Recording of the seventh public hearing held by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States on January 26-27 at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. This hearing specifically addresses the topics of border and aviation security. In addition, several staff statements from the Commission were delivered during the course of the proceedings. This section includes the first staff statement on the entry of the 9/11 hijackers into the United States and the first panel on the border security system prior to September 11, with testimony from Mary A. Ryan and Doris Meissner.

Recording of the seventh public hearing held by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States on January 26-27 at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. This hearing specifically addresses the topics of border and aviation security. In addition, several staff statements from the Commission were delivered during the course of the proceedings. This section includes the panel on an incident in Florida with testimony from Jose E. Mendelez-Perez.

Recording of the seventh public hearing held by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States on January 26-27 at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. This hearing specifically addresses the topics of border and aviation security. In addition, several staff statements from the Commission were delivered during the course of the proceedings. This section includes the staff statement on three 9/11 hijackers: identification, watchlisting, and tracking, in addition to the third panel on visas and watchlisting today, with testimony from Maura Harty, Russell E. Travers, and Donna A. Buccella.

Recording of the seventh public hearing held by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States on January 26-27 at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. This hearing specifically addresses the topics of border and aviation security. In addition, several staff statements from the Commission were delivered during the course of the proceedings. This section includes the fourth panel on the response to September 11 on the borders with testimony from James Ziglar, Robert C. Bonner, and Peter F. Verga.

The automated production of maps of human settlement from recent satellite images is essential to detailed studies of urbanization, population movement, and the like. Commercial satellite imagery is becoming available with sufficient spectral and spatial resolution to apply computer vision techniques previously considered only for laboratory (high resolution, low noise) images. In this project, we extracted the boundaries of human settlements from IKONOS 4-band and panchromatic images using spectral segmentation together with a form of generalized second-order statistics and detection of edges and corners.

This report provides basic information on congressional salaries and allowances. First, the report briefly summarizes the current salary of Members of Congress, limits on their outside earned income and honoraria, and applicable health insurance and retirement benefits.

In 1999, the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded a Cooperative Agreement to Texaco Energy Systems Inc. to provide a preliminary engineering design of an Early Entrance Coproduction Plant (EECP). Since the award, continuous and diligent work has been undertaken to achieve the design of an economical facility that makes strides toward attaining the goal of DOE's Vision 21 Program. The objective of the EECP is to convert coal and/or petroleum coke to power while coproducing transportation fuels, chemicals, and useful utilities such as steam. This objective is being pursued in a three-phase effort through the partnership of the DOE with prime contractor Texaco Energy Systems, LLC. (TES), the successor to Texaco Energy Systems, Inc. The key subcontractors to TES include General Electric (GE), Praxair, and Kellogg Brown and Root. ChevronTexaco provided gasification technology and Rentech Inc.'s Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) technology that has been developed for non-natural gas sources. GE provided gas turbine technology for the combustion of low energy content gas. Praxair provided air separation technology and KBR provided engineering to integrate the facility. A conceptual design was completed in Phase I and the report was accepted by the DOE in May 2001. The Phase I work identified risks …

The overall objective of this project is the three phase development of an Early Entrance Coproduction Plant (EECP) which uses petroleum coke to produce at least one product from at least two of the following three categories: (1) electric power (or heat), (2) fuels, and (3) chemicals. The objective is to have these products produced by technologies capable of using synthesis gas derived from coal and/or other carbonaceous feedstocks. The objectives of Phase I were to determine the feasibility and define the concept for the EECP located at a specific site; develop a Research, Development, and Testing (RD&T) Plan for implementation in Phase II; and prepare a Preliminary Project Financing Plan. The objective of Phase II is to implement the work as outlined in the Phase I RD&T Plan to enhance the development and commercial acceptance of coproduction technology that produces high-value products, particularly those that are critical to our domestic fuel and power requirements. The work performed under Phase II will resolve critical knowledge and technology gaps on the integration of gasification and downstream processing to coproduce some combination of power, fuels, and chemicals from coal and/or other carbonaceous feedstocks. The objective of Phase III is to develop an …

This note reports results from a simulation of 100k events for one example of a minimal SUGRA supersymmetry case at the LHC using full simulation of the ATLAS detector. It was carried out as part ATLAS Data Challenge 1.

