Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund (Fund) is a $1 billion fund that has two major components: the Emergency Fund and the Principal Fund. The Emergency Fund is used for paying for federal removal actions and the initiation of natural resource damage assessments by designated federal, state, or Indian tribe officials, resulting from oil spills or the substantial threat of oil spills to the waters or shorelines of the United States. The Principal Fund is used for paying certain claims for uncompensated removal costs and damages resulting from oil spills or the substantial threat of oil spills to the waters or shorelines of the United States. The Fund is administered by the National Pollution Funds Center (NPFC) of the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG). In May 2002, we issued a legal opinion related to the uses and limitations of the Fund and concluded that the Fund is not available to pay employee salaries and other operating expenses. The USCG reported that from fiscal years 1998 through 2002, $32.8 million from the Fund was used to pay costs associated with processing claims, including salaries and other operating expenses. In April …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Medicare pays for assistant-atsurgery services under both the hospital inpatient prospective payment system and the physician fee schedule. Payments under the physician fee schedule are limited to a few health professions. In 2001, Congress directed GAO to report on the potential impact on the Medicare program of allowing physician fee schedule payments to Certified Registered Nurse First Assistants for assistant-at-surgery services. This report examines: (1) who serves as an assistant-atsurgery, (2) whether health professionals who perform the role must meet a uniform set of professional requirements, and (3) whether Medicare's payment policies for assistants-at-surgery are consistent with the goals of the program and, if not, whether there are alternatives that would help attain those goals. GAO analyzed information provided by physician and other health professional associations and Medicare payment data."

Financing for social security -- Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance -- and the Hospital Insurance part of Medicare is provided primarily by taxes levied on wages and net self-employment income. Financing for the Supplementary Medical Insurance portion of Medicare is provided by premiums from enrollees and payments from the government. This report describes these taxes and premiums.

This report contains a table that lists the number of retired Members of Congress and the average amount of congressional pension they receive in retirement.

Daily student newspaper from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

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 certain promotional campaign violates chapter 40 of the Business and Commerce Code, the Contest and Gift Giveaway Act (RQ-0080-GA)

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 tax abatement agreement entered into under the Property Redevelopment and Tax Abatement Act, chapter 312 , Tax Code, may be amended retroactively (RQ-0081-GA)

The synthesis and characterization of nickel (II) oxide aerogel materials prepared using the epoxide addition method is described. The addition of the organic epoxide propylene oxide to an ethanolic solution of NiCl{sub 2} 6H{sub 2}O resulted in the formation of an opaque light green monolithic gel and subsequent drying with supercritical CO{sub 2} gave a monolithic aerogel material of the same color. This material has been characterized using powder X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, elemental analysis, and nitrogen adsorption/desorption analysis. The results indicate that the nickel (II) oxide aerogel has very low bulk density (98 kg/m{sup 3} ({approx}98 %porous)), high surface area (413 m{sup 2}/g), and has a particulate-type aerogel microstructure made up of very fine spherical particles with an open porous network. By comparison, a precipitate of Ni{sub 3}(NO{sub 3}){sub 2}(OH){sub 4} is obtained when the same preparation is attempted with the common Ni(NO{sub 3}){sub 2} 6H{sub 2}O salt as the precursor. The implications of the difference of reactivity of the two different precursors are discussed in the context of the mechanism of gel formation via the epoxide addition method. The synthesis of nickel (II) oxide aerogel, using the epoxide addition method, is especially unique in our experience. It is …

This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress considers each year.

The solution of elliptic partial differential equations on composite overlapping grids using multigrid is discussed. An approach is described that provides a fast and memory efficient scheme for the solution of boundary value problems in complex geometries. The key aspects of the new scheme are an automatic coarse grid generation algorithm, an adaptive smoothing technique for adjusting residuals on different component grids, and the use of local smoothing near interpolation boundaries. Other important features include optimizations for Cartesian component grids, the use of over-relaxed Red-Black smoothers and the generation of coarse grid operators through Galerkin averaging. Numerical results in two and three dimensions show that very good multigrid convergence rates can be obtained for both Dirichlet and Neumann/mixed boundary conditions. A comparison to Krylov based solvers shows that the multigrid solver can be much faster and require significantly less memory.

