This report describes the structure and development of the narcotics trade in Afghanistan and explores its relevance to Afghan, U.S., and international security interests, including the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that the United States make a long term commitment to the stability and security of Afghanistan. The report provides current statistical information on the opium trade, profiles its various participants, explores alleged narco-terrorist linkages, and reviews the U.S. and international policy response since late 2001. The report also considers current policy debates regarding the role of the U.S. military in future counternarcotics operations in Afghanistan; planned opium poppy eradication; and funding issues for Congress.

Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

To gain a clearer understanding of orientation and grain deformation of crystalline materials, x-ray powder diffraction has played an integral role in extracting three-dimensional structural information from one-dimensional diffraction patterns. Powder diffraction models identical geometry to the intersection of a normal right cone with a plane. The purpose of this paper is to develop a general expression defining the conic sections based on the geometry of a powder diffraction experiment. Applying the derived formulation of a diffraction arc to experimental data will give insight to the molecular and structural properties of the sample in question. Instead of using complex three-dimensional Euclidian geometry, we define the problem solving technique with a simpler two-dimensional transformation approach to arrive at the final equation describing the conic sections. Using the diffraction geometry parameters, we can use this equation to calibrate the diffractometer from the diffraction pattern of a known reference material, or to determine the crystalline lattice structure of the compound.

This report examines the President's budget request for Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service(IRS) in FY2006, some of the key policy issues it raised, and congressional action on the request.

Strong gravitational lens systems with extended sources are of special interest because they provide additional constraints on the models of the lens systems. To use a gravitational lens system for measuring the Hubble constant, one would need to determine the lens potential and the source intensity distribution simultaneously. A linear inversion method to reconstruct a pixellated source distribution of a given lens potential model was introduced by Warren and Dye. In the inversion process, a regularization on the source intensity is often needed to ensure a successful inversion with a faithful resulting source. In this paper, we use Bayesian analysis to determine the optimal regularization constant (strength of regularization) of a given form of regularization and to objectively choose the optimal form of regularization given a selection of regularizations. We consider and compare quantitatively three different forms of regularization previously described in the literature for source inversions in gravitational lensing: zeroth-order, gradient and curvature. We use simulated data with the exact lens potential to demonstrate the method. We find that the preferred form of regularization depends on the nature of the source distribution.

Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

This report includes background information on Bolivia’s political unrest, economic situation, and relations with the United States. In the past few years, Bolivia has experienced extreme political unrest resulting in the country having six presidents since 2001. Under policies of recently-elected leftist-leaning President Evo Morales, Bolivia's relations with neighboring countries, foreign investors, and the United States have been complicated. For some 20 years, U.S. interest in Bolivia has centered on its role as a coca producer and its relationship to Colombia and Peru, the two other major coca- and cocaine-producing countries in the Andes. U.S.-Bolivian relations have become tense in 2006 in the wake of the Morales government's questionable commitment to combating illegal drugs, increasing ties with Venezuela and Cuba, and the nationalization measure.

This report includes some issues for Congress to consider which could include the slow rate of integration between the USBP’s biometric database of illegal aliens and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) biometric database of criminals and terrorists; the number of unauthorized aliens who die attempting to enter the country each year; the organized human smuggling rings that have proliferated as entering the country has become more difficult; and the threat posed by terrorists along the sparsely defended Northern border as well as the more porous Southwest border.

Steve Salazar is seen in person and on a screen.

This report deals with broader issues in U.S. relations with the Caribbean and does not include an extensive discussion of Haiti and Cuba. U.S. policy toward these Caribbean nations is covered in two CRS products: CRS Report RL32294, Haiti: Developments and U.S. Policy Since 1991 and Current Congressional Concerns, and CRS Report RL32730, Cuba: Issues for the 109th Congress.

Weekly newspaper from Rusk, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

Laura Miller served as mayor of Dallas, Texas from 2002-2007.

Weekly student newspaper published in Hurst, Texas serving the Tarrant County College District that includes school news and information along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from The Colony, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

This document describes the development and application of a user-friendly and efficient groundwater management model of the Central Nevada Test Area (CNTA) and surrounding areas that will allow the U.S. Department of Energy and state personnel to evaluate the impact of future proposed scenarios. The management model consists of a simple hydrologic model within an interactive groundwater management framework. This framework is based on an object user interface that was developed by the U.S. Geological Survey and has been used by the Desert Research Institute researchers and others to couple disparate environmental resource models, manage the necessary temporal and spatial data, and evaluate model results for management decision making. This framework was modified and applied to the CNTA and surrounding Hot Creek Valley. The utility of the management model was demonstrated through the application of hypothetical future scenarios including mineral mining, regional expansion of agriculture, geothermal energy production, and export of water to large urban areas outside the region. While the results from some of the scenarios indicated potential impacts to the region near CNTA and others did not, together they demonstrate the usefulness of the management tool for managers who need to evaluate the impact proposed changes in groundwater …

