Sub-Saharan Africa has been far more severely affected by AIDS than any other part of the world. The United Nations reports that 25.3 million adults and children are infected with the HIV virus in the region, which has about 10% of the world's population but more than 70% 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.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) relied on its 11 coal-burning plants to supply 60 percent of its electric power in fiscal year 2001. These plants account for almost all of TVA's emissions of two key air pollutants--sulfur dioxide (SO2), which has been linked to reduced visibility, and nitrogen oxides (NOx), which contribute to the formation of harmful ozone. To meet an increase in demand of 1.7 percent annually through 2010, TVA estimates that it will need to expand its current generating capacity of 30,365 megawatts by 500 megawatts annually. Building new generating capacity can produce more emissions, which raises environment concerns. To lessen the need for new capacity, TVA and other electricity suppliers promote the efficient use of electricity through "demand-side management" programs, which seek to reduce the amount of energy consumed or to change the time of day when it is consumed. Even though TVA intends to increase its capacity to generate electricity through 2005, it also expects to reduce its SO2 and NOx emissions during the same time period, primarily by burning lower-sulfur coal, installing devices to control emissions at its existing plants, and …

This report shows that while lawmakers work towards final passage of new authorizing legislation, Congress has appropriated more than $3 billion to the Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS) to increase bioterrorism preparedness at the federal, state, and local levels. HHS anti-bioterrorism funding was included in the FY2002 Labor-HHSEducation appropriations bill and in the $20 billion emergency spending package that was attached to the FY2002 Defense appropriations bill. Until the new authorizing legislation is enacted, HHS is dispersing the funds according to existing authorities and the broad parameters set out in the appropriations bills.

The September 11th attack and subsequent intentional release of anthrax spores via the U.S. postal system have focused policymakers’ attention on the preparedness and response capability of the nation’s public health system. The anthrax attacks put a tremendous strain on the U. S. public health infrastructure, an infrastructure that many experts argue has been weakened by years of neglect and under-funding. To better understand the preparedness gaps that exist, as well as the disparate functions and agencies that define public health in this country, the Congressional Research Service (CRS), in conjunction with George Washington University’s National Health Policy Forum (NHPF), convened a seminar on October 26, 2001, entitled, The U.S. Health Care System: Are State and Local Officials Prepared for Bioterrorism? How Should the Federal Government Assist?

This paper presents a coupled thermal-hydrological-mechanical (THM) analysis of the Drift Scale Test (DST) conducted at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The DST is a large-scale, long-term thermal test designed to investigate coupled thermal-mechanical-hydrological-chemical behavior in a fractured, welded tuff rock mass in support of nuclear waste isolation efforts. The model used for this analysis utilizes temperature distributions predicted by a thermal-hydrological code as input to a distinct element thermal mechanical code. This paper presents a brief discussion of the test and the coupled model, followed by comparison of predicted and measured displacements. Results show that the model predicts the trend and magnitude of the displacements observed in a cross section monitored in the test through four years of heating. Maximum principal stress levels of 60 MPa are predicted in the crown and floor of the heated drift (HD) after 4 years of heating. Comparison of predicted and observed displacements shows that the model closely predicts vertical displacement above the HD and provides a good estimate of horizontal displacement perpendicular to the HD. These results indicate that a thermal expansion coefficient of 9e-6/{Lambda}C is generally appropriate for the rockmass forming this test. Normal displacements on joints in the cross section examined here …

We implemented a new concept for heavy element chemistry research using an ion separator to separate the desired products from the beam, transfer products and other undesirable by-products prior to chemical studies. First, a Recoil product Transfer Chamber (RTC) was designed and attached to the Berkeley Gas-filled Separator (BGS) to collect and transfer the recoiling products to the chemical separation system. The RTC consists of a wire-grid-supported thin mylar foil ({le}) 200 {micro}g/cm{sup 2} that separates the BGS detector chamber, at 1.3 mbar pressure, from the chemistry system at different pressures ranging from 480 mbar to 2000 mbar. The overall transport efficiency ranged between 30% and 15%, compared to the activity measured in the focal plane detector of the BGS. The CTS was designed as a separation and {alpha}-decay detection system for the highly volatile tetroxides of osmium and hassium, element 108. The CTS, shown in figure 1, consists of two rows of 32-{alpha} detectors arranged along a negative temperature gradient. The tetroxides adsorb on the surface of one of the silicone photodiodes at a certain deposition temperature, and the nuclide is then identified by the {alpha}-decay. To test the CTS with the expected hassium homologue osmium, different {alpha}-active osmium …

