A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Antibiotic resistance is a growing public health concern; antibiotics used in animals raised for human consumption contributes to this problem. Three federal agencies address this issue--the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Department of Agriculture (USDA). GAO examined (1) scientific evidence on the transference of antibiotic resistance from animals to humans and extent of potential harm to human health, (2) agencies' efforts to assess and address these risks, (3) the types of data needed to support research on these risks and extent to which the agencies collect these data, (4) use of antibiotics in animals in the United States compared with its key agricultural trading partners and competitors, and (5) information on how use has affected trade."

The conceptual design and preliminary engineering calculations have been completed for a two cassette cryostat. This report summarizes the design. A cryocooler is permanently mounted in the center of a stainless steel, 0.75 inch thick top lid. The cryocooler sits upon a spacer which raises the cooling stage elevations to favorably match the cassette heat intercept elevations. The top lid (32.0-inch outside diameter) mates to a 24-inch pipe size flange with o-ring. The 24-inch pipe size vacuum vessel with end plate has a minimum internal depth of 16-inch to give adequate clearance for the depth of the cryocooler and multilayer insulation blankets. Support stand legs elevate the container to a convenient height and allow for placement of the AFE power supply underneath. Two cassette slots are located on either side of the cryocooler. The slots are positioned parallel to each other, 10.5-inch center to center (6 standard cassette slot widths) so that the standard 8 slot AFE backplane can be used. The slot opening through the lid is approximately 1.422-inch x 16.782-inch. A 0.016-inch thick titanium (Ti-6AI-4V) envelope with sealing lip is inserted through lid and defines the gas helium boundary that the VLPC cassette resides. The internal dimensions of …

Since the late 1950s, leaks from 67 single-shell tanks at the Hanford Site have released about 1 million curies to the underlying sediments. The radioactive material was contained in water-based solutions generally characterized as having high pH values (basic solutions), high nitrate and nitrite concentrations, and high aluminum concentrations. The solutions were also hot, in some cases at or near boiling, as well as complex and highly variable in composition reflecting solutions obtained from multiple methods of reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. In order to understand the observed and probable distribution of radionuclides in the ground at Hanford, major reactions that likely occurred between the leaked fluids and the sediment minerals were investigated in laboratory experiments simulating environmental conditions. Reactions involving the dissolution of quartz and biotite and the simultaneous formation of new minerals were quantified at controlled pH values and temperature. Result s show that the dissolution of quartz and formation of new zeolite-like minerals could have altered the flow path of ground water and contaminant plumes and provided an uptake mechanism for positively-charged soluble radionuclides, such as cesium. The dissolution of biotite, a layered-iron-aluminum-silicate mineral, provided iron in a reduced form that could have reacted with negatively-charged soluble chromium, …

Recovery and comparison of toolmarks, footprint impressions, and fractured surfaces connected to a crime scene are of great importance in forensic science. The purpose of this project is to provide statistical tools for the validation of the proposition that particular manufacturing processes produce marks on the work-product (or tool) that are substantially different from tool to tool. The approach to validation involves the collection of digital images of toolmarks produced by various tool manufacturing methods on produced work-products and the development of statistical methods for data reduction and analysis of the images. The developed statistical methods provide a means to objectively calculate a ''degree of association'' between matches of similarly produced toolmarks. The basis for statistical method development relies on ''discriminating criteria'' that examiners use to identify features and spatial relationships in their analysis of forensic samples. The developed data reduction algorithms utilize the same rules used by examiners for classification and association of toolmarks.

Significant differences (approximately 30 percent) have been observed in the sulfur measurements in high-level waste sludge by the Analytical Development Section (ADS) using the inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) method compared with the ADS ion chromatography (IC) method. Since the measured concentrations of sulfur in the sludge approached the maximum concentration that can be processed in the DWPF, experiments were performed to determine the source of the differences and assess the true accuracy of sulfur measurements.

Bioenergy crops, which displace fossil fuels when used to produce ethanol, biobased products, and/or electricity, have the potential to further reduce atmospheric carbon levels by building up soil carbon levels, especially when planted on lands where these levels have been reduced by intensive tillage. The purpose of this study is to improve the characterization of the soil carbon (C) sequestration for bioenergy crops (switchgrass, poplars, and willows) in the Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy Use in Transportation (GREET) model (Wang 1999) by using the latest results reported in the literature and by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Because soil carbon sequestration for bioenergy crops can play a significant role in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for cellulosic ethanol, it is important to periodically update the estimates of soil carbon sequestration from bioenergy crops as new and better data become available. We used the three-step process described below to conduct our study.

