This report discusses the issue of children that have been left as orphans due to AIDS taking their parents lives. Moreover, the report details that between 2001 and 2003 the number of children orphaned from AIDS increased by 3.5 million. The rate of orphaned children is only expected to increase in the future if massive spending is not issued to curb the problem.

This report responds to congressional inquiries concerning the process for awarding Congressional Gold Medals, and includes a historical examination and chronological list of these awards.

This report provides information about Considering Measures in the House Under the One-Hour Rule which means occupying more than one hour in a debate on a question in the house.

This report presents and documents the model components and analyses that represent potential processes associated with propagation of a magma-filled crack (dike) migrating upward toward the surface, intersection of the dike with repository drifts, flow of magma in the drifts, and post-magma emplacement effects on repository performance. The processes that describe upward migration of a dike and magma flow down the drift are referred to as the dike intrusion submodel. The post-magma emplacement processes are referred to as the post-intrusion submodel. Collectively, these submodels are referred to as a conceptual model for dike/drift interaction. The model components and analyses of the dike/drift interaction conceptual model provide the technical basis for assessing the potential impacts of an igneous intrusion on repository performance, including those features, events, and processes (FEPs) related to dike/drift interaction (Section 6.1).

Dumping in the United States is the selling of a product by a foreign producer at a price that is below the product’s sale price in the country of origin, or at a price that is lower than the cost of production. Under U.S. law such an action is considered an unfair trade practice. If that action is found to cause “material injury” to a competing domestic industry, an antidumping duty equal to the “dumping margin” will be levied against the foreign good.

We study the effect on neoclassical transport of applying a fluctuating electrostatic spectrum, such as produced either by plasma turbulence, or imposed externally. For tokamaks, it is usually assumed that the neoclassical and ''anomalous'' contributions to the transport roughly superpose, D = D{sub nc} + D{sub an}, an intuition also used in modeling stellarators. An alternate intuition, however, is one where it is the collisional and anomalous scattering frequencies which superpose, {nu}{sub ef} = {nu} + {nu}{sub an}. For nonaxisymmetric systems, in regimes where {partial_derivative}D/{partial_derivative}{nu} < 0, this ''{nu}{sub ef} picture'' implies that turning on the fluctuations can decrease the total radial transport. Using numerical and analytic means, it is found that the total transport has contributions conforming to each of these intuitions, either of which can dominate. In particular, for stellarators, the {nu}{sub ef} picture is often valid, producing transport behavior differing from tokamaks.

The purpose of this report is to describe the evolution of the physical and chemical environmental conditions within the waste emplacement drifts of the repository, including the drip shield and waste package surfaces. The abstraction model is used in the total system performance assessment for the license application (TSPA LA) to assess the performance of the engineered barrier system and the waste form. This report develops and documents a set of these abstraction-level models that describe the engineered barrier system physical and chemical environment. Where possible, these models use information directly from other reports as input, which promotes integration among process models used for TSPA-LA. Specific tasks and activities of modeling the physical and chemical environment are included in ''Technical Work Plan for: Near-Field Environment and Transport In-Drift Geochemistry Model Report Integration'' (BSC 2004 [DIRS 171156], Section 1.2.2). As described in the technical work plan, the development of this report is coordinated with the development of other engineered barrier system reports.

Laboratory tests were conducted to evaluate the electrical and mechanical performance of the 2004 Toyota Prius and its hybrid electric drive system. As a hybrid vehicle, the 2004 Prius uses both a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine and a battery-powered electric motor as motive power sources. Innovative algorithms for combining these two power sources results in improved fuel efficiency and reduced emissions compared to traditional automobiles. Initial objectives of the laboratory tests were to measure motor and generator back-electromotive force (emf) voltages and determine gearbox-related power losses over a specified range of shaft speeds and lubricating oil temperatures. Follow-on work will involve additional performance testing of the motor, generator, and inverter. Information contained in this interim report summarizes the test results obtained to date, describes preliminary conclusions and findings, and identifies additional areas for further study.

