Archaeological survey results of proposed water pipeline improvements for the Cross County Water Supply Corporation in McLennen and Bosque County, Texas.

This study applies a set of indicators to assess the peaceful nature of a state’s nuclear program. Evaluation of a country’s nuclear program relative to these indicators can help the international community to take appropriate actions to ensure that the growth of the global nuclear energy industry proceeds peacefully and to minimize nuclear proliferation risks.

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Each year, Indian summer monsoon season begins in June and ends in September. Surface winds blow from the southwest during this season. The Indian summer monsoon typically covers large areas of India with western and central India receiving more than 90% of their total annual precipitation during this period, and southern and northwestern India receiving 50%-75% of their total annual rainfall. Overall, monthly totals average 200-300 mm over the country as a whole, with the largest values observed during the heart of the monsoon season in July and August. In all total, India receives about 870 mm of rainfall in a normal summer monsoon season. This summary discusses the effects of climate change on the frequency, mean rainfall, duration and the variability of the Indian Monsoon. East Asian Monsoon in the southeastern part of Asia is not discussed in this summary. Changes in monsoon characteristics are mainly inferred from climate model simulations submitted to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). It should be cautioned that there is a large range in the results from these models. For instance, the range of mean monsoon precipitation as simulated by the AR4 models over India is from 500 …

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This report summarizes provisions from legislation enacted by the 109th Congress with regard to federal emergency management authorities but does not cover all legislation enacted in response to Hurricane Katrina, Rita, Wilma.

This report provides information about the Presidential Declarations, Eligible Activities, and Funding on Federal Stafford Act Disaster Assistance. Congress appropriates money to DRF for disaster assistance authorized by the Stafford Act, which is administered by FEMA.

This report discusses potential issues regarding gasoline prices for the 110th Congress. As prices continued to surge, the continuing crisis renewed attention on some issues that were dropped or compromised in the debate over P.L. 109-58, as well as to a number of initiatives to reduce the impact of high prices on consumers.

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This report provides an overview of the background and options for Congress on the increases in tricare costs.

This report provides current statistical information, profiles the Afghanistan narcotics trade's participants, explores linkages between narcotics, insecurity, and corruption, and reviews U.S. and international policy responses since late 2001. The report also considers ongoing policy debates regarding the counternarcotics role of coalition military forces, poppy eradication, alternative livelihoods, and funding issues for Congress.

We refined the parametrization of our model for the hydrogen evolution on Pt(111) in the presence of SO4H2 [1,2,3,4]. In particular we studied the effects of changing the turning point of the water. The form of the voltammogram is not very sensitive to the exact position of the turning point, which in previous work was treated as an adjustable parameter. Physically a reasonable choice is that the turning point is the PZC (point of zero charge). This new parametrization clarified some issues related to the mechanism of hydrogen oxidation. In the early stages of this project, we tried with N. Marzari [5] to compute the ex-situ structure of the bisulfate-water √3X√7 (or also 5/2X√7) phase, seen by STM. However, we were unsuccessful in reproducing the known structures of the phase, even though we used state of the art pseudo potentials. There are various possible reasons why this happens, but the most obvious one is the environment of the electrode surface. This means that we need a theory that is able to include the local microfield as a function of the applied potential and electrochemical environment, and hence, we need to fully develop the density functional of a real molecular solvent …

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Open Access to particle physics literature does not sound particularly new or exciting, since particle physicists have been reading preprints for decades, and arXiv.org for 15 years. However new movements in Europe are attempting to make the peer-reviewed literature of the field fully Open Access. This is not a new movement, nor is it restricted to this field. However, given the field's history of preprints and eprints, it is well suited to a change to a fully Open Access publishing model. Data shows that 90% of HEP published literature is freely available online, meaning that HEP libraries have little need for expensive journal subscriptions. As libraries begin to cancel journal subscriptions, the peer review process will lose its primary source of funding. Open Access publishing models can potentially address this issue. European physicists and funding agencies are proposing a consortium, SCOAP3, that might solve many of the objections to traditional Open Access publishing models in Particle Physics. These proposed changes should be viewed as a starting point for a serious look at the field's publication model, and are at least worthy of attention, if not adoption.

A multifactor study was conducted by Battelle for the US Army Corps of Engineers to assess the significance of the presence of a radio telemetry transmitter on the effects of rapid decompression from simulated hydro turbine passage on depth acclimated juvenile run-of-the-river Chinook salmon. Study factors were: (1) juvenile chinook salmon age;, subyearling or yearling, (2) radio transmitter present or absent, (3) three transmitter implantation factors: gastric, surgical, and no transmitter, and (4) four acclimation depth factors: 1, 10, 20, and 40 foot submergence equivalent absolute pressure, for a total of 48 unique treatments. Exposed fish were examined for changes in behavior, presence or absence of barotrauma injuries, and immediate or delayed mortality. Logistic models were used to test hypotheses that addressed study objectives. The presence of a radio transmitter was found to significantly increase the risk of barotrauma injury and mortality at exposure to rapid decompression. Gastric implantation was found to present a higher risk than surgical implantation. Fish were exposed within 48 hours of transmitter implantation so surgical incisions were not completely healed. The difference in results obtained for gastric and surgical implantation methods may be the result of study design and the results may have been different …

