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In the 107th Congress, the most prominent air quality issue has been whether state and federal regulations designed to protect air quality are having a negative impact on energy production, and, if so, whether legislation should be enacted to reform such regulations. The early discussion focused primarily on California, but with the release of the Administration’s energy policy recommendations in May 2001 and subsequent congressional action, attention shifted to issues more national in scope.

This report discusses the Issues for Congress on Fruits and Vegetables.The primary law that exclusively serves the produce industry is the perishable agriculture commodities act in the 1930(PACA).

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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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether the City of Lake Jackson's sales and use tax election proposition allows expenditure of the taxes for an access road to service underdeveloped commercially zoned property (RQ-0454-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether article III, section 50 of the Texas Constitution prohibits the Texas Commission for the Blind from contracting with the United States government to operate various vending facilities on federal property under the Federal Randolph-Sheppard Act, 20 U.S.C. ch. 6A, if the contract "create[s] financial exposure to the State for a multi-million dollar service agreement with...Federal Departments" (RQ-0455-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a member of a school district board of trustees may simultaneously hold the office of county treasurer (RQ--458-JC)

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, John Cornyn, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Validity of a school district policy regarding corporal punishment and physical restraint of students.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) was, for the second consecutive year, able to prepare financial statements that received an unqualified opinion. However, this achievement once again came through the use of substantial, costly, and time-consuming processes to compensate for serious systems and control deficiencies. IRS continues to make progress in its performance management system by using a strategic planning and budgeting process to reconcile competing priorities and initiatives with available resources. In the area of computer security, IRS corrected or mitigated many of the previously reported weaknesses, including those affecting its electronic filing systems. It also is implementing a computer security program that should help manage its risks in this area. Business Systems Modernization is IRS' ongoing program to leverage information technology and is integral to IRS achieving its customer-focused vision. To date, IRS has made progress in establishing the systems infrastructure, delivering system applications, and developing the management controls and capabilities necessary to effectively acquire and deploy modernized systems."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report examines the progress the District of Columbia has made with its fiscal year 2001 performance accountability report and highlights continuing challenges facing our nation's capital. The District must submit a performance accountability plan with goals for the coming fiscal year and, at the end of the fiscal year, a performance accountability report on the extent to which it achieved these goals. GAO found that the District's Performance Accountability Report for Fiscal Year 2001 provided a more complete picture of its performance and made progress in complying with statutory reporting requirements by using a consistent set of goals. This allowed the District to measure and report progress toward the goals in its 2001 performance plan. Specifically, it reported information on the level of performance achieved, the titles of managers and their supervisors responsible for each goal, and described the status of certain court orders. The District has made progress over the last three years in its performance accountability reports and established positive direction for enhancements in court orders, its fiscal year 2003 performance based budgeting pilots, and performance goals and measures."

Roof bolting is the most popular method for underground openings in the mining industry, especially in the bedded deposits such as coal, potash, salt etc. In fact, all U.S. underground coal mine entries are roof-bolted as required by law. However, roof falls still occur frequently in the roof bolted entries. The two possible reasons are: the lack of knowledge of and technology to detect the roof geological conditions in advance of mining, and lack of roof bolting design criteria for modern roof bolting systems. This research is to develop a method for predicting the roof geology and stability condition in real time during roof bolting operation. Based on such information, roof bolting design criteria for modern roof bolting systems will be developed for implementation in real time. More laboratory tests have been performed in this quarter. The analysis performed on the testing data showed: (1) abnormal rotational accelerations can be used as the indicator of the rock interfaces, and (2) the sharp drops of drilling thrust and torque agree well with the locations of fractures.

Indoor exposure to particles of outdoor origin constitutes an important exposure pathway. We conducted an intensive set of indoor particle measurements in an unoccupied house under differing operating conditions. Real-time measurements were conducted both indoors and outdoors, including PM2.5 nitrate, sulfate, and carbon. Because the time-scale of the fluctuations in outdoor particle concentrations and meteorological conditions are often similar to the time constant for building air exchange, a steady state concentration may never be reached. The time-series experimental data were used to determine the effect of changes in air exchange rate and indoor/outdoor temperature and relative humidity differences on indoor particle concentrations. A multivariate regression was performed to investigate the difference between measured indoor concentrations and results from a simple time-dependent physical model. Environmental conditions had a significant effect on indoor concentrations of all three PM2.5 species, but did not explain all of the model variation.

Carbon-doped GaN was grown by plasma-assisted molecular-beam epitaxy using carbon tetrachloride vapor as the dopant source. For moderate doping mainly acceptors were formed, yielding semi-insulating GaN. However at higher concentrations p-type conductivity was not observed, and heavily doped films (>5 x 10{sup 20} cm{sup -3}) were actually n-type rather than semi-insulating. Photoluminescence measurements showed two broad luminescence bands centered at 2.2 and 2.9 eV. The intensity of both bands increased with carbon content, but the 2.2 eV band dominated in n-type samples. Intense, narrow ({approx}6 meV) donor-bound exciton peaks were observed in the semi-insulating samples.

In past work for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), PCR+ was developed as an alternative methodology for building statistical models. PCR+ is an extension of Principal Components Regression (PCR), in which the eigenvectors resulting from Principal Components Analysis (PCA) are used as predictor variables in regression analysis. The work was motivated by the observation that most heavy-duty diesel (HDD) engine research was conducted with test fuels that had been ''concocted'' in the laboratory to vary selected fuel properties in isolation from each other. This approach departs markedly from the real world, where the reformulation of diesel fuels for almost any purpose leads to changes in a number of interrelated properties. In this work, we present new information regarding the problems encountered in the conventional approach to model-building and how the PCR+ method can be used to improve research on the relationship between fuel characteristics and engine emissions. We also discuss how PCR+ can be applied to a variety of other research problems related to diesel fuels.

