The Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA, provides broad nondiscrimination protection in employment, public services, public accommodations and services operated by public entities, transportation, and telecommunications for individuals with disabilities. The Supreme Court has decided fifteen ADA cases including four cases in the 2001-2002 Supreme Court term. This report will summarize the major provisions of the ADA and will discuss selected recent issues, including the Supreme Court cases. It will be updated as developments warrant.

This report summarizes the major provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and also discusses selected recent issues, including ten ADA Supreme Court cases.

This report discusses the budget for fiscal year 2003. It debates issues such as budget action, receipts surpluses or deficits, and the economy.

This report and its appendices present a general overview of congressional office procedures associated with handling casework and the assistance provided by a Member of Congress to help constituents in their dealings with federal agencies.

This report and its appendices present a general overview of congressional office procedures associated with handling casework and the assistance provided by a Member of Congress to help constituents in their dealings with federal agencies. It discusses options for assisting Members’ constituents and the role of Members and staff in providing casework services.

This report provides an overview of U.S farm disaster assistance.

Activities supported at the MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory under the U.S. DOE University Reactor Sharing Program are reported for Grant DE FG02-95NE38121 (September 16, 1995 through May 31, 2002). These activities fell under four subcategories: support for research at thesis and post-doctoral levels, support for college-level laboratory exercises, support for reactor tours/lectures on nuclear energy, and support for science fair participants.

Physically based models which describe the finite strain behavior of vulcanized rubber are developed. Constitutive laws for elasticity and viscoelasticity are derived by integrating over orientation space the forces due to each individual polymer chain. A novel scheme is presented which effectively approximates these integrals in terms of strain and strain invariants. In addition, the details involving the implementation of such models into a quasi-static large strain finite element formulation are provided. In order to account for the finite extensibility of a molecular chain, Langevin statistics is used to model the chain response. The classical statistical model of rubber assumes that polymer chains interact only at the chemical crosslinks. It is shown that such model when fitted for uniaxial tension data cannot fit compression or equibiaxial data. A model which incorporates the entanglement interactions of surrounding chains, in addition to the finite extensibility of the chains, is shown to give better predictions than the classical model. The technique used for approximating the orientation space integral was applied to both the classical and entanglement models. A viscoelasticity model based on the force equilibration process as described by Doi and Edwards is developed. An assumed form for the transient force in the …

On May 13, 2002, President Bush signed a new farm bill — The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 (P.L.107-171). This comprehensive new law contains ten titles covering commodity support, conservation, nutrition, trade, research, credit, rural development and other related programs. It makes significant changes to commodity, conservation and nutrition programs, and is intended to guide most federal farm and food policies through FY2007. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates (using the March 2002 baseline) place the total cost of the new bill (i.e., baseline plus new funding) at just under $274 billion over its six-year life-span. This report discusses the bill in detail, as well as the arguments of both its supporters and critics.

A nonlinear delta(f) particle simulation method based on the Vlasov-Maxwell equations has been recently developed to study collective processes in high-intensity beams, where space-charge and magnetic self-field effects play a critical role in determining the nonlinear beam dynamics. Implemented in the Beam Equilibrium, Stability and Transport (BEST) code [H. Qin, R.C. Davidson, and W.W. Lee, Physical Review -- Special Topics on Accelerator and Beams 3 (2000) 084401; 3 (2000) 109901.], the nonlinear delta(f) method provides a low-noise and self-consistent tool for simulating collective interactions and nonlinear dynamics of high-intensity beams in modern and next-generation accelerators and storage rings, such as the Spallation Neutron Source and heavy ion fusion drivers. A wide range of linear eigenmodes of high-intensity charged-particle beams can be systematically studied using the BEST code. Simulation results for the electron-proton two-stream instability in the Proton Storage Ring experiment [R. Macek, et al., in Proc. of the Particle Accelerator Conference, Chicago, 2001 (IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, 2001), Vol. 1, p. 688.] at the Los Alamos National Laboratory agree well with experimental observations. Large-scale parallel simulations have also been carried out for the ion-electron two-stream instability in the very-high-intensity heavy ion beams envisioned for heavy ion fusion applications. In both cases, …

The purpose of this paper is to show that recent data on the ground-state band and excited states based on the 0{sub 2}{sup +} level in {sup 15}Nd and {sup 152}Sm, especially the measured B(E2) values, can be well described by including a {Delta}K = 0 coupling between rotational bands. This is contrary to recent statements in the literature. The experimental data are compared with models which have supported the widely differing interpretations of these transitional nuclei. These interpretations include describing excited states as rotational excitations of single-phonon states, the multiphonon ''phase coexistence'' picture, and the X(5) critical-point description.

A summary is given of the work carried out under the LDRD project 01-ERD-069 entitled Stellarator Divertor Studies. This project has contributed to the development of a three-dimensional edge-plasma modeling and divertor diagnostic design capabilities at LLNL. Results are demonstrated by sample calculations and diagnostic possibilities for the edge plasma of the proposed U.S. National Compact Stellarator Experiment device. Details of the work are contained in accompanying LLNL reports that have been accepted for publication.