The goal of this project is to develop an indirectly heated gasification system that converts switchgrass into hydrogen-rich gas suitable for powering fuel cells. The project includes investigations of the indirectly-heated gasifier, development of particulate removal equipment, evaluation of catalytic methods for upgrading producer gas, development of contaminant measurement and control techniques, modeling of the thermal performance of the ballasted gasifier, and estimation of the cost of hydrogen from the proposed gasification system. Specific technologies investigated include a thermally ballasted gasifier, a moving bed granular filter, and catalytic reactors for steam reforming and water-gas shift reaction. The approach to this project was to employ a pilot-scale (5 ton per day) gasifier to evaluate the thermally ballasted gasifier as a means for producing hydrogen from switchgrass. A slipstream from the gasifier was used to evaluate gas cleaning and upgrading options. Other tests were conducted with laboratory-scale equipment using simulated producer gas. The ballasted gasifier operated in conjunction with a steam reformer and two-stage water-gas shift reactor produced gas streams containing 54.5 vol-% H2. If purge gas to the feeder system could be substantially eliminated, hydrogen concentration would reach 61 vol-%, which closely approaches the theoretical maximum of 66 vol-%. Tests with …

The program was tasked with implementing time dependent analysis of charges particles into an existing finite element code with adaptive meshing, called Beam Optics Analyzer (BOA). BOA was initially funded by a DOE Phase II program to use the finite element method with adaptive meshing to track particles in unstructured meshes. It uses modern programming techniques, state-of-the-art data structures, so that new methods, features and capabilities are easily added and maintained. This Phase II program was funded to implement plasma simulations in BOA and extend its capabilities to model thermal electrons, secondary emissions, self magnetic field and implement a more comprehensive post-processing and feature-rich GUI. The program was successful in implementing thermal electrons, secondary emissions, and self magnetic field calculations. The BOA GUI was also upgraded significantly, and CCR is receiving interest from the microwave tube and semiconductor equipment industry for the code. Implementation of PIC analysis was partially successful. Computational resource requirements for modeling more than 2000 particles begin to exceed the capability of most readily available computers. Modern plasma analysis typically requires modeling of approximately 2 million particles or more. The problem is that tracking many particles in an unstructured mesh that is adapting becomes inefficient. In particular …

This report details the legal side of importation of prescription drugs as well as the sale of prescription drugs online. Updated November 6, 2007.

This report discusses President's budget request to Congress for Medicare, for the following federal fiscal year, along with projections for the five-year budget window. The President’s 2008 budget includes Medicare legislative proposals with estimated savings of $4.3 billion in 2008 and $65.6 billion over the five-year budget window.

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This report summarizes work performed by Argonne National Laboratory on fatigue and environmentally assisted cracking (EAC) in light water reactors (LWRs) from January to December 2002. Topics that have been investigated include: (a) environmental effects on fatigue crack initiation in carbon and low-alloy steels and austenitic stainless steels (SSs), (b) irradiation-assisted stress corrosion cracking (IASCC) of austenitic SSs in BWRs, (c) evaluation of causes and mechanisms of irradiation-assisted cracking of austenitic SS in PWRs, and (d) cracking in Ni-alloys and welds. A critical review of the ASME Code fatigue design margins and an assessment of the conservation in the current choice of design margins are presented. The existing fatigue {var_epsilon}-N data have been evaluated to define the effects of key material, loading, and environmental parameters on the fatigue lives of carbon and low-alloy steels and austenitic SSs. Experimental data are presented on the effects of surface roughness on fatigue crack initiation in these materials in air and LWR environments. Crack growth tests were performed in BWR environments on SSs irradiated to 0.9 and 2.0 x 10{sup 21} n x cm{sup -2}. The crack growth rates (CGRs) of the irradiated steels are a factor of {approx}5 higher than the disposition curve …

This report provides information about the Background and Issues on Clean Water Act Section 401. Section 401 of the clean water act requires that an applicant for a federal license or permit provide a certification that any discharges from the facility will comply with the act.

This report contains brief summaries of federal animal protection statues, listed alphabetically. It does not include treaties, although it does include statutes enacted to implement treaties.

This report discusses the section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act, which requires states to identify waters that are impaired by pollution, even after application of pollution controls. For those waters, states must establish a total maximum daily load (TMDL) of pollutants to ensure that water quality standards can be attained. Implementation was dormant until states and EPA were prodded by lawsuits. The TMDL program has become controversial, in part because of requirements and costs now facing states to implement this 35-year-old provision of the law, as well as industries, cities, farmers, and others who may be required to use new pollution controls to meet TMDL requirements. In July 2000, EPA issued revisions to strengthen the program. The rule was widely criticized, and congressional interest was high. The 2000 rule did not go into effect, and in March 2003, EPA withdrew the rule to consider whether to issue an entirely new rule or other options; no timetable has been announced. Consequently, the program continues to operate under regulations issued in 1992.