Recording of the eighth public hearing held by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States on March 23, 2004 at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The two-day hearing investigated the formulation and conduct of U.S. counterterrorism policy, with particular emphasis on the period from the August 1998 embassy bombings to September 11, 2001. In addition to witness testimony, four staff statements were delivered during the course of the proceedings. This section includes the staff statement on diplomacy, in addition to the panel on counterterrorism policy with testimony from Madeline K. Albright.

Recording of the eighth public hearing held by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States on March 23, 2004 at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The two-day hearing investigated the formulation and conduct of U.S. counterterrorism policy, with particular emphasis on the period from the August 1998 embassy bombings to September 11, 2001. In addition to witness testimony, four staff statements were delivered during the course of the proceedings. This section continues the panel on counterterrorism policy with testimony from Colin L. Powell and Richard Armitage.

Recording of the eighth public hearing held by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States on March 23, 2004 at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The two-day hearing investigated the formulation and conduct of U.S. counterterrorism policy, with particular emphasis on the period from the August 1998 embassy bombings to September 11, 2001. In addition to witness testimony, four staff statements were delivered during the course of the proceedings. This section continues the panel on counterterrorism policy with testimony from William S. Cohen.

Recording of the eighth public hearing held by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States on March 23, 2004 at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. The two-day hearing investigated the formulation and conduct of U.S. counterterrorism policy, with particular emphasis on the period from the August 1998 embassy bombings to September 11, 2001. In addition to witness testimony, four staff statements were delivered during the course of the proceedings. This section concludes the panel on counterterrorism policy with testimony from Donald H. Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Myers.

On July 22, 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, known as the 9/11 Commission, issued its final report, detailing the events up to and including the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks upon the United States. The 9/11 Commission recommended that the Senate adopt rules requiring hearings and votes to confirm or reject national security nominees within 30 days of their submission at the start of each new presidential administration. Implementing the commission's proposal would involve imposing new restrictions on both the power of committee chairs to control the agenda of their committees and the rights of Senators to delay or block nominations through holds and extended debate. This report discusses in detail this proposal, how it could be implemented, and the potential effects of its implementation.

This report includes shop acceptance test results. The test was performed prior to installation at tank AZ-101. Both the camera system and camera purge system were originally sought and procured as a part of initial waste retrieval project W-151.

The Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on 2004 Gordon Research Conference on Reversible Associations in Structure & Molecular Biology was held at Four Points Sheraton, CA, 1/25-30/2004. The Conference was well attended with 82 participants (attendees list attached). The attendees represented the spectrum of endeavor in this field coming from academia, industry, and government laboratories, both U.S. and foreign scientists, senior researchers, young investigators, and students.

This Gordon conference will cover the areas of structural, functional and evolutionary genomics. It will take a systematic approach to genomics, examining the evolution of proteins, protein functional sites, protein-protein interactions, regulatory networks, and metabolic networks. Emphasis will be placed on what we can learn from comparative genomics and entire genomes and proteomes.

ENERGY STAR(R) is a voluntary labeling program designed toidentify and promote energy-efficient products, buildings and practices.Operated jointly by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and theU.S. Department of Energy (DOE), ENERGY STAR labels exist for more thanthirty products, spanning office equipment, residential heating andcooling equipment, commercial and residential lighting, home electronics,and major appliances. This report presents savings estimates for a subsetof ENERGY STAR labeled products. We present estimates of the energy,dollar and carbon savings achieved by the program in the year 2006, whatwe expect in 2007, and provide savings forecasts for two marketpenetration scenarios for the periods 2007 to 2015 and 2007 to 2025. Thetarget market penetration forecast represents our best estimate of futureENERGY STAR savings. It is based on realistic market penetration goalsfor each of the products. We also provide a forecast under the assumptionof 100 percent market penetration; that is, we assume that all purchasersbuy ENERGY STAR-compliant products instead of standard efficiencyproducts throughout the analysis period.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A complete and accurate census is becoming an increasingly daunting task, in part because the nation's population is growing larger, more diverse, and more reluctant to participate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (Bureau). When the census misses a person who should have been included, it results in an undercount, and the differential impact on various subpopulations, such as minorities, is particularly problematic. This testimony provides an update on the Bureau's readiness to implement its Integrated Communications Campaign, one of several efforts aimed at reducing the undercount. GAO focused on the campaign's key components: partnerships with local and national organizations, paid advertising and public relations, and Census in Schools (designed to reach parents and guardians through their school-age children). GAO also discusses the extent to which the rollout of the campaign is consistent with factors important for greater accountability and successful results. This testimony is based on previously issued work, ongoing reviews of relevant documents, and interviews with key Bureau officials."

There has long been interest in the use of oxygenated hydrocarbon additives to conventional fuels. These oxygenates have been shown to reduce soot emissions in diesel engines and CO emissions in spark-ignition engines; and often allow diesel operation with decreased NO{sub x}. The current widely used additive, MTBE is targeted for elimination as a gasoline additive due to its damaging effects on the environment. This creates a need for alternative oxygenated additives; and more importantly, amplifies the importance to fully understand the thermochemical and kinetic properties on these oxyhydrocarbons fuels and for their intermediate and radical breakdown products. We use CBS-Q and density-functional methods with isodesmic reactions (with group balance when possible) to compute thermodynamic quantities for these species. We have studied hydrocarbons with multiple substituted methoxy groups. In several cases, multioxygenated species are evaluated that may have potential use as new oxygenated fuel additives. Thermodynamic quantities (H{sub 298}{sup 0}, S{sub 298}{sup 0}, C{sub p}(T)) as well as group additivity contributions for the new oxygenated groups are reported. We also report trends in bond-energies with increasing methoxy substitution.

