Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Legislative Branch Appropriations.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether certain provisions of the Texas Controlled Substances Act, TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. ch 481 (Vernon 1992 & Supp. 1999), that authorize warrant-less administrative services violate article I, section 9 of the Texas Constitution (RQ-1198)

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed its ongoing monitoring of the Forest Service's efforts to improve its financial accountability, focusing on: (1) the historical pattern of the Forest Service's financial management weaknesses; (2) the fundamental problems which the Forest Service must resolve in order to achieve financial accountability; (3) GAO's criteria for placing Forest Service financial management on its high-risk list and what must take place for the agency to be removed from the list; and (4) highlighting corrective measures the agency has under way."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed selected state patient protection provisions already in place and congressional proposals under consideration, focusing on state statutes that relate to seven types of patient protections: (1) coverage of emergency services; (2) access to obstetricians and gynecologists; (3) access to pediatricians; (4) access to other specialists; (5) continuity of care for enrollees whose providers leave the plan; (6) drug formularies; and (7) patient-provider communication."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed its work and observations on federal spending to combat terrorism, focusing on: (1) the foreign-origin and domestic terrorism threat; (2) program growth and other issues raised throughout its work on combating terrorism; and (3) steps the executive branch has taken toward improving crosscutting management and coordination and provide some preliminary observations on the 1998 and 1999 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reports to Congress on governmentwide spending and budgeting to combat terrorism."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed return-to-work issues facing the Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs, focusing on: (1) structural and operational weaknesses in the current DI and SSI programs that impede return to work; (2) factors that working beneficiaries believe are helpful in becoming and staying employed; and (3) challenges that exist in improving program incentives to work."

A statement of record issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the banking, securities, and insurance regulators' efforts to validate their year 2000 preparedness."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO provided information on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) operations and contingency plans for stabilizing the Balkans, focusing on: (1) current and projected security conditions in the Balkans region, particularly with regard to Bosnia and the Serbia province of Kosovo; and (2) the potential impact of these conditions on: (a) prospects for a drawdown of the NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) in Bosnia; (b) NATO's current operations around Kosovo; and (c) NATO and U.S. plans to deploy air and ground forces for resolving the ongoing conflict in Kosovo, in particular, ground operations planned for a permissive environment--one where all parties to the conflict agree to the presence and mission of NATO-led forces."

A statement of record issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Department of Defense's (DOD) implementation of TRICARE, focusing on the extent to which: (1) beneficiaries enrolled in TRICARE are getting timely access to health care; (2) claims for medical services are paid in a timely and accurate manner; (3) DOD and its contractors are identifying and mitigating fraud and abuse in TRICARE; and (4) DOD's pharmacy programs are cost-effective and consistently serve the needs of all beneficiaries."

Our study reveals that supplying gasoline-equivalent demand for the low-market-share scenario requires a capital investment of less than $40 billion for all fuels except H{sub 2}, which will require a total cumulative investment of $150 billion. By contrast, cumulative capital investments under the high-market-share scenario are $50 billion for LNG, $90 billion for ethanol, $100 billion for methanol, $160 billion for CNG and DME, and $560 billion for H{sub 2}. Although these substantial capital requirements are spread over many years, their magnitude could pose a challenge to the widespread introduction of 3X vehicles. Fossil fuel use by US light-duty vehicles declines significantly with introduction of 3X vehicles because of fuel-efficiency improvements for 3X vehicles and because of fuel substitution (which applies to the nonpetroleum-fueled alternatives). Petroleum use for light-duty vehicles in 2030 is reduced by as much as 45% relative to the reference scenario. GHG emissions follow a similar pattern. Total GHG emissions decline by 25-30% with most of the propulsion system/fuel alternatives. For those using renewable fuels (i.e., ethanol and H{sub 2} from solar energy), GHG emissions drop by 33% (H{sub 2}) and 45% (ethanol). Among urban air pollutants, urban NOX emissions decline slightly for 3X vehicles using CIDI …

