This report is one of a series that profiles the emergency management and homeland security statutory authorities of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and three territories (American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands). Each profile identifies the more significant elements of state statutes, generally as codified. This report focuses on the state of Rhode Island.

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This report explains the various cotton subsidy programs and provides quantitative data on market revenues, production costs, and the size of the subsidies. Also, it characterizes the relative position of the United States vis-a-vis other countries as a producer, exporter and importer of cotton. The purpose of this examination is to provide U.S. policy makers with a complete overview of U.S. cotton production and the federal programs that support that production.

Weekly student newspaper from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Rio Grande City, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Canadian, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with some advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Albany, Texas that includes local, county, and state news along with extensive advertising.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the National Capital Region (NCR), comprising jurisdictions including the District of Columbia and surrounding jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia, has been recognized as a significant potential target for terrorism. GAO was asked to report on (1) what federal funds have been allocated to NCR jurisdictions for emergency preparedness; (2) what challenges exist within NCR to organizing and implementing efficient and effective regional preparedness programs; (3) what gaps, if any, remain in the emergency preparedness of NCR; and (4) what has been the role of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in NCR to date."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Congress has established, or "designated," 24 national heritage areas to recognize the value of their local traditions, history, and resources to the nation's heritage. These areas, including public and private lands, receive funds and assistance through cooperative agreements with the National Park Service, which has no formal program for them. They also receive funds from other agencies and nonfederal sources, and are managed by local entities. Growing interest in new areas has raised concerns about rising federal costs and the risk of limits on private land use. GAO was asked to comment on how provisions of S. 2543 might affect issues identified in GAO's March 2004 testimony addressing the process for (1) designating heritage areas, (2) determining the amount of federal funding to these areas, (3) overseeing areas' activities and use of federal funds, and (4) determining the effects, if any, they have on private property rights."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. space policy states that access to and use of space is critical to preserving peace and protecting U.S. national security and also benefits the country's civil and commercial interests. Air Force guidance explains further that access to space requires the ability to launch critical space assets, when needed, by a mix of space launch systems from standard launch pads at major support facilities. This is to ensure that a launch failure or other catastrophic event does not prevent mission success. These critical space assets, or satellites, are used for a wide range of government activities such as communications, navigation, and ballistic missile warning. The Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, consisting of both Atlas V and Delta IV launch vehicles, was established as the strategic launch system to meet the nation's critical space mission needs and correspond with U.S. policy that requires U.S. government satellites to be launched on U.S. manufactured launch vehicles. Specifically, the EELV program's overarching objective called for the development of a national expendable launch capability for assured access to space that would reduce the overall recurring cost of launch by at least …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Effective training of information technology (IT) staff, as called for in the E-Government (E-Gov) Act of 2002, is essential to developing and retaining a qualified workforce. In an earlier report (GAO-03-390), we identified 22 leading practices, grouped into 5 key training management processes, used by private-sector companies to implement effective IT training. These practices suggest approaches that government agencies could consider. To assess IT training in the federal government, including its use of leading practices, we were asked to determine, among other things, to what extent federal agencies use our leading practices, the major obstacles in providing effective IT training and how agencies address them, and the progress the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is making in issuing policies and performing evaluations to encourage agencies to provide effective IT training."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Decades of fire suppression, as well as changing land management practices, have caused vegetation to accumulate and become altered on federal lands. Concerns about the effects of wildland fires have increased efforts to reduce fuels on federal lands. These efforts also have environmental effects. Congressional requesters asked GAO to (1) describe effects from fires on the environment, (2) assess the information gathered by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on such effects, and (3) assess the agencies' approaches to environmental risks associated with reducing fuels."

Weekly newspaper published in Duncanville, Texas that includes local Cedar Hill, state, and national news along with advertising.

