In FY 2004, monitoring of the prototype Hanford barrier focused on barrier stability, vegetative cover, evidence of plant and animal intrusion, and the main components of the water balance. Monitored water-balance components included precipitation, runoff, storage, drainage, and deep percolation. Precipitation in FY 2004 was 26 percent less than in FY 2003 but was still higher than normal. The seasonal distribution in precipitation was also different from the previous year with a 43 percent reduction in spring precipitation and a 46 percent increase in summer precipitation. The cumulative amount of water received from October 1994, through September 2004, was 2,559.58 mm on the northern half of the barrier, which is the formerly irrigated treatment, and 1,886.71 mm on the southern non-irrigated treatments. Water storage continued to show a cyclic pattern, increasing in the winter and declining in the spring and summer to a lower limit of about 100 mm in response to evapotranspiration. The 600-mm design storage has never been exceeded. Total drainage from the soil-covered plots range from 2.9E-4 mm to 0.22 mm or 0.003 6 0.004 percent of precipitation. Side-slope drainage was much higher at 20.9 6 2.3 percent of precipitation from the gravel and 18.6 6 5.1 …

Scientific simulation, which provides a natural bridge between theory and experiment, is an essential tool for understanding complex plasma behavior. Recent advances in simulations of magnetically-confined plasmas are reviewed in this paper with illustrative examples chosen from associated research areas such as microturbulence, magnetohydrodynamics, and other topics. Progress has been stimulated in particular by the exponential growth of computer speed along with significant improvements in computer technology.

A number of issues affecting U.S. agriculture could receive attention during the 109th Congress. Some are related to new initiatives or to unfinished legislation from the 108th Congress; others have been the focus of ongoing congressional oversight. Although the current (2002) farm bill (P.L. 107-171) generally does not expire until 2007, the agriculture committees could begin hearings on a new measure as early as 2005. The farm bill spells out the types and levels of benefits provided to producers and landowners under commodity price support and conservation programs, both of which could receive close scrutiny in the coming year as lawmakers seek ways to control federal spending. Other concerns include agroterrorism, food safety, and animal and plant diseases (e.g., “mad cow” disease); interest in multilateral and bilateral trade negotiations; the rising cost of energy on farms; environmental issues; and a number of agricultural marketing matters.

Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

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

The ARCS spectrometer project has been funded for 39 months. Procurements are now amain activity, although engineering effort remains, and installation has begun. Most of the subsystems are under control, and represent no risk to the project. These are: cryo-goniometer, detectors and electronics, Fermi chopper system, computing cluster, basic reduction software, T0 chopper and main neutron guide. The sample hutch and radiationshielding are still items of some risk. At the time of this writing, we are awaiting vendor proposals for the scattering chamber with integrated sample isolation system. This is thelargest uncertainty in the ARCS project today. The ARCS Chief Engineer, Kevin Shaw, joined the project in 2004. Project controlsservices are now performed by the SNS. A construction progress review was held in the August, 2004, before which the project was rebaselined, and after which the ProjectExecution Plan was updated. The ARCS project will be rebaselined in March 2005 after a vendor is selected for the scattering chamber with integrated isolation system. Projectcompletion by Sept. 2006 is possible but challenging.

Since federal deposit insurance first came into being in the mid-1930s, commercial banks and savings associations (thrifts) have paid premiums into government insurance reserves to cover losses due to financial institution failures. Banks and thrifts have come to offer similar services and the government has standardized insurance premiums for the two institutions to reflect their competition. Deposit insurance premiums have been the subject of legislation several times over recent years including measures passed by the House. Most banks and thrifts pay essentially no premiums, but the potential for future assessments continues to drive “reform” legislation. This report provides the rationale and amounts of assessments since federal deposit insurance began and will be updated annually.

Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

This report discuses the legislative action to reauthorize child care legislation that expired at the end of FY2002. The Child care reauthorization” is composed of two parts: legislation to reauthorize the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act and legislation to extend mandatory funding appropriated under Section 418 of the Social Security Act.

This report discusses major decisions on clean air issues facing the courts and the executive branch in 2006. One focus will be EPA's recent proposal to strengthen air quality standards for fine particles. Other issues of continuing interest are EPA's 2005 decisions limiting interstate transport of air pollution and establishing cap-and-trade systems for emissions from coal fired power plants, and the agency's proposed changes to New Source Review.

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The superconfiguration (SC) approach to collisional-radiative modeling can significantly decrease the computational demands of finding non-LTE level populations in complex systems. However, it has not yet been fully determined whether the statistical averaging of SC models leads to a significant loss of accuracy. The present work compares results from two independent models: a detailed-level accounting (DLA) model based on HULLAC data and the SC model MOST. The relatively simple level structures of the K- and L-shell ions of the neon test system ensure a tractable number of levels in the DLA model but challenge the statistical assumptions of the SC approach. Nonetheless, we find fair agreement between the two models for average ion charges, SC populations, and various effective temperatures.

On August 5, 2004, the United States, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic signed the Dominican Republic- Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement, or the DR-CAFTA. The DR-CAFTA was negotiated as a regional agreement in which all parties would be subject to the “the same set of obligations and commitments,” but with each country defining its own separate schedules for market access. It is a comprehensive and reciprocal trade agreement, which distinguishes it from the unilateral preferential trade arrangement between the United States and these countries as part of the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), as amended. It liberalizes trade in goods, services, government procurement, intellectual property, investment, and addresses labor and environment issues.