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Under the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the Department of Energy's (DOE) acquisition regulations, DOE can reimburse its contractors for reasonable legal costs associated with cases brought against them in such matters as equal opportunity employment, radiation and toxic exposure, personal injury, and wrongful discharge. Such costs are not reimbursable if there is liability related to the contractor's willful misconduct, lack of good faith, or failure to exercise prudent business judgment. In practice, DOE reimburses its contractors for most of the legal costs. From fiscal year 1995 through the third quarter of fiscal year 2001, there have been more than 2,100 cases and DOE has reimbursed its contractors more than $290 million for associated litigation and disposition costs. The contractors have spent $13 million in their defense. In the same time period, there have been nearly 400 equal employment opportunity cases for which DOE reimbursed its contractors $53 million. The contractors spent $2 million."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the Farm Credit Administration's (FCA) regulation of the Farm Credit System (System) to ensure compliance with its statutory mission to serve young, beginning, and small farmers (YBS). FCA has issued YBS-related policies and guidance, designed and implemented a YBS examination protocol, and examined institutions for compliance with YBS requirements. However, FCA has not promulgated regulations to define standards and clarify what constitutes an acceptable YBS program. GAO also found that FCA failed to follow examination procedures and document examination conclusions in the YBS program. Slightly more than half of the institutions in the System had a YBS program or service in place. Nearly one third had set numerical goals for YBS service, although most were not conducting demographic studies. Half had YBS marketing and outreach efforts in place, and most were coordinating their YBS offerings with federal, state, or other governmental or private credit sources."

Fracture deformations were measured in a 3m x 3m x 4.5m block of Topopah Spring tuff as part of a larger effort to characterize coupled thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical processes in an isolated rock mass subjected to a one-dimensional thermal gradient. The fracture deformations were measured in three orthogonal directions at 17 points on the vertical faces of the block over a time span of 19 months. Eight fractures, including a major sub-horizontal fracture near the top of the block and five large, sub-vertical fractures, were selected for study. The data provide point measurements of apparent aperture change and slip motions parallel and perpendicular to the block faces. The fracture aperture and slip motions, though only a few tenths of a millimeter, form a significant portion of the total block deformation. The data reveal some fairly complex behaviors, such as nonuniform slip motions along individual fractures and sub-vertical fractures that sometimes open and close simultaneously at different elevations. Slip motions along sub-vertical fractures near the heater plane were relatively large and well correlated with temperature. The heating phase deformations were only partially recovered during cool-down. The fracture deformation data show that fractures deformed in conjunction with water movements and associated temperature fluctuations during …

Argonne National Laboratory has developed a process to immobilize waste salt containing fission products, uranium, and transuranic elements as chlorides in a glass-bonded ceramic waste form. This salt was generated in the electrorefining operation used in electrometallurgical treatment of spent Experimental Breeder Reactor-II fuel. The ceramic waste process culminated with a hot isostatic pressing operation. This paper reviews the installation and operation of a hot isostatic press in a radioactive environment. Processing conditions for the hot isostatic press are presented for non-irradiated material and irradiated material. Sufficient testing was performed to demonstrate that a hot isostatic press could be used as the final step of the processing of ceramic waste for the electrometallurgical spent fuel treatment process.

This report discusses the context of India - U.S relations, and its bilateral issues.

Leakage of lithium through cracks in the first wall of EVOLVE was analyzed for two limiting cases, which are simplified versions of the real case, where the lithium enters the cracks as liquid and flashes to vapor phase within the first wall. Leakage rates were calculated for the cases of liquid lithium flow and lithium vapor flow. Inasmuch as the coolant pressure is close to the saturation pressure, the limiting case of lithium vapor flow should be closer to reality. The impact of lithium leakage on first-wall cooling and plasma contamination is discussed.

This project develops Fuel-Flexible Reburning (FFR), which combines conventional reburning and Advanced Reburning (AR) technologies with an innovative method of delivering coal as the reburning fuel. The FFR can be retrofit to existing boilers and can be configured in several ways depending on the boiler, coal characteristics, and NO{sub x} control requirements. Fly ash generated by the technology will be a saleable byproduct for use in the cement and construction industries. FFR can also reduce NO{sub x} by 60%-70%, achieving an emissions level of 0.15 lb/10{sup 6} Btu in many coal-fired boilers equipped with Low NO{sub x} Burners. Total process cost is expected to be one third to one half of that for Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR). Activities during reporting period included design, manufacture, assembly, and shake down of the coal gasifier and pilot-scale testing of the efficiency of coal gasification products in FFR. Tests were performed in a 300 kW Boiler Simulator Facility. Several coals with different volatiles content were tested. Data suggested that incremental increase in the efficiency of NO{sub x} reduction due to the gasification was more significant for less reactive coals with low volatiles content. Experimental results also suggested that the efficiency of NO{sub x} reduction …

