A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Migration from the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and Palau has had a significant impact on Guam, Hawaii, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The health and education needs of these migrants have particularly affected the budgetary resources of Guam and the CNMI. The budgetary impact on Hawaii is smaller but is expected to grow as Hawaii absorbs health care costs once covered by the U.S. government. Public health is an important concern for all three U.S. island areas. Migrants from the region with limited financial means are able to enter the United States with few restrictions, and U.S. island areas are absorbing much of the health care costs of this population. Furthermore, Guam, Hawaii, and the CNMI can be expected to continue to experience migration as long as weak economic conditions persist in Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. Targeting future U.S. assistance to Micronesia and the Marshall Islands for education and health purposes could reduce some of the motivation to migrate. Improvements in migrant health and education status might be expected to reduce immigration to U.S. destinations."

Reconciliation report with an ending account balance of $434.54 reconciled for the period ending on October 5, 2001. Also, an invoice from Fastsigns to Stonewall Democrats of $55.21 on September 5, 2001.

Many common scrap substitutes such as direct reduced iron pellets (DRI), hot briquetted iron (HBI), iron carbide, etc., contain significantly higher levels of phosphorus steelmaking for the production of higher quality steels, control of phosphorus levels in the metal will become a concern. This study has developed a more complete understanding of the behavior of phosphorus in DRI during EAF steelmaking, through a thorough investigation of the kinetics and thermodynamics of phosphorus transfer in the EAF based upon laboratory and plant experiments and trials. Laboratory experiments have shown that phosphorus mass transfer between oxide and metallic phases within commercial direct reduced iron pellets occurs rapidly upon melting according to the local equilibrium for these phases. Laboratory kinetic experiments indicate that under certain conditions, phosphorus mass transfer between slag and metal is influenced by dynamic phenomena, which affect the mass transfer coefficient for the reaction and/or the slag metal interfacial area. Plant trials were conducted to directly evaluate the conditions of mass transfer in the electric furnace and to determine the effects of different scrap substitute materials upon the slag chemistry, the behavior of phosphorus in the steel, and upon furnace yield. The data from these trials were also used to …

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Automatic grouping of voluminous data into meaningful structures is a challenging task frequently encountered in broad areas of science, engineering and information processing. These data clustering tasks are frequently performed in Euclidean space or a subspace chosen from principal component analysis (PCA). Here we describe a space obtained by a nonlinear scaling of PCA in which data objects self-aggregate automatically into clusters. Projection into this space gives sharp distinctions among clusters. Gene expression profiles of cancer tissue subtypes, Web hyperlink structure and Internet newsgroups are analyzed to illustrate interesting properties of the space.

Technologies are being developed by the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Nuclear Facility sites to convert low-level and mixed (hazardous and radioactive) wastes to a solid stabilized waste form for permanent disposal. One of the alternative technologies is vitrification into a borosilicate glass waste form. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has declared vitrification the Best Demonstrated Available Technology (BDAT) for high-level radioactive mixed waste and produced a Handbook of Vitrification Technologies for Treatment of Hazardous and Radioactive Waste. The DOE Office of Technology Development (OTD) has taken the position that mixed waste needs to be stabilized to the highest level reasonably possible to ensure that the resulting waste forms will meet both current and future regulatory specifications. Stabilization of low level and hazardous wastes in glass are in accord with the 1988 Savannah River Technology Center (SRTC), then the Savannah River Laboratory (SRL), Professional Planning Committee (PPC) recommendation that high nitrate containing (low-level) wastes be incorporated into a low temperature glass (via a sol-gel technology). The investigation into this new technology was considered timely because of the potential for large waste volume reduction compared to solidification into cement.

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This report discusses the roles and duties of party leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives.