The amending process is central to the consideration of legislation by the Senate. This report briefly describes the various types of amendments that take place in the Senate.

This report discusses a possible reduction in federal highway program spending. Congress has chosen to overrule provisions of law that would have reduced the FY2003 spending level to $23.2 billion, and has instead settled on $31.8 billion, the same as the FY2002 level.

We present an improved analytical expression for the x-ray dynamic structure factor from a dense plasma which includes the effects of weakly bound electrons. This result can be applied to describe scattering from low to moderate Z plasmas, and it covers the entire range of plasma conditions that can be found in inertial confinement fusion experiments, from ideal to degenerate up to moderately coupled systems. We use our theory to interpret x-ray scattering experiments from solid density carbon plasma and to extract accurate measurements of electron temperature, electron density and charge state. We use our experimental results to validate various equation-of-state models for carbon plasmas.

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Bacterial endospore disruption and nucleic acid extractionresulting in DNA of PCR-amplifiable quality and quantity are not trivial.Responding to the needs of the Hazardous Materials Response Unit (HMRU),Laboratory Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation, protocols weredeveloped to close these gaps. Effectiveness and reproducibility of thetechniques were validated with laboratory grown pure spores of Bacillusanthracis and its close phylogenetic neighbors, and with spiked soils anddamaged samples.

The cavity design for a 3rd harmonic cavity for the TTF 2 photoinjector has been revised to increase the coupling between the main coupler and the cavity cells. The iris radius of the end cup of the cavity has been increased to accomplish a better coupling. The basic rf-parameters and the higher order modes of the modified design are summarized in this report.

With increased concern about the impact of refrigerant leakage on global warming, a number of new supermarket refrigeration system configurations requiring significantly less refrigerant charge are being considered. In order to help promote the development of advanced systems and expand the knowledge base for energy-efficient supermarket technology, the International Energy Agency (IEA) established IEA Annex 26 (Advanced Supermarket Refrigeration/Heat Recovery Systems) under the ''IEA Implementing Agreement on Heat Pumping Technologies''. Annex 26 focuses on demonstrating and documenting the energy saving and environmental benefits of advanced systems design for food refrigeration and space heating and cooling for supermarkets. Advanced in this context means systems that use less energy, require less refrigerant and produce lower refrigerant emissions. Stated another way, the goal is to identify supermarket refrigeration and HVAC technology options that reduce the total equivalent warming impact (TEWI) of supermarkets by reducing both system energy use (increasing efficiency) and reducing total refrigerant charge. The Annex has five participating countries: Canada, Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The working program of the Annex has involved analytical and experimental investigation of several candidate system design approaches to determine their potential to reduce refrigerant usage and energy consumption. Advanced refrigeration system …

In low-pressure discharges, when the electron mean free path is larger or comparable with the discharge length, the electron dynamics is essentially non-local. Moreover, the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) deviates considerably from a Maxwellian. Therefore, an accurate kinetic description of the low-pressure discharges requires knowledge of the non-local conductivity operator and calculation of the non-Maxwellian EEDF. The previous treatments made use of simplifying assumptions: a uniform density profile and a Maxwellian EEDF. In the present study a self-consistent system of equations for the kinetic description of nonlocal, non-uniform, nearly collisionless plasmas of low-pressure discharges is derived. It consists of the nonlocal conductivity operator and the averaged kinetic equation for calculation of the non-Maxwellian EEDF. The importance of accounting for the non-uniform plasma density profile on both the current density profile and the EEDF is demonstrated.

A new spectroscopic diagnostic on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) measures the velocity distribution of ions in the plasma edge with both poloidal and toroidal views. An anisotropic ion temperature is measured during the presence of high power HHFW RF heating in He plasmas, with the poloidal T(sub)i roughly twice the toroidal T(sub)i. Moreover, the measured spectral distribution suggests that two populations have temperatures of 500 eV and 50 eV with rotation velocities of -50 km/s and -10 km/s, respectively. This bi-modal distribution is observed in both the toroidal and poloidal views (in both He II and C III ions), and is well correlated with the period of RF power application to the plasma. The temperature of the edge ions is observed to increase with the applied RF power, which was scanned between 0 and 4.3MW. The ion heating mechanism from HHFW RF power has not yet been identified.

This report examines the economics of information sharing in consumer credit markets by (1) explaining the role of information in the lending process; (2) describing the economic effects of credit reporting; and (3) outlining the potential economic benefits forgone by restricting consumer credit information.

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This report addresses Amendments between the Houses.

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The Central Shops Burning/Rubble Pits (CSBRP) (631-1G and 631-3G) Operable Unit (OU) is listed as a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) 3004(u) Solid Waste Management Unit/Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) unit in Appendix C of the Federal Facility Agreement (FFA) for the Savannah River Site (SRS). The FFA is a legally binding agreement between regulatory agencies (USEPA and SCDHEC) and regulated entities (USDOE) that establishes the responsibilities and schedules for the comprehensive remediation of the SRS. The media associated with this OU are soil and groundwater. The CSBRP OU consists of four subunits: (1) Pit 631-1G; (2) Pits 631-3G/3GA; (3) Ponded Area (includes surface water impoundment area and adjacent wetland); and (4) Intermittent Stream. Additionally, groundwater associated with the CSBRP OU is being considered as a separate OU along with other potential source areas in Central Shops.

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The amending process is central to the consideration of legislation by the Senate. This report briefly describes the various types of amendments that take place in the Senate.

This report briefly discusses procedure regarding conference reports in the House.

This report briefly discusses procedure regarding conference reports in the Senate.

This report briefly summarizes the process of amendments between the House of Representatives and the Senate, which occurs if the House and Senate approve differing versions of a measure. An exchange of amendments between the houses resolves these differences.

The Department of Defense (DOD) has sent the Congress a major proposal entitled “Defense Transformation for the 21st Century Act of 2003”on April 10, 2003. This report briefly summarizes and presents all of the sections of the original DOD proposal in a side by side with the relevant provisions in current law, if they exist, that would have been affected by the proposal. The idea is to provide a “road map” that relates each section of the proposal to existing law. Provisions from the Homeland Security Act (HSA) of 2002 specific to the Department of Homeland Security are separately listed from the rest of the existing law, and are the most recently enacted changes to Title 5.