While numerous techniques exist for remediation of contaminant plumes in groundwater or near the soil surface, remediation methods in the deep vadose zone are less established due to complex transport dynamics and sparse microbial populations. There is a lack of knowledge on how physical and hydrologic features of the vadose zone control microbial growth and colonization in response to nutrient delivery during bioremediation. Yet pollution in the vadose zone poses a serious threat to the groundwater resources lying deeper in the sediment. While the contaminants may be slowly degraded by native microbial communities, microbial degradation rates rarely keep pace with the spread of the pollutant. It is crucial to increase indigenous microbial degradation in the vadose zone to combat groundwater contamination.

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The authors report on the recent heavy-quark results from CDF in Run IIa. They focus on a selection of mature analyses that demonstrate the capabilities of the experiment to extract interesting physics from the data. A few of the results presented have already been submitted for publication and papers are being prepared for most of the others.

We built a system to guide decisions regarding the amount of genomic sequencing required to develop diagnostic DNA signatures, which are short sequences that are sufficient to uniquely identify a viral species. We used our existing DNA diagnostic signature prediction pipeline, which selects regions of a target species genome that are conserved among strains of the target (for reliability, to prevent false negatives) and unique relative to other species (for specificity, to avoid false positives). We performed simulations, based on existing sequence data, to assess the number of genome sequences of a target species and of close phylogenetic relatives (''near neighbors'') that are required to predict diagnostic signature regions that are conserved among strains of the target species and unique relative to other bacterial and viral species. For DNA viruses such as variola (smallpox), three target genomes provide sufficient guidance for selecting species-wide signatures. Three near neighbor genomes are critical for species specificity. In contrast, most RNA viruses require four target genomes and no near neighbor genomes, since lack of conservation among strains is more limiting than uniqueness. SARS and Ebola Zaire are exceptional, as additional target genomes currently do not improve predictions, but near neighbor sequences are urgently needed. …

Official statement issued by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States describing preliminary findings regarding how the individuals who carried out the 9/11 attacks entered the United States, in addition to findings on terrorists who failed to enter the United States. The statement also presents commentary on the way the United States targets the travel of international terrorists.

Official statement issued by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States describing preliminary findings regarding the identification, watchlisting, and tracking of three indiviuals who helped carry out the 9/11 attacks upon the United States.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Over the last decade, the Congress has made significant changes in numerous federal programs that support low-income families, including changes that have shifted program emphases from providing cash assistance to providing services that promote employment and economic independence. As a result of some of the federal policy changes, the support system is more decentralized than before. This heightens the importance of understanding policy choices and practices at the state and local levels as well as those at the federal level. To provide the Congress with information on this system, GAO agreed to address the following questions: (1) To what extent do states provide supports for lowincome families? (2) How have states structured programs to support low-income families? (3) What changes have states made to supports for low-income families in recent years? Our review focused primarily on supports for which states make many of the key decisions about eligibility, benefit amounts, and service provision. To obtain this information, GAO conducted a mail survey of the social service directors in the 50 states and the District of Columbia; conducted site visits in New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Washington, …

Transcript of the seventh public hearing held by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States held January 26-27, 2004 at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The two-day investigative hearing developed facts and circumstances relating to border and aviation security. The Commission heard from current and former officials from the public and private sectors, concluding with testimony from Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security James M. Loy. In addition to witness testimony, four staff statements were delivered during the course of the proceedings