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This document summarizes progress on Cooperative Agreement DE-FC26-01NT41185, Pilot Testing of Mercury Oxidation Catalysts for Upstream of Wet FGD Systems, during the time period October 1, 2002 through December 31, 2002. The objective of this project is to demonstrate at pilot scale the use of solid honeycomb catalysts to promote the oxidation of elemental mercury in the flue gas from coal combustion. The project is being funded by the U.S. DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory under Cooperative Agreement DE-FC26-01NT41185. EPRI, Great River Energy (GRE), and City Public Service (CPS) of San Antonio are project co-funders. URS Group is the prime contractor. The mercury catalytic oxidation process under development uses catalyst materials applied to honeycomb substrates to promote the oxidation of elemental mercury in the flue gas from coal-fired power plants that have wet lime or limestone flue gas desulfurization (FGD) systems. Oxidized mercury is removed in the wet FGD absorbers and co-precipitates with the byproducts from the FGD system. The co-precipitated mercury does not appear to adversely affect the disposal or reuse properties of the FGD byproduct. The current project testing previously identified, effective catalyst materials at a larger, pilot scale and in a commercial form, to provide engineering data …

The Pullback transformation of the distribution function is a key component of the gyrokinetic theory. In this paper, a systematic treatment of this subject is presented, and results from applications of the uniform framework developed are reviewed. The focus is on providing a clear exposition of the basic formalism which arises from the existence of three distinct coordinate systems in gyrokinetic theory. The familiar gyrocenter coordinate system, where the gyromotion is decoupled from the rest of particle's dynamics, is non-canonical and non-fabric. On the other hand, Maxwell's equations, which are needed to complete a kinetic system, are initially only defined in the fabric laboratory phase space coordinate system. The pullback transformations provide a rigorous connection between the distribution functions in gyrocenter coordinates and Maxwell's equations in laboratory phase space coordinates. This involves the generalization of the usual moment integrals originally defined on the cotangent fiber of the phase space to the moment integrals on a general 6D symplectic manifold, is shown to be an important step in the proper formulation of gyrokinetic theory. The resultant systematic treatment of the moment integrals enabled by the pullback transformation. Without this vital element, a number of prominent physics features, such as the presence …

We have shown that multiple spheres can be imaged by linear and planar EM arrays using only one component of polarization. The imaging approach involves calculating the SVD of the scattering response matrix, selecting a subset of singular values that represents noise, and evaluating the MUSIC functional. The noise threshold applied to the spectrum of singular values for optimal performance is typically around 1%. The resulting signal subspace includes more than one singular value per sphere. The presence of reflections from the ground improves height localization, even for a linear array parallel to the ground. However, the interference between direct and reflected energy modulates the field, creating periodic nulls that can obscure targets in typical images. These nulls are largely eliminated by normalizing the MUSIC functional with the broadside beam pattern of the array. The resulting images show excellent localization for 1 and 2 spheres. The performance for the 3 sphere configurations are complicated by shadowing effects and the greater range of the 3rd sphere in case 2. Two of the three spheres are easily located by MUSIC but the third is difficult to distinguish from other local maxima of the complex imaging functional. Improvement is seen when the linear …

Random plasma density inhomogeneities may defocus the output pulses of powerful backward Raman amplifiers (BRA). Because of ultra-high intensities of even non-focused BRA outputs, such distortions, if occur, are then difficult to correct. We derive a simple expression for the largest BRA length for which the output pulse focusability is not yet spoiled. Interestingly, this limitation does not depend on the pump laser intensity. We also note a useful effect of plasma inhomogeneities that might help to suppress premature pump backscattering by thermal noise.

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Injection of lower-hybrid current drive into the current ramp-up phase of the Joint European Torus (JET) plasma discharges has been observed to produce an annular current distribution with a core region of essentially zero current density [Hawkes, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87 (2001) 115001]. Similar ''current holes'' have been observed in the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) Tokamak 60 Upgrade (JT-60U) plasma discharges with off-axis current drive supplied by the bootstrap current [T. Fujita, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87 (2001) 245001]. In both cases, the central current does not go negative although current diffusion calculations indicate that there is sufficient noninductive current drive for this to occur. This is explained by the Multi-level 3-D code (M3D) nonlinear 2-D and 3-D resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations in toroidal geometry, which predict that these plasma discharges undergo n = 0 reconnection events--''axisymmetric sawteeth''--that redistribute th e current to hold its core density near zero. Unlike conventional sawteeth, these events retain the symmetry of the equilibrium, and thus are best viewed as a transient loss of equilibrium caused when an iota = 0 rational surface enters the plasma. If the current-density profile has a central minimum, this surface will enter on …

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Results are reported for a project testing the capabilities of a mass spectrometer-based system for analyzing in-situ organic compounds on a variety of substrates. The system, which was built and operated at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), is termed a Contamination Analysis Unit (CAU) and employs vacuum and thermal desorption of surface residues, followed by ionization and analysis with a Leybold Inficon Transpector mass spectrometer. The CAU was employed in this study to examine soils, cleaner residues, and substrates on Space Shuttle Reusable Solid Rocket Motor (RSRM) components. Project work was supported by ATK Thiokol Propulsion. Major project objectives include: (1) Determine residual propellant and liner components with the CAU after test coupons have been cleaned. (2) Determine if the CAU can detect solvent that has soaked into NBR insulation material, and if possible, determine the time following solvent application during which the cleaning agent is detectable. (3) Test CAU capabilities for analyzing non-flat surfaces on the inside and outside surfaces of the RSRM (12-foot diameter), and nozzle throat housing surfaces (5-foot diameter). (4) Determine if solvent extraction and gas chromatography (GC) approaches are able to enhance the surface analysis data available through use of the mass-spectrometer-based CAU. (5) Determine …

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