This report considers the Agriculture and Related Agencies appropriations bill. The report compares and contrasts the Senate and House versions of the bill in terms of budgeting. Both bills provide 7.5 billion dollars less than FY2007.

Through the duration of the NNSA Office of Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development (NA-22) Miniature Spherical Retroreflectors lifecycle project, our research team focused on developing solutions to the fabrication bottleneck that has inhibited development and deployment of wide-angle optically interrogated chemical and radiological remote sensing technology. Our team advanced the concept of step-index clad retroreflectors to approximate an optimized, but yet unrealized spherical gradient index design. An intensive numerical simulation effort was undertaken that resulted in optimized step-index optical designs for mid-infrared applications. Geometric optics ray trace modeling was performed to better understand the geometrical dependencies of the miniature spherical retroreflector application. We adopted and advanced the concept of optical cross section, a metric that provides relative performance comparisons between different retroreflector designs and our cross-section analysis demonstrated that our step-index design provided 90% of the range capacity of the ideal spherical index design.

This is the annual report for an old project funded by NA22. The purpose of the project was to develop amorphous semiconductors for use as radiation detectors. The annual report contains information about the progress made in synthesizing, characterizing, and radiation response testing of these new materials.

This report is a guide to one of the regular appropriations bills that Congress considers each year.

Report on the activities of the Health Professions Council for fiscal year 2008, highlighting the organization's accomplishments and budget.