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 passes each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary and Related Agencies.

DNA evidence is a powerful forensic tool in criminal cases. Its use and capabilities have increased substantially since it was first introduced in the late 1980s. That growth has led to the emergence of the following issues that were considered by the 106th Congress in legislative initiatives: eliminating the nationwide backlog of unanalyzed DNA samples, expanding the kinds of offenders who are profiled, providing opportunities for post-conviction testing of DNA evidence, and continuing development of forensic science capabilities. This report discusses those and related issues and the legislation proposed and enacted to address them. It begins by describing provisions in prior federal law and then discusses issues and the legislation proposed, including the enacted DNA Analysis Backlog Elimination Act of 2000 (H.R. 4640, which became P.L. 106-546).

The United States accords permanent normal-trade-relations (NTR) (formerly called most-favored-nation (MFN)) treatment to all its trading partners except six countries to which it is denied by law and 11 countries whose NTR status is temporary and subject to the conditions of Title IV of the Trade Act of 1974.

This report details Iran's efforts to get around U.S. imposed trade restrictions to continue manufacturing weapons of mass destruction. It highlights the countries that Iran collaborated with, as well as the measures put in place by the Clinton Administration which were used to limit the collaboration attempts between Iran and these countries.

Tri-weekly student newspaper from Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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

Funeral program for Carline Annette McVea, born April 16, 1959 and died January 18, 2001. The funeral was held January 26, 2001 at West End Baptist Church, officiated by Dr. A. B. Devers I, Pastor. The funeral arrangements were made through Lewis Funeral Home and she was buried in Meadowlawn Memorial Park in San Antonio, Texas.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The National Defense Stockpile is composed of strategic and critical materials that can be used in times of national emergency. The stockpile was established to minimize dependence on foreign sources of these materials. Because of changes in mobilization planning and modernization of weapon systems, stockpiling requirements for many materials have been reduced dramatically during the last two decades. The Defense Logistic Agency's Defense National Stockpile Center manages the stockpile program and is responsible for the sale of materials that exceed stockpile requirements. Concerns have arisen over whether existing cash balances and projected collections from stockpile gross sales will meet all expected stockpile transaction fund outlays for fiscal years 2000-2010. GAO found that the National Defense Stockpile transaction fund's projected long-term outlays exceed projected collections from gross sales. The projections do not include all likely outlays, so the timing and size of a gap between available funds and outlays is unclear."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) provides a wide range of support to many organizations at home and abroad. GAO estimates that, in fiscal year 1999, DOD provided support in at least 7,125 instances to 345 or more entities, including international organizations; private citizens; and federal, state, local, and foreign governments. This support consumed more than two million military staff-days. GAO could not determine the total cost of DOD's support because of the limited data it received. However, it conservatively estimates the cost to be about $180 million. Providing assistance to civil authorities does not appear to harm retention. DOD data show that overall retention has remained relatively stable during the last decade. There are alternatives to the use of military personnel. DOD and some civil entities have used contractors rather than military personnel for some activities, such as construction, transportation, and medical treatment. There are limitations on the kinds of support that contractors can provide, however. For most of the 197 support instances GAO reviewed that occurred in 1997-99 for the State Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Secret Service, DOD billed and collected about …

A weekly student newspaper from the Rice University in Houston, Texas that includes campus news and commentaries along with advertising.

Semiweekly newspaper from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas that includes local, national, and campus news along with advertising.

An article written by Elizabeth Becker for the New York Times about the acknowledgement of the Republican Unity Coalition and inclusion of gay and lesbian people in ceremonies. The piece also speaks about the opinions of the new president George W. Bush and vice president Dick Cheney.

Weekly newspaper from Dallas, Texas that includes local, state, and national news and advertising of interest to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community.

Interview with Itasco Wilson, who worked as a teacher in Kerrville, Texas. The interview includes her stories of teaching with her husband, B.T. Wilson, and touring with their choir and football team, as well as her community activities.

Interview with Itasco Wilson, who worked as a teacher in Kerrville, Texas. The interview includes her stories of teaching with her husband, B.T. Wilson, and touring with their choir and football team, as well as her community activities.

