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Congressional Research Service (CRS) report entailing information about current legislation in regards to school choice. Topics include, legislation, proposals in the 107th Congress, tax subsidies, block grants, etc..

This report provides information related to U.S. farm disaster assistance.

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This report provides an overview of Federal Research and Development funding for FY2003.

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The Department of Energy (DOE) National Environmental Research Park at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is composed of second-growth forest stands characteristic of much of the eastern deciduous forest of the Ridge and Valley Province of Tennessee. Human use of natural ecosystems in this region has facilitated the establishment of at least 167 nonnative, invasive plant species on the Research Park. Our objective was to assess the distribution, abundance, impact, and potential for control of the 18 most abundant invasive species on the Research Park. In 2000, field surveys were conducted of 16 management areas on the Research Park (14 Natural Areas, 1 Reference Area, and Walker Branch Watershed) and the Research Park as a whole to acquire qualitative and quantitative data on the distribution and abundance of these taxa. Data from the surveys were used to rank the relative importance of these species using the ''Alien Plant Ranking System, Version 5.1'' developed by the U.S. Geological Survey. Microstegium (Microstegium vimineum) was ranked highest, or most problematic, for the entire Research Park because of its potential impact on natural systems, its tendency to become a management problem, and how difficult it is to control. Microstegium was present in 12 of the 16 …

To effectively clean up many contaminated sites there is a need for information on heterogeneities at scales ranging from one centimeter to tens of meters, as these features can alter contaminant transport significantly. At the Department of Energy's Hanford, Washington site heterogeneities of interest can range from localized phenomena such as silt or gravel lenses, fractures, clastic dikes, to large-scale lithologic discontinuities. In the vadose zone it is critical to understand the parameters controlling flow. These features have been suspected of leading to funneling and fingering, additional physical mechanisms that could alter and possibly accelerate the transport of contaminants to underlying groundwater. For example, it has been observed from the studies to date that over relatively short distances there are heterogeneities in the physical structure of the porous medium and structural differences between repacked soil cores and the field site from which the materials initially came (Raymond and Shdo, 1966). Analysis of cores taken from the vadose zone (i.e., soil surface to water table) has been useful in identifying localized zones of contamination. Unfortunately, these analyses are sparse (limited to a few boreholes) and extremely expensive. The high levels of radioactivity at many of the contaminated sites increase drilling and …

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An induction linac is used by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to perform radiographic testing at the Flash X-ray Radiography facility. Emittance characterization is important since x-ray spot size impacts the resolution of shadow-graphs. Due to the long pulse length, high current, and beam energy, emittance measurement using Optical Transition Radiation is an attractive alternative for reasons that will be described in the text. The utility of OTR-based emittance measurement has been well demonstrated for both RF and induction linacs. We describe the time-resolved emittance characterization of an induction linac electron beam. We have refined the optical collection system for the induction linac application, and have demonstrated a new technique for probing the divergence of a subset of the beam profile. The experimental apparatus, data reduction, and conclusions will be presented. Additionally, a new scheme for characterizing the correlation between beam divergence and spatial coordinates within the beam profile will be described.