A statement of record issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The nation's transportation systems have become increasingly congested, and pressure on them is expected to grow substantially in the future. Most transportation experts think a multifaceted approach is needed to address congestion and improve mobility. One potential tool is congestion pricing, that is, charging users a toll, fee, or surcharge for using transportation infrastructure during certain peak periods of travel. Pilot projects to test this approach are currently under way in the United States and the technique has been used more extensively abroad. Interest in the usefulness of congestion pricing has been growing, as evidenced by several recent proposals. However, there have also been concerns raised about the fairness of such practices to some users of transportation systems. GAO was asked to identify (1) the potential benefits that can be expected from pricing congested transportation systems, approaches to using congestion pricing in transportation systems, and the implementation challenges that such pricing policies pose, and (2) examples of projects in which pricing of congested transportation systems has been applied to date, and what these examples reveal about potential benefits or challenges to implementation. This statement is …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Over 65 percent of American households currently subscribe to cable television service. There has been increasing concern that cable television rates have been rising aster than the rate of inflation for the last few years. As required, on a yearly basis, FCC prepares a report on cable rates in areas that face and those that do not face effective competition--a term defined by statute. For information used in this report, FCC maintains information on the competitive status of cable franchises and annually surveys a sample of cable franchises. GAO examined (1) the reliability of information that cable companies provided to FCC in its annual survey regarding cost factors underlying cable rate increases and (2) FCC's process for updating and revising cable franchise classifications as to whether they face effective competition."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony provides information on two important tools state insurance regulators use to oversee the market activities of insurance companies--market analysis and market conduct examinations. Market analysis is generallly done in the state insurance departments. It consists of gathering and integrating information about insurance companies' operations in order to monitor market behavior and identify potential problems at an early stage. Market conduct examinations, which are generally done on site, are a review of an insurer's marketplace practices. The examination is an opportunity to verify data provided to the department by the insurer and to confirm that companies' internal controls and operational processes result in compliance with state laws and regulations. Specifically, this testimony focuses on (1) the states' use of market analysis and examinations in market regulation, and (2) the effectiveness of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' (NAIC) efforts to improve these oversight tools and encourage the states to use them."

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas Senate and House of Representatives relating to extolling the benefits of space flight and of the importance in maintaining its support to continue the legacy of the space shuttle Columbia and her crew.

In this quarter, our primary effort has been focused on model verification, emphasizing on consistency in result for parallel and serial simulation runs, Progress has been made in refining the parallel thermal algorithms and in diminishing discretization effects in the contact region between the rollers and slab. We have received the metrology data of the ingot profile at the end of the fifth pass from Alcoa. Detailed comparisons between the data and the initial simulation result are being performed. Forthcoming from Alcoa are modifications to the fracture model based on additional experiments at lower strain rates. The original fracture model, was implemented in the finite element code, but damage in the rolling simulation was not correct due to the modeling errors at lower strain rates and high stress triaxiality. Validation simulations for the fracture model will continue when the experimentally-based adjustments to the parameter values become available.

This report outlines the shifts in the South Korean polity since the election of 2002 which exposed the generational divide in South Korea with younger people more apt to criticize the United States, particularly on matters pertaining to North Korea and US military presence on the Korean Peninsula. The report also discusses these developments, particularly the rise in anti-Americanism and how it impacts American policy towards North Korea.

Wiggler insertions are expected to occupy a significant portion of the lattice of the Next Linear Collider (NLC) Main Damping Rings (MDR) and have a noticeable impact on the single-particle beam dynamics. Starting from a realistic 3D representation of the magnetic fields we calculate the transfer maps for the wigglers, accounting for linear and nonlinear effects, and we study the beam dynamics with particular attention paid to the Dynamic Aperture(DA). A DA reduction is observed but appears to remain within acceptable limits.

Among hazardous materials those which are most dangerous fall into three categories: chemical, biological, and radioactive. The DOT hazard classes for these three categories are Hazard Class 2.3 (poisonous gases) and 6.1 (toxic substances) for chemical hazards, Hazard Class 6.2 (infectious substances) for biological hazards and Hazard Class 7 for radioactive material (RAM) hazards. The packaging requirements for chemical and biological hazards are outlined and compared with RAM packaging requirements. RAM packages are found to be able to withstand much more severe performance tests than packages for other, more lethal hazards.

