclusion of the construction, the process and control (PAC) tests of BOP, including the microturbine, were initiated.

OAK B135 The formation of metastable crystalline phases in lithium disilicate glass has been a subject of controversy for decades. Here, one aspect of this problem relating to the stability of these non-equilibrium phases when glasses are heated for extended time periods in the nucleation regime is addressed. The results of a systematic experimental investigation on the persistence of metastable phases and the factors that may influence the appearance of such phases, e.g., water content, impurities, glass composition, and glass preparation procedure are presented. Growth rates of lithium disilicate crystals in lithium disilicate glass are measured as a function water concentration in the glass and of temperature in the deeply undercooled regime. The growth rate data obtained in this work are combined with data reported in the literature and used to assess the applicability of standard models of crystal growth for the description of experimental results over a very broad temperature range. The reduced growth rate versus undercooling graph is found to consist of three regimes. For undercoolings less than 140°C, the reduced growth rate curve is suggestive of either 2-D surface nucleation or screw dislocation growth. For undercoolings greater than 400°C, the reduced growth rate plot suggests the operative …

In this program the teams at Penn State University (PSU), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), DCH Technology (DCHT), and Air Products and Chemicals Inc. (APCI), have aggressively pursued engineering solutions to eliminate barriers to solid-state chemiresistor hydrogen sensor technology. The metallurgical effects of alloying palladium with nickel have been shown to prevent phase transitions in the thin films at high H2 overpressures, making the devices more suitable for IOF process conditions. We investigated the use of thin, semi-permeable membranes that protect the catalytic surface from poisoning or other undesirable surface reactions that would otherwise reduce sensitivity or operability in harsh IOF process environments. The results of this project have provided new insight into the effects of metallurgy and protective coatings on device behavior, and open new avenues for research in this field. Commercialization of this sensor technology could be easily achieved, although not yet realized. The benefits to society, once this technology is commercialized, is a dramatic cost and energy savings to the industry, which employs these sensors. In addition, the fundamental understandings gained in this program could have an impact on both cost and safety in the future hydrogen economy utilizing hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen storage.

This report summarizes the work done during the entire project period, between October 1, 1999 and March 31, 2003, which includes a six-month no-cost extension. During the project, eight research papers have, either been, published, accepted for publication, or submitted for publication. In addition, several presentations have been made in technical meetings and workshops. The project also has provided support for four graduate students working towards advanced degrees. The principal technical objective of the project was to analyze the role of electrode microstructure on solid oxide fuel cell performance. Prior theoretical work conducted in our laboratory demonstrated that the particle size of composite electrodes has a profound effect on cell performance; the finer the particle size, the lower the activation polarization, the better the performance. The composite cathodes examined consisted of electronically conducting perovskites such as Sr-doped LaMnO{sub 3} (LSM) or Sr-doped LaCoO{sub 3} (LSC), which is also a mixed conductor, as the electrocatalyst, and yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) or rare earth oxide doped CeO{sub 2} as the ionic conductor. The composite anodes examined were mixtures of Ni and YSZ. A procedure was developed for the synthesis of nanosize YSZ by molecular decomposition, in which unwanted species were removed by leaching, …

About 1.5 x 10{sup 12} positive ions are predicted to be required to disrupt the focusing (for 0.25 cm radius and 0.2 electric neutralization fraction). Beam electron collisions are predicted to produce this number in 20 ns with 6 x 10{sup 15} water molecules/cm{sup 2}. Electron avalanching is predicted to be intense at time zero in a gas layer about 10{sup -3} cm thick with 1.4 x 10{sup 16} cm{sup -2}. With increasing time, space charge reduces the E-field and so the avalanching decreases. With 0.25 cm radius, 1.9 x 10{sup 11} are predicted in 0.6 ns and with 1 cm radius, 7.4 x 10{sup 11} are predicted in 1.5 ns.

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This report provides background and analysis of the general revenue sharing programming (GRS) as authorized in the State and Local Fiscal Assistance Act of 1972.

This report describes the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) trade agreement of 2005. The mission of the trade deal is to spread economic growth and democracy through free trade of goods between Central America, South America, the Caribbean and several Western countries.

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This report focuses on the floor activities of the House during its first formal session in a new Congress, and serves as a guide for participating in or watching these proceedings.

Omnibus energy legislation (H.R. 4) that is now in conference would expand energy tax incentives significantly. The House passed the bill on August 2, 2001, and the Senate approved its version April 25, 2002. Several energy tax issues are addressed in these bills: 1) tax incentives to increase the supply of oil and gas, and the demand for coal; 2) energy tax issues relating to energy conservation and energy efficiency; 3) energy tax issues relating to alternative fuels; 4) selected issues relating to electricity restructuring; and 5) expiring energy tax provisions.

In March, CBO released its report analyzing the President’s policies. CBO’s estimates of the President’s budget, a recasting of the policies using CBO assumptions and budget estimating methods, raise the expected deficit for FY2004 to $338 billion from the OMB estimated $307 billion. The report also included an update to CBO’s January baseline that pushed the deficit for FY2004 to $200 billion from $145 billion. The revisions delay the return-to-a-surplus from FY2007 to FY2008 and reduce the cumulative FY2004-FY2013 surplus from $1,336 billion (January) to $891 billion (March).

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This report provides an overview of Federal Research and Development funding for FY2004.

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This report discusses the President, House and Senate tax proposals. Beyond the comprehensive tax proposals, both the House and the Senate have considered a range of targeted tax proposals. One of the first tax-related measures considered during the 108th Congress would provide tax reductions to armed services personnel. Congress has also initiated reconsideration of legislation not completed in the 107th Congress: tax incentives for charitable giving deductions, pension diversification, energy taxation, and tax shelters.

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