A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The D.C. Family Court Act (P.L. 107-114) mandated that GAO examine the performance of the D.C. Family Court. GAO addressed the following objectives: (1) What procedures were used to make judicial appointments to the Family Court and what effect did qualification requirements have on appointment timeframes? (2) How timely was the Family Court in meeting established timeframes for transferring and resolving abuse and neglect cases, and what impact did magistrate judges have on the workload of judges and other personnel? (3) What progress has the D.C. Courts made in procuring permanent space? And (4) What progress have the Superior Court and District agencies made in sharing data from their computer systems? To address these objectives, GAO analyzed court data on its timeliness in resolving cases, reviewed the Family Court Act, applicable District laws, and reports required by the act; reviewed documents regarding the Family Court's progress in acquiring permanent space and those related to sharing data from the computer systems of the Superior Court and the District; and interviewed relevant District, Superior Court, and Family Court officials. In commenting on this report, the Superior Court agreed …

The California Financial Information Privacy Act,1 enacted on August 28, 2003, and effective on July 1, 2004, governs the rights of California residents with respect to the dissemination of nonpublic personal information by financial institutions. In some respects, it diverges from two federal laws that impose restrictions on the dissemination of nonpublic personally identifiable customer information by financial information.

In response to concerns expressed by the California Legislature and the citizenry of the State of California, the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), implemented a program to assess groundwater quality, and provide a predictive capability for identifying areas that are vulnerable to contamination. The program was initiated in response to concern over public supply well closures due to contamination by chemicals such as MtBE from gasoline, and solvents from industrial operations. As a result of this increased awareness regarding groundwater quality, the Supplemental Report of the 1999 Budget Act mandated the SWRCB to develop a comprehensive ambient groundwater-monitoring plan, and led to the initiation of the Ambient Groundwater Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) Program. The primary objective of the GAMA Program is to assess the water quality and to predict the relative susceptibility to contamination of groundwater resources throughout the state of California. Under the GAMA program, scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) collaborate with the SWRCB, the U.S. Geological Survey, the California Department of Health Services (DHS), and the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) to implement this groundwater assessment program. In 2001 and 2002, LLNL carried out this vulnerability study in the groundwater basins of Santa Clara …

This report analyzes the elections and key issues facing the new government of Croatia in 2003.

This report provides information about the Current Tax Benefits and Legislative Issues on Dependent Care. The dependent care tax credit use the same definition of qualified employment related expenses.

This report reviews the process of temporary legal residents becoming registered as U.S. citizens while providing preliminary factors involved before registration.

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The purpose of this report is to provide an approach for the development of a simplified unclassified hydrologic source term (HST) for the ten underground nuclear tests conducted in the Frenchman Flat Corrective Action Unit (CAU) at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). It is being prepared in an analytic form for incorporation into a GOLDSIM (Golder Associates, 2000) model of radionuclide release and migration in the Frenchman Flat CAU. This model will be used to explore, in an approximate and probabilistic fashion, sensitivities of the 1,000-year radionuclide contaminant boundary (FFACO, 1996; 2000) to hydrologic and other related parameters. The total inventory (or quantity) of radionuclides associated with each individual test, regardless of its form and distribution, is referred to as the radiologic source term (RST) of that test. The subsequent release of these radionuclides over time into groundwater is referred to as the hydrologic source term (HST) of that test (Tompson, et al., 2002). The basic elements of the simplified hydrologic source term model include: (1) Estimation of the volumes of geologic material physically affected by the tests. (2) Identification, quantification, and distribution of the radionuclides of importance. (3) Development of simplified release and retardation models for these radionuclides in …

The sixth evaluation of the RIKEN BNL Research Center (RBRC) took place on November 20-21, 2003, at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The present members of the Scientific Review Committee are Dr. Jean-Paul Blaizot, Professor Makoto Kobayashi, Dr. Akira Masaike, Professor Charles Young Prescott (absent), Professor Stephen Sharpe, and Professor Jack Sandweiss, Committee Chair. In order to illustrate the breadth and scope of the program, each member of the Center made a presentation on his research efforts. In addition, a special presentation was given jointly by our collaborators, Professors Norman Christ and Robert Mawhinney of Columbia University, on the progress and status of the IRBRC QCDSP/QCDOC Supercomputer program. A demonstration of a 64-node (64 Gflops peak speed) QCDOC machine in action followed. Although the main purpose of this review is a report to RIKEN Management (Dr. Ryoji Noyori, RIKEN President) on the health, scientific value, management and future prospects of the Center, the RBRC management felt that a compendium of the scientific presentations are of sufficient quality and interest that they warrant a wider distribution. Therefore we have made this compilation and present it to the community for its information and enlightenment.