Images taken of interstellar space often display a colorful canvas of portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Dispersed throughout the images are interstellar clouds of dust and gas--remnants ejected from stars and supernovae over billions and billions of years. For more than 40 years, astronomers have observed that interstellar dust exhibits a consistent effect at a spectral wavelength of 2,175 angstroms, the equivalent of 5.7 electronvolts in energy on the electromagnetic spectrum. At this wavelength, light from stars is absorbed by dust in the interstellar medium, blocking the stars light from reaching Earth. The 2,175-angstrom feature, which looks like a bump on spectra, is the strongest ultraviolet-visible light spectral signature of interstellar dust and is visible along nearly every observational line of sight. Scientists have sought to solve the mystery of what causes the 2,175-angstrom feature by reproducing the effect in the laboratory. They speculated a number of possibilities, including fullerenes (buckyballs), nanodiamonds, and even interstellar organisms. However, none of these materials fits the data for the unique spectral feature. Limitations in the energy and spatial resolution achievable with electron microscopes and ion microprobes--the two main instruments used to study samples of dust--have also prevented scientists from finding the answer. A …

In many accelerator storage rings running positively charged beams, ionization of residual gas and secondary electron emission (SEE) in the beam pipe will give rise to an electron cloud which can cause beam blow-up or loss of the circulating beam. A preventative measure that suppresses electron cloud formation is to ensure that the vacuum wall has a low secondary emission yield (SEY). The SEY of thin films of TiN, sputter deposited Non-Evaporable Getters and a novel TiCN alloy were measured under a variety of conditions, including the effect of re-contamination from residual gas.

This report presents background information on the commission's findings, on emergency response standards, and on options Congress might consider to address issues related to emergency preparedness standards.

The 109th Congress is considering proposals to amend the Endangered Species Act (ESA; P.L. 93-205, 16 U.S.C. §§1531-1543). Major issues in recent years have included changing the role of science in decision-making, modifying critical habitat (CH) procedures, incorporating further protection and incentives for property owners, and increasing protection of listed species, among others. In addition, many have advocated enacting as law some ESA regulations promulgated during the Clinton Administration. This report identifies other bills that have been introduced in the 109th Congress to address specific concerns related to how the ESA is implemented and how endangered species are managed.

The vacuum system of the X-Ray Vacuum Transport System (XVTS) for the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray Transport, Optics and Diagnostics (XTOD) system has been analyzed and configured by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's New Technologies Engineering Division (NTED) as requested by the SLAC/LCLS program. The preliminary system layout, detailed analyses and suggested selection of the vacuum components for the XTOD tunnel section are presented in the preliminary design report [1]. This document briefly reviews the preliminary design and provides engineering specifications for the system, which can be used as 'design to' specifications for the final design. Also included are the requirements of plans for procurement, mechanical integration, schedule and the cost estimates.

End-to-End fault and performance problems detection in wide area production networks is becoming increasingly hard as the complexity of the paths, the diversity of the performance, and dependency on the network increase. Several monitoring infrastructures are built to monitor different network metrics and collect monitoring information from thousands of hosts around the globe. Typically there are hundreds to thousands of time-series plots of network metrics which need to be looked at to identify network performance problems or anomalous variations in the traffic. Furthermore, most commercial products rely on a comparison with user configured static thresholds and often require access to SNMP-MIB information, to which a typical end-user does not usually have access. In our paper we propose new techniques to detect network performance problems proactively in close to realtime and we do not rely on static thresholds and SNMP-MIB information. We describe and compare the use of several different algorithms that we have implemented to detect persistent network problems using anomalous variations analysis in real end-to-end Internet performance measurements. We also provide methods and/or guidance for how to set the user settable parameters. The measurements are based on active probes running on 40 production network paths with bottlenecks varying from …

This presentation discusses the MARC Content Designation Utilization (MCDU) Project. It presents information about the goals and scope of the project, the methodology and information about the process, and the implications of this project.

Daily newspaper from Chickasha, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

This report first explains the connection made over the past several years between farm labor and immigration policies. It next examines the composition of the seasonal agricultural labor force and presents the arguments of grower and farmworker advocates concerning its adequacy relative to employer demand. The report closes with an analysis of the trends in employment, unemployment, time worked and wages of authorized and unauthorized farmworkers to determine whether they are consistent with the existence of a nationwide shortage of domestically available farmworkers.