A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "U.S. companies adversely affected by unfair imports may seek a number of relief measures, including antidumping (AD) duties. The Department of Commerce (Commerce) classifies China as a nonmarket economy (NME) and uses a special methodology that is commonly believed to produce AD duty rates that are higher than those applied to market economies. Commerce may stop applying its NME methodology if it finds that China warrants designation as a market economy. In light of increased concern about China's trade practices, the conference report on fiscal year 2004 appropriations requested that GAO review efforts by U.S. government agencies responsible for ensuring free and fair trade with that country. In this report, the last in a series, GAO (1) explains the NME methodology, (2) analyzes AD duties applied to China and compares them with duties applied to market economies, and (3) explains circumstances in which the United States would stop applying its NME methodology to China and evaluates the potential impact of such a step. Commerce agreed with our findings, commenting that our report provides timely and helpful information on the NME methodology and its application to China."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Corporate failures and accounting scandals led to changes in legislation governing U.S. securities markets, which resulted in increased workload demands on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As a result, Congress provided SEC with substantial budgetary increases to obtain more resources to help fulfill the agency's mission. GAO was asked to review SEC's strategic workforce planning efforts to efficiently and effectively utilize its resources. This report discusses (1) the progress SEC has made toward developing a strategic human capital plan and (2) whether SEC uses effective strategic workforce planning principles for acquiring, developing, and retaining staff."

Single stranded DNA of different lengths and different amounts was attached to colloidal phosphine stabilized Au nanoparticles. The resulting conjugates were investigated in detail by a gel electrophoresis study based on 1200 gels. We demonstrate how these experiments help to understand the binding of DNA to Au particles. In particular we compare specific attachment of DNA via gold-thiol bonds with nonspecific adsorption of DNA. The maximum number of DNA molecules that can be bound per particle was determined. We also compare several methods to used gel electrophoresis for investigating the effective diameter of DNA-Au conjugates, such as using a calibration curve of particles with known diameters and Ferguson plots.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified 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 professional engineer may prepare all plans and specifications for a public building described in Occupations Code section 1051.703(a) without engaging the services of a licensed architect (RQ-0360-GA)

Lobbyists and interest groups play an active role in the American legislative process. Information on lobbyist registrations and on interest groups in general is available from a variety of online and printed sources, including files available for public inspection. This report is a guide for locating governmental sources that maintain files on lobby groups, their registrations, and finances. Also included in this report are nongovernmental sources that offer background information on the lobbyists and interest groups who focus on legislation in Washington.

This report provides a Brief Overview of Recent Practices on Continuing Appropriations Acts. Most of the operations of federal departments and agencies are funded each year through the enactment of 11 regular appropriation acts.

This report gives an overview of dairy policy and issues. The contents include Milk Income Loss Contract(MILC ) payments, dairy price support program, federal milk marketing order issues, and milk protein concentrate trade issues.

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This report is regarding the Elections, Government, and constitutions of Iraq.

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Most research on the agricultural impacts of climate change has focused on the major annual crops, yet perennial cropping systems are less adaptable and thus potentially more susceptible to damage. Improved assessments of yield responses to future climate are needed to prioritize adaptation strategies in the many regions where perennial crops are economically and culturally important. These impact assessments, in turn, must rely on climate and crop models that contain often poorly defined uncertainties. We evaluated the impact of climate change on six major perennial crops in California: wine grapes, almonds, table grapes, oranges, walnuts, and avocados. Outputs from multiple climate models were used to evaluate climate uncertainty, while multiple statistical crop models, derived by resampling historical databases, were used to address crop response uncertainties. We find that, despite these uncertainties, climate change in California is very likely to put downward pressure on yields of almonds, walnuts, avocados, and table grapes by 2050. Without CO{sub 2} fertilization or adaptation measures, projected losses range from 0 to >40% depending on the crop and the trajectory of climate change. Climate change uncertainty generally had a larger impact on projections than crop model uncertainty, although the latter was substantial for several crops. Opportunities …

The structure of an O{sub 6}-methylguanine methyltransferase from the thermophile Methanococcus jannaschii has been determined using multinuclear multidimensional NMR spectroscopy. The structure is similar to homologues from other organisms that have been determined by crystallography, with some variation in the N-terminal domain. The C-terminal domain is more highly conserved in both sequence and structure. Regions of the protein show broadening reflecting conformational flexibility that is likely related to function.

