On February 27, 2003, House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner introduced H.R. 975, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2003. Subcommittee hearings were held on March 4, and the legislation was marked-up and ordered to be reported by the full committee on March 12. This report provides an overview of selected major provisions of the legislation.

A facility to characterize the airflow at the exit of HVAC registers was designed and fabricated. The objective of this work is to obtain velocity and turbulence data at the exit of registers, which can then be used as an input boundary condition in a modern Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code to predict the velocity and temperature distribution in an enclosure, and also the register performance parameters such as throw. During the course of this work, two commonly used registers were tested. Both registers were 8 inch x 4 inch sidewall registers. Laser Doppler Velocimetry was used to measure the axial and vertical components of the velocity vector at various locations across the face of the registers. For the two cases of registers studied here, the results suggest that the velocity field at the very exit of each of these registers scales with the flow rate through the registers. This means that, in the mode of operation in which the supply fan (of an HVAC system) has a ''High'' and ''Low'' setting, similar velocity scaling would result for the type of registers tested here.

Advanced Technology Systems, Inc. (ATS) was contracted by the U. S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE-NETL) to develop a state-of-the-art, scalable and robust web-accessible database application to manage the extensive data sets resulting from the DOE-NETL-sponsored ambient air monitoring programs in the upper Ohio River valley region. The data management system was designed to include a web-based user interface that will allow easy access to the data by the scientific community, policy- and decision-makers, and other interested stakeholders, while providing detailed information on sampling, analytical and quality control parameters. In addition, the system will provide graphical analytical tools for displaying, analyzing and interpreting the air quality data. The system will also provide multiple report generation capabilities and easy-to-understand visualization formats that can be utilized by the media and public outreach/educational institutions. The project is being conducted in two phases. Phase 1, which is currently in progress and will take twelve months to complete, will include the following tasks: (1) data inventory/benchmarking, including the establishment of an external stakeholder group; (2) development of a data management system; (3) population of the database; (4) development of a web-based data retrieval system, and (5) establishment of an internal quality assurance/quality …

The first section of this report explains how these excludable dividend amounts (EDAs) work and how they affect the value of corporate tax preferences. The second section of the report details alternative approaches and their effects on corporate tax subsidies. The next section of the report explores the rationale for EDAs. The final section concludes with a review of general policy issues, including a discussion of the general types of corporate tax preferences currently allowed and a discussion of possible alternative approaches.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "A key element of the President's Management Agenda is the expansion of electronic government (e-government) to enhance access to information and services, particularly through the Internet. In response, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) established a task force that selected a strategic set of initiatives to lead this expansion. GAO previously reviewed the completeness of the information used for choosing and overseeing these initiatives, including business cases and funding plans."

This report discusses issues debated in the 107th Congress while is considering various proposals to amend the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA). Major issues in recent years have included changing the role of science in decision-making, changing the role of critical habitat, reducing conflicts with Department of Defense activities, incorporating further protection for property owners, and increasing protection of listed species, among others. In addition, many have advocated including significant changes to ESA regulations made during the Clinton Administration in the law itself.

This report discuss issues that received congressional attention in the 107th Congress, such as The impact of air quality regulations, key water quality issues, superfund, solid/hazardous wastes, multibillion dollar cleanup and compliance programs, climate change, pesticides, EPA budget, and Science and Technology.

This report describes the environmental documents required for highway projects, discusses the average amount of time to complete this documentation, summarizes the environmental streamlining provisions under TEA-21, and examines administrative and legislative actions taken to implement these requirements.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The availability of child pornography has dramatically increased in recent years as it has migrated from printed material to the World Wide Web, becoming accessible through Web sites, chat rooms, newsgroups, and now the increasingly popular peer-to-peer file-sharing programs. These programs enable direct communication between users, allowing users to access each other's files and share digital music, images, and video. GAO was requested to determine the ease of access to child pornography on peer-to-peer networks; the risk of inadvertent exposure of juvenile users of peer-to-peer networks to pornography, including child pornography; and the extent of federal law enforcement resources available for combating child pornography on peer-to-peer networks. GAO's report on the results of this work (GAO-03-351) is being released today along with this testimony. Because child pornography cannot be accessed legally other than by law enforcement agencies, GAO worked with the Customs Cyber-Smuggling Center in performing searches: Customs downloaded and analyzed image files, and GAO performed analyses based on keywords and file names only."

This report discusses the developments in Iranian foreign policy, their involvement with terrorist organizations, the developments made with respect to weapons of mass destruction, and human rights concerns. It also details the Bush Administration's efforts to maintain the sanctions put in place by the Clinton Administration.

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We investigate supersymmetric QCD with N{sub c} + 1 flavors using an extension of the recently proposed relation between gauge theories and matrix models.The impressive agreement between the two sides provides a beautiful confirmation of the extension of the gauge theory-matrix model relation to this case.

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Analytical methods for determining formic and oxalic acids, formaldehyde and methanol have been evaluated and/or optimized for measuring products from photoreduction of CO{sub 2} in illuminated, aqueous suspensions of photocatalysts. An electrophoretic analysis method can detect aqueous formate and oxalate ions at 3 and 1 {micro}M respectively. Recalibration of the Nash formaldehyde determination shows that as little as 0.5 {micro}M can be detected spectrally. Several experiments using suspensions of TiO{sub 2}, SrTiO{sub 3} and SrTiO{sub 3} with Cr and Sb were tested in CO{sub 2} saturated solutions. No formate was detected in most experiments. However adding 2-propanol to a CO{sub 2}/TiO{sub 2} suspension gave significant amounts of formate and some formaldehyde by blocking the re-oxidation of formate by semiconductor holes. Loss of C{sub 1} products by re-oxidation is probably an important process limiting the accumulation of formate, formaldehyde and methanol.

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Congressional Research Service (CRS) report entailing information about reauthorization and appropriations of the Sade and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act. Topics include, state grants, national programs, appropriations and funding history, the Gun Free School Act, etc..

Asymptotic methods provide an efficient means by which to infer reservoir flow properties, such as permeability, from time-lapse seismic data. A trajectory-based methodology, much like ray-based methods for medical and seismic imaging, is the basis for an iterative inversion of time-lapse amplitude changes. In this approach a single reservoir simulation is required for each iteration of the algorithm. A comparison between purely numerical and the trajectory-based sensitivities demonstrates their accuracy. An application to a set of synthetic amplitude changes indicates that they can recover large-scale reservoir permeability variations from time-lapse data. In an application of actual time-lapse amplitude changes from the Bay Marchand field in the Gulf of Mexico we are able to reduce the misfit by 81% in twelve iterations. The time-lapse observations indicate lower permeabilities are required in the central portion of the reservoir.

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: Whether a member of the Board of Trustees of the San Jacinto College District may simultaneously serve as a member of the Board of Directors of the Clear Brook Municipal Utility District (RQ-0596-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, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the Texas Community Health Center Revolving Loan Fund exists as a trust fund outside the state treasury; whether loan income is the property of the Fund; and whether chapter 136 of the Human Resources Code, which establishes the Fund, violates article III, sections 1, 50 and 51 of the Texas Constitution (RQ-0602-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, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a county may require the owner of a “junked vehicle” to erect a fence or other screening objects in order to shield the vehicle from public view (RQ-0605-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, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether questioning by the Texas Ethics Commission of third-party witnesses to the circumstances giving rise to a sworn complaint violates section 571.140 of the Government Code (RQ-0599-JC)