The confinement of auxiliary heated NSTX discharges is discussed. The energy confinement time in plasmas with either L-mode or H-mode edges is enhanced over the values given by the ITER97L and ITER98Pby(2) scalings, being up to 2-3 times L-mode and 1.5 times H-mode. TRANSP calculations based on the kinetic profile measurements reproduce the magnetics-based determination of stored energy and the measured neutron production rate. Power balance calculations reveal that, in a high power neutral beam heated H-mode discharge, the ion thermal transport is near neoclassical levels, and well below the electron thermal transport, which is the main loss channel. Perturbative impurity injection techniques indicate the particle diffusivity to be slightly above the neoclassical level in discharges with L-mode edge. High-harmonic fast-wave (HHFW) bulk electron heating is described and thermal transport is discussed. Thermal ion transport is found to be above neoclassical level, but thermal electron transport remains the main loss mechanism. Evidences of an electron thermal internal transport barrier obtained with HHFW heating are presented. A description of H-mode discharges obtained during HHFW heating is presented.

This procedure provides instructions for assembling the following contact-handled (CH) packaging payloads: - Drum payload assembly - Standard Waste Box (SWB) assembly - Ten-Drum Overpack (TDOP) In addition, this procedure also provides operating instructions for the TRUPACT-II CH waste packaging. This document also provides instructions for performing ICV and OCV preshipment leakage rate tests on the following packaging seals, using a nondestructive helium (He) leak test: - ICV upper main O-ring seal - ICV outer vent port plug O-ring seal - OCV upper main O-ring seal - OCV vent port plug O-ring seal.

Accurate timing of ultrafast x-ray probe pulses emitted from a synchrotron radiation source with respect to the signal initiating a process in the sample under study is critical for the investigation of structural dynamics in the femtosecond regime. We describe schemes for achieving accurate timing of femtosecond x-ray synchrotron radiation pulses relative to a pump laser, where x-rays pulses of <100 fs duration are generated from the proposed LUX source based on a recirculating superconducting linac. We present a description of the timing signal generation and distribution systems to minimize timing jitter of the x-rays relative to the experimental lasers.

Over the course of this project, many significant discoveries have been made in the process for the conversion of sorbitol to value added products. The object was developing a process for the production of propylene glycol (PG), ethylene glycol (EG), and glycerol from sorbitol.

Mercury TMDLs (Total Maximum Daily Loads) are a regulatory instrument designed to reduce the amount of mercury entering a water body and ultimately to control the bioaccumulation of mercury in fish. TMDLs are based on a BAF (bioaccumulation factor), which is the ratio of methyl mercury in fish to dissolved methyl mercury in water. Analysis of fish tissue and aqueous methyl mercury samples collected at a number of locations and over several seasons in a 118 km reach of the Savannah River demonstrated that species specific BAFs varied by factors of three to eight. Factors contributing to BAF variability were location, habitat and season related differences in fish muscle tissue mercury levels and seasonal differences in dissolved methyl mercury levels. Overall (all locations, habitats, and seasons) average BAFs were 3.7 x 106 for largemouth bass, 1.4 x 106 for sunfishes, and 2.5 x 106 for white catfish. Inaccurate and imprecise BAFs can result in unnecessary economic impact or insufficient protection of human health. Determination of representative and precise BAFs for mercury in fish from large rivers necessitates collecting large and approximately equal numbers of fish and aqueous methyl mercury samples over a seasonal cycle from the entire area and all …

We present an updated design for a proposed source of ultra-fast synchrotron radiation pulses based on a recirculating superconducting linac, in particular the incorporation of EUV and soft x-ray production. The project has been named LUX - Linac-based Ultrafast X-ray facility. The source produces intense x-ray pulses with duration of 10-100 fs at a 10 kHz repetition rate, with synchronization of 10 s fs, optimized for the study of ultra-fast dynamics. The photon range covers the EUV to hard x-ray spectrum by use of seeded harmonic generation in undulators, and a specialized technique for ultra-short-pulse photon production in the 1-10 keV range. High-brightness rf photocathodes produce electron bunches which are optimized either for coherent emission in free-electron lasers, or to provide a large x/y emittance ration and small vertical emittance which allows for manipulation to produce short-pulse hard x-rays. An injector linac accelerates the beam to 120 MeV, and is followed by four passes through a 600-720 MeV recirculating linac. We outline the major technical components of the proposed facility.

