Use of a large-area liquid lithium surface as a first wall has significantly improved the plasma performance in the Current Drive Experiment-Upgrade (CDX-U) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Previous CDX-U experiments with a partially-covered toroidal lithium limiter tray have shown a decrease in impurities and the recycling of hydrogenic species. Improvements in loading techniques have permitted nearly full coverage of the tray surface with liquid lithium. Under these conditions, there was a large drop in the loop voltage needed to sustain the plasma current. The data are consistent with simulations that indicate more stable plasmas having broader current profiles, higher temperatures, and lowered impurities with liquid lithium walls. As further evidence for reduced recycling with a liquid lithium limiter, the gas puffing had to be increased by up to a factor of eight for the same plasma density achieved with an empty toroidal tray limiter.

The nature of dark energy is of such fundamental importance -- yet such a mystery -- that a dedicated dark energy experiment should be as comprehensive and powerfully incisive as possible. The Supernova/Acceleration Probe robustly controls for a wide variety of systematic uncertainties, employing the Type Ia supernova distance method, with high signal to noise light curves and spectra over the full redshift range from z=0.1-1.7, and the weak gravitational lensing method with an accurate and stable point spread function.

After a brief introduction and work motivation, static and dynamic methods for minority carrier lifetime measurements will be compared. Data on recombination velocity at heterointerfaces for both p-type and n-type quaternaries will be summarized. Radiative recombination and effect of photon recycling will be considered in detail.

Twenty-year return value of annual and seasonal maxima of daily precipitation are calculated from a set of transiently forced coupled general circulation model simulations. The magnitude and pattern of return values are found to be highly dependent on the seasonal cycle. A similar dependence is found for projected future changes in return values. The correlation between the spatial pattern of return value changes and mean precipitation changes is found to be low. Hence, the changes in mean precipitation do not provide significant information about changes in precipitation extreme values.

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The executive branch hired nearly 95,000 new employees during fiscal year 2003. Improving the federal hiring process is critical given the increasing number of new hires expected in the next few years. In May 2003, GAO issued a report highlighting several key problems in the federal hiring process. That report concluded that the process needed improvement and included several recommendations to address the problems. Today, GAO is releasing a followup report requested by the subcommittee that discusses (1) the status of recent efforts to help improve the federal hiring process and (2) the extent to which federal agencies are using two new hiring flexibilities--category rating and direct-hire authority. Category rating permits an agency manager to select any job candidate placed in a best-qualified category. Direct-hire authority allows an agency to appoint individuals to positions without adherence to certain competitive examination requirements when there is a severe shortage of qualified candidates or a critical hiring need."

The author briefly reviews recent progress in rare kaon decays, where he takes ''rare'' to mean those with {Beta} < {Omicron}(10{sup -7}).

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This report discusses implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act.

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This report describes the influence military conflict and international sanctions have had on agriculture in relation to Iraq's economy. This includes the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, the 1991 Gulf War, and 2003 Iraq War, the varying degrees of government effort to promote and/or control agricultural production, and the response to 1990 U.N. Sanctions.