In this article the authors concisely present several modern strategies that are applicable to drift-dominated carrier transport in higher-order deterministic models such as the drift-diffusion, hydrodynamic, and quantum hydrodynamic systems. The approaches include extensions of upwind and artificial dissipation schemes, generalization of the traditional Scharfetter-Gummel approach, Petrov-Galerkin and streamline-upwind Petrov Galerkin (SUPG), entropy variables, transformations, least-squares mixed methods and other stabilized Galerkin schemes such as Galerkin least squares and discontinuous Galerkin schemes. The treatment is representative rather than an exhaustive review and several schemes are mentioned only briefly with appropriate reference to the literature. Some of the methods have been applied to the semiconductor device problem while others are still in the early stages of development for this class of applications. They have included numerical examples from the recent research tests with some of the methods. A second aspect of the work deals with algorithms that employ unstructured grids in conjunction with adaptive refinement strategies. The full benefits of such approaches have not yet been developed in this application area and they emphasize the need for further work on analysis, data structures and software to support adaptivity. Finally, they briefly consider some aspects of software frameworks. These include dial-an-operator approaches …

This report discusses the current political state of Afghanistan, focusing particularly on the influence of the Taliban and other militant groups and on the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. This report also discusses the U.S.-Afghanistan relationship and U.S. efforts under the Obama Administration to provide military, reconstructive, and stabilization aid.

This report provides an overview of Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spending on HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome) as well as budget numbers for other federal government programs targeting HIV/AIDS.

This report is one of a series that profiles the emergency management and homeland security statutory authorities of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and three territories (American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands). Each profile identifies the more significant elements of state statutes, generally as codified. This report focuses on the state of Alabama.

This paper describes the design, fabrication and testing of the Anti-Coincidence Detector (ACD) for the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) Large Area Telescope (LAT). The ACD is LAT's first-level defense against the charged cosmic ray background that outnumbers the gamma rays by 3-5 orders of magnitude. The ACD covers the top and 4 sides of the LAT tracking detector, requiring a total active area of {approx}8.3 square meters. The ACD detector utilizes plastic scintillator tiles with wave-length shifting fiber readout. In order to suppress self-veto by shower particles at high gamma-ray energies, the ACD is segmented into 89 tiles of different sizes. The overall ACD efficiency for detection of singly charged relativistic particles entering the tracking detector from the top or sides of the LAT exceeds the required 0.9997.

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 Interior Appropriations Subcommittees.

This report provides appropriations of Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs for FY2004.

Monthly newsletter discussing news and activities related to the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program, articles about weather and atmospheric phenomena, and other related topics.

The United States Air Force Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratories (PMEL) calibrate over 1,000 anemometer probes per year. To facilitate a more efficient calibration process for probe-style anemometers, the Air Force Metrology and Calibration Program underwent an effort to modernize the existing PMEL bench top wind tunnels. Through a joint effort with the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the performance of PMEL wind tunnels was improved. The improvement consisted of new high accuracy sensors, automatic data acquisition, and a software-driven calibration process. As part of the wind tunnel upgrades, an uncertainty analysis was completed, laser Doppler velocimeter profiling was conducted to characterize the velocities at probe locations in the wind tunnel, and pitot tube calibrations of the wind tunnel were verified. The bench top wind tunnel accuracy and repeatability has been measured for nine prototype wind tunnel systems and valuable field experience has been gained with these wind tunnels at the PMELs. This report describes the requirements for the wind tunnel improvements along with actual implementation strategies and details. Lessons-learned from the automation, the velocity profiling, and the software-driven calibration process will also be discussed.

The project undertaken by the Salix Consortium is a multi-phased, multi-partner endeavor. Phase 1 focused on initial development and testing of the technology and forging the necessary agreements to demonstrate commercial willow production. The Phase 1 objectives have been successfully completed: preparing design plans for 2 utility pulverized coal boilers for 20 MW of biopower capacity; developing fuel supply plans for the project with a goal of establishing 365 ha (900 ac) of willow; obtaining power production commitments from the power companies for Phase 2; obtaining construction and environmental permits; and developing an experimental strategy for crop production and power generation improvements needed to assure commercial success. The R and D effort also addresses environmental issues pertaining to introduction of the willow energy system.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The structure of the budget process can help ensure that budget decision makers are presented with the information and choices for timely and informed decisionmaking. GAO's long-term budget simulations show that, absent substantive entitlement reform and/or dramatic changes in tax and spending policies, we will face large, escalating, and persistent deficits. A budget process incorporating new metrics and mechanisms that better signal the long-term commitments and promises made by the government will help concentrate decision makers' efforts on long-term sustainability."

This report discusses the concerns over financing federal elections campaigns in the aspect of our political system.

On March 19, 2001, the Senate began consideration of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. The bill–S. 27 (Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2001)–was introduced on January 22, 2001 by Senators McCain, Feingold, Cochran et al. It features a ban on the raising of soft money by national parties, a ban on the spending of soft money by state and local parties on federal election-related activities (as defined), and a disclosure requirement for electioneering messages not regulated by federal election law, along with a ban on their funding from union or for-profit corporation treasuries. Another bill receiving considerable Senate attention is S. 22 (Open and Accountable Campaign Financing Act of 2001), introduced on January 22, 2001 by Senators Hagel, Landrieu et al. It features limits on soft money donations to national parties, increases in hard money contribution limits, and a requirement that broadcasters make information available on groups engaging in issue advocacy. This report provides a summary and comparison of these two measures, according to various categories.