A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Forest Service manages over 192 million acres of land, in part through vegetation management projects such as thinning trees. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires the Forest Service to prepare either an environmental assessment (EA) or an environmental impact statement (EIS) before approving a project that may significantly affect the environment. The agency generally does not need to prepare such environmental analyses, however, if the project involves categories of activities that it previously found to have no significant environmental effects--activities known as a categorical exclusion. As of 2003, the Forest Service had one categorical exclusion--activities to improve timber stands or wildlife habitat. It has since added four new exclusions, but little is known about their use. GAO was asked to determine, for calendar years 2003 through 2005, (1) how many vegetation management projects the Forest Service approved, including those approved using categorical exclusions; (2) which categorical exclusions the agency used in approving projects; and (3) if field offices are not using categorical exclusions, why. To answer these objectives, GAO surveyed Forest Service officials from all of the 155 national forests. In commenting on a …

In the highly technological aerospace world paper is still widely used to document space system integration and test (I&T) operations. E-Logbook is a new technology designed to substitute the most commonly used paper logbooks in space system I&T, such as the connector mate/demate logbook, the flight hardware and flight software component installation logbook, the material mix record logbook and the electronic ground support equipment validation logbook. It also includes new logbook concepts, such as the shift logbook, which optimizes management oversight and the shift hand-over process, and the configuration logbook, which instantly reports on the global I&T state of the space system before major test events or project reviews. The design of E-Logbook focuses not only on a reliable and efficient relational database, but also on an ergonomic human-computer interactive (HCI) system that can help reduce human error and improve I&T management and oversight overall. E-Logbook has been used for the I&T operation of the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) Large Area Telescope (LAT) at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). More than 41,000 records have been created for the different I&T logbooks, with no data having been corrupted or critically lost. 94% of the operators and 100% of …

None

The decay constant f{sub D{sub s}} of the pseudoscalar strange charm meson D{sub s}{sup +} is an important benchmark test of the theoretical methods that quantitatively describe the nonperturbative low-energy regime of QCD, the theory of the strong interaction. A confirmation of the validity of these predictive methods, foremost lattice QCD, in the sector of heavy-light meson decay constants increases trust in the calculation of f{sub B}, which is an important number for the measurement of the CKM matrix element V{sub td} in B{sup 0}{bar B}{sup 0}-mixing events. From October 1999 through July 2004, the BABAR experiment, located at the PEP-II storage ring at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, collected 230.2 fb{sup -1} of data in e{sup +}e{sup -} collision at {radical}s = 10.58 GeV. In this thesis, these data are searched for e{sup +}e{sup -} {yields} c{bar c} events by identifying sets of charged and neutral pions and charged kaons, consistent with the decay of a charm meson, D{sup 0}, D{sup +}, D{sub s}{sup +}, or D*{sup +}. A sample of 510,000 charmed mesons with a momentum consistent with e{sup +}e{sup -} {yields} c{bar c} events is identified.

None

This report begins with an inventory of basic information: definitions and guides to histories of the growth of open access publishing and citation archives and descriptions of selected major open access activities. It moves on to summarize major points of difference between proponents and opponents of nongovernmental open access publishing and databases, and then highlights federal, including National Institutes of Health (NIH), open access activities and contentious issues surrounding these developments. The report also briefly describes open access developments in the United Kingdom (where a number of governmental and nongovernmental initiatives have occurred) and in the international arena. Finally, controversial issues which could receive attention in the 109th Congress are summarized.

None

None

This report provides information about The 2003 Treaty on Extradition Between the United States and Great Britain where the treaty proved controversially before the senate would give its contest it insisted upon modifications, some quite unusual.

None

None

This report contains two tables that show estimated Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) allocations to the states. Table 1 shows amounts proposed by the President, House of Representatives, and Senate for FY2007, while Table 2 shows estimated state allocations at other hypothetical increments.

None

None

None