This report considers the transition in government meant to stabilize Afghanistan. Moreover, the report discusses the new constitution and the benefits of it, such as women participating in politics. The report also discusses the NATO led troops in the region.

Sub-Saharan Africa ("Africa" hereafter) has been more severely affected by AIDS than any other part of the world. Experts attribute the severity of Africa's AIDS epidemic to the region's poverty, women's relative lack of empowerment, high rates of male worker migration, and other factors. Health systems there are ill-equipped; AIDS' severe social and economic consequences are depriving Africa of skilled workers and teachers, and reducing life expectancy by decades in some countries. This report explains the AIDS crisis and surrounding issues in detail, as well as U.S. and international efforts to provide general and economic aid. Relevant U.S. legislation is also outlined.

This report discusses the AIDS issues in Africa and the Bush administration call to double U.S. international funding for AIDS.

Sub-Saharan Africa has been far more severely affected by AIDS than any other part of the world. The United Nations reports that 24.5 million adults and children are infected with the HIV virus in the region, which has about 11% of the world's population but more than 64% of the worldwide total of infected people. This report discusses this issue in detail, including the cause of the African AIDS epidemic, the social and economic consequences, response and treatment, and U.S. policy.

Hot rolling is a problem involving large deformations during the process of turning an ingot into a thin sheet. As a result of the large deformations inherent in the process, significant amounts of energy are put into the ingot mechanically, most of which results in heat generation. Therefore, in order to predict the results of rolling both the mechanical and the thermal factors must accurately represent the real conditions. The factors which must be properly tuned include interface friction, mass scaling to decrease computation times, heat transfer at the interface, convective heat transfer from the ingot, and convective heat transfer from the roll. Since these parameters are generally not measurable the correct values must be derived by tuning the parameters so that solutions match some other measurable result. The interface friction will be tuned using an ALE3D input deck which has been set up to output the torque applied to the roll during the pass. The friction coefficient will be adjusted so that the computed torque matches the measured value. The various heat transfer coefficients are dependent on each other, and are tuned based on measured roll surface temperatures, ingot exit temperatures, and the energy input through the mechanical deformation …

The Single Heater Test (SHT) is the first of three in-situ thermal tests included in the site characterization program for the potential nuclear waste monitored geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. The heating phase of the SHT started in August 1996 and was concluded in May 1997 after 9 months of heating. Cooling continued until January 1998, at which time post-test characterization of the test block commenced. Numerous thermal, hydrological, mechanical, and chemical sensors monitored the coupled processes in the unsaturated fractured rock mass around the heater (CRWMS M&O 1999). The objective of this calculation is to benchmark a numerical simulation of the rock mass thermal behavior against the extensive data set that is available from the thermal test. The scope is limited to three-dimensional (3-D) numerical simulations of the computational domain of the Single Heater Test and surrounding rock mass. This calculation supports the waste package thermal design methodology, and is developed by Waste Package Department (WPD) under Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) procedure AP-3.12Q, Revision 0, ICN 3, BSCN 1, Calculations.

None

Data mining is emerging as one of the key features of many homeland security initiatives. Often used as a means for detecting fraud, assessing risk, and product retailing, data mining involves the use of data analysis tools to discover previously unknown, valid patterns and relationships in large data sets. This report discusses the data mining uses (i.e. Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) Program) and issues (i.e. data quality, interoperability, privacy), as well as the limitations of data mining.

On July 20, the Senate Appropriations Committee marked up its version of the FY2007 defense appropriations bill, H.R. 5631. Floor action is expected to begin on August 1. The Senate bill provides $453.5 billion defense programs, including $50 billion in appropriations for overseas operations. The total is $9.1 billion less than the Administration requested. Earlier, on June 20, the House passed its version of the bill. It provides $416.3 billion for defense programs, $4.1 billion below the request. The amounts in the House and Senate bills are not directly comparable, since some programs in the Senate bill are covered in the House in the Military Quality of Life/Veterans Affairs appropriations bill, H.R. 5385.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is shipping, for disposition purposes, bulk quantities of fissile materials, primarily highly enriched uranium (HEU). The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) specification 6M container has been the workhorse for NNSA and many other shippers of radioactive material since the 1980s. However, the 6M does not conform to the packaging requirements in the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR 71) and, for that reason, is being phased out for use in the DOE secure transportation system by the end of 2006. BWXT Y-12 developed and licensed the ES-3100 container to replace the DOT 6M. The ES-3100 was certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in April 2006. The process of deploying the new package began in June 2005 and is planned to be completed in July 2006. The package will be fully operational and completely replace the DOT 6M at the Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12) by October 2006. This paper reviews the deployment process and the mock loading station that was installed at National Transportation Research Center (NTRC) of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Specialized equipment, tools, and instrumentation that support the handling and loading operations of the ES-3100 are …

Alloy 22 specimens were tested in high temperature (100 to 160 C), high concentration chloride and nitrate environments. Results of this study indicate that increasing nitrate to chloride ratio to 0.5 in these electrolytes increases resistance to localized breakdown and enhances repassivation. In these extreme environments, localized corrosion occurred by pitting even though specimens were tested using artificial crevice formers. Open circuit (E{sub corr}), breakdown and repassivation potentials all increase, and pitting morphology changes as nitrate to chloride ratio increases from 0.05 and 0.15 to 0.5. Results also indicate that increasing the temperature from 100 to 160 C increases E{sub corr} values, while breakdown potentials and repassivation potentials peak at 130 C for the 0.5 nitrate to chloride ratio electrolytes.

