The Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 (FQPA) amended the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, governing U.S. registration, sale, and use of pesticide products, and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, under which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sets allowable pesticide residue levels for food (tolerances). The FQPA directs EPA to ensure a "reasonable certainty of no harm" due to pesticide exposure and requires reevaluation of 33% of existing tolerances against this new safety standard by August 1999, 66% by August 2002, and 100% by August 2006. The Act direct

This report describes the annual appropriations cycle from the President’s submission of his annual budget through enactment of the appropriations measures. It describes the three types of appropriations measures—regular appropriations bills, continuing resolutions, and supplemental bills. It explains the spending ceilings for appropriations bills that are associated with the budget resolution and the sequestration process, including a description of the mechanisms used to enforce the ceilings. It also explains the authorization appropriations process, which prohibits certain provisions in some of the appropriations bills.

This report discusses the primary steps for drafting a bill in the House. Ideas and recommendations for legislation may come from private sources, such as ordinary citizens or interest groups; executive branch agencies and the White House; state and local initiatives; and, of course, individual Members, committees and other work groups, and party and chamber leaders. Any or all of these entities may also participate in drafting legislation (resolutions as well as bills).

Congress authorized The National Gambling Impact Study Commission ("the Commission") on June 3, 1996 by Public Law 104-169. The Commission is subject to the standards and requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), as amended, with respect to meetings, hearings, and availability of Commission records, and other matters. The implementing statute for the Commission establishes it as an independent commission which is not under the auspices of any executive agency, nor specifically controlled by the legislative or judicial branches of government. The Commission must conduct a comprehensive legal and factual study of the social and economic impacts of gambling on (1) federal, state, local, and Native American tribal governments; and (2) communities and social institutions including the individuals, families, and businesses which compose them.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the regulatory efforts to identify and mitigate risks to U.S. depository institutions' operations introduced by the growth in the use of Internet banking systems, focusing on: (1) the risks posed by Internet banking and the extent of any industrywide Internet banking problems; (2) how the five U.S. financial regulators track institutions' plans to provide Internet banking services; (3) how regulators have begun to examine Internet banking activities; and (4) the extent to which regulators have examined firms providing Internet banking support services to institutions."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed Indian self-determination contracting, focusing on the extent of, and reasons for, increases in contract support costs over the last several years and four alternatives for funding these costs."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO conducted a comprehensive review of the report prepared by Donald T. Bucklin of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), focusing on identifying inaccurate statements found in the Bucklin Report. The Bucklin Report was prepared to assist HUD in its defense against an equal employment opportunity complaint filed by HUD's Deputy Assistant Inspector General."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO identified weaknesses in the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) personnel practices."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Advanced Technology Program (ATP), focusing on: (1) how ATP determines that a delay in a project's progress would be a serious national economic concern; and (2) the number of ATP applications that have been rejected since July 1997 because a delay in progress would not be a serious national economic concern or because the applicants could probably find funding elsewhere."

We report new direct measurements of the Z{sup 0}-lepton coupling asymmetry parameters A{sub e}, A{sub {mu}} and A{sub r}, with polarized Z{sup 0}'s collected by the SLD detector at the SLAC Linear Collider. The parameters are extracted from the measurement of the left-right-forward-backward asymmetries for each lepton species. The 1996, 1997 and 1998 SLD runs are included in this analysis and combined with published data from the 1993-95 runs. Preliminary results are A{sub e} = 0.1558 {+-} 0.0064, A{sub {mu}} = 0.137 {+-} 0.016 and A{sub {tau}} = 0.142 {+-} 0.016. If lepton universality is assumed, a combined asymmetry parameter A{sub l} = 0.1523 {+-} 0.0057 results. This translates into an effective weak mixing angle sin{sup 2} {theta}{sub W}{sup eff} = 0.23085 {+-} 0.00073 at the Z{sup 0} resonance.

The notion of formalized music implies that a musical composition can be described in mathematical terms. In this article we explore some formal aspects of music and propose a framework for an abstract approach.

Three basic core material types for sandwich structure applications are studied. The three two-dimensional pattern types are: honeycomb, triangular cells, and a new configuration involving star type cells. The specific critical properties of stiffness and strength type are identified and studied, both theoretically and experimentally.