A dosage analysis of gene expression was conducted using aneuploids of maize. The findings of this project led to the concept that regulatory genes in higher eukaryotes has mostly dosage dependent and are the underlying basis of quantitative traits and aneuploid syndromes.

The objective of this project was to define the mechanisms, equilibria, kinetics, and extent of sorption of aqueous uranium onto hydroxyapatite (Ca{sub 5}(PO{sub 4}){sub 3}(OH)) for a range of pH, ionic strength, aqueous uranium concentration, dissolved carbon/air CO{sub 2}, and mineral surface area. We conducted chemical modeling, batch and flow-through experiments, chemical analysis, x-ray absorption and diffraction measurement, and electron microscopy. Our motivation was the need to immobilize U in water and soil to prevent it's entry into water supplies and ultimately, biological systems. Applying hydroxyapatite to in-situ treatment of uranium-bearing ground water could be an effective, low cost technology. We found that hydroxyapatite quickly, effectively, and reversibly sorbed uranium at a high capacity by inner-sphere complexation over a wide range of conditions. Our results indicate that at aqueous uranium concentrations below 10-20 ppb: (1) equilibrium sorption of uranium to hydroxyapatite occurs in hours, regardless of pH; (2) in ambient and CO{sub 2}-free atmospheres, over 98% of initial uranium is sorbed to hydroxyapatite, (3) in waters in equilibrium with higher air CO{sub 2} concentrations, sorption removed over 97% of aqueous uranium, except above pH 9, where aqueous uranium concentrations were reduced by less than 40%, and (4) at near-neutral pH, …

This report provides the details related to Salary adjustments of Federal white-collar employees for the Fiscal Year 2004

Effective and reliable nuclear monitoring requires discrimination between small magnitude explosions and earthquakes based on the use of limited regional data. Lg is generally the largest seismic phase from both explosion and earthquake sources recorded at regional distances. For small events, Lg may sometimes be the only well-recorded seismic phase so that discriminants based only on the use of Lg are especially desirable. Recent research has provided significantly better understanding of Lg by demonstrating that the explosion-generated Rg makes significant contribution to the low-frequency S or Lg from explosions. Near-source scattering of explosion-generated Rg appears to be a viable mechanism for generating low-frequency(< 2 Hz) Lg waves from explosions. Detailed knowledge of the complex scattering process is, however, still incomplete and is in fact the subject of several ongoing studies. Our analysis of regional data from nuclear explosions from both Nevada Test Site (NTS) and Kazakh Test Site (KTS) and nearby earthquakes in Phase I has suggested that there are several reliable source discrimination methods only based on the use of Lg at regional distances. These discriminants should be. especially useful for small magnitude seismic events for which Lg may be the only well-recorded seismic phase. Our results suggest four …

This work has followed two themes: (1) Developing and using the adjoint of the MIT ocean biogeochemistry model to examine the efficiency of carbon sequestration in a global configuration. We have demonstrated the power of the adjoint method for systematic ocean model sensitivity studies. We have shown that the relative efficiency of carbon sequestration in the Atlantic and Pacific basins changes with the period of interest. For decadal to centennial scales, the Pacific is more efficient. On longer timescales the Atlantic is more efficient . (2) We have developed and applied a high-resolution, North Atlantic circulation and tracer model to investigate the role of the mesoscale in controlling sequestration efficiency. We show that the mesoscale eddy field, and its explicit representation, significantly affects the estimated sequestration efficiency for local sources on the Eastern US seaboard.

This report provides an overview of the Diversity Visa Lottery on immigration.

This report supports congressional oversight of the IMF by providing an understanding of its organization, functions, and role in the world economy.

H.R. 1417, 108th Congress, first session, was introduced on March 25, 2003 and passed by the House on March 3, 2004. If enacted, this bill would make extensive changed to the procedural framework for adjudicating royalty rates for compulsory licenses under the Copyright Act. This report details the background and legislative action on the Copyright Royalty and Distribution Reform Act of 2004.

On December 19, 2003, Libya announced it would dismantle its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile programs. Since then, U.S., British, and international officials have inspected and removed or destroyed key components of those programs, and Libya has provided valuable information, particularly about foreign suppliers. Libya’s WMD disarmament is a critical step towards reintegration into the world community, and a necessary but probably not sufficient prerequisite for lifting U.S. sanctions.