This report is intended to provide guidance on the process for petitioning the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to initiate a rulemaking that could reduce the licensing burden for new products containing depleted uranium (DU), which are being investigated by the DU Uses Research and Development (R&D) Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The focus is on requirements of the NRC rulemaking process applicable to establishing new exemptions or general licenses for products and devices containing source material. NRC policies and guidance regarding such requirements are described, including a 1965 policy statement on approval of new exemptions for products containing radionuclides (''Federal Register'', Volume 30, page 3462 [30 FR 3462]; March 16, 1965) and Regulatory Guide 6.7, which addresses the contents of environmental reports that support rulemaking petitions seeking exemptions for radionuclide-containing products. Methodologies for calculating radiological and nonradiological impacts on human health (i.e., risks) associated with distributing, using, and disposing of DU-containing products are presented. Also, methodologies for completing assessments of the potential effects of accidents involving new DU-containing products and of product misuse are described. The report recommends that the U.S. Department of Energy formulate a regulatory plan for deployment of DU-containing products in areas that are …

This study involves the investigation of nuclear genetic components that regulate mitochondrial genome behavior in higher plants. The approach utilizes the advanced plant model system of Arabidopsis thaliana to identify and functionally characterize multiple components of the mitochondrial DNA replication, recombination and mismatch repair system and their interaction partners. The rationale for the research stems from the central importance of mitochondria to overall cellular metabolism and the essential nature of the mitochondrial genome to mitochondrial function. Relatively little is understood about mitochondrial DNA maintenance and transmission in higher eukaryotes, and the higher plant mitochondrial genome displays unique properties and behavior. This investigation has revealed at least three important properties of plant mitochondrial DNA metabolism components. (1) Many are dual targeted to mitochondrial and chloroplasts by novel mechanisms, suggesting that the mitochondria a nd chloroplast share their genome maintenance apparatus. (2)The MSH1 gene, originating as a component of mismatch repair, has evolved uniquely in plants to participate in differential replication of the mitochondrial genome. (3) This mitochondrial differential replication process, termed substoichiometric shifting and also involving a RecA-related gene, appears to represent an adaptive mechanism to expand plant reproductive capacity and is likely present throughout the plant kingdom.

This report summarizes by what measures the Constitution requires Congress to determine its own pay, the annual payment adjustment procedure, changes in pay over time since 1789, and related legislation.

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This report discusses privilege under the Court Recognition of Fifth Amendment Protection for Acts of Production. The privilege covers an individual’s actions rather than his speech or writing, yet many incriminating actions such as providing a blood sample or a handwriting sample are ordinarily not protected because they are not testimonial.

Monthly report written by the Texas Daily Newspaper Association's (TDNA's) office manager, Darla Thompson, to Phil Berkebile providing a summary of revenues and account balances, programs, meetings, and other activities in the office during the previous month.

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The events of September 11, 2001 heightened concerns regarding aviation security in the United States. The ensuing debate in Congress focused on the degree of federal involvement needed to improve aviation security and restore public confidence in air travel. The Aviation and Transportation Security Act (ATSA, P.L. 107-71, 115 Stat. 597) established the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and contained provisions establishing a federal screener workforce and requiring screening of checked baggage using explosive detection systems. In November 2004, airports will be eligible to opt out of the federal security screening program and a provision of P.L. 107-296 preserving TSA in its present form will expire allowing DHS to restructure the TSA if it so chooses, although no such plan has been revealed to date. During the second session of the 108th Congress, oversight of TSA’s plans for implementing the security screening opt-out program will likely be of considerable interest as will any plans to restructure the TSA.

This report discusses Family Farmer Reorganization related to chapter 12 of the U.S. bankruptcy code.

This report describes how income is counted for determining eligibility for the low-income Medicare prescription drug benefit that begin in 2006.

This is the Final Technical Report describing the achievements on this DOE program. This research program was initiated with the objective of obtaining a better understanding of the flow, and especially the superplastic flow, of representative ceramics. Detailed experiments were undertaken on the yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia (Y-TZP) and on various composite materials containing Y-TZP and Al{sub 2}O{sub 3}. In addition, a comprehensive theoretical interpretation was developed which showed, for the first time, that the superplasticity of ceramic materials has very significant differences from the conventional superplastic flow in metals.

This report discusses the federal tax treatment of alien individuals, i.e., foreign nationals, who are working in the United States.

This report analyzes the status of many of the major foreign terrorist organizations that are a threat to the United States, placing special emphasis on issues of potential concern to Congress

This is the final report for LDRD 01-ERD-005. The Principal Investigator was Niel Madsen of the Defense Sciences Engineering Division (DSED). Collaborators included Daniel White, Joe Koning and Nathan Champagne of DSED, Mark Stowell of Center for Applications Development and Software Engineering (CADSE), and Ph.D. students Rob Rieben and Aaron Fisher at the UC Davis Department of Applied Science. It should be noted that the students were partially supported by the LLNL Student-Employee Graduate Research Fellow program. We begin with an Introduction which provides background and motivation for this research effort. Section II contains high-level description of our Approach, and Section III summarizes our key research Accomplishments. A description of the Software deliverables is provided in Section IV, and Section V includes simulation Validation and Results. It should be noted we do not get into the mathematical details in this report, rather these can be found in our publications which are listed in Section III.

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