This project serves to fill information gap through the development of a novel surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy to selectively and sensitively monitor and characterize the chemical speciation of radionuclides at trace levels. The SERS technique permits both of these measurements to be made simultaneously, and results in significant improvement over current methods in reducing time of analysis, cost, and sample manipulation. Our overall goal is (a) to develop a scientific basis for this new methodology to detect radionuclides via SERS and (b) to rationally synthesize and evaluate novel sol-gel based SERS substrates tailored to sensitively detect and characterize inorganic radionuclides such as TcO{sub 4}{sup -}, actinyl ions (e.g. UO{sub 2}{sup 2+}, NpO{sub 2}{sup +}, and PuO{sub 2}{sup 2+}) and other chemical compounds of interest.

Dense nonaqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) contamination in the vadose zone is a significant problem at Department of Energy sites. Soil vapor extraction (SVE) is commonly used to remediate DNAPLs from the vadose zone. In most cases, a period of high recovery has been followed by a sustained period of low recovery. This behavior has been attributed to multiple processes including slow interphase mass transfer, retarded vapor phase transport, and diffusion from unswept zones of low permeability. Prior attempts to uncouple and quantify these processes have relied on column experiments, where the effluent concentration was monitored under different conditions in an effort to quantify the contributions from a single process. In real porous media these processes occur simultaneously and are inter-related. Further, the contribution from each of these processes varies at the pore scale and with time. This research aims to determine the pore-scale processes that limit the removal of DNAPL components in heterogeneous porous media during SVE. The specific objectives are to: (1) determine the effect of unswept zones on DNAPL removal during SVE, (2) determine the effect of retarded vapor phase transport on DNAPL removal during SVE, and (3) determine the effect of interphase mass transfer on DNAPL removal …

The Department of Energy selected CSSX as the preferred cesium removal technology for Savannah River Site waste. As a pretreatment step for the CSSX flowsheet, personnel contact the incoming salt solution that contains entrained sludge with MST to adsorb strontium and select actinides. They filter the resulting slurry to remove the sludge and MST. The filtrate receives further treatment to remove cesium in the solvent extraction system. The baseline filtration technology uses a Mott crossflow filter. We conducted pilot-scale crossflow filter testing with simulated SRS high level waste to evaluate the impact of operating parameters on the crossflow filtration process. The tests employed 0.5 micron and 0.1 micron filters. The feed slurries for these tests included simulated sludge plus MST, simulated sludge only, and simulated sludge plus manganese oxide solids. The supernate for these tests consisted of 5.6-6.4 M sodium, average salt solution. During the tests, we measured the axial pressure drop as a function of axial velocity, feed slurry, and insoluble solids concentration. This report documents the axial pressure drop data.

Using an all-electron, full potential first-principles method, we have investigated the topology of charge density and elastic properties of the two polymorphs, alpha and beta, of Ti3SiC2. The bonding effect was analyzed based on Bader's quantum theory of ''atoms in molecules'' (AIM). It was found that the Ti-Si bonding effect is significantly weaker in beta than in alpha, giving less stabilizing effect for beta. The Si-C bonds, which are absent in alpha, are formed in beta and provide additional stabilizing effect for beta. In contrast to conventional thinking, there is no direction interaction between Ti atoms in both alpha and beta. The calculated elastic properties are in good agreement with the experimental results, giving the bulk modulus of about 180 GPa and the Poisson's ratio of 0.2. The beta phase is generally softer than the alpha phase. As revealed by the direction dependent Young's modulus, there is only slight elastic anisotropy in Ti3SiC2. For alpha, Young's modulus is minimum in the c direction and maximum in the directions 42o from c. For beta, the maximum lies in the c direction, in part due to the formation of Si-C bonds in this direction.

