This report provides an overview of selected topics which the 109th Congress may address in its examination of telecommunications issues. The issues included in this report cover: broadband Internet regulation and access; broadcast indecency; digital television transition; Federal Communications Commission structure and reform; intercarrier compensation; media ownership rules; municipal deployment of broadband; public safety communications, the “savings clause” and monopoly issues; spectrum auctions; and universal service fund reform.

This report includes four tables which provide the January 2004, January 2005, and January 2006 salaries for federal officials and members of the SES, and for employees in SL, ST, and GS-15 positions in the Washington, DC, and the “Rest of the United States” locality pay areas.

This report provides a quantitative framework for policy considerations dealing with U.S. trade with China. It provides basic data and analysis of China’s international trade with the United States and other countries. Since Chinese data differ considerably from those of its trading partners (because of how entrepot trade through Hong Kong is counted), data from both PRC sources and those of its trading partners are presented. Charts showing import trends by sector for the United States highlight China’s growing market shares in many industries and also show import shares for Japan, Canada, Mexico, the European Union, and the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN ).

This report, which will be updated regularly, examines issues in U.S.-Cuban relations and tracks legislative initiatives on Cuba in the 109th Congress. The 109th Congress will likely continue an active interest in Cuba concerning human rights, debate over economic sanctions (especially on travel), food and agricultural exports to Cuba, terrorism issues, Radio and TV Marti, bilateral anti-drug cooperation, and migration issues.

The major challenges to coalition forces are now quelling a persistent Iraqi resistance movement and training sufficient Iraqi forces to assume responsibility for the nations domestic security. This report discusses military planning and operations in Iraq.

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This report discusses U.S. laws and executive orders that impose economic sanctions currently in place against Libya, including whether they can be changed by executive action, and exemptions to the sanctions that could make foreign assistance available.

This report discusses the ongoing debate about whether or not to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for energy development, specifically the North Slope of Alaska for petroleum exploration and development. This report discusses the arguments for and against such development, especially with regard to environmental impacts.

This report provides a brief overview of the Impact Aid program, including the calculation of Impact Aid payments to local educational agencies (LEA), and an overview of the Base Realignment and Closing (BRAC) recommendations. This is followed by a discussion of the potential effects of the BRAC recommendations on LEAs that will both lose and gain students as a result of the changes. The report concludes with a brief discussion of actions that have been taken by LEAs in anticipation of large influxes of federally connected students.

Solo recital presented at the UNT College of Music Concert Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree

Funeral program for Mr. Harold Jeffery, born September 19, 1921 and died January 17, 2006. The funeral was held Monday, January 23, 2006 at F. E. Lewis Memorial Chapel, officiated by Rev. Howard Mims. Funeral arrangements were made through Lewis Funeral Home and he was buried in San Jose Burial Park in San Antonio, Texas.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Recent data breaches highlight how identity theft may occur when businesses share individuals' personal information, including Social Security Numbers (SSNs), with contractors. Because private sector entities are more likely to share consumers' personal information via contractors, members of Congress raised concerns about the protection of this information in contractual relationships. In response, GAO examined (1) how entities within certain industries share SSNs with contractors; (2) the safeguards and notable industry standards in place to ensure the protection of SSNs when shared with contractors; and (3) how federal agencies regulate and monitor the sharing and safeguarding of SSNs between private entities and their contractors."

A statement of record issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Chairman, Subcommittee on Labor, HHS and Education, Senate Committee on Appropriations, asked GAO to submit a statement for the record highlighting findings from our 2003 report on how well the Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) oversees its process for reviewing and approving critical types of mine plans and the extent to which MSHA's inspections and accident investigations processes help ensure the safety and health of underground coal miners."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "According to one report, at the end of 2004, some 70 million U.S. adults logged on to access the Internet during a typical day. As public use of the Internet grew from the mid-1990s onward, Internet access became a potential target for state and local taxation. In 1998, Congress imposed a moratorium temporarily preventing state and local governments from imposing new taxes on Internet access. Existing state and local taxes were grandfathered. In amending the moratorium in 2004, Congress required GAO to study its impact on state and local government revenues. This report's objectives are to determine the scope of the moratorium and its impact, if any, on state and local revenues. For this report, GAO reviewed the moratorium's language, its legislative history, and associated legal issues; examined studies of revenue impact; interviewed people knowledgeable about access services; and collected information about eight case study states not intended to be representative of other states. GAO chose the states considering such factors as whether they had taxes grandfathered for different forms of access services and covered different urban and rural parts of the country."

The goal of this project was to investigate mechanisms underlying the adaptive response seen following exposure of HeLa x skin fibroblast human hybrid cells to low doses of low LET radiation. It was proposed to investigate the contributions of three possible mechanisms. These were: 1. Upregulation of cellular antioxidant status. 2. Upregulation of DNA repair. 3. Upregulation of gap junction intracellular communication. We have completed the study of the role of upregulation of reduced glutathione (GSH) as a possible mechanism underlying our observed suppression of transformation frequency at low radiation doses. We have also completed our study of the possible role of upregulation of DNA repair in the observed adaptive response against neoplastic transformation. We concluded that upregulation of DNA repair may be more important in modulating transformation at the higher dose. A manuscript describing the above studies has been submitted published in Carcinogenesis 24:1961-1965, 2003. Finally, we have completed two studies of the possible role of upregulation of gap junction intercellular communication (GJIC) in modulating transformation frequency at low doses of low LET radiation. This research was published in Radiation Research 162:646-654, 2004. In order to optimize the opportunity for GJIC, we then carried out a study where confluent …

Micro-array experiments identified a number of Thermobifida fusca genes which were upregulated by growth on cellulose or plant biomass. Five of these genes were cloned, overexpressed in E. coli and the expressed proteins were purified and characterized. These were a xyloglucanase,a 1-3,beta glucanase, a family 18 hydrolase and twocellulose binding proteins that contained no catalytic domains. The catalyic domain of the family 74 endoxyloglucanase with a C-terminal, cellulose binding module was crystalized and its 3-dimensional structure was determined by X-ray crystallography.

Gamma ray spectrometers are an important tool in the characterization of radioactive waste. Important requirements for gamma ray spectrometers used in this application include good energy resolution, high detection efficiency, compact size, light weight, portability, and low power requirements. None of the available spectrometers satisfy all of these requirements. The goal of the Phase I research was to investigate lanthanum halide and related scintillators for nuclear waste clean-up. LaBr3:Ce remains a very promising scintillator with high light yield and fast response. CeBr3 is attractive because it is very similar to LaBr3:Ce in terms of scintillation properties and also has the advantage of much lower self-radioactivity, which may be important in some applications. CeBr3 also shows slightly higher light yield at higher temperatures than LaBr3 and may be easier to produce with high uniformity in large volume since it does not require any dopants. Among the mixed lanthanum halides, the light yield of LaBrxI3-x:Ce is lower and the difference in crystal structure of the binaries (LaBr3 and LaI3) makes it difficult to grow high quality crystals of the ternary as the iodine concentration is increased. On the other hand, LaBrxCl3-x:Ce provides excellent performance. Its light output is high and it provides …

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