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This report reviews the status of energy efficiency and renewable energy legislation introduced during the 109th Congress. Action in the second session has focused on appropriations bills; the first session focused on omnibus energy policy bill H.R. 6 and several appropriations bills. this report describes several major pieces of legislation, including the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Transportation Equity Act. For each bill listed in this report, a brief description and a summary of action are given, including references to committee hearings and reports. Also, a selected list of hearings on renewable energy is included.

This report provides an overview of U.S. policy concerns and relations with countries in central Asia. The report discusses issues such as Fostering Pro-Western Orientations, Obstacles to Peace and Independence, Democratization and Human Rights, Security and Arms Control, Trade and Investment, and provides an Aid Overview.

This report briefly reviews the status of climate science, international negotiations, and congressional activity focused specifically on climate change.

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For the time being, Social Security receipts are more than enough to fund current benefits. But beginning in 2017, under current law, benefits are projected to exceed Social Security receipts. At that point, if not before, either benefit will have to be cut, taxes will have to be raised, or the shortfall will have to be made up either by tapping non-Social Security revenues, which would reduce the unified federal budget surplus or by an increase in federal borrowing.

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

Bill introduced by the Texas Senate relating to a project of a development corporation in connection with a military base or facility.

A Cappella Choir performance at the UNT College of Music Winspear Performance Hall.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal years 2002 through 2005, the Office for Domestic Preparedness (ODP) within the Department of Homeland Security managed first responder grants totaling approximately $10.5 billion. The bulk of this funding has been for statewide grants through the State Homeland Security Grant Program and urban area grants through the Urban Areas Security Initiative. This testimony provides information on the history and evolution of these two grant programs, particularly with respect to ODP grant award procedures; timelines for awarding and transferring grant funds; and accountability for effective use of grant funds."

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Although operons are often subject to horizontal gene transfer (HGT), non-HGT genes are particularly likely to be in operons. To resolve this apparent discrepancy and to determine whether HGT is involved in operon formation, we examined the evolutionary history of the genes and operons in Escherichia coli K12. We show that genes that have homologs in distantly related bacteria but not in close relatives of E. coli (indicating HGTi) form new operons at about the same rates as native genes. Furthermore, genes in new operons are no more likely than other genes to have phylogenetic trees that are inconsistent with the species tree. In contrast, essential genes and ubiquitous genes without paralogs (genes believed to undergo HGT rarely) often form new operons. We conclude that HGT is not associated with operon formation, but instead promotes the prevalence of pre-existing operons. To explain operon formation, we propose that new operons reduce the amount of regulatory information required to specify optimal expression patterns. Consistent with this hypothesis, operons have greater amounts of conserved regulatory sequences than do individually transcribed genes.

Corrosion is a primary determinant of waste package performance at the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository and will control the delay time for radionuclide transport from the waste package. Corrosion is the most probable and most likely degradation process that will determine when packages will be penetrated and the shape, size, and distribution of those penetrations. The general issues in corrosion science, materials science and electrochemistry are well defined, and the knowledge base is substantial for understanding corrosion processes. In this paper, the Yucca Mountain Repository is viewed from a corrosion perspective. A major component of the long-term strategy for safe disposal of nuclear waste at the Yucca Mountain Repository is first to completely isolate the radionuclides in the waste packages for long times and to greatly retard the egress and transport of radionuclides from penetrated packages. Therefore, long-lived waste packages are important. The corrosion resistance of the waste package outer canister is reviewed, and a framework for the analysis of localized corrosion processes is presented. An overview is presented of the Materials Performance targeted thrust of the U.S. Department of Energy/Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management's Office of Science and Technology and International. The thrust program strives for increased scientific …

The Yucca Mountain Project places a high priority on protecting the environment. To ensure compliance with all state and federal environmental laws and regulations, the Project established an Environmental Management System. Important elements of the Environmental Management System include the following: (1) monitoring air, water, and other natural resources; (2) protecting plant and animal species by minimizing land disturbance; (3) restoring vegetation and wildlife habitat in disturbed areas; (4) protecting cultural resources; (5) minimizing waste, preventing pollution, and promoting environmental awareness; and (6) managing of hazardous and non-hazardous waste. Reducing the impacts of Project activities on the environment will continue for the duration of the Project.

This paper reviews the state-of-the-art understanding of the degradation processes by the Yucca Mountain Project (YMP) with focus on interaction between the in-drift environmental conditions and long-term materials degradation of waste packages and drip shields within the repository system during the first 10,000-years after repository closure. This paper provides an overview of the degradation of the waste packages and drip shields in the repository after permanent closure of the facility. The degradation modes discussed in this paper include aging and phase instability, dry oxidation, general and localized corrosion, stress corrosion cracking, and hydrogen induced cracking of Alloy 22 and titanium alloys. The effects of microbial activity and radiation on the degradation of Alloy 22 and titanium alloys are also discussed. Further, for titanium alloys, the effects of fluorides, bromides, and galvanic coupling to less noble metals are considered. It is concluded that the materials and design adopted will provide sufficient safety margins for at least 10,000-years after repository closure.

The purpose of this system description document (SDD) is to establish requirements that drive the design of the Cask/MSC/WP preparation 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 and 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. This 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. This SDD addresses the ''Project Requirements Document'' (PRD) (Canori and Leitner 2003 [DIRS 166275]) requirements. Additional PRD requirements may be cited, as applicable, to drive …

Isotopic label tracing is a powerful experimental technique that can be combined with metabolic models to quantify metabolic fluxes in an organism under a particular set of growth conditions. In this work we constructed a genome-scale metabolic model of Methylobacterium extorquens, a facultative methylotroph with potential application in the production of useful chemicals from methanol. A series of labeling experiments were performed using 13C-methanol, and the resulting distribution of labeled carbon in the proteinogenic amino acids was determined by mass spectrometry. Algorithms were developed to analyze this data in context of the metabolic model, yielding flux distributions for wild-type and several engineered strains of M. extorquens. These fluxes were compared to those predicted by model simulation alone, and also integrated with microarray data to give an improved understanding of the metabolic physiology of this organism.

Mycoplasma genitalium (Mg) and M. pneumoniae (Mp) are human pathogens with two of the smallest genomes sequenced to date ({approx} 480 and 680 genes, respectively). The Berkeley Structural Genomics Center is determining representative structures for gene products in these organisms, helping to understand the set of protein folds needed to sustain this minimal organism. The protein coded by gene MG354 (gi3844938) from M. genitalium has a relatively unique sequence, related only to MPN530 from M. pneumoniae (68% identity, coverage 99%) and MGA{_}0870 from the avian pathogen M. gallisepticum (23% identity, coverage 94%), has no homologue with a determined structure, and no functional annotations.

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When business or investment property is exchanged for property of a “like kind,” (often referred to as a 1031 exchange) no gain or loss is recognized on the exchange, and therefore, no tax is paid at the time of the exchange on any appreciation in the value of the property . This report discusses the like-kind exclusion, which is sometimes combined with the exclusion of tax on the gain from the sale of a principal residence. In effect, this combination can allow taxpayers to avoid paying tax on the gain from the sale of their investment property.