Numerous Federal agencies -- including the Justice Department and Congressional committees -- are investigating allegations of fraud at the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics Corporation, the nation's third largest defense contractor. This issue brief provides a chronological summary, based on newspaper and magazine accounts, of each of these investigations.

This report discusses the artificial sweeteners have been a source of controversy in the U.S. for over 73 years. One of the factors driving these issues has been an interplay of a large consumer demand for low calorie sweeteners and controversy concerning certain safety standards set forth in the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA.

The United States is now running a deficit of over $100 billion in its foreign trade and the Federal budget is in the red by roughly $200 billion. To deal with these two deficits, Congress is considering a temporary import surcharge. This brief examines the case for and against such a surcharge as well as its use against Japan.

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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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.

A facility manager faced with the challenges of protecting a nuclear facility against potential threats must consider the likelihood and consequences of such threats, know the capabilities of the facility safeguards and security systems, and make informed decisions about the cost-effectivness of safeguards and security upgrades. To help meet these challenges, the San Francisco Operations Office of the Department of Energy, in conjunction with the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, has developed a site-specific threat assessment approach and a quantitative model to improve the quality and consistency of site-specific threat assessment and resultant security upgrade decisions at sensitive Department of Energy facilities. 5 figs.

Experimental techniques are described for shock waves in liquids: Hugoniot equation-of-state, shock temperature and emission spectroscopy, electrical conductivity, and Raman spectroscopy. Experimental data are reviewed and presented in terms of phenomena that occur at high densities and temperatures in shocked He, Ar, N/sub 2/, CO, SiO/sub 2/-aerogel, H/sub 2/O, and C/sub 6/H/sub 6/. The superconducting properties of Nb metal shocked to 100 GPa (1 Mbar) and recovered intact are discussed in terms of prospects for synthesizing novel, metastable materials. Ultrahigh pressure data for Cu is reviewed in the range 0.3 to 6TPa (3 to 60 Mbar). 56 refs., 9 figs., 1 tab.

Early researchers recogniZed the desirable features of the linear Z-pinch configuration as a magnetic fusion scheme. In particular, a Z-pinch reactor might not require auxiliary heating or external field coils, and could constitute an uncomplicated, high plasma ..beta.. geometry. The simple Z pinch, however, exhibited gross MHD instabilities that disrupted the plasma, and the linear Z pinch was abandoned in favor of more stable configurations. Recent advances in pulsed-power technology and an appreciation of the dynamic behavior of an ohmically heated Z pinch have led to a reexamination of the Z pinch as a workable fusion concept.