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This report provides information about the Fishery, Aquaculture, and Marine Mammal Legislation in the 108th Congress. fish and marine are important resources in the open ocean and nearshore coastal areas.

The initial thermally activated decomposition of several complex metal hydride compounds, to a binary alkali or alkaline hydride and a group IIIb metal hydride, appears to share a first step in their decomposition mechanisms. The application of this initial thermochemical decomposition step to several alanate compounds illustrates the generality of this approach. For LiAlH4, the decomposition data fall on the derived distribution plot calculated for NaAlH4.

This report covers health benefits and initiatives for federal government employees.

This report discusses the Conservation Security Program (CSP), which is a agricultural conservation program created in the 2002 farm bill (P.L. 107-171, §2001). It provides incentives for farmers to pursue conservation and helps pay for conservation practices. Unlike some other NRCS programs, it pays for conservation on land that remains in production and makes eligible a wide range of farm lands (cropland, pastureland, rangeland, grassland, prairie land, tribal lands, and forested lands incidental to an agricultural operation)

This fact sheet provides Internet links to the federal agencies or departments currently involved in the contracting process, along with their specific Iraq reconstruction programs underway or proposed. It provides overview information on federal agency contract solicitations, application procedures, and contact information where appropriate.

Several factors limit the energy savings potential and increase the costs of energy-efficient technologies to consumers. These factors may usefully be placed into two categories; one category is what economists would define as market failures and the other is related to consumer preferences. This paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding the roles of these factors, and develops a methodology to quantify their effects on costs and potentials of two energy efficient end uses - residential lighting and clothes washers. It notes the significant roles played by the high implicit cost of obtaining information about the benefits of the two technologies and the apparent inability to process and utilize information. For compact fluorescent lamps, this report finds a conservative estimate of the cost of conserved energy of 3.1 cents per kWh. For clothes washers, including water savings reduces the cost of conserved energy from 13.6 cents to 4.3 cents per equivalent kWh. Despite these benefits, market share remains low. About 18 million tons of CO2 could be saved cost effectively from 2005 sales of these two technologies alone. The paper also notes that trading of carbon emissions will incur transaction costs that will range from less than 10 cents per …

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This project investigates the catalytic properties of oxides for the selective oxidative dehydrogenation of light alkanes and for hydrocarbon reduction of NO{sub x}. Various vanadium oxide based catalysts were investigated to elucidate the relationship between the chemical and structural properties of the catalysts and their selectivity for the formation of alkenes. It was found that vanadium oxide units that are less reducible give higher selectivities. For hydrocarbon reduction of NO{sub x}, it was found that alumina-based catalysts can be effective at higher temperatures than the corresponding zeolite-based catalysts. On some catalysts, such as SnO{sub 2}/Al{sub 2}O{sub 3}. Ag/Al{sub 2}O{sub 3}, the alumina participates directly in the reaction, making the catalyst bifunctional. These results are useful in research to improve the performance of this stress of catalysts.

In the current Yucca Mountain repository design concept, heat from the emplaced waste (mostly from spent nuclear fuel) would keep the temperature of the rock around the waste packages higher than the boiling point of water for hundreds to thousands of years after the repository is closed. The design concept allows below-boiling portions of the pillars between drifts to serve as pathways for the drainage of thermally mobilized water and percolating groundwater by limiting the distance that boiling temperatures extend into the surrounding rock. This design concept takes advantage of host rock dry out, which would create a dry environment within the emplacement drifts and reduce the amount of water that might otherwise be available to enter the drifts and contact the waste packages during this thermal pulse. Table 1 provides an overview of design constraints related to thermal management after repository closure. The Yucca Mountain repository design concept also provides flexibility to allow for operation over a range of lower thermal operating conditions. The thermal conditions within the emplacement drifts can be varied, along with the relative humidity, by modifying operational parameters such as the thermal output of the waste packages, the spacing of the waste packages in the …