Experiments are being developed to shock compress metal foils in the solid state to study the material strength under high compression. The x-ray drive has been characterized and hydrodynamics experiments performed to study growth of the Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability in Al foils at a peak pressure of about 1.8 Mbar. Pre-imposed modulations with an initial wavelength of lo-50 pm, and amplitude of 0.5 pm show growth. Variation in the growth factors may be a result of shot-shot variation in preheating of the Al sample due to emission from the plasma in the hohlraum target

Alumina ceramics, in which berlinite (aluminum orthophosphate, AlPO{sub 4}) is the bonding phase, were synthesized at 150 C. Differential thermal analysis of a mixture of Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} and H{sub 3}PO{sub 4} solution indicated that a minimum temperature of 118 C was necessary for a chemical reaction to occur. Therefore, we hydrothermally cured a mixture of Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} and H{sub 3}PO{sub 4} solution between 130 C and 150 C to form a hard and dense berlinite-bonded alumina ceramic. The intermediate phase of aluminum phosphate hydrate (AlH{sub 3}(PO{sub 4}){sub 2}H{sub 2}O) was also identified. Physical and mechanical properties of this material are discussed.

This STI product consists of the Program/Abstracts book that was prepared for the participants in the Sixth International Conference on Biophysics and Synchrotron Radiation that was held August 4-8, 1998, at the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory. This book contains the full conference program and abstracts of the scientific presentations.

The 6th International Conference on Biophysics and Synchrotron Rdiation was held at the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory, from August 4-8, 1998, with pre-conference activities on August 3. Over 300 attendees and 65 presenters participated in the conference that was collaboratively hosted by the University of Chicago, Center for Advanced Radiation Sources and the Advanced Photon Source.

The Rotary Mode Core Sampling Trucks (RMCSTs) currently use a footclamp that utilizes a wedge design to secure the drill string. On June 18, 1998, a problem occurred while core sampling operations were being conducted. Approximately 28 ft. of drill string was inadvertently dropped into tank 241-SX-102. The root cause of this occurrence was determined to be inadequate or defective design of the footclamp being used. The footclamp in use during this occurrence relied on a wedge-type design that gripped the drill string tighter as the weight of the drill string was increased. The MAXIDRILL Model 3030 Footclamp does not rely on a wedge effect to hold the drill string; it uses spring force to engage the jaws with the drill string. The use of the MAXIDRILL Model 3030 Footclamp should eliminate any further problems of this nature and allow corrective action 2 in section 26 of the related occurrence report (RT-PHMC-TANKFARM-1998-0064) to be completed. Modifications of the base of the MAXIDRILL Model 3030 Footclamp are necessary to decrease the possibility of an injury due to the exposed jaws. Also, the plan for sampling tank 241-2-361 calls for a footclamp that will allow for total containment when the footclamp is …

This document is the final report for tank 241-U-102 grab samples. Five grab samples were collected from riser 13 on May 26, 1999 and received by the 222-S laboratory on May 26 and May 27, 1999. Samples 2U-99-3 and 2U-99-4 were submitted to the Process Chemistry Laboratory for special studies. Samples 2U-99-1, 2U-99-2 and 2U-99-5 were submitted to the laboratory for analyses. Analyses were performed in accordance with the Compatibility Grab Sampling and Analysis Plan for Fiscal year 1999 (TSAP) (Sasaki, 1999) and the Data Quality Objectives for Tank Farms Waste Compatibility Program (DQO) (Fowler 1995, Mulkey and Miller 1998). The analytical results are presented in the data summary report. None of the subsamples submitted for differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), total organic carbon (TOC) and plutonium 239 (Pu239) analyses exceeded the notification limits as stated in TSAP.

