This report discusses the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which was designed to enable any person — individual or corporate, regardless of citizenship — to request, without explanation or justification, presumptive access to existing, identifiable, unpublished, executive branch agency records on any topic.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is the nation’s major program to provide comprehensive vocational rehabilitation (VR) services to help persons with physical and mental disabilities achieve employment goals and full integration into society. Authorization of appropriations for the Rehabilitation Act expired in FY2003. Although the 108th Congress considered legislation to reauthorize the Act, no final action was taken.

All standing and select committees of the Senate (except for the Appropriations and Ethics Committees) obtain their operating budgets pursuant to a biennial committee funding resolution.

Falling agricultural exports and declining commodity prices led farm groups and agribusiness firms to urge the 106th Congress to pass legislation exempting foods and agricultural commodities from U.S. economic sanctions against certain countries. In completing action on the FY2001 agriculture appropriations bill, Congress codified the lifting of unilateral sanctions on commercial sales of food, agricultural commodities, medicine, and medical products to Iran, Libya, North Korea, and Sudan, and extended this policy to apply to Cuba (Title IX of H.R. 5426, as enacted by P.L. 106-387; Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000). Related provisions place financing and licensing conditions on sales to these countries. Those that apply to Cuba, though, are permanent and more restrictive than for the other countries. Other provisions give Congress the authority in the future to veto a President's proposal to impose a sanction on the sale of agricultural or medical products.

Weekly student newspaper from Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

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

Weekly newspaper from Dallas, Texas that includes local, state, and national news and advertising of interest to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community.

Funeral program for Sister Mary A. Phillips, born January 8, 1922 and died February 19, 2005. The funeral was held Friday, February 25, 2005 at Mount Zion First Baptist Church, officiated by Kenneth A. Allen. Funeral arrangements were made through Sutton-Sutton Mortuary, Inc. and she was buried in Meadowlawn Memorial Park in San Antonio, Texas.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Diabetes, which afflicts millions of Americans, is a manageable disease whose effects can be mitigated with proper care, regularly received. Experts recommend certain services and supplies for managing diabetes. Because these can be costly, concerns exist about whether individuals with diabetes have access to and receive what they need. Little is known, however, about health plan coverage of diabetes services and supplies. GAO reviewed the extent to which (1) states require insurance policies to cover diabetes services and supplies, (2) health coverage not subject to state requirements includes diabetes services and supplies, and (3) individuals with diabetes ages 18 and older receive services and supplies. GAO analyzed all 50 states' and the District of Columbia's laws and regulations pertaining to diabetes coverage. GAO also obtained from selected health plans providing coverage not subject to state requirements--13 large-employer plans and 3 plans in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP)--information on coverage of 10 services and nine supplies identified as important for individuals with diabetes. In addition, GAO obtained national data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on individuals' receipt of diabetes services and …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Invasive weeds, native or nonnative plant species, cause harm to natural areas such as rangelands or wildlife habitat and economic impacts due to lost productivity of these areas. While the federal investment in combating invasive species is substantial most has been concentrated on agricultural lands, not on natural areas. In this report, GAO describes (1) the entities that address invasive weeds in natural areas and the funding sources they use; (2) federal, state, and local weed management officials' views on the barriers to weed management; and (3) their opinions about how additional resources for weed management could be distributed. GAO limited this study to entities in the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior, and California, Colorado, Idaho, Maryland, and Mississippi, and gathered information through interviews of over 90 weed management officials."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This letter responds to a question from the Chairman, House Committee on Education and the Workforce, related to the recommendation we made in our October 31, 2003, report Student Loan Programs: As Federal Costs of Loan Consolidation Rise, Other Options Should Be Examined (GAO-04-101), which we completed at the Chairman's request. We reported that then recent trends in interest rates and consolidation loan volumes had affected the federal costs of consolidations in the Department of Education's two major student loan programs--the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) and the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program (FDLP)--in different ways, but in the aggregate, estimated federal subsidy costs for consolidation loans had increased. In light of these increased costs, we recommended in our report that the Secretary of Education assess the advantages of consolidation loans for borrowers and identify options for reducing federal costs, taking into consideration how best to distribute program costs among borrowers, lenders, and the taxpayers. Among the options we suggested for the Secretary's consideration was changing the borrower interest rate on consolidation loans from a fixed to a variable rate. Given that some time has …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "An institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and an office in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) entered into collaborative arrangements with the American Chemistry Council (ACC) to support research on the health effects of chemical exposures. NIH accepted a gift from ACC to help fund the research. EPA and ACC funded their proposals separately. The arrangements raised concerns about the potential for ACC to influence research that could affect the chemical industry. GAO determined the agencies' legal authorities to enter into the arrangements; the extent to which the agencies evaluated and managed potential conflicts of interest resulting from these arrangements; the extent to which the NIH institute complied with NIH's gift acceptance policy; and the extent to which NIH, EPA, and other agencies have similar arrangements."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "More than 5 million cattle across Europe have been killed to stop the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly called mad cow disease. Found in 26 countries, including Canada and the United States, BSE is believed to spread through animal feed that contains protein from BSE-infected animals. Consuming meat from infected cattle has also been linked to the deaths of about 150 people worldwide. In 1997, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a feed-ban rule prohibiting certain animal protein (prohibited material) in feed for cattle and other ruminant animals. FDA and 38 states inspect firms in the feed industry to enforce this critical firewall against BSE. In 2002, GAO reported a number of weaknesses in FDA's enforcement of the feed ban and recommended corrective actions. This report looks at FDA's efforts since 2002 to ensure industry compliance with the feed ban and protect U.S. cattle."