A play portfolio is being constructed for the Permian Basin in west Texas and southeast New Mexico, the largest onshore petroleum-producing basin in the United States. Approximately 1,300 reservoirs in the Permian Basin have been identified as having cumulative production greater than 1 MMbbl (1.59 x 10{sup 5} m{sup 3}) of oil through 2000. Of these significant-sized reservoirs, approximately 1,000 are in Texas and 300 in New Mexico. There are 32 geologic plays that have been defined for Permian Basin oil reservoirs, and each of the 1,300 major reservoirs was assigned to a play. The reservoirs were mapped and compiled in a Geographic Information System (GIS) by play. The final reservoir shapefile for each play contains the geographic location of each reservoir. Associated reservoir information within the linked data tables includes RRC reservoir number and district (Texas only), official field and reservoir name, year reservoir was discovered, depth to top of the reservoir, production in 2000, and cumulative production through 2000. Some tables also list subplays. Play boundaries were drawn for each play; the boundaries include areas where fields in that play occur but are smaller than 1 MMbbl (1.59 x 10{sup 5} m{sup 3}) of cumulative production. Oil production …

The main objective of this work is to obtain a simplified asymptotic representation of the reflection of seismic signal from a fluid-saturated porous medium in the low-frequency domain. In the first part, we derive the equations of low-frequency harmonic waves in a fluid-saturated elastic porous medium from the basic concepts of filtration theory. We demonstrate that the obtained equations can be related to the poroelasticity model of Frenkel-Gassmann-Biot, and to pressure diffusion model routinely used in well test analysis as well. We thus try to put the poroelastic and filtration theories on the same ground. We study the reflection of a low-frequency signal from a plane interface between elastic and elastic fluid-saturated porous media. We obtain an asymptotic scaling of the frequency-dependent component of the reflection coefficient with respect to a dimensionless parameter depending on the frequency of the signal and the reservoir fluid mobility. We also investigate the impact of the relaxation time and tortuosity on this scaling.

This report presents a review of the activities performed by the five teams involved in the MUSE-4 experimental program. More details are provided on the contribution by ANL during the year 9/02 to 9/03. The ANL activity consisted both in direct participation in the experimental measurements and in the physics analysis of the experimental data, mainly for the reactivity level, adjoint flux and fission rate distributions and the analysis of dynamic measurements for reactivity determination techniques in subcritical systems. The results provided to complete the Benchmark organized by the OECD and the CEA on the experiment MUSE-4 are also presented. Deterministic calculations have been performed via the ERANOS code system in connection with JEF2.2, ENDF/B-V and ENDF/B-VI data files.

Specific Aims--The goal of this project was to gain an understanding of how actin filament organization and dynamics are controlled in flowering plants. Specifically, we proposed to identify unique proteins with novel functions by investigating biochemical strategies for the isolation and characterization of actin-binding proteins (ABPs). In particular, our hunt was designed to identify capping proteins and nucleation factors. The specific aims included: (1) to use F-actin affinity chromatography (FAAC) as a general strategy to isolate pollen ABPs (2) to produce polyclonal antisera and perform subcellular localization in pollen tubes (3) to isolate cDNA clones for the most promising ABPs (4) to further purify and characterize ABP interactions with actin in vitro. Summary of Progress By employing affinity chromatography on F-actin or DNase I columns, we have identified at least two novel ABPs from pollen, PrABP80 (gelsolin-like) and ZmABP30, We have also cloned and expressed recombinant protein, as well as generated polyclonal antisera, for 6 interesting ABPs from Arabidopsis (fimbrin AtFIM1, capping protein a/b (AtCP), adenylyl cyclase-associated protein (AtCAP), AtCapG & AtVLN1). We performed quantitative analyses of the biochemical properties for two of these previously uncharacterized ABPs (fimbrin and capping protein). Our studies provide the first evidence for fimbrin activity …

Parallel scientific applications require high-performance I/O support from underlying file systems. A comprehensive understanding of the expected workload is therefore essential for the design of high-performance parallel file systems. We re-examine the workload characteristics in parallel computing environments in the light of recent technology advances and new applications. We analyze application traces from a cluster with hundreds of nodes. On average, each application has only one or two typical request sizes. Large requests from several hundred kilobytes to several megabytes are very common. Although in some applications, small requests account for more than 90% of all requests, almost all of the I/O data are transferred by large requests. All of these applications show bursty access patterns. More than 65% of write requests have inter-arrival times within one millisecond in most applications. By running the same benchmark on different file models, we also find that the write throughput of using an individual output file for each node exceeds that of using a shared file for all nodes by a factor of 5. This indicates that current file systems are not well optimized for file sharing.