This effort has undertaken the task of developing a link between the genomics, DNA repair and structural biology efforts within the Biology and Biotechnology Research Program at LLNL. Through the advent of the I.M.A.G.E. (Integrated Molecular Analysis of Genomes and their Expression) Consortium, a world-wide effort to catalog the largest public collection of genes, accepted and maintained within BBRP, it is now possible to systematically express the protein complement of these to further elucidate novel gene function and structure. The work has ensued in four phases, outlined as follows: (1) Gene and System selection; (2) Protein expression and purification; (3) Structural analysis; and (4) biological integration. Proteins to be expressed have been those of high programmatic interest. This includes, in particular, proteins involved in the maintenance of genome integrity, particularly those involved in the repair of DNA damage, including ERCC1, ERCC4, XRCC2, XRCC3, XRCC9, HEX1, APN1, p53, RAD51B, RAD51C, and RAD51. Full-length cDNA cognates of selected genes were isolated, and cloned into baculovirus-based expression vectors. The baculoviral expression system for protein over-expression is now well-established in the Albala laboratory. Procedures have been successfully optimized for full-length cDNA clining into expression vectors for protein expression from recombinant constructs. This includes the …

The objective of this manual is to present guidelines and procedures for the preparation of new data for the Tertiary Oil Recovery Information System (TORIS) data base. TORIS is an analytical system currently maintained by the Department of Energy's (DOE) Bartlesville Project Office. It uses an extensive field- and reservoir-level data base to evaluate the technical and economic recovery potential of specific crude oil reservoirs.

Recent attention has been given to the deployment of an adaptable sensor array realized by multi-robotic systems. Our group has been studying the collective behavior of autonomous, multi-agent systems and their applications in the area of remote-sensing and emerging threats. To accomplish such tasks, an interdisciplinary research effort at Sandia National Laboratories are conducting tests in the fields of sensor technology, robotics, and multi-robotic and multi-agents architectures. Our goal is to coordinate a constellation of point sensors that optimizes spatial coverage and multivariate signal analysis using unmanned robotic vehicles (e.g., RATLERs, Robotic All-ten-sin Lunar Exploration Rover-class vehicles). Overall design methodology is to evolve complex collective behaviors realized through simple interaction (kinetic) physics and artificial intelligence to enable real-time operational responses to emerging threats. This paper focuses on our recent work understanding the dynamics of many-body systems using the physics-based hydrodynamic model of lattice gas automata. Three design features are investigated. One, for single-speed robots, a hexagonal nearest-neighbor interaction topology is necessary to preserve standard hydrodynamic flow. Two, adaptability, defined by the swarm's deformation rate, can be controlled through the hydrodynamic viscosity term, which, in turn, is defined by the local robotic interaction rules. Three, due to the inherent non-linearity of …

Gravanom provides you with a simple, handy tool for modeling gravity data from 2-D geological structures on a personal computer.

Recent space experience has shown that the use of commercial optocouplers can be problematic in spacecraft, such as TOPEX/Poseidon, that must operate in significant radiation environments. Radiation--induced failures of these devices have been observed in space and have been further documented at similar radiation doses in the laboratory. The ubiquitous use of optocouplers in spacecraft systems for a variety of applications, such as electrical isolation, switching and power transfer, is indicative of the need for optocouplers that can withstand the space radiation environment. In addition, the distributed nature of their use implies that it is not particularly desirable to shield optocouplers for use in radiation environments. Thus, it will be important for the space community to have access to radiation hardened/tolerant optocouplers. For many microelectronic and photonic devices, it is difficult to achieve radiation hardness without sacrificing performance. However, in the case of optocouplers, one should be able to achieve both superior radiation hardness and performance for such characteristics as switching speed, current transfer ratio (CTR), minimum power usage and array power transfer, if standard light emitting diodes (LEDs), such as those in the commercial optocouplers mentioned above, are avoided, and VCSELs are employed as the emitter portion of the …

Silicide Schottky contacts can be as large as 0.955 eV (E{sub v} + 0.165 eV) on n-type silicon and as large as 1.05 eV (E{sub c} {minus} 0.07 eV) on p-type silicon. Current models of Schottky barrier formation do not provide a satisfactory explanation of occurrence of this wide variation. A model for understanding Schottky contacts via screened pinning at defect levels is presented. In the present paper it is shown that most transition metal silicides are pinned approximately 0.48 eV above the valence band by interstitial Si clusters. Rare earth disilicides pin close to the divacancy acceptor level 0.41 eV below the conduction band edge while high work function silicides of Ir and Pt pin close to the divacancy donor level 0.21 eV above the valence band edge. Selection of a particular defect pinning level depends strongly on the relative positions of the silicide work function and the defect energy level on an absolute energy scale.

A surface-micromachined MEMS process has been used to demonstrate multiple-input chemical sensing using selectively coated cantilever arrays. Combined hydrogen and mercury-vapor detection was achieved with a palm-sized, self-powered module with spread-spectrum telemetry reporting.

