Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas Senate and House of Representatives recalling S.B. No. 1708 from the governor.

To meet growing energy demands, energy efficiency, renewable energy, and on-site generation coupled with effective utilization of exhaust heat will all be required. Additional benefit can be achieved by integrating these distributed technologies into distributed energy resource (DER) systems (or microgrids). This research investigates a method of choosing economically optimal DER, expanding on prior studies at the Berkeley Lab using the DER design optimization program, the Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM). DER-CAM finds the optimal combination of installed equipment from available DER technologies, given prevailing utility tariffs, site electrical and thermal loads, and a menu of available equipment. It provides a global optimization, albeit idealized, that shows how the site energy loads can be served at minimum cost by selection and operation of on-site generation, heat recovery, and cooling. Five prototype Japanese commercial buildings are examined and DER-CAM applied to select the economically optimal DER system for each. The five building types are office, hospital, hotel, retail, and sports facility. Based on the optimization results, energy and emission reductions are evaluated. Furthermore, a Japan-U.S. comparison study of policy, technology, and utility tariffs relevant to DER installation is presented. Significant decreases in fuel consumption, carbon emissions, and energy costs …

We report the first evidence of a fully reconstructed decay mode of the B{sub c}{sup {+-}} meson in the channel B{sub c}{sup {+-}} {yields} J/{psi}{sup {+-}}, with J/{psi} {yields} {mu}{sup +}{mu}{sup -}. The analysis is based on an integrated luminosity of 360 pb{sup -1} in p{bar p} collisions collected by the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We observe 18.9 {+-} 5.7 signal events on a background of 10.0 {+-} 1.4 events and the fit to the J/{psi}{pi}{sup {+-}} mass spectrum yields a B{sub c}{sup {+-}} mass of 6287.0 {+-} 4.8(stat) {+-} 1.1(syst) MeV/c{sup 2}.

BAASS (Bayesian Approaches for Adaptive Spatial Sampling) is a set of computational routines developed to support the design and deployment of spatial sampling programs for delineating contamination footprints, such as those that might result from the accidental or intentional environmental release of radionuclides. BAASS presumes the existence of real-time measurement technologies that provide information quickly enough to affect the progress of data collection. This technical memorandum describes the application of BAASS to a simple example, compares the performance of a BAASS-based program with that of a traditional gridded program, and explores the significance of several of the underlying assumptions required by BAASS. These assumptions include the range of spatial autocorrelation present, the value of prior information, the confidence level required for decision making, and ''inside-out'' versus ''outside-in'' sampling strategies. In the context of the example, adaptive sampling combined with prior information significantly reduced the number of samples required to delineate the contamination footprint.

This report is about the 2005 BRAC Commission

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Concerns over financing federal elections have become a seemingly perennial aspect of our political system, long centered on the enduring issues of high campaign costs and reliance on interest groups for needed campaign funds. This report discusses campaign finance practices, enduring issues and today’s paramount issues. In addition it presents the Legislative Action in the 108th and 109th Congress, as well as the Congressional efforts to close perceived loopholes in Federal Election Law.

This report gives an overview of the U.S - Caribbean relations and discusses some of its issues.

U.S.-China economic ties have expanded substantially over the past several years. China is now the third largest U.S. trading partner, its second largest source of imports, and its fourth largest export market. However, U.S.-China commercial ties have been strained by a number of issues, including a surging U.S. trade deficit with China, China's refusal to float its currency, and failure to fully comply with its World Trade Organization (WTO) commitments, especially its failure to provide protection for U.S. intellectual property rights (IPR). This report explores these issues in detail, especially concerning the lack of protection for U.S. IPR.

During the second half of the 1990's Coal Bed Methane (CBM) production increased dramatically nationwide to represent a significant new source of income and natural gas for many independent and established producers. Matching these soaring production rates during this period was a heightened public awareness of environmental concerns. These concerns left unexplained and under-addressed have created a significant growth in public involvement generating literally thousands of unfocused project comments for various regional NEPA efforts resulting in the delayed development of public and fee lands. The accelerating interest in CBM development coupled to the growth in public involvement has prompted the conceptualization of this project for the development of a CBM Primer. The Primer is designed to serve as a summary document, which introduces and encapsulates information pertinent to the development of Coal Bed Methane (CBM), including focused discussions of coal deposits, methane as a natural formed gas, split mineral estates, development techniques, operational issues, producing methods, applicable regulatory frameworks, land and resource management, mitigation measures, preparation of project plans, data availability, Indian Trust issues and relevant environmental technologies. An important aspect of gaining access to federal, state, tribal, or fee lands involves education of a broad array of stakeholders, including …

This report, which will be updated regularly, examines issues in U.S.-Cuban relations and tracks legislative initiatives on Cuba in the 109th Congress. The 109th Congress will likely continue an active interest in Cuba concerning human rights, debate over economic sanctions (especially on travel), food and agricultural exports to Cuba, terrorism issues, Radio and TV Marti, bilateral anti-drug cooperation, and migration issues.

The full funding policy is a federal budgeting rule imposed on DOD by Congress in the 1950s that requires the entire procurement cost of a weapon or piece of military equipment to be funded in the year in which the item is procured. Although technical in nature, the policy relates to Congress’ power of the purse and its responsibility for conducting oversight of Department of Defense (DOD) programs. Support for the policy has been periodically reaffirmed over the years by Congress, the Government Accountability Office, and DOD.

Development of the comprehensive codes used to study the boundary region of the DIII-D tokamak has been done in parallel with improvement of the diagnostics of this important region of the plasma. These codes have been used to interpret the diagnostic data and assist in design of improved divertor configurations. The development of codes used for analysis on DIII-D is described briefly. Model validation by comparing with the extensive DIII-D boundary region diagnostic data is also discussed.

Originally the PEP-II injection kickers were powered by one power supply. Since the kicker magnets where not perfectly matched, the stored beam got excited by about 7% of the maximum kicker amplitude. This led to luminosity losses which were especially obvious for trickle injection when the detector is on for data taking. Therefore two independent power supplies with thyratrons in the tunnel next to the kicker magnet were installed. This also reduces the necessary power by about a factor of four since there are no long cables that have to be charged. The kickers are now independently adjustable to eliminate any non-closure of the kicker system and therefore excitation of the stored beam. Setup, commissioning and fine tuning of this system are discussed.

The progress of multiple bunches of charged particles down the main L-band linacs of the ILC (International Linear Collider) can be disrupted by wakefields. These wakefields correspond to the electromagnetic fields excited in the accelerating cavities and have both long-range and short-range components. The horizontal and vertical modal components of the wakefield will be excited at slightly different frequencies (the dipole mode frequency degeneracy's are split) due to inevitable manufacturing errors. We simulate the progress of the ILC beam down the collider under the influence of these wakefields. In particular, we investigate the consequences on the final emittance dilution of the beam of coupling of the horizontal to the vertical motion of the beam.

We investigate the emittance dilution that occurs due to long range wakefields in the ILC (International Linear Collider) L-band linacs. In previous simulations we have focused upon the largest kick factors (proportional to the transverse fields which transversely kick the beam off axis) for the first three pass-bands. Here we supplement these calculations with an additional four bands. We include seven pass-bands in our simulations with the upper dipole frequencies extending a little higher than 4 GHz. Higher order dipole modes in the first three pass-bands are damped by carefully orientating higher order mode couplers at both ends of each cavity. Here we investigate the impact of upper band modes on the beam dynamics.