A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "President Bush has identified the success of global trade talks launched in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001 as one of the United States' top trade policy priorities. Known as the Doha Development Agenda, the talks are an important means of spurring global growth and development. Completing the talks in 2006 was considered essential for an agreement to qualify for streamlined congressional consideration under the U.S. Trade Promotion Authority. However, the talks collapsed in late July 2006 in the face of wide differences over the extent of agricultural reform and how best to promote economic development in poor countries. Efforts to break the deadlock continue. Given the tenuous state of this central plank of U.S. trade policy, GAO updated its series of prior reports. In this report, we assess (1) the overall status of the Doha Round negotiations now and the progress that had been made prior to and since the breakdown of the talks, (2) the substantive divisions among key World Trade Organization (WTO) members that led to an environment of deadlock and the eventual suspension of the negotiations, and (3) the possible economic and other …

Totalview, from the Etnus Corporation, is a sophisticated and feature rich software debugger for parallel applications. As Totalview has gained in popularity and market share its pricing model has increased to the point where it is often prohibitively expensive for massively parallel supercomputers. Additionally, many of Totalview's advanced features are not used by members of the scientific computing community. For these reasons, supercomputing centers have begun to search for a basic parallel debugging tool which can be used as an alternative to Totalview. As the cost and complexity of Totalview has increased over the years, scientific computing centers have started searching for a viable parallel debugging alternative. DDT (Distributed Debugging Tool) from Allinea Software is a relatively new parallel debugging tool which aims to provide much of the same functionality as Totalview. This review outlines the basic features and limitations of DDT to determine if it can be a reasonable substitute for Totalview. DDT was tested on the NERSC platforms Bassi, Seaborg, Jacquard and Davinci with Fortran90, C, and C++ codes using MPI and OpenMP for parallelism.

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Carbon dioxide capture from large stationary sources and storage in geological media is a technologically-feasible mitigation measure for the reduction of anthropogenic emissions of CO2 to the atmosphere in response to climate change. Carbon dioxide (CO2) can be sequestered underground in oil and gas reservoirs, in deep saline aquifers, in uneconomic coal beds and in salt caverns. The Alberta Basin provides a very large capacity for CO2 storage in oil and gas reservoirs, along with significant capacity in deep saline formations and possible unmineable coal beds. Regional assessments of potential geological CO2 storage capacity have largely focused so far on estimating the total capacity that might be available within each type of reservoir. While deep saline formations are effectively able to accept CO2 immediately, the storage potential of other classes of candidate storage reservoirs, primarily oil and gas fields, is not fully available at present time. Capacity estimates to date have largely overlooked rates of depletion in these types of storage reservoirs and typically report the total estimated storage capacity that will be available upon depletion. However, CO2 storage will not (and cannot economically) begin until the recoverable oil and gas have been produced via traditional means. This report describes …

High voltage insulation is one of the main areas of pulsed power research and development, and dielectric breakdown is usually the limiting factor in attaining the highest possible performance in pulsed power devices. For many applications the delivery of pulsed power into a vacuum region is the most critical aspect of operation. The surface of an insulator exposed to vacuum can fail electrically at an applied field more than an order or magnitude below the bulk dielectric strength of the insulator. This mode of breakdown, called surface flashover, imposes serious limitations on the power flow into a vacuum region. This is especially troublesome for applications where high voltage conditioning of the insulator and electrodes is not practical and for applications where relatively long pulses, on the order of several microseconds, are required. The goal of this project is to establish a sound fundamental understanding of the mechanisms that lead to surface flashover, and then evaluate the most promising techniques to improve vacuum insulators and enable high voltage operation at stress levels near the intrinsic bulk breakdown limits of the material. The approach we proposed and followed was to develop this understanding through a combination of theoretical and computation methods coupled …

We consider flux compactification of type IIB string theory as the orientifold limit of an F-theory on a Calabi-Yau fourfold. We show that when supersymmetry is dominantly broken by the axion-dilaton and the contributions of the F-terms associated with complex structure moduli are small, the Hessian of the flux potential always has tachyonic modes for de Sitter vacua. This implies that there exist no meta-stable de Sitter vacua in this limit. Moreover, we find that the stability requirement imposes a relation between the values of cosmological constant and the scale of supersymmetry breaking for non-supersymmetric anti de Sitter vacua in this limit. The proof is general and does rely on the details of the geometry of the compact Calabi-Yau internal space. We finally analyze the consequences of these constraints on the statistics of meta-stable de Sitter vacua and address some other related issues.

A recent study [1] has indicated substantial potential emittance growth in the ILC bunch compressor due to quad misalignments, BPM misalignments, and pitches in the RF cavities. Table 1 summarizes several results from [1]. In this simulation, quad misalignments and cavity pitches are Gaussian distributed and are considered with respect to the nominal survey line; BPM misalignments are also Gaussian-distributed but are considered with respect to the quadrupole axis. It is assumed that the BPM offsets with respect to the quads are found in a previous quad-shunting BBA step which is not simulated. In this study we seek to repeat the studies documented above, and additionally to perform a study in which additional dispersion bumps are used to further reduce the projected emittance.