A major cause of failure in nuclear steam generators is degradation of their tubes. Although seven primary defect categories exist, one of the principal causes of tube failure is intergranular attack/stress corrosion cracking (IGA/SCC). This type of defect usually begins on the secondary side surface of the tubes and propagates both inwards and laterally. In many cases this defect is found at or near the tube support plates.

We have recently discovered an error in our void nucleation code used in three prior publications [1-3]. A term was omitted in the model for vacancy re-emission that (especially at high temperature) affects void nucleation and growth during irradiation as well as void annealing and Ostwald ripening of the size distribution after irradiation. The omission was not immediately detected because the calculations predict reasonable void densities and swelling behaviors when compared to experiment at low irradiation temperatures, where void swelling is prominent. (Comparable neutron irradiation experiments are less prevalent at higher temperatures, e.g., > 500 C.)

The Pennsylvania State University, under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory will establish, promote, and manage a national industry-driven Stripper Well Consortium (SWC) that will be focused on improving the production performance of domestic petroleum and/or natural gas stripper wells. The consortium creates a partnership with the U.S. petroleum and natural gas industries and trade associations, state funding agencies, academia, and the National Energy Technology Laboratory. This report serves as the second quarterly technical progress report for the SWC. Key activities for this reporting period include: (1) exhibit and participate in the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Regional Meeting in Charleston WV, (2) host the SWC fall technology transfer meeting in Oklahoma City, OK and finalize the organization of the State College, PA fall Technology Transfer meeting, and (3) initiate the revision of the SWC By-laws.

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA, P.L. 107-16) repeals the estate tax in 2010. During the phase-out period, the new law increases the exempt amount to $3.5 million by 2009 ($1.5 million in 2005), lowers the top rate to 45% by 2007 (the top rate in 2005 is 47%), and repeals the federal credit for state death taxes in 2005. The federal gift tax remains though the rate is reduced to the top personal income tax rate (35% in 2005). After repeal of the estate tax, carryover basis replaces step-up in basis for assets transferred at death. The legislation includes an exemption from carryover basis for capital gains of $1.3 million (and an additional $3 million for a surviving spouse). However, the estate tax provision in EGTRRA automatically sunsets December 31, 2010.

Daily newspaper from Chickasha, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

We report the preparation of a novel monolithic SnO{sub 2} aerogel using a straightforward sol-gel technique. TEM and XRD analysis show that the as-prepared material is comprised of interconnected, randomly oriented crystalline (rutile) SnO{sub 2} nanoparticles {approx}3-5 nm in size. As a result, the low-density SnO{sub 2} monolith ({approx}97% porous) exhibits a very high surface area of 383 m{sup 2}/g. /XANES spectroscopy at the Sn M{sub 4,5} edge reveals that the electronic structure of the SnO{sub 2} aerogel is similar to that of tetragonal SnO rather than SnO{sub 2} or {beta}-Sn, and that the undercoordinated surface atoms in the material introduce additional Sn-related electronic states close to the conduction band minimum.

With the nation's coal-burning utilities facing the possibility of tighter controls on mercury pollutants, the U.S. Department of Energy is funding projects that could offer power plant operators better ways to reduce these emissions at much lower costs. Mercury is known to have toxic effects on the nervous systems of humans and wildlife. Although it exists only in trace amounts in coal, mercury is released when coal burns and can accumulate on land and in water. In water, bacteria transform the metal into methylmercury, the most hazardous form of the metal. Methylmercury can collect in fish and marine mammals in concentrations hundreds of thousands times higher than the levels in surrounding waters. One of the goals of DOE is to develop technologies by 2005 that will be capable of cutting mercury emissions 50 to 70 percent at well under one-half of projected DOE/EPA early cost estimates. ADA Environmental Solutions (ADA-ES) is managing a project to test mercury control technologies at full scale at four different power plants from 2000-2003. The ADA-ES project is focused on those power plants that are not equipped with wet flue gas desulfurization systems. ADA-ES has developed a portable system that was tested at four different …

This report gives a brief history of the flag protection issue, from the enactment of the Flag Protection Act in 1968 through current consideration of a constitutional amendment. A second part briefly summarizes the two decisions of the United States Supreme Court -- Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman -- that struck down the state and federal flag protection statutes as applied in the context punishing expressive conduct.

In 1994, 34 Western Hemisphere nations met at the first Summit of the Americas, envisioning a plan for completing a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by January 1, 2005. Nine years later, the third draft text of the agreement was presented at the November 2003 Miami trade ministerial. The Ministerial Declaration, negotiated largely by the two co-chairs, Brazil and the United States, took the FTAA in a new direction, away from the comprehensive, single undertaking principle, toward a two-tier framework comprising a set of “common rights and obligations” for all countries, augmented by voluntary plurilateral arrangements with country benefits related to commitments. A follow-up meeting in early 2004 in Puebla, Mexico was unable to clarify this concept, highlighting the deep differences that remained between the United States and Brazil. FTAA talks subsequently stalled and the original January 1, 2005 deadline was missed. In the meantime, both Brazil and the United States are pursuing subregional trade pacts that may further complicate the negotiation process. Talks between Brazil and the United States may resume in early 2005, but it is still unclear if significant progress can be made on the FTAA this year.

This report mainly discusses about the Grants Information for Constituents and key sources of information on government and private grants for state and community projects.

Report discussing grants requests for federal funds made to members of Congress by their constituents. It provides a general overview, information provided to constituents about grant funding, letters of support for grant seekers, federal assistance opportunities, proposal writing, following up on requests, announcements of grant awards, foundations and corporate grants, and additional grant-related resources.