The objective of this project was to develop an advanced imaging method, including pore scale imaging, to integrate magnetic resonance (MR) techniques and acoustic measurements to improve predictability of the pay zone in two hydrocarbon reservoirs. This was accomplished by extracting the fluid property parameters using MR laboratory measurements and the elastic parameters of the rock matrix from acoustic measurements to create poroelastic models of different parts of the reservoir. Laboratory measurements were compared with petrographic analysis results to determine the relative roles of petrographic elements such as porosity type, mineralogy, texture, and distribution of clay and cement in creating permeability heterogeneity.

In this experiment, we will use synchrotron radiation to measure the density of states of vibrational excitations (phonons.) Each group of students will conduct an experiment at sector 3-ID of the Advanced Photon Source, the nation's premier synchrotron radiation facility. We provide one support staff per group, i.e., Drs. Michael Hu, Sarvjit Shastri, Wolfgang Sturhahn, and Tom Toellner will help their group to perform the experiment and interpret the data. After data collection (1-2 h per group), the remaining time will be spent with evaluation and interpretation. In addition to your own data, we provide similar sets of data. Computer hardware (iMac running as X-terminals) and software for data manipulation will be provided. It is important that you understand the basic principles of the experimental method. Therefore we strongly recommend that you read the next section and the attached article Phonon Density of States Measured by Inelastic Nuclear Resonant Scattering. You are expected to use this description to familiarize yourself with the experimental setup and its individual components before the start of the experiment. You should be able to solve at least 75% of the quiz correctly. If you have particular questions or a general problem in understanding this document, …

Polymer composite materials have been a part of the automotive industry for several decades, with early application in the 1953 Corvette. These materials have been used for applications with low production volumes, because of their shortened lead times and lower investment costs relative to conventional steel fabrication. Important drivers of the growth of polymer composites have been the reduced weight and parts consolidation opportunities the material offers, as well as design flexibility, corrosion resistance, material anisotropy, and mechanical properties. Although these benefits are well recognized by the industry, polymer composite use has been dampened by high material costs, slow production rates, and to a lesser extent, concerns about recyclability. Also impeding large scale automotive applications is a curious mixture of concerns about material issues such as crash energy absorption, recycling challenges, competitive and cost pressures, the industry's general lack of experience and comfort with the material, and industry concerns about its own capabilities (Flynn and Belzowski 1995). Polymer composite materials are generally made of two or more material components--fibers, either glass or carbon, reinforced in the matrix of thermoset or thermoplastic polymer materials. The glass-reinforced thermoset composites are the most commonly used composite in automotive applications today, but thermoplastic composites …

This report includes a discussion of the groundwater flow direction and rate, the groundwater analytical results, and the methane monitoring results.

The recent development of light-weight foams has led to novel light-weight high-strength carbon based materials and structures. These materials exhibit very high specific strengths and low thermal conductivities. Likewise, the novel development of a very high thermal conductivity graphite foam will lead to novel ''out-of-the-box'' solutions for thermal management problems. With a thermal conductivity equivalent to aluminum 6061 and 1/5th the weight, this material is an enabling technology for thermal management problems ranging from heat sinks to radiators and satellite panels to aircraft heat exchangers. The ability to be machined into a heat sink resembling a metallic heat sink, have comparable thermal conductivities to metallic heat sinks, yet be 1/5th the weight is a significant advance to thermal management. However, the foam is not as rugged as the metallic heat sinks in its foamed and graphitized state. Therefore, the material must be rigidized to improve its durability under high demands applications, such as military vehicles. Therefore, this program focuses on several techniques previously conceived to rigidize the foam: carbon CVI, metalization (plating), and polymer coating. These techniques were all explored with success and should lead to improved heat sinks.

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This Operational Requirements Document (ORD) describes the capabilities that need to be incorporated in the NCC interactive simulation system being developed under the auspices of the NCC development program. The ORD addresses the necessary capabilities (i.e. what the system needs to be able to do); it defines the envelope of situations and circumstances that the NCC system must be able to represent and operate within. The NCC system will be developed in modules over a period of several years. This ORD, Version 2, supersedes the previous version. Future updates of this ORD are anticipated to be issued as needed to guide the development of later versions of the NCC system.

This report describes the activities of the U.S. National Committee (USNC) for CODATA from September 16, 1996, through September 14, 2000. The USNC/CODATA counsels the U.S. National Delegate to CODATA on the U.S. position regarding official CODATA business. It also provides a link between the United States and international data compilation and evaluation activities, taking into account the needs of the scientific and technological user community, and undertakes special studies and other actions consistent with the overall CODATA objectives.

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