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Among the 107th Congress' first orders of business will be dealing with the initiatives-both domestic and foreign policy-proposed by President Bush throughout his presidential campaign. This report contains information on those orders of business including U.S. foreign and security policy, global issues, defense policy, and more.

This report provides an overview of how federal lands and resources are managed, the agencies that manage the lands, the authorities under which these lands are managed, and some of the issues associated with federal land management.

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed steps taken by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to strengthen its information technology (IT) investment management and acquisition capabilities. The Bureau took these actions to address recommendations made in an earlier report on the failure of the Automated Land and Mineral Record System (ALMRS) to meet BLM's business needs. GAO found that since 1999, BLM has been working to implement GAO recommendations to determine the usefulness of ALMRS and to assess and strengthen its IT investment management and acquisition capabilities. Although the bureau has not yet finished these efforts, it has begun to apply improved management strategies for selecting IT investments, develop processes and practices for controlling and evaluating investments, and build a more mature systems acquisition capability. However, before completing and institutionalizing new investment control processes, the Bureau has begun moving forward with an IT acquisition. As a result, BLM's efforts may be subject to the same project management and management oversight risks that adversely affected the ALMRS/Modernization."

Correspondence issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Recent legislation increased funding for food stamp employment and training programs from fiscal year 1998 through fiscal year 2002, when the Food Stamp Program is scheduled to be reauthorized. To qualify for these additional federal funds, states must maintain their state-funded expenditures for employment and training at a level no lower than in fiscal year 1996; these additional funds are referred to as maintenance-of-efforts funds. The act requires that at least 80 percent of all employment and training funds be spent on able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWD). The law also gives the states the option to exempt from the work requirement up to 15 percent of their ABAWD population not residing in a waived area or otherwise exempted from the work requirement. GAO examined (1) the trends in ABAWD participation in the Food Stamp Program, including recent data on ABAWDs who are living in waived areas, exempted from work requirements, participating in qualifying employment and training activities, or working, and (2) the extent to which the states have used employment and training program funding. GAO found that ABAWD participation in the Food Stamp Program has dropped rapidly since …

In this report, the use of an asymptotic method, based on the time scaling of the ratio of produced fluids, to infer the relative permeability exponent of the displaced phase near its residual saturation, for immiscible displacements in laboratory cores was proposed. Sufficiently large injection rates, the existence of a power law can be detected, and its exponent inferred, by plotting in an appropriate plot the ratio of the flow rates of the two fluids at the effluent for some time after breakthrough.

Hanford Seismic Monitoring provides an uninterrupted collection of high-quality raw and processed seismic data from the Hanford Seismic Network (HSN) for the U.S. Department of Energy and its contractors. Hanford Seismic Monitoring also locates and identifies sources of seismic activity and monitors changes in the historical pattern of seismic activity at the Hanford Site. The data are compiled, archived, and published for use by the Hanford Site for waste management, Natural Phenomena Hazards assessments, and engineering design and construction. In addition, the seismic monitoring organization works with the Hanford Site Emergency Services Organization to provide assistance in the event of a significant earthquake on the Hanford Site. The HSN and the Eastern Washington Regional Network (EWRN) consist of 41 individual sensor sites and 15 radio relay sites maintained by the Hanford Seismic Monitoring staff. For the HSN, there were 477 triggers during the first quarter of fiscal year (FY ) 2001. The peak of the activity occurred over December 12th, 13th, and 14th when 35 events occurred. No earthquakes triggered the Hanford Strong Motion Accelerometers during the first quarter of FY 2001.

This is one of two companion papers that describe the ENERGY-10 PV design tool computer simulation program. The other paper is titled ''ENERGY-10 Photovoltaics: A New Capability.'' Whereas this paper focuses on the PV aspects of the program, the companion paper focuses on the implementation method. The case study in this paper is a commercial building application, whereas the case study in the companion paper is a residential application with an entirely different building load characteristic. Together they provide a balanced view.

The objectives of this work was to: synthesize responsive copolymer systems; characterize molecular structure and solution behavior; measure rheological properties of aqueous fluids in fixed geometry flow profiles; and to tailor final polymer compositions for in situ rheology control under simulated conditions. This report focuses on the synthesis and characterization of novel stimuli responsive copolymers, the investigation of dilute polymer solutions in extensional flow and the design of a rheometer capable of measuring very dilute aqueous polymer solutions at low torque.

This fact sheet explains how concentrating solar power technology works and the three types of systems in development today: trough, dish, and central receiver.

This report provides a summary of the cold tests performed on the equipment to be used in the Gunite and Associated Tanks Treatability Study. The testing was performed from June 1996 to May 1997 at the Tanks Technology Cold Test Facility located at the 7600 complex at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Testing of specific equipment grouped into the following sections: (1) Modified Light-Duty Utility Arm Testing, (2) Remotely Operated Vehicle Testing, (3) Waste Dislodging and Conveyance System and Balance of Plant Equipment Testing, (4) Camera and Lighting System Testing, and (5) Characterization End-Effector Testing. Each section contains descriptions of a series of tests that summarize the test objectives, testing performed, and test results. General conclusions from the testing are also provided.

The goal of this report is to develop improved extraction processes to mobilize and produce the oil left untapped using conventional techniques. Current chemical schemes for recovering the residual oil have been in general less than satisfactory. High cost of the processes as well as significant loss of chemicals by adsorption on reservoir materials and precipitation has limited the utility of chemical-flooding operations. There is a need to develop cost-effective, improved reagent schemes to increase recovery from domestic oil reservoirs. The goal of the report was to develop and evaluate novel mixtures of surfactants for improved oil recovery.