Present-day global anthropogenic emissions contribute more than half of the mass in submicron particles primarily due to sulfate and carbonaceous aerosol components derived from fossil fuel combustion and biomass burning. These anthropogenic aerosols modify the microphysics of clouds by serving as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and enhance the reflectivity of low-level water clouds, leading to a cooling effect on climate (the Twomey effect or first indirect effect). The magnitude of the first aerosol indirect effect is associated with cloud frequency as well as a quantity representing the sensitivity of cloud albedo to changes in cloud drop number concentration. This quantity is referred to as cloud susceptibility [Twomey, 1991]. Analysis of satellite measurements demonstrates that marine stratus clouds are likely to be of higher susceptibility than continental clouds because of their lower number concentrations of cloud drops [Platnick and Twomey, 1994]. Here, we use an improved version of the fully coupled climate/chemistry model [Chuang et al., 1997] to calculate the global concentrations Of sulfate, dust, sea salt, and carbonaceous aerosols (biomass smoke and fossil fuel organic matter and black carbon). We investigated the impact of anthropogenic aerosols on cloud susceptibility and calculated the associated changes of shortwave radiative fluxes at the …

Report on the Peace Corps and the proposal to double its size, including funding concerns, safety concerns, aid priorities, and more.

Identifying transcriptional regulatory elements represents a significant challenge in annotating the genomes of higher vertebrates. We have developed a computational tool, rVISTA, for high-throughput discovery of cis-regulatory elements that combines transcription factor binding site prediction and the analysis of inter-species sequence conservation. Here, we illustrate the ability of rVISTA to identify true transcription factor binding sites through the analysis of AP-1 and NFAT binding sites in the 1 Mb well-annotated cytokine gene cluster1 (Hs5q31; Mm11). The exploitation of orthologous human-mouse data set resulted in the elimination of 95 percent of the 38,000 binding sites predicted upon analysis of the human sequence alone, while it identified 87 percent of the experimentally verified binding sites in this region.

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This paper focuses on the design consideration, fabrication processes and preliminary testing of the stretchable micro-electrode array. We are developing an implantable, stretchable micro-electrode array using polymer-based microfabrication techniques. The device will serve as the interface between an electronic imaging system and the human eye, directly stimulating retinal neurons via thin film conducting traces and electroplated electrodes. The metal features are embedded within a thin ({approx}50 micron) substrate fabricated using poly (dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), a biocompatible elastomeric material that has very low water permeability. The conformable nature of PDMS is critical for ensuring uniform contact with the curved surface of the retina. To fabricate the device, we developed unique processes for metalizing PDMS to produce robust traces capable of maintaining conductivity when stretched (5%, SD 1.5), and for selectively passivating the conductive elements. An in situ measurement of residual strain in the PDMS during curing reveals a tensile strain of 10%, explaining the stretchable nature of the thin metalized devices.

The interactions of N2O with H-ZSM-5 and Fe-ZSM-5 have been investigated using infrared spectroscopy and temperature-programmed reaction. Fe-ZSM-5 samples with Fe/Al ratios of 0.17 and 0.33 were prepared by solid-state exchange. It was determined that most of the iron in the samples of Fe-ZSM-5 is in the form of isolated cations, which have exchanged with Bronsted acid H+ in H-ZSM-5. The infrared spectrum of N2O adsorbed on H-ZSM-5 at 298 K exhibits bands at 2226 and 1308 cm-1 associated with vibrations of the N-N and N-O bonds, respectively. The positions of these bands relative to those seen in the gas phase suggest that N2O adsorbs through the nitrogen end of the molecule. The heat of N2O adsorption in H-ZSM-5 is estimated to be 5 kcal/mol. In the case of Fe-ZSM-5, additional infrared bands are observed at 2282 and 1344 cm-1 due to the interactions of N2O with the iron cations. Here too, the directions of the shifts in the vibrational features relative to those for gas-phase N2O suggest that the molecule adsorbs through its nitrogen end. The heat of adsorption of N2O on the Fe sites is estimated to be 16 kcal/mol. The extent of N2O adsorption on Fe depends …

This report briefly describes the budget sequestration process, including the ways in which a sequester could be avoided under the regular process, and then discusses in more detail various techniques that have been used since FY1991 to prevent a sequester by intervening in the regular process.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

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This paper focuses on a process to design and build a web-based system to assist staff in day-to-day management and contemporaneous documentation of their work. Other groups that want to use web technology to support their work could apply the approach presented here, but the design itself pertains to a particular set of issues in a unique context. Each user must apply the approach to identify their objectives and design a site to meet them. The main question that the Energy Efficiency Standards Group addressed was: ''How can we facilitate documentation of interim results and final products while conducting a complex, interdependent set of analyses by multiple authors under time pressures for delivering a final product?'' The approach to address this question includes categorization of the components of the work, discussions with staff, development of infrastructure support for documentation, implementation of the documentation process and integration with the workflow, and follow- up with staff. The search for a solution raised a number of issues such as the need for a thorough understanding of the work, consensus building by inclusion of key staff, and deliverable scheduling to allow for contemporaneous documentation. Documentation results vary among the product analyses, from extensive internal …