Conventional annular Hall thrusters become inefficient when scaled to low power. Cylindrical Hall thrusters, which have lower surface-to-volume ratio, are therefore more promising for scaling down. They presently exhibit performance comparable with conventional annular Hall thrusters. Electron cross-field transport in a 2.6 cm miniaturized cylindrical Hall thruster (100 W power level) has been studied through the analysis of experimental data and Monte Carlo simulations of electron dynamics in the thruster channel. The numerical model takes into account elastic and inelastic electron collisions with atoms, electron-wall collisions, including secondary electron emission, and Bohm diffusion. We show that in order to explain the observed discharge current, the electron anomalous collision frequency {nu}{sub B} has to be on the order of the Bohm value, {nu}{sub B} {approx} {omega}{sub c}/16. The contribution of electron-wall collisions to cross-field transport is found to be insignificant. The plasma density peak observed at the axis of the 2.6 cm cylindrical Hall thruster is likely to be due to the convergent flux of ions, which are born in the annular part of the channel and accelerated towards the thruster axis.

Conventional annular Hall thrusters become inefficient when scaled to low power. Cylindrical Hall thrusters, which have lower surface-to-volume ratio, are therefore more promising for scaling down. They presently exhibit performance comparable with conventional annular Hall thrusters. Electron cross-field transport in a 2.6 cm miniaturized cylindrical Hall thruster (100 W power level) has been studied through the analysis of experimental data and Monte Carlo simulations of electron dynamics in the thruster channel. The numerical model takes into account elastic and inelastic electron collisions with atoms, electron-wall collisions, including secondary electron emission, and Bohm diffusion. We show that in order to explain the observed discharge current, the electron anomalous collision frequency {nu}{sub B} has to be on the order of the Bohm value, {nu}{sub B} {approx} {omega}{sub c}/16. The contribution of electron-wall collisions to cross-field transport is found to be insignificant.

This document is the collaborative effort of the members of an ad hoc subcommittee of the Underground Test Area (UGTA) Technical Working Group (TWG). The UGTA Project relies on data from a variety of sources; therefore, a process is needed to identify relevant factors for determining whether material-property data collected from other areas can be used to support groundwater flow, radionuclide transport, and other models within a Corrective Action Unit (CAU), and for documenting the data transfer decision and process. This document describes the overall data transfer process. Separate Parameter Descriptions will be prepared that provide information for selected specific parameters as determined by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) UGTA Project Manager. This document and its accompanying appendices do not provide the specific criteria to be used for transfer of data for specific uses. Rather, the criteria will be established by separate parameter-specific and model-specific Data Transfer Protocols. The CAU Data Documentation Packages and data analysis reports will apply the protocols and provide or reference a document with the data transfer evaluations and decisions.

The purpose of this revision of the System Design Description (SDD) is to establish requirements that drive the design of the electrical support system and their bases to allow the design effort to proceed to License Application. This SDD is a living document that will be revised at strategic points as the design matures over time. This SDD identifies the requirements and describes the system design as they exist at this time, with emphasis on those attributes of the design provided to meet the requirements. This SDD has been developed to be an engineering tool for design control. Accordingly, the primary audience/users are design engineers. This type of SDD both ''leads'' and ''trails'' the design process. It leads the design process with regard to the flow down of upper tier requirements onto the system. Knowledge of these requirements is essential in performing the design process. The SDD trails the design with regard to the description of the system. The description provided in the SDD is a reflection of the results of the design process to date. Functional and operational requirements applicable to electrical support systems are obtained from the ''Project Functional and Operational Requirements'' (F&OR) (Siddoway 2003). Other requirements to …

This project seeks to improve the basic understanding of the role of colloids in facilitating the transport of contaminants in the vadose zone. We focus on three major thrusts: (1) thermodynamic stability and mobility of colloids formed by reactions of sediments with highly alkaline tank waste solutions, (2) colloid-contaminant interactions, and (3) in situ colloid mobilization and colloid-facilitated contaminant transport occurring in both contaminated and uncontaminated Hanford sediments.

Precision studies of top quark properties are a primary goal of the Run II physics program at the Fermilab Tevatron. Marking the first stages of this program, the CDF collaboration presents recent results on top pair production cross section, single top physics and top mass, using between 109 and 200 pb{sup -1} of Run II data.