The R-matrix resonance analysis of experimental neutron transmission and cross sections of {sup 233}U, with the Reich-Moore Bayesian code SAMMY, was extended up to the neutron energy of 600 eV by taking advantage of new high resolution neutron transmission and fission cross section measurements performed at the Oak Ridge Electron Linear Accelerator (ORELA). The experimental data base is described. In addition to the microscopic data (time-of-flight measurements of transmission and cross sections), some experimental and evaluated integral quantities were included in the data base. Tabulated and graphical comparisons between the experimental data and the SAMMY calculated cross sections are given. The ability of the calculated cross sections to reproduce the effective multiplication factors k{sub eff} for various thermal, intermediate, and fast systems was tested. The statistical properties of the resonance parameters were examined and recommended values of the average s-wave resonance parameters are given.

One class of internal transport barrier discharges in the JT-60U tokamak is characterized by two relatively flatter regions of the pressure separated by a region with very large pressure gradient. Linear growth rates for toroidal drift-type modes are calculated for discharges in this class, without and with sheared E x B rotation effects. For cases with fully-developed barriers, the results with rotation are consistent with a picture in which the radial electric field generated in part by the steep pressure gradient causes local stabilization, and thus reduction of the local anomalous transport, which allows the steep pressure gradient to persist. If rotation is omitted from the calculation for these cases, or if rotation is included for cases without barriers or with partially developed barriers, the unstable region spreads into the steep pressure gradient region.

In this thesis, both time-resolved, nonlinear optical spectroscopy and linear spectroscopy are used to investigate the interactions and dynamics of elementary excitations in strongly correlated electron systems. In the first part, we investigate the renormalization of magnetic elementary excitations in the transition metal oxide Cr{sub 2}O{sub 3}. We have created a non-equilibrium population of antiferromagnetic spin waves and characterized its dynamics, using frequency- and time-resolved optical spectroscopy of the exciton-magnon transition. We observed a time-dependent pump-probe line shape, which results from excitation induced renormalization of the spin wave band structure. We present a model that reproduces the basic characteristics of the data, in which we postulate the optical nonlinearity to be dominated by interactions with long-wavelength spin waves, and the dynamics due to spin wave thermalization. Using linear spectroscopy, coherent third-harmonic generation and pump-probe experiments, we measured the optical properties of the charge-transfer (CT) gap exciton in Sr{sub 2}CuO{sub 2}Cl{sub 2}, an undoped model compound for high-temperature superconductors. A model is developed which explains the pronounced temperature dependence and newly observed Urbach tail in the linear absorption spectrum by a strong, phonon-mediated coupling between the charge-transfer exciton and ligand field excitations of the Cu atoms. The third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility …

This report provides a summary of the cold tests performed on the equipment to be used in the Gunite and Associated Tanks Treatability Study. The testing was performed from June 1996 to May 1997 at the Tanks Technology Cold Test Facility located at the 7600 complex at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Testing of specific equipment grouped into the following sections: (1) Modified Light-Duty Utility Arm Testing, (2) Remotely Operated Vehicle Testing, (3) Waste Dislodging and Conveyance System and Balance of Plant Equipment Testing, (4) Camera and Lighting System Testing, and (5) Characterization End-Effector Testing. Each section contains descriptions of a series of tests that summarize the test objectives, testing performed, and test results. General conclusions from the testing are also provided.

The Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab or LBNL) is a multi-program national research facility operated by the University of California for the Department of Energy (DOE). As an integral element of DOE's National Laboratory System, Berkeley Lab supports DOE's missions in fundamental science, energy resources, and environmental quality. Berkeley Lab programs advance four distinct goals for DOE and the nation: (1) To perform leading multidisciplinary research in the computing sciences, physical sciences, energy sciences, biosciences, and general sciences in a manner that ensures employee and public safety and protection of the environment. (2) To develop and operate unique national experimental facilities for qualified investigators. (3) To educate and train future generations of scientists and engineers to promote national science and education goals. (4) To transfer knowledge and technological innovations and to foster productive relationships among Berkeley Lab's research programs, universities, and industry in order to promote national economic competitiveness. Annual report on Laboratory Directed Research and Development for FY2000.

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The Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center (RMOTC) has recently completed two tests of a high-energy gas fracturing system being developed by Western Technologies of Crossville, Tennessee. The tests involved the use of two active wells located at the Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 3 (NPR-3), thirty-five miles north of Casper, Wyoming (See Figure 1). During the testing process the delivery and operational system was enhanced by RMOTC, Western Technologies, and commercial wireline subcontractors. RMOTC has assisted an industrial client in developing their technology for high energy gas fracturing to a commercial level. The modifications and improvements implemented during the technology testing process are instrumental in all field testing efforts at RMOTC. The importance of well selection can also be critical in demonstrating the success of the technology. To date, significant increases in well productivity have been clearly proven in well 63-TPX-10. Gross fluid production was initially raised by a factor of three. Final production rates increased by a factor of six with the use of a larger submersible pump. Well productivity (bbls of fluid per foot of drawdown) increased by a factor of 15 to 20. The above results assume that no mechanical damage has occurred to the casing or cast …

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This report discusses funding and policy issues regarding the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is responsible for ensuring the safety of foods, drugs, medical devices, cosmetics, and other products.