A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Communities will need hundreds of billions of dollars in coming years to construct and upgrade wastewater treatment facilities, sewer systems, and other water infrastructure. To finance these efforts, they will rely heavily on low-interest loans from the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) program to supplement their own funds. Through fiscal year 2005, states have used their CWSRFs to provide communities over $52 billion for a variety of water quality projects. The Clean Water Act allows states to use their CWSRFs to (1) construct or improve conventional wastewater infrastructure, (2) control diffuse (nonpoint) sources of pollution such as agricultural runoff and leaking septic systems, and (3) protect federally-designated estuaries. Given the states' flexibility in determining how to spend CWSRF dollars, GAO was asked to examine (1) the extent to which states use their CWSRF dollars to support conventional wastewater treatment infrastructure versus other qualifying expenses, (2) the strategies states use to allocate their CWSRF dollars among qualifying expenses, and (3) the measures states use to ensure that their allocation strategies result in the most efficient and effective use of CWSRF dollars. EPA …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami raised questions about U.S. preparedness for such an event. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) leads U.S. detection and warning efforts and partners with federal and state agencies in the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program (NTHMP) to reduce tsunami risks. In 2005, Congress appropriated $17.24 million in supplemental funding to enhance these efforts. This report (1) identifies U.S. coastal areas facing the greatest tsunami hazard and the extent to which potential impacts have been assessed, (2) discusses the effectiveness of the existing federal tsunami warning system, (3) describes efforts to mitigate the potential impacts of tsunamis on coastal communities, and (4) assesses NOAA's efforts to develop long-range plans for federal tsunami programs."

High precision uranium isotope measurements of marineclastic sediments are used to measure the transport and storage time ofsediment from source to site of deposition. The approach is demonstratedon fine-grained, late Pleistocene deep-sea sediments from Ocean DrillingProgram Site 984A on the Bjorn Drift in the North Atlantic. The sedimentsare siliciclastic with up to 30 percent carbonate, and dated by sigma 18Oof benthic foraminifera. Nd and Sr isotopes indicate that provenance hasoscillated between a proximal source during the last three interglacialperiods volcanic rocks from Iceland and a distal continental sourceduring glacial periods. An unexpected finding is that the 234U/238Uratios of the silicate portion of the sediment, isolated by leaching withhydrochloric acid, are significantly less than the secular equilibriumvalue and show large and systematic variations that are correlated withglacial cycles and sediment provenance. The 234U depletions are inferredto be due to alpha-recoil loss of234Th, and are used to calculate"comminution ages" of the sediment -- the time elapsed between thegeneration of the small (<_ 50 mu-m) sediment grains in the sourceareas by comminution of bedrock, and the time of deposition on theseafloor. Transport times, the difference between comminution ages anddepositional ages, vary from less than 10 ky to about 300 to 400 ky forthe …

The equilibrium of an infinitely long, strongly magnetized, non-neutral plasma confined in a Penning-Malmberg trap with an additional mirror coil has been solved analytically [J. Fajans, Phys. Plasmas 10, 1209 (2003)] and shown to exhibit unusual features. Particles not only reflect near the mirror in the low field region, but also may be weakly trapped in part of in the high field region. The plasma satisfies a Boltzmann distribution along field lines; however, the density and the potential vary along field lines. Some other simplifying assumptions were employed in order to analytically characterize the equilibrium; for example the interface region between the low and high field regions was not considered. The earlier results are confirmed in the present study, where two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations are performed with the Warp code in a more realistic configuration with an arbitrary (but physical) density profile, realistic trap geometry and magnetic field. A range of temperatures and radial plasma sizes are considered. Particle tracking is used to identify populations of trapped and untrapped particles. The present study also shows that it is possible to obtain local equilibria of non-neutral plasmas using a collisionless PIC code, by a scheme that uses the inherent numerical collisionality as …

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Photograph of two women seated at a table with a variety of papers on it. There is a man standing opposite the women with both of his hands raised.

Photograph of a man shaking hands with another gentleman who is seated on a chair with a brown envelope on his let hand. A long line of chairs are shown to the right of the seated man with a variety of individuals seated on them.There are other men shown standing in the photo and several white tables are arranged behind the seated individuals.

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Photograph of a man seated with his right elbow on a table with paperwork on it. Several other people are shown in the background of the photo with some of them seated and others standing up having a conversation.

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Vilma Espinoza (right), table chief, helps Ana Zegarra (left) during the Peruvian runoff election conducted on Sunday in Dallas.

In an orderly manner, the Peruvians of Dallas-Fort Worth voted on June 4, thus demonstrating that a consular office is needed in this region. In the figure, Carlos Adrianzén (left), member of the Events Committee of the APDFW, leads Jorge Farias to his voting table.

Photograph of a man with a name tag on his right arm reading "Gabriel Pacheco". The man is holding a white piece of paper on his right hand and he is pointing upward with his left index finger. There are few tables shown behind him with a pile of chairs on top.

Peruvians in the Metroplex came to the polls to decide the future of the country, as did Lorena Baldwin (pictured), a resident of the city of Plano (Texas).

Peruvians in the Metroplex came to the polls to decide the future of the country, as did Lorena Baldwin (pictured), a resident of the city of Plano (Texas).

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This report examines the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement which was originally intended to be part of a broader U.S.-Andean free trade agreement (FTA), but after negotiators failed to reach agreement, Peru and the U.S. decided to move forward on a bilateral basis. The PTPA is a comprehensive trade agreement that, if ratified, would eliminate tariffs and other barriers in goods and services trade between two countries. The labor provisions may be among the more controversial of the agreement.

Handwritten note written on the back of recycled paper on June 5, 2006 regarding activities at Stonewall Booth.

Since radiation fields of space contain many-fold more protons than high atomic number, high energy (HZE) particles, cells in astronaut crews will experience on average several proton hits before an HZE hit. Thus radiation regimes of proton exposure before HZE particle exposure simulate space radiation exposure, and measurement of the frequency of neoplastic transformation of human primary cells to anchorage-independent growth simulates in initial step in cancer induction. Previously our group found that exposure to 20 cGy 1 GeV/n protons followed within about 1 hr by a HZE ion (20 cGy 1 GeV/n Fe or Ti ions) hit gave about a 3-fold increase in transformation frequency ([1]). To provide insight into the H-HZE induced increased transformation frequencies, we asked if split doses of the same ion gave similar increased transformation frequencies. However, the data show that the split dose of 20 cGy plus 20 cGy of either H or HZE ions gave about the same effect as the 40 cGy uninterrupted dose, quite different from the effect of the mixed ion H + HZE irradiation. We also asked if lower proton doses than 20 cGy followed 15 minutes later by 20 cGy of HZE ions gave greater than additive transformation …