This issue brief discusses the Airport Improvement Program and its complement, the Passenger Facility Charge (PFC). After a brief history of federal support for airport construction and improvement, the report describes AIP funding, its source of revenues, funding distribution, the types of projects the program funds, AIP and PFC policy issues, and the allowable use of AIP funds for airport security purposes.

This report discuses lumber imports from Canada and provides a concise historical account of the dispute, summarizes the subsidy and injury evidence, and discusses the current issues and events.

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The Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-296) makes the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responsible for providing assistance to state and local governments to ensure adequate preparedness for all disasters, including terrorist attacks. Several federal entities with functions relating to state and local preparedness, ranging from entire independent agencies to units of agencies and departments, will be transferred to the new department.

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Among the current issues in U.S.-Egyptian relations are the shared concerns over the terrorist attacks against Egyptian police, religious, government, and tourist facilities, and what those attacks maysignal for Egypt’s domestic stability. The two nations may disagree over Egypt’s interpretation of applying human rights practices to Islamic terrorists. The two countries disagree over the speed and depth, but not the need for some of Egypt’s economic reforms. Egypt and the United States agree on the importance of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, the need to continue current Arab-Israel peace talks, and the need for regional stability. The two nations agree on Egypt’s determination to introduce democratic reforms to Egypt.

Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress considers each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittees.

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This is one part in the series of reports that provide a background and analysis, and most recent developments regarding broadband or high-speed Internet access. The report starts out by answering questions; what is broadband and why is it important? This report also discusses broadband technologies, the status of broadband deployment and the related policy issues, as well as the legislation in congress.

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Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Authority of a municipal judge to examine the state's witnesses if the state is not represented by counsel when the case is called for trial (RQ-0628-JC)

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "With the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program taking effect in 1997, child care assistance became a significant strategy for helping welfare recipients move into the workforce and for helping other low-income families stay off welfare. Since 1997, states have used federal funds from the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) and TANF along with state funds to expand child care assistance programs. However, given the current budget problems in most states and the competing demands for TANF and state funds, it is possible that states have changed their child care policies and the availability of child care assistance to low-income families."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "On November 21, 2002, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invited seven countries to join the alliance. To facilitate congressional consideration of NATO enlargement, the U.S. Senate mandated in 1998 that GAO review and assess the reports the Senate directed the President to provide on countries invited to join NATO. The President submitted the required reports to Congress on March 25, 2003. To fulfill its mandate, GAO determined if (1) the reports met the Senate's requirements and the information was accurate and current, (2) the methodology for assessing the likely impact on NATO's military effectiveness was reasonable, and (3) the methodology for analyzing the ability of the invited countries to fulfill the full range of financial burdens of NATO membership was reasonable."

A divergence-free, parameter-free, path-based discrete-time quantum dynamics is designed to not only enlarge the achievements of general relativity and the standard particle model, by approximations at spacetime scales far above Planck scale while far below Hubble scale, but to allow tackling of hitherto inaccessible questions. ''Path space'' is larger than and precursor to Hilbert-space basis. The wave-function-propagating paths are action-carrying structured graphs-cubic and quartic structured vertices connected by structured ''fermionic'' or ''bosonic'' ''particle'' and ''nonparticle'' arcs. A Planck-scale path step determines the gravitational constant while controlling all graph structure. The basis of the theory's (zero-rest-mass) elementary-particle Hilbert space (which includes neither gravitons nor scalar bosons) resides in particle arcs. Nonparticle arcs within a path are responsible for energy and rest mass.