This quarterly report documents significant achievements in the Enhanced Practical Photosynthetic CO{sub 2} Mitigation project during the period from 1/3/2001 through 4/02/2002. Most of the achievements are milestones in our efforts to complete the tasks and subtasks that constitute the project objectives, and we are currently on schedule to complete Phase I activities by 10/2002, the milestone date from the original project timeline. As indicated in the list of accomplishments below, we are continuing to evaluate candidate organisms and growth surfaces, and we are expanding the test facilities in preparation for scaled up system-level testing. Specific results and accomplishments for the first quarter of 2002 include: Organisms and Growth Surfaces: (1) Isolate 1.2 s.c. (2) has been selected for further investigations because of its favorable growth properties. (2) Research on optimal conditions for the growth of cyanobacterial isolates from YNP should be carried out using distilled water which has more stable chemical parameters, although tap water use may be permissible during full scale operations (at the cost of longer organism doubling times). (3) Tr. 9.4 WF is able to generate a biofilm on an Omnisil surface. Over the long term Omnisil does not inhibit the growth of TR 9.4 isolate, …

The ''Snowmass Points and Slopes'' (SPS) are a set of benchmark points and parameter lines in the MSSM parameter space corresponding to different scenarios in the search for Supersymmetry at present and future experiments. This set of benchmarks was agreed upon at the 2001 ''Snowmass Workshop on the Future of Particle Physics'' as a consensus based on different existing proposals.

The Higgs boson search has shifted from LEP2 to the Tevatron and will subsequently move to the LHC. Due to the different initial states, the Higgs production and decay channels relevant for Higgs boson searches were different at LEP2 to what they are at hadron colliders. They suggest new benchmark scenarios for the MSSM Higgs boson search at hadron colliders that exemplify the phenomenology of different parts of the MSSM parameter space. Besides the m{sub h}{sup max} scenario and the no-mixing scenario used in the LEP2 Higgs boson searches, they propose two new scenarios. In one the main production channel at the LHC, gg {yields} h, is suppressed. In the other, important Higgs decay channels at the Tevatron and at the LCH, h {yields} b{bar b} and h {yields} {tau}{sup +}{tau}{sup -}, are suppressed. All scenarios evade the LEP2 constraints for nearly the whole M{sub A}-tan {beta}-plane.

We have studied the nuclear-coupled thermal-hydraulic stability of boiling water reactors (BWRs) using a model that includes: space-time modal neutron kinetics based on spatial w-modes; single- and two-phase flow in parallel boiling channels; fuel rod heat conduction dynamics; and a simple model of the recirculation loop. The BR model is represented by a set of time-dependent nonlinear ordinary differential equations, and is studied as a dynamical system using the modern bifurcation theory and nonlinear dynamical systems analysis. We first determine the stability boundary (SB) - or Hopf bifurcation set- in the most relevant parameter plane, the inlet-subcooling-number/external-pressure-drop plane, for a fixed control rod induced external reactivity equal to the 100% rod line value; then we transform the SB to the practical power-flow map used by BWR operating engineers and regulatory agencies. Using this SB, we show that the normal operating point at 100% power is very stable, that stability of points on the 100% rod line decreases as the flow rate is reduced, and that operating points in the low-flow/high-power region are least stable. We also determine the SB that results when the modal kinetics is replaced by simple point reactor kinetics, and we thereby show that the first harmonic …

In this talk the authors investigate the dark matter prospects for supersymmetric models with non-universal gaugino masses. They motivate the use of non-universal gaugino masses from several directions, including problems, with the current favorite scenario, the cMSSM. They then display new corridors of parameter space that allow an acceptable dark matter relic density once gaugino mass universality is relaxed. They finish with a specific string-derived model that allows this universality relaxation and then use the dark matter constraint to make specific statements about the hidden sector of the model.

We are undertaking a systematic study at Argonne National Laboratory to evaluate the uniaxial creep behavior of V-Cr-Ti alloys in a vacuum environment as a function of temperature in the range of 650-800 C and at applied stress levels of 75-380 MPa. Creep strain in the specimens is measured by a linear-variable-differential transducer, which is attached between the fixed and movable pull rods of the creep assembly. Strain is measured at sufficiently frequent intervals during testing to define the creep strain/time curve. A linear least-squares analysis function is used to ensure consistent extraction of minimum creep rate, onset of tertiary creep, and creep strain at the onset of tertiary creep. Creep test data, obtained at 650, 700, 725, and 800 C, showed power-law creep behavior. Extensive analysis of the tested specimens is conducted to establish hardness profiles, oxygen content, and microstructural characteristics. The data are also quantified by the Larson-Miller approach, and correlations are developed to relate time to rupture, onset of tertiary creep, times for 1 and 2% strain, exposure temperature, and applied stress.

The ion source and Low-Energy Transport (LEBT) system that will provide H{sup -} ion beams to the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS)** Front End and the accelerator chain have been developed into a mature unit that fully satisfies the operational requirements through the commissioning and early operating phases of SNS. Compared to the early R&D version, many features of the ion source have been improved, and reliable operation at 6% duty factor has been achieved producing beam currents in the 35-mA range and above. LEBT operation proved that the purely electrostatic focusing principle is well suited to inject the ion beam into the RFQ accelerator, including the steering and pre-chopping functions. This paper will discuss the latest design features of the ion source and LEBT, give performance data for the integrated system, and report on commissioning results obtained with the SNS RFQ and Medium-Energy Beam Transport (MEBT) system. Prospects for further improvements will be outlined in concluding remarks.