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

Enhanced Video Surveillance (EVS) with Speckle Imaging is a high-resolution imaging system that substantially improves resolution and contrast in images acquired over long distances. This technology will increase image resolution up to an order of magnitude or greater for video surveillance systems. The system's hardware components are all commercially available and consist of a telescope or large-aperture lens assembly, a high-performance digital camera, and a personal computer. The system's software, developed at LLNL, extends standard speckle-image-processing methods (used in the astronomical community) to solve the atmospheric blurring problem associated with imaging over medium to long distances (hundreds of meters to tens of kilometers) through horizontal or slant-path turbulence. This novel imaging technology will not only enhance national security but also will benefit law enforcement, security contractors, and any private or public entity that uses video surveillance to protect their assets.

The Richtmyer-Meshkov mixing layer is initiated by the passing of a shock over an interface between fluid of differing densities. The energy deposited during the shock passage undergoes a relaxation process during which the fluctuational energy in the flow field decays and the spatial gradients of the flow field decrease in time. This late stage of Richtmyer-Meshkov mixing layers is studied from the viewpoint of self-similarity. Analogies with weakly anisotropic turbulence suggest that both the bubble-side and spike-side widths of the mixing layer should evolve as power-laws in time, with the same power-law exponents and virtual time origin for both sides. The analogy also bounds the power-law exponent between 2/7 and 2/5. It is then shown that the assumption of identical power-law exponents for bubbles and spikes yields that are in good agreement with experiment at modest density ratios.

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This work is intended to be a mathematical underpinning for the field of grain boundary engineering and its relatives. The interrelationships within the set of rotations producing coincident site lattices in cubic crystals are examined in detail. Besides combining previously established but widely scattered results into a unified context, the present work details newly developed representations of the group structure in terms of strings of generators (based on quaternionic number theory, and including uniqueness proofs and rules for algebraic manipulation) as well as an easily visualized topological network model. Important results that were previously obscure or not universally understood (e.g. the {Sigma} combination rule governing triple junctions) are clarified in these frameworks. The methods also facilitate several general observations, including the very different natures of twin-limited structures in two and three dimensions, the inadequacy of the {Sigma} combination rule to determine valid quadruple nodes, and a curious link between allowable grain boundary assignments and the four-color map theorem. This kind of understanding is essential to the generation of realistic statistical models of grain boundary networks (particularly in twin-dominated systems) and is especially applicable to the field of grain boundary engineering.

The primary focus of this issue brief is legislative action with respect to abortion. However, discussion of those legislative proposals necessarily involves a brief discussion of the leading U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate her pregnancy. For a more detailed discussion of the relevant case law, see CRS Report 95-724, Abortion Law Development: A Brief Overview.

The advantages and challenges of using a powerful x-ray source for the fast ignition of compressed Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) targets have been considered. The requirements for such a source together with the optics to focus the x-rays onto compressed DT cores lead to a conceptual design based on Energy Recovery Linacs (ERLs) and long wigglers to produce x-ray pulses with the appropriate phase space properties. A comparative assessment of the parameters of the igniter system indicates that the technologies for building it, although expensive, are physically achievable. Our x-ray fast ignition (XFI) scheme requires substantially smaller energy for the initiation of nuclear fusion reactions than other methods.

In this paper we motivate the use of a novel high order time domain vector finite element method that is of arbitrary order accuracy in space and up to 5th order accurate in time; and in particular, we apply it to the case of photonic band-gap (PBG) structures. Such structures have been extensively studied in the literature with several practical applications; in particular, for the low loss transmission of electromagnetic energy around sharp 90 degree bends [1]. Typically, such structures are simulated via a numerical solution of Maxwell's equations either in the frequency domain or directly in the time domain over a computational grid. The majority of numerical simulations performed for such structures make use of the widely popular finite difference time domain (FDTD) method [2], where the time dependent electric and magnetic fields are discretized over a ''dual'' grid to second order accuracy in space and time. However, such methods do not generalize to unstructured, non-orthogonal grids or to higher order spatial discretization schemes. To simulate more complicated structures with curved boundaries, such as the structure of [3], a cell based finite element method with curvilinear elements is preferred over standard stair-stepped Cartesian meshes; and to more efficiently reduce …

This report reviews recent developments in harbor maintenance legislation and the current status of harbor maintenance funding. The report also describes alternative funding proposals that have been considered. The last examines the impact these and other funding alternatives may have on the geography of U.S. maritime commerce.