We report upon recent experimental measurements made of RF properties of the intercell assembly of the second axis accelerator[1] of Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test (DARHT) facility at LANL. The intercells provide both pumping and diagnostic access to the main DARHT-II beamline. Their design includes a pumping plenum separated from the main beam pipe by return current rods together with RF shielding provided by a copper-coated stainless steel mesh. Measurements using the twin lead technique (see Ref. [2]) at low frequencies (f < 200 MHz) suggest a constant value for the ratio h of the radial and azimuthal magnetic field components to which the transverse impedance is linearly related. We find that these results compare favorably to predictions from a simple analytic, lumped circuit model which includes the effects of the mesh and return current rods. We also present RF loop-to-loop frequency scans above beam pipe cutoff ({approx}600 MHz) showing the existence of many RF modes with relatively high Q's.

Since the early 1950's Savannah River Site (SRS) has received over 100 million gallons of waste into the F and H Tank Farms, commonly known as the High Level Waste System (HLW) system. This waste was neutralized, insoluble sludge settled, and supernate was evaporated to form saltcake such that as of January 2003 only 37 million gallons of waste is stored in F and H tank farm. This waste contains approximately 417 million curies of radioactivity and includes approximately 3 million gallons of sludge and 34 million gallons of salt waste. Additionally, 5 million curies have already been dispositioned by the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) into glass canisters. The Accelerated Clean-up Plan (ACP)1 will result in the acceleration of risk reduction by emptying HLW tanks sooner, shipping HLW glass canisters and Transuranic Waste (TRU) to their geologic repositories sooner and decommissioning the F Canyon facilities and other excess facilities sooner. This document discusses the planned disposition of the material currently stored in the HLW System.

This report focuses on an assessment of melt rate for various frit/sludge combinations. The results provided should not be used as the sole decision-making tool, but they are an important input into the decision making process with respect to the SB3 frit.

Frequency Selective Surfaces/Volumes (FSS/Vs), periodic structures with frequency selective properties, have widely been used for millimeter and microwave applications. Some applications include filters (band pass, band stop), reflectors, radoms etc. FSS/Vs typically consist of a single or multiple material layers. Multiple layers (with each layer having a different frequency selectivity) are used for broadband applications. In recent years there has been an interest in using these structures at optical wavelengths. One of the applications is in thermophotovoltaic filters used to convert thermal energy into electricity. The filter is designed to transmit those wavelengths that can be efficiently converted into electricity, and to reflect other spectra, which leads to energy conservation and an increase in overall system efficiency. These filters can be used in space missions to help decrease energy consumption and reduce spacecraft mass, cost, and fuel loading. Numerical simulations of such filters are very limited in the literature. Existing modeling approaches are based on the assumption of purely metallic (perfectly conducting) structures on substrates. however, in practice, metals have finite conductivity that can lead to power absorption in the metal. At optical frequencies the usual material properties and perfect electric conductor (PEC) assumption is not applicable. Moreover, the conventional …

A cross-platform component for EPICS Simple Channel Access (SCA) has been developed. EPICS client programs with GUI become portable at their C++ source-code level both on Windows and Linux by using Borland C++ Builder 6 and Kylix 3 on these platforms respectively.

The OXY-operated Class 2 Project at West Welch is designed to demonstrate how the use of advanced technology can improve the economics of miscible CO{sub 2} injection projects in lower quality Shallow Shelf Carbonate reservoirs. The research and design phase (Budget Period 1) primarily involved advanced reservoir characterization. The current demonstration phase (Budget Period 2) is the implementation of the reservoir management plan for an optimum miscible CO{sub 2} flood design based on the reservoir characterization. Although Budget Period 1 for the Project officially ended 12/31/96, reservoir characterization and simulation work continued during the Budget Period 2. During the seventh annual reporting period (8/3/00-8/2/01) covered by this report, work continued on interpretation of the interwell seismic data to create porosity and permeability profiles which were distributed into the reservoir geostatistically. The initial interwell seismic CO{sub 2} monitor survey was conducted and the acquired data processed and interpretation started. Only limited well work and facility construction were conducted in the project area. The CO{sub 2} injection initiated in October 1997 was continued, although the operator had to modify the operating plan in response to low injection rates, well performance and changes in CO{sub 2} supply. CO{sub 2} injection was focused in …