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

A weekly student newspaper from the Rice University in Houston, Texas that includes campus news and commentaries along with advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Semiweekly newspaper from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas that includes local, national, and campus news along with advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Today's typical multi-criteria decision analysis is based on classical expected utility theory that assumes a mythical ''Rational Individual'' immune to psychological influences such as anticipated regret. It is therefore in conflict with rational individuals who trade-off some benefits and forgo the alternative with the highest total classical utility for a more balanced alternative in order to reduce their levels of anticipated regret. This paper focuses on decision making under certainty. It presents a reference-dependent regret model (RDRM) in which the level of regret that an individual experiences depends on the absolute values rather than the differences of the utilities of the chosen and forgone alternatives. The RDRM best choice may differ from the conventional linear additive utility model, the analytic hierarchy process, and the regret theory of Bell and Loomes and Sugden. Examples are presented that indicate that RDRM is the better predictive descriptor for decision making under certainty. RDRM satisfies transitivity of the alternatives under pairwise comparisons and models rank reversal consistent with observed reasonable choices under dynamic or distinct situations. Like regret theory, the RDRM utilities of all the alternatives under consideration are interrelated. For complex trade-off studies regret is incorporated as an element of a cost-utility-regret analysis …

The objective of this Direct Surge Control project was to develop a new internal method to avoid surge of pipeline compressors. This method will safely expand the range and flexibility of compressor operations, while minimizing wasteful recycle flow at the lower end of the operating envelope. The approach is to sense the onset of surge with a probe that directly measures re-circulation at the impeller inlet. The signals from the probe are used by a controller to allow operation at low flow conditions without resorting to a predictive method requiring excessive margin to activate a recycle valve. The sensor developed and demonstrated during this project was a simple, rugged, and sensitive drag probe. Experiments conducted in a laboratory compressor clearly showed the effectiveness of the technique. Subsequent field demonstrations indicated that the increase in range without the need to recycle flow was on the order of 19% to 25%. The cost benefit of applying the direct surge control technology appears to be as much as $120 per hour per compressor for operation without the current level of recycle flow. This could amount to approximately $85 million per year for the U.S. Natural Gas Transmission industry, if direct surge control systems …

The need for better nuclear data has been stressed by various organizations throughout the world, and results of studies have been published which demonstrate that current data are inadequate for designing the projects under consideration [1] [2]. In particular, a Working Party of the OECD has been concerned with identifying these needs [3] and has produced a detailed High Priority Request List for Nuclear Data. The French Atomic Energy Commissariat (CEA) has also recognized the need for better data and launched an ambitious program aimed at measuring the integral absorption rate parameters at the CEA-Cadarache Research Center. A complete analytical program is associated with the experimental program and aims at understanding and resolving potential discrepancies between calculated and measured values. The final objective of the program is to reduce the uncertainties in predictive capabilities to a level acceptable to core designers and government regulators. Argonne National Laboratory has expertise in these areas. In the past, ANL teams have developed very accurate experimental techniques and strongly enhanced the development of several French experimental and analytical programs, and have contributed to the computational tools used at CEA-Cadarache. CEA recognized the expertise that ANL has in these areas and was interested in collaborating …