The following report documents the technical approach and conclusions made by Acumentrics Corporation during latest budget period toward the development of a low cost 10kW tubular SOFC power system. The present program, guided under direction from the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the US DOE, is a nine-year cost shared Cooperative Agreement totaling close to $74M funded both by the US DOE as well as Acumentrics Corporation and its partners. The latest budget period ran from January of 2006 through June 2006. Work focused on cell technology enhancements as well as BOP and power electronics improvements and overall system design. Significant progress was made in increasing cell power enhancements as well as decreasing material cost in a drive to meet the SECA cost targets. The following report documents these accomplishments in detail as well as the layout plans for further progress in next budget period.

This report shows the state allocations fo DHS and HHS homeland security assistance programs, as reported by their department documents or press releases. It also shows per capita amounts for each program, as calculated by CRS, using 2002 census estimates.

On November 9, 2002, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality approved the Record of Decision Experimental Breeder Reactor-I/Boiling Water Reactor Experiment Area and Miscellaneous Sites, which requires a Sitewide Institutional Controls Plan for the then Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (now known as the Idaho National Laboratory). This document, first issued in June 2004, fulfilled that requirement. The revision is needed to provide an update as remedial actions are completed and new areas of concern are found. This Sitewide Institutional Controls Plan is based on guidance in the May 3, 1999, EPA Region 10 Final Policy on the Use of Institutional Controls at Federal Facilities; the September 29, 2000, EPA guidance Institutional Controls: A Site Manager's Guide to Identifying, Evaluating, and Selecting Institutional Controls at Superfund and RCRA Corrective Action Cleanups; and the April 9, 2003, DOE Policy 454.1, "Use of Institutional Controls." These policies establish measures that ensure short- and long-term effectiveness of institutional controls that protect human health and the environment at federal facility sites undergoing remedial action pursuant to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and/or corrective action pursuant to …

The U.S. Department of Energy has established long-term stewardship programs to protect human health and the environment at sites where residual contamination remains after site cleanup. At the Idaho National Laboratory Site, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERLA) long-term stewardship activities performed under the aegis of regulatory agreements, the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order for the Idaho National Laboratory, and state and federal requirements are administered primarily under the direction of the Idaho Cleanup Project. It represents a subset of all on-going environmental activity at the Idaho National Laboratory Site. This plan provides a listing of applicable CERCLA long-term stewardship requirements and their planned and completed implementation goals. It proffers the Long-Term Stewardship Environmental Data Warehouse for Sitewide management of environmental data. This plan will be updated as needed over time, based on input from the U.S. Department of Energy, its cognizant subcontractors, and other local and regional stakeholders.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) fiscal year 2005 appropriations act provided $39.6 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) program to modernize its information technology (IT) infrastructure. The goals of the program--which consists of seven projects and is referred to as Atlas--include improving information sharing and strengthening security. As mandated by the appropriations act, the department is to develop and submit for approval an expenditure plan for Atlas that satisfies certain legislative conditions, including a review by GAO. In performing its review of the Atlas plan, GAO was asked to (1) determine whether the plan satisfies certain legislative conditions, (2) determine the status of our prior recommendations, and (3) provide any other observations about the plan and management of the program."

This Field Sampling Plan describes the Operable Unit 3-13, Group 3, Other Surface Soils, Phase II remediation field sampling activities to be performed at the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center located within the Idaho National Laboratory Site. Sampling activities described in this plan support characterization sampling of new sites, real-time soil spectroscopy during excavation, and confirmation sampling that verifies that the remedial action objectives and remediation goals presented in the Final Record of Decision for Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center, Operable Unit 3-13 have been met.

A U.S.-Pakistan relationship marked by periods of both cooperation and discord was transformed by the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States into the enlistment of Pakistan as a key ally in U.S.-led counterterrorism efforts. This report outlines key aspects of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, as well as of Pakistan's economic conditions, political environment, handling of ongoing separatist violence, and nuclear nonproliferation.

None

None

This report summarizes the data analysis achieved during Heather Bedle's eleven-week Technical Scholar internship at Lawrence Livermore National Labs during the early summer 2006. The work completed during this internship resulted in constraints on the crustal and upper mantle S-velocity structure in Northern Africa, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and Europe, through the fitting of regional waveform data. This data extends current raypath coverage and will be included in a joint inversion along with data from surface wave group velocity measurements, S and P teleseismic arrival time data, and receiver function data to create an improved velocity model of the upper mantle in this region. The tectonic structure of the North African/Mediterranean/Europe/Middle Eastern study region is extremely heterogeneous. This region consists of, among others, stable cratons and platforms such as the West Africa Craton, and Baltica in Northern Europe; oceanic subduction zones throughout the Mediterranean Sea where the African and Eurasian plate collide; regions of continental collision as the Arabian Plate moves northward into the Turkish Plate; and rifting in the Red Sea, separating the Arabian and Nubian shields. With such diverse tectonic structures, many of the waveforms were difficult to fit. This is not unexpected as the waveforms are …

None

Sudan has been ravaged by civil war intermittently for four decades. An estimated 2 million people have died over the past two decades due to war-related causes and famine, and millions have been displaced from their homes. The ongoing crisis in Darfur in western Sudan has led to a major humanitarian disaster, with an estimated 1.9 million people displaced and more than 213,000 people forced into neighboring Chad. This report outlines the Darfur crisis as well as the current political climate of Sudan overall, as well as international efforts to send economic aid and peacekeeping forces to Sudan.

None