A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This report presents the findings of our study of the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) determination of civil penalties and abatement of violations. The objective of the study was to assess the extent of OSHA's oversight of the civil penalty determination and the violation abatement processes. In addition, we developed a statistical model, known as a multivariate analysis, to better understand factors that influenced variation in penalty amounts. On July 7, 2004, we briefed Labor officials on the results of our study. This letter report formally conveys the information we presented at that briefing. To assess the extent of OSHA's oversight of the civil penalty determination and violation abatement processes, we (1) reviewed 2002 and 2003 regional audits from the five regions with the most inspections, (2) visited one of these regional offices and one area office within this region to interview officials and review documents and procedures, (3) conducted telephone interviews with the four remaining regional offices and one area office within each of those regions, (4) interviewed OSHA officials to identify relevant policies and procedures, and (5) reviewed relevant policies …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The efficient and reliable functioning of the more than $200 billion electric industry is vital to the lives of all Americans. As demonstrated in the 2003 black- out in the Northeast and the 2001 energy crisis in the West, changes in the cost and availability of electricity can have significant impacts on consumers and the national economy. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) supports using demand-response programs as part of its effort to develop and oversee competitive electricity markets. GAO was asked to identify (1) the types of demand-response programs currently in use, (2) the benefits of these programs, (3) the barriers to their introduction and expansion, and (4) instances where barriers have been overcome. Additionally, GAO examined the federal government's participation in these programs through the General Services Administration (GSA)."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This report responds to certain requirements of the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness Act (HRIFA) of 1998 that authorized certain Haitian nationals and their dependents to apply to adjust their status to legal permanent residence. Section 902(k) of the act requires the Comptroller General to report every 6 months on the number of Haitian nationals who have applied and been approved to adjust their status to legal permanent residence. The reports are to contain a breakdown of the number of Haitians who applied and the number who were approved as asylum applicants, parolees, children without parents, orphaned children, or abandoned children; or as the eligible dependents of these applicants, including spouses, children, and unmarried sons or daughters. Reports are to be provided until all applications have been finally adjudicated. This is our eleventh report."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Fiscal Year 2004 Defense Appropriations Act and the Senate Report for the 2004 National Defense Authorization Act mandated that GAO examine the Navy and Marine Corps' Tactical Aviation Integration Plan. In response to these mandates, this report addresses (1) how Navy and Marine Corps operational concepts, force structure, and procurement costs change; (2) the methodology and assumptions the services used to analyze the potential for integrating the forces; (3) the analytical process the services used to decide which reserve squadrons to decommission; and (4) other factors that might affect implementation of the Plan."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Studies published by the Institute of Medicine and others have indicated that fragmented, disorganized, and inaccessible clinical information adversely affects the quality of health care and compromises patient safety. Health information technology (IT)--technology used to collect, store, retrieve, and transfer clinical, administrative, and financial health information electronically--is seen as a promising solution to this problem. Technologies such as electronic health records (EHR) and bar coding of certain human drug and biological product labels have been shown to save money and reduce medical errors. However, only a small number of U.S. health care providers have fully adopted health IT. Significant financial, technical, cultural, and legal barriers to the adoption of health IT exist. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as a regulator, purchaser, health care provider, and sponsor of research, education, and training, has been working to promote the use of IT in public and private health care settings. There is no comprehensive catalogue of HHS' health IT efforts, however, and little is known about the nature and extent of the legal barriers and HHS's efforts to address them. The Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, …

This report contains an overview of the options for house and senate committee organization on the Department of Homeland Security since the terrorist attacks of 2001.

This report discusses the organization, funding, and goals of the Freedom CAR and Fuel partnerships, and discusses legislation relevant to the partnerships.

We present a method for comparing shapes of grayscale images in noisy circumstances. By establishing correspondences in a new image with a shape model, we can estimate a transformation between the new region and the model. Using a cost function for deviations from the model, we can rank resulting shape matches. We compare two separate distinct region detectors: Scale Saliency and difference of gaussians. We show that this method is successful in comparing images of fluid mixing under anisotropic geometric distortions and additive gaussian noise. Scale Saliency outperforms the difference of Gaussians in this context.