Daily newspaper from Baytown, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The limited cavity beam loading conditions anticipated for the Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA) create a situation where microphonic-induced cavity detuning dominates radio frequency (RF) coupling and RF system architecture choices in the linac design process. Where most superconducting electron and proton linacs have beam-loaded bandwidths that are comparable to or greater than typical microphonic detuning bandwidths on the cavities, the beam-loaded bandwidths for many heavy-ion species in the RIA driver linac can be as much as a factor of 10 less than the projected 80-150 Hz microphonic control window for the RF structures along the driver, making RF control problematic. While simply overcoupling the coupler to the cavity can mitigate this problem to some degree, system studies indicate that for the low-{beta} driver linac alone, this approach may cost 50% or more than an RF system employing a voltage controlled reactance (VCX) fast tuner. An update of these system cost studies, along with the status of the VCX work being done at Lawrence Livermore National Lab is presented here.

To produce four short x-ray pulses for radiography, the second-axis of the Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test facility (DARHT-II) will use a fast kicker to select current pulses out of the 2-ms duration beam provided by the accelerator. Beam motion during the kicker voltage switching could lead to dilution of the time integrated beam spot and make the spot elliptical. A large elliptical x-ray source produced by those beams would degrade the resolution and make radiographic analysis difficult. We have developed a tuning strategy to eliminate the spot size dilution, and tested the strategy successfully on ETA-II with the DARHT-II kicker hardware.

An energy analyzer system is being built for the DARHT-II accelerator similar to the energy analyzer used on the Astron accelerator. This system consists of a scattering wire, magnetic bend, and null signal detector. The wire thickness of 40 mil carbon and the scattering angle of 11 degrees is chosen for good signal to noise ratio. The dipole bend angle is 60 degrees, with a 30 cm radius of curvature. The image-plane focal distance is chosen for the required energy resolution. The energy resolution and acceptance are 0.1% and {+-}5% with a time response of 10 nsec. The wire must survive the 2{micro}sec 2kA, 18.4 MeV DARHT-II beam. The MCNP code was used to study the wire scattered properties. The scattered beam fills the available 1x2 cm dipole aperture. The dispersion normal to the beam direction is 0.43 cm%. The detector is a PIN diode array which determines the beam position on the chip. This array consists of 40 2.5x0.1x0.25 mm bins with a gain in excess of 10000. The system will be installed in the space between the debris blocker and the cruncher solenoid up-stream from the shuttle dump.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is developing statistical methods for determining the amount of geophysical surveys conducted along transects (swaths) that are needed to achieve specified levels of confidence of finding target areas (TAs) of anomalous readings and possibly unexploded ordnance (UXO) at closed, transferring and transferred (CTT) Department of Defense (DoD) ranges and other sites. The statistical methods developed by PNNL have been coded into the UXO module of the Visual Sample Plan (VSP) software code that is being developed by PNNL with support from the DoD, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). (The VSP software and VSP Users Guide (Hassig et al, 2002) may be downloaded from http://dqo.pnl.gov/vsp.) This report describes and documents the statistical methods developed and the calculations and verification testing that have been conducted to verify that VSPs implementation of these methods is correct and accurate.

Shack-Hartmann based Adaptive Optics system with a point-source reference normally use a wave-front sensing algorithm that estimates the centroid (center of mass) of the point-source image 'spot' to determine the wave-front slope. The centroiding algorithm suffers for several weaknesses. For a small number of pixels, the algorithm gain is dependent on spot size. The use of many pixels on the detector leads to significant propagation of read noise. Finally, background light or spot halo aberrations can skew results. In this paper an alternative algorithm that suffers from none of these problems is proposed: correlation of the spot with a ideal reference spot. The correlation method is derived and a theoretical analysis evaluates its performance in comparison with centroiding. Both simulation and data from real AO systems are used to illustrate the results. The correlation algorithm is more robust than centroiding, but requires more computation.

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This report provides information about A Brief History and Summary of Recent Supreme Court Decisions and Proposed Constitutional Amendment on Flag Protection.This report is divided into two reports.The first report gives a brief history of the flag protection issue and the other summarizes the two decisions of the United States supreme court.

This article presents the results of a dense and intensive X-ray and optical monitoring of the narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy NGC 4051 carried out in 2000.

Weekly newspaper from Emory, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.