Maganom is a computer program for modeling magnetic data over 2-D structures. The program computes the magnetic anomalies across 2-D structures (models) to allow you to compare observed and computed magnetic data across the model structure. If a match between the computed and the observed magnetic values is unsatisfactory, you construct a new model and rerun Maganom to recalculate new magnetic values. In this way, you can continue calculations until you obtain a satisfactory match between the observed and the calculated values.

The focus of this report is on the results related to evaluation of in situ combustion processes applied to Schrader Bluff. Initially, overall screening processes were applied to determine which of the EOR methods, were most appropriate for Schrader Bluff. In situ combustion was among the methods considered potentially favorable and was evaluated further. Laboratory scale tube runs were conducted to determine if the kinetic parameters for the crude oil were favorable. Additional sensitivity studies were conducted to evaluate the recovery potential. Described in this report are the results of the (1) initial screening,(2) experimental tube runs, and (3) simulation sensitivity studies as related to in situ combustion in Schrader Bluff.

The stated goal of this project was to supply The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) with pure DNA from the bacterium Deinocmus radiodurans RI for purposes of complete genomic sequencing by TIGR. We subsequently decided to expand this project to include a second goal; this second goal was the development of a NotI chromosomal map of D. radiodurans R1 using Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE).

The over-reaching goal of the Groundwater Grand Challenge component of the Partnership in Computational Science (PICS) was to develop and establish the massively parallel approach for the description of groundwater flow and transport and to address the problem of uncertainties in the data and its interpretation. This necessitated the development of innovative algorithms and the implementation of massively parallel computational tools to provide a suite of simulators for groundwater flow and transport in heterogeneous media. This report summarizes the activities and deliverables of the Princeton University component of the Groundwater Grand Challenge project funded through the High Performance Computing grand challenge program of the Department of Energy from 1995 through 1998. Seven institutions were primarily involved in this project: Brookhaven National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Princeton University, SUNY at Stony Brook, Texas A&M University, The University of South Carolina, and the University of Texas at Austin, with contributing efforts from the Westinghouse Savannah River Technology Center. Each institution had primary responsibility for specific research components, but strong collaboration among all institutions was essential for the success of the project and in producing the final deliverables. PICS deliverables include source code for the suite of research simulators and auxiliary HPC …

This report summarizes the work accomplished in the authors laboratories over the previous three years. During the funding period they have had 23 monographs published or in press, 1 book chapter, 1 patent issued and have delivered 28 invited seminars or plenary lectures on DOE sponsored research. This report covers the work that has been published (or accepted). The most notable aspect of this work involves the successful development and understanding of a new class of fused macrocyclic compounds as pseudophases and selectors in high performance separations (including high performance liquid chromatography, HPLC; capillary electrophoresis, CE; and thin layer chromatography, TLC). They have considerably extended their chiral biomarker work from amber to crude oil and coal. In the process of doing this we've developed several novel separation approaches. They finished their work on the new GSC-PLOT column which is now being used by researchers world-wide for the analysis of gases, light hydrocarbons and halocarbons. Finally, we completed basic studies on immobilizing a cyclodextrin/oligosiloxane hybrid on the wall of fused silica, as well as a basic study on the separation behavior of buckminster fullerene and higher fullerenes.

This report summarizes the results of cold testing, completed by AEAT, as part of the proof-of-principle testing for a proposed nested, fixed-depth fluidic sampling system. This sampling system will provide waste samples from the PHMC feed tank to support the privatization contract with BNFL. Proof-of-principle tests were completed with 2 wt% and 10 wt% sand/water and 25 wt% kaolin clay/water simulants with a test setup that spanned the 24 ft to 57 ft height required in the feed tank. The tests demonstrated that the system could pump and sample waste materials with low and with high solids content. In addition, the tests demonstrated a need for some design upgrades to the sampling system, as there was material loss when the sample bottle was removed from the sampling needle. These were complementary tests, completed as part of an EM-50 Tank Focus Area (TFA) to develop a sampling system for validating LAW and HLW waste batches for the Privatization Contract.

This paper describes the use of a ''mesh potential'' function for automatic coarsening of meshes in discrete ordinates neutral particle transport codes. For many transport calculations, a user may find it helpful to have the code determine a ''good'' neutronics mesh. The complexity of a problem involving millions of mesh cells, dozens of materials, and many energy groups makes it difficult to determine an adequate level of mesh refinement with a minimum number of cells. A method has been implemented in PARTISN (Parallel Time-dependent SN) to calculate a ''mesh potential'' in each original cell of a problem, and use this information to determine the maximum coarseness allowed in the mesh while maintaining accuracy in the solution. Results are presented for a simple x-y-z fuel/control/reflector problem.