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BNL has a plan to upgrade the AGS proton beam from the current 0.14 MW to higher than 1.0 MW and beyond for a neutrino facility which consists of two major subsystems. First is a 1.45 GeV superconducting linac (SCL) to replace the Booster as injector for the AGS. Second is the performance upgrade for the AGS itself for the higher intensity and repetition rate. For high intensity proton accelerators, such as the upgraded AGS, there are very stringent limitations on uncontrolled beam losses. A direct effect of increased linac beam emittance is the halohail generation in the circulating beam. Studies show the estimated halohail generation in the beam for the present normalized RMS emittance of the linac beam is unacceptable. To reduce the transverse emittance of the 200 MeV linac, the existing radio frequency quadrupole linac (RFQ) has to be relocated closer to drift tube linac (DTL) tank 1 to meet the emittance requirement for AGS injection with low loss. This paper will present the various options of matching between RFQ and DTL, and chopping options in the low energy beam transport (LEBT).

A weakly coupled new neutral gauge boson, forming a narrow resonance, can be efficiently produced at e{sup +}e{sup -} colliders through radiative return processes if the collider energy is larger than the gauge boson mass. This contribution analyzes the sensitivity of a future linear collider for weakly coupled gauge bosons and briefly discusses how, in case of discovery, its properties can be determined with high precision.

In light of the large amount of new experimental data, we revisit the determination of |V{sub cb}| and m{sub b} from inclusive semileptonic and radiative B decays. We study shape variables to order {Lambda}{sub QCD}{sup 3}/m{sub b}{sup 3} and {alpha}{sub s}{sup 2}{beta}{sub 0}, and include the order {alpha}{sub s} {Lambda}{sub QCD}/m{sub b} correction to the hadron mass spectrum in semileptonic decay, which improves the agreement with the data. We focus on the 1S and kinetic mass schemes for the b quark, with and without expanding m{sub b}-m{sub c} in HQET. We perform fits to all available data from BABAR, BELLE, CDF, CLEO, and DELPHI, discuss the theoretical uncertainties, and compare with earlier results. We find |V{sub cb}| = (41.9 {+-} 0.6 {+-} 0.1{sub {tau}{sub B}}) x 10{sup -3} and m{sub b}{sup 1S} = 4.68 {+-} 0.04GeV, including our estimate of the theoretical uncertainty in the fit.

The solid solution behavior of the Ni(Fe{sub 1-n}Cr{sub n}){sub 2}O{sub 4} spinel binary is investigated in the temperature range 400-1200 C. Non-ideal solution behavior, as exhibited by non-linear changes in lattice parameter with changes in n, is observed in a series of single-phase solids air-cooled from 1200 C. Air-annealing for one year at 600 C resulted in partial phase separation in a spinel binary having n = 0.5. Spinel crystals grown from NiO, Fe{sub 2}O{sub 3} and Cr{sub 2}O{sub 3} reactants, mixed to give NiCrFeO{sub 4}, by Ostwald ripening in a molten salt solvent, exhibited single phase stability down to about 750 C (the estimated consolute solution temperature, T{sub cs}). A solvus exists below T{sub cs}. The solvus becomes increasingly asymmetric at lower temperatures and extrapolates to n values of 0.2 and 0.7 at 300 C. The extrapolated solvus is shown to be consistent with that predicted using a primitive regular solution model in which free energies of mixing are determined entirely from changes in configurational entropy at room temperature.

Turn-by-turn data from a single BPM includes information on the chromaticity in sidebands displaced above and below the betatron frequency by an amount of the synchrotron frequency. It may be necessary to induce small amplitude synchrotron oscillation by giving the beam a small kick. Power spectrum of the BPM data gives clear chromatic sidebands, and they can be applied to the chromaticity measurement in the Fermilab Booster.

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) will launch a new era in X-ray science by providing 200 fs pulses of X rays with a peak brightness up to 10 orders of magnitude greater than current sources. One of the most exciting and far-reaching experiments that this new source will enable is single-particle diffraction imaging, whereby atomic-resolution structure of biological macromolecules, complexes, or viruses could be obtained without the need for crystallization. Time-resolved structures and dynamic processes could be studied, with time steps as short as the LCLS pulse duration. Many of the components of a diffraction imaging experiment have been demonstrated individually, such as image reconstruction and electrospray mass-spectrometer particle selection. There are many issues that cannot be resolved until bright pulsed X-ray sources become available in 2005 to test theories. Bringing all the techniques together to field an experiment at LCLS in 2009 is a challenging, but quite feasible, undertaking that requires a coordinated and sustained effort of the community.