In order to perform quantitative gamma spectroscopy, it is necessary to know the sample-specific detection efficiency for photons as a function of energy. The detection efficiency, along with the branching ratio for the isotope and gamma ray of interest, is used to convert observed counts/second to actual disintegrations/second, and, hence, has a large effect on the accuracy of the measurement. In cases where the geometry of the source is simple and reproducible, such as a point source, small vial of solid, or jar of liquid, geometry-specific standards may be counted to determine the detection efficiency. In cases where the samples are large, irregular, or unique, this method generally cannot be used. For example, it is impossible to obtain a NIST-traceable standard glovebox or 55-gallon drum. In these cases, a combination of measured absolute detector efficiency and calculated sample-specific correction factors is commonly used. The correction factors may be calculated via Monte Carlo simulation of the item (the method used by Canberra's ISOCS system), or via semi-empirical calculation of matrix and container attenuations based on the thickness and composition of the container and radioactive matrix (ISOTOPIC by EG&G Ortec uses this method). The accuracy of these correction factors for specific geometries …

This paper describes the development of an alternative technology for vehicular storage of hydrogen. Insulated pressure vessels are cryogenic-capable pressure vessels that can accept cryogenic liquid fuel, cryogenic compressed gas or compressed gas at ambient temperature. Insulated pressure vessels offer advantages over alternative hydrogen storage technologies. Insulated pressure vessels are more compact and less expensive than compressed hydrogen vessels. They have lower evaporative losses and lower energy requirement for fuel liquefaction than liquid hydrogen tanks, and they are lighter than hydrides. The work described in this paper is directed at verifying that insulated pressure vessels can be used safely for vehicular hydrogen storage. The paper describes multiple tests and analyses that have been conducted to evaluate the safety of insulated pressure vessels. Insulated pressure vessels have been subjected to multiple DOT, ISO and SAE certification tests, and the vessels have always been successful in meeting the passing criteria for the different tests. A draft procedure for insulated pressure vessel certification has been generated to assist in a future commercialization of this technology. Ongoing work includes the demonstration of this technology in a vehicle.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Distance education--that is, offering courses by Internet, video, or other forms outside the classroom--has changed considerably in recent years and is a growing force in postsecondary education. More than a decade ago, concerns about fraud and abuse by some correspondence schools led to federal restrictions on, among other things, the percentage of courses a school could provide by distance education and still qualify for federal student aid. Given the recent changes in distance education, GAO was asked to review the extent to which the restrictions affect schools' ability to offer federal student aid and the Department of Education's assessment of the continued appropriateness of the restrictions. Additionally, GAO was asked to look at the extent to which accrediting agencies evaluate distance education programs, including their approach for assessing student outcomes."

This report provides the regulations and policies and changes by the Bureau of Land Management.

The purpose of this calculation is to analyze the stability of repository non-emplacement drifts during the preclosure period, and to provide a final ground support method for non-emplacement drifts for the License Application (LA). This calculation will provide input for the development of LA documents. The scope of this calculation is limited to the non-emplacement drifts including access mains, ramps, exhaust mains, turnouts, intersections between access mains and turnouts, and intersections between exhaust mains and emplacement drifts, portals, TBM launch chambers, observation drift and test alcove in the performance confirmation (PC) facilities, etc. The calculation is limited to the non-emplacement drifts subjected to a combined loading of in-situ stress, seismic stress, and/or thermal stress. Other effects such as hydrological and chemical effects are not considered in this analysis.

This report provides Head Start issues on the 108th congress, a federal program that has provided comprehensive early childhood development services to low-income children since 1965.

Using a subset of the current Run II data, the CDF and D0 have performed several measurements on heavy flavor production. In this paper, we present a new measurement of prompt charm meson production by CDF. We also report the latest CDF II measurements of inclusive J/{Psi} production and b-production without requirement of minimum transverse momentum on J/{Psi} and b-quark. They are the first measurements of the total inclusive J/{Psi} and b quark cross section in the central rapidity region at a hadron collider. The results of J/{Psi} cross section as a function of rapidity, and b-jet production cross section measured by D0 are also reviewed.