We are developing an alternative approach to optical probes that will ultimately allow us to measure chemical concentrations in microenvironments within cells and tissues. This approach is based on monitoring the surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) response of functionalized metal nanoparticles (50-100 nm in diameter). SERS allows for the sensitive detection of changes in the state of chemical groups attached to individual nanoparticles and small clusters. We present the development of a nanoscale pH meter. The pH response of these nanoprobes is tested in a cell-free medium, measuring the pH of the solution immediately surrounding the nanoparticles. We developed and used SERS correlation spectroscopy and single particle/cluster SERS spectroscopy to characterize heterogeneities in the SERS signal, which result from the formation of small nanoparticle clusters. These heterogeneities have historically provided inconsistent response to pH, leading a poor sensitivity of {approx}1 pH unit. The response of the nanoscale pH meters is tested under a wide range of conditions to approach the complex environment encountered inside living cells and to optimize probe performance. We have also developed a rapid scanning technique to obtain pH information using confocal microscopic imaging. Together with the development of hollow gold nanoshells with collaborators, this project enables future …

This report discusses federal authority over water, and federal "reserved" and non-reserved water rights. Based on the language of the act and its legislative history, it appears that the act creates federal water rights. The act does not specify the quantity of the right. The amount of the federal right is likely to vary from river to river depending on the river's flows, the unappropriated flows in the river at the time of designation, and the values for which the river is being protected.

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This report provides information about the Clean Air Issues in the 110th Congress like Climate Change, Air Quality Standards, and Oversight.Five bills have been introduced to establish caps on greenhouse gas emission.

Biologics, which are sometimes termed biopharmaceuticals or biotechnology drugs, have begun to play an increasingly important role in U.S. health care. Not only are sales of biologics growing rapidly, some experts estimate that in coming years half of all newly approved drugs will result from biotechnology. This report contains information on marketing approval issues, intellectual property issues, and innovation issues as related to biologics.

This report addresses selected statistics and information guide of Congressional Budget Resolutions.It provides a table of selected optional components, a list of reconciliation measures, and information on the number of years covered by budget resolutions.

This is a directory of sources that congressional offices may use to obtain publications from the Executive Office of the President, the executive departments, and the independent agencies and commissions of the federal government. Also included is information on the Superintendent of Documents, the U.S. Government Printing Office, and the federal government’s printing policies; suggestions on what to do when a publication is out of print; and information on where copies of government publications may be obtained on the Internet.

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The focus of this DOE-funded project has been the study of volatile components in magmas and the atmosphere. Over the twenty-one year period of this project, we have used experimental petrology and stable isotope geochemistry to study the behavior and properties of volatile components dissolved in silicate minerals and melts and glasses. More recently, we have also studied the concentration and isotopic composition of CO2 in the atmosphere, especially in relation to air quality issues in the Los Angeles basin.

The Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) at San Francisco State University (SFSU) has served the cause of energy efficiency as a whole, and in particular for small and medium-sized manufacturing facilities in northern and central California, within a approximately 150 miles (radial) of San Francisco since 1992. In the current reporting period (September 1, 2002 through November 31, 2006) we have had major accomplishments, which include but are not limited to: - Performing a total of 94 energy efficiency and waste minimization audit days of 87 industrial plants - Recommending and analysis of 809 energy efficiency measures - Training 22 energy engineers, most of whom have joined energy services companies in California. - Disseminating energy efficiency information among local manufacturers - Acting as an information source for energy efficiency for local manufacturers and utilizes - Cooperating with local utilities and California Energy Commission in their energy efficiency projects - Performing various assignments by DOE such as dissemination of information on SEN initiative, conducting workshops on energy efficiency issues, contacting large energy user plants - Establishing a course on “Energy: Resources, Alternatives and Conservation” as a general education course at SFSU - Bringing energy issues to the attention of students in classrooms

Since its inception, the University of Florida Industrial Assessment Center has successfully completed close to 400 energy assessments of small to medium manufacturing facilities in Florida, southern Georgia and southern Alabama. Through these efforts, recommendations were made that would result in savings of about $5 million per year, with an implementation rate of 20-25%. Approximately 80 engineering students have worked for the UF-IAC, at least 10 of whom went on to work in energy related fields after graduation. Additionally, through the popular course in Industrial Energy Management, many students have graduated from the University of Florida with a strong understanding and support of energy conservation methods.

This report summarizes requests from individual committees and funding levels reported by the Committee on House Administration, and compares 110th Congress-reported levels to authorizations for House committees in the 109th Congress.

An archaeological survey report of the proposed Grand Prairie water pipeline route in Dallas and Tarrant Counties, Texas, performed to determine whether any historic resources were located on the proposed construction sites.

A report of and archaeological survey of the proposed Hardin Road, White avenue, and 12 acres of overflow swale to be excavated in Wilson Creek's floodplain.