This report provides background on the research and potential applications of research that uses embryonic and adult stem cells. It also provides information about the current federal and state regulatory landscape, related Congressional and international actions, and relevant ethical concerns.

This report provides background and analysis on the political and economic situations on Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia (commonly collectively referred to as the Baltic states), their foreign policies, and U.S. policy toward them.

UDP-glucuronosyltransferase proteins (UGT) catalyze the glucuronidation of both endogenous and xenobiotic compounds. In previous studies UGT1A1 has been implicated in the detoxification of certain food-borne-carcinogenic-heterocyclic amines. To determine the importance of UDP-glucuronosyltransferase 1A1 (UGT1A1) in the biotransformation of the cooked-food carcinogen 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenylimidazo[4,5-b]pyridine (PhIP), genetically modified CHO cells that are nucleotide excision repair-deficient, and express cytochrome P4501A2 (UV5P3 cell line) were transfected with a cDNA plasmid of human UGT1A1 to establish the UDPglucuronosyltransferase 1A1 expressing 5P3hUGT1A1 cell line. Expression of the UGT1A1 gene was verified by screening neogene expressing clonal isolates (G-418 resistant) for their sensitivity to cell killing from PhIP exposure. Five of eleven clones were chosen for further analysis due to their resistance to cell killing. Western blot analysis was used to confirm the presence of the UGT1A1 and CYP1A2 proteins. All five clones displayed a 52 kDa protein band, which corresponded to a UGT1A1 control protein. Only four of the clones had a protein band that corresponded to the CYP1A2 control protein. Correct fragment size of the cDNAs in the remaining 4 clones was confirmed by RT-PCR and quantification of the mRNA product was accomplished by real-time RT-PCR. Expression of UGT1A1 in the transfected cells was 10{sup 4}-10{sup …

A low-cost, real-time radiological sensor network for emergency response has been developed and deployed at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The Real-Time Radiological Area Monitoring (RTRAM) network is comprised of 16 Geiger-Mueller (GM) sensors positioned on the site perimeter to continuously monitor radiological conditions as part of LLNL's comprehensive environment/safety/health protection program. The RTRAM network sensor locations coincide with wind sector directions to provide thorough coverage of the one square mile site. These low-power sensors transmit measurement data back to a central command center (CCC) computer through the LLNL telecommunications infrastructure. Alarm conditions are identified by comparing current data to predetermined threshold parameters and are validated by comparison with plausible dispersion modeling scenarios and prevailing meteorological conditions. Emergency response personnel are notified of alarm conditions by automatic radio- and computer- based notifications. A secure intranet provides emergency response personnel with current condition assessment data that enable them to direct field response efforts remotely. This system provides a low-cost real-time radiation monitoring solution that is easily converted to incorporate both a hard-wired interior perimeter with strategically positioned wireless secondary and tertiary concentric remote locations. These wireless stations would be configured with solar voltaic panels that provide current to recharge batteries …

This report details the information related to gasoline prices and discusses policies and proposals.

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Proper configurations of controls, sensors, and metrology technologies have enabled precision turning machines to achieve nanometer positioning. However, at this level of positioning resolution, vibration sources can become a limiting factor. One of the largest sources of vibration in a turning machine may be an unbalanced rotating spindle. In this paper, a system is implemented to actively cancel spindle unbalance forces. Specifically, to attenuate the spindle housing vibration using an active vibration control system to prevent the unbalance force from disturbing the rest of the machine systems e.g., the slide servo system or the machine metrology frame. The system controls three degrees of motion. An unbalanced spindle creates a rotating force vector with a once per revolution period. The cause and size of this force is a function of the spindle, the part, the part fixturing, the part setup and the spindle speed. In addition, certain spindle speeds coupled with the size of the unbalance force may contain other harmonics that can excite machine structural resonances. The magnitude of the unbalance force increases as the square of the spindle speed. The control algorithm of this system is fully implemented on a commercially available machine tool controller and is sensitive only …

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