Underground storage tanks made of mild steel are used to contain radioactive waste generated by plutonium production at the Hanford Site. Corrosion of the walls of these tanks is a major issue. Corrosion-related failure of waste tank walls could lead to the leakage of radioactive contaminants to the soil and groundwater. It is essential to monitor corrosion conditions of the tank walls to determine tank integrity and ensure safe waste storage until retrieval and final waste disposal can be accomplished. Corrosion monitoring/control is currently provided at the Hanford Site through a waste chemistry sampling and analysis program. In this process, tank waste is sampled, analyzed and compared to a selection of laboratory exposures of coupons in simulated waste. Tank wall corrosion is inferred by matching measured tank chemistries to the results of the laboratory simulant testing. This method is expensive, time consuming, and does not yield real-time data. A project to improve the Hanford Site's corrosion monitoring strategy was started in 1995.

Typed notes from a telephone conversation between Dennis Vercher and Patrick Hancock, member of AMR and GLEAM, on United Airlines decision to offer domestic partner benefits.

The parametric grid capability of the Knowledge Base (KBase) provides an efficient robust way to store and access interpolatable information that is needed to monitor the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. To meet both the accuracy and performance requirements of operational monitoring systems, we use an approach which combines the error estimation of kriging with the speed and robustness of Natural Neighbor Interpolation. The method involves three basic steps: data preparation, data storage, and data access. In past presentations we have discussed in detail the first step. In this paper we focus on the latter two, describing in detail the type of information which must be stored and the interface used to retrieve parametric grid data from the Knowledge Base. Once data have been properly prepared, the information (tessellation and associated value surfaces) needed to support the interface functionality, can be entered into the KBase. The primary types of parametric grid data that must be stored include (1) generic header information; (2) base model, station, and phase names and associated ID's used to construct surface identifiers; (3) surface accounting information; (4) tessellation accounting information; (5) mesh data for each tessellation; (6) correction data defined for each surface at each node …

Data authentication is required for certification of sensor stations in the International Monitoring System (IMS). Authentication capability has been previously demonstrated for continuous waveform stations (seismic and infrasound). This paper addresses data surety for the radionuclide stations in the IMS, in particular the Radionuclide Aerosol Sampler/Analyzer (RASA) system developed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Radionuclide stations communicate data by electronic mail using formats defined in IMS 1.0, Formats and Protocols for Messages. An open message authentication standard exists, called S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions), which has been proposed for use with all IMS radionuclide station message communications. This standard specifies adding a digital signature and public key certificate as a MIME attachment to the e-mail message. It is advantageous because it allows authentication to be added to all IMS 1.0 messages in a standard format and is commercially supported in e-mail software. For command and control, the RASA system uses a networked Graphical User Interface (GUI) based upon Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) communications, which requires special authentication procedures. The authors have modified the RASA system to meet CTBTO authentication guidelines, using a FORTEZZA card for authentication functions. They demonstrated signing radionuclide data messages at the RASA, then …

Mines at regional distances are expected to be continuing sources of small, ambiguous events which must be correctly identified as part of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) monitoring process. Many of these events are small enough that they are only seen by one or two stations, so locating them by traditional methods maybe impossible or at best leads to poorly resolved parameters. To further complicate matters, these events have parametric characteristics (explosive sources, shallow depths) which make them difficult to identify as definite non-nuclear events using traditional discrimination methods. Fortunately, explosions from the same mines tend to have similar waveforms, making it possible to identify an unknown event by comparison with characteristic archived events that have been associated with specific mines. In this study we examine the use of hierarchical cluster methods to identify groups of similar events. These methods produce dendrograms, which are tree-like structures showing the relationships between entities. Hierarchical methods are well-suited to use for event clustering because they are well documented, easy to implement, computationally cheap enough to run multiple times for a given data set, and because these methods produce results which can be readily interpreted. To aid in determining the proper threshold value for …

Superpolished optical flats with high spatial frequency roughness below 0.1 nm have been commercially available for years. However, it is much more difficult to obtain figured optics of similar quality. We have obtained and tested the finish of figured optics from different vendors by atomic force microscopy and optical profilometry and have investigated how the substrate quality can be improved by the deposition of thin films. We have determined the growth parameters of several thin-film structures. From these parameters we can determine how the surface topography of a coated mirror differs from that of the substrate, select the best thin-film structure, and predict the possible improvement. Keywords: Smoothing films, multilayer coatings, finish of mirror substrates