Motivated by the recent interest in using electrokinetic effects within microfluidic devices, they have extended the EBNavierStokes code to be able to handle electrokinetic effects. With this added functionality, the code becomes more useful for understanding and designing microfluidic devices that take advantage of electrokinetic effects (e.g. pumping and mixing). Supporting the simulation of electrokinetic effects required three main extensions to the existing code: (1) addition of an electric field solver, (2) development of a module for accurately computing the Smulochowski slip-velocity at fluid-solid boundaries, and (3) extension of the fluid solver to handle nonuniform inhomogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions. The first and second extensions were needed to compute the electrokinetically generated slip-velocity at fluid-solid boundaries. The third extension made it possible for the fluid flow to be driven by a slip-velocity boundary condition (rather than by a pressure difference between inflow and outflow). In addition, several small changes were made throughout the code to make it compatible with these extensions. This report documents the changes to the EBNavierStokes code required to support the simulation of electrokinetic effects. They begin with a brief overview of the problem of electrokinetically driven flow. Next, they present a detailed description of the changes to …

The proposed Repository presents a familiar materials performance application that is regularly encountered in energy, transportation and other industries. The widely accepted approach to dealing with materials performance is to identify the performance requirements, to determine the operating conditions to which materials will be exposed and to select materials of construction that perform well in those conditions. A special feature of the proposed Yucca Mountain Repository is the extremely long time frame of interest, i.e. 10,000's of years and longer. Thus, the time evolution of the environment in contact with waste package surfaces and the time evolution of corrosion damage that may result are of primary interest in the determination of expected performance. An approach is presented to the analysis of localized corrosion during a time period when it is possible for waters from drips and seepage to contact the waste package surfaces, and the analysis is demonstrated for the water chemistry of mixed salt solutions and a set of time-temperature-relative humidity profiles for a hot, mid and cool temperature waste package. Based on the analysis, there are large time periods when localized corrosion can not be supported, and no corrosion damage will occur. Further analysis can then focus on …

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Alloy 22 (N06022) was designed to stand the most aggressive industrial applications, including both reducing and oxidizing acids. Even in the most aggressive environments, if the temperature is lower than 150 F (66 C) Alloy 22 would remain in the passive state having particularly low corrosion rates. In multi-ionic solutions that may simulate the behavior of concentrated ground water, even at near boiling temperatures, the corrosion rate of Alloy 22 is only a few nanometers per year because the alloy is in the complete passive state. The corrosion rate of passive Alloy 22 decreases as the time increases. Immersion corrosion testing also show that the newer generation of Ni-Cr-Mo alloys may offer a better corrosion resistance than Alloy 22 only in some highly aggressive conditions such as in hot acids.

A report discussing the vulnerabilities of the United States in regards to a terrorist delivery of a weapon of mass effect (WME). It discusses homeland security, defense systems, ad terrorism.

Acceleration driven instabilities of fluid mixing layers include the classical cases of Rayleigh-Taylor instability, driven by a steady acceleration and Richtmyer-Meshkov instability, driven by an impulsive acceleration. Our program starts with high resolution methods of numerical simulation of two (or more) distinct fluids, continues with analytic analysis of these solutions, and the derivation of averaged equations. A striking achievement has been the systematic agreement we obtained between simulation and experiment by using a high resolution numerical method and improved physical modeling, with surface tension. Our study is accompanies by analysis using stochastic modeling and averaged equations for the multiphase problem. We have quantified the error and uncertainty using statistical modeling methods.

The research conducted in this project concerns the geometry of extremal surfaces, embedded minimal surfaces in particular. The methods include geometric analysis, computational simulation, mathematical visualization and software development. Minimal surface research stands at the intersection of partial differential equations, calculus of variations, complex function theory and topology. Advances in this area are often---as is the case with our research---tied to the development and implementation of computational methods and tools of mathematical visualization. Understanding the structure of the space of minimal surfaces has been important in applications from cosmology to structural engineering, as well as other applied areas including polymer physics. The subject has benefited from the discovery of new examples by the use of computation, examples far beyond the range current theoretical construction techniques. Not only are these surfaces important for the understanding of equilibrium morphology via inter-material dividing surfaces, they arise in the study of grain boundaries and dislocations. These same examples are in turn signposts for the further theoretical development in mathematics. This research project has made fundamental advances in the study of equilibrium interfaces. Carrying on the parent project that was based at the University of Massachusetts, we have: Proved the existence of large families of …

Since the collapse of Enron Corp. in late 2001, there has been a series of scandals involving major U.S. corporations. Recurring elements in the scandals include improper or fraudulent accounting, self-enrichment by corporate officers, stock trading on inside information, and the destruction or falsification of business records. This report tracks post-Enron criminal charges.

This report discusses the Iraqi government in the wake of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). Elections for a transitional National Assembly and government (January 30, 2005), a permanent constitution (October 15), and a permanent (four year) Council of Representatives and government (December 15) have been concluded despite insurgent violence. U.S. officials hope that the high turnout among Sunni Arabs in the December 15 elections -- and post-election bargaining among all factions -- will produce an inclusive government that reduces insurgent violence.

This report discusses about energy tax policy. U.S energy tax policy promoted the supply of oil and gas but witnessed significant cutback, imposition of new excise taxes on oil and introduction of numerous tax preferences for energy conservation.

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