None

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.

This report examines the economic and political situation in Cuba, including the human rights situation, and U.S. policy toward Cuba. The report also analyzes a number of issues facing Congress in U.S. policy toward Cuba, including: the overall direction of U.S. policy; challenges to U.S. policy in the World Trade Organization; restrictions on commercial food and medical exports; restrictions on travel; bilateral drug trafficking cooperation; Cuba and terrorism; funding for U.S.-government sponsored radio and television broadcasting to Cuba; the Russian signals intelligence facility in Cuba; migration issues; and compensation to the families of those Americans killed in 1996 when Cuba shot down two U.S. civilian planes. The report cites legislation that was passed in the 106th Congress, and also tracks legislative action on these various issues in U.S. policy toward Cuba in the 107th Congress.

Since the United States imposed a comprehensive trade embargo against Cuba in the early 1960s, there have been numerous policy changes to restrictions on travel to Cuba. The embargo regulations do not ban travel itself, but place restrictions on any financial transactions related to travel to Cuba, which effectively result in a travel ban. This report reflects legislative or other major developments , including a listing and discussion of legislative initiatives in the 107th Congress.

None

None

None

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) pharmacy expenditures have risen significantly, reflecting national trends. The increase in pharmacy costs would have been even greater if not for the efforts taken by VA and DOD. GAO identified four important factors that have contributed to reduced pharmacy spending by VA and DOD. First, the two departments have used formularies to encourage the substitution of a lower-cost drug that is determined to be just as effective as a higher-cost drug. Second, VA and DOD have been able to effectively employ different arrangements to pay for or purchase prescription drugs at substantial discounts. Third, VA has significantly reduced the cost of dispensing prescription refills by using highly automated and less expensive consolidated mail outpatient pharmacy (CMOP) centers to handle a majority of the pharmacy workload instead of VA hospital and clinic pharmacies. Fourth, VA and DOD have reduced costs by leveraging their combined purchasing power by jointly buying prescription drugs. Nevertheless, one of the most important challenges is the joint procurement of brand name drugs. Although brand name drugs account for the bulk of prescription drug …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Money laundering is a serious issue; an estimated $500 billion are laundered annually. The extent to which money laundering through credit cards may be occurring, however, is unknown. Bank regulators, credit card industry representatives, and law enforcement officials interviewed by GAO indicated that credit card accounts were not likely to be used in the initial stage of money laundering, when illicit cash is first placed into the financial system, because the industry generally restricts cash payments. Industry representatives reported that, in their view, the banks' application screening processes, systems to monitor fraud, and policies restricting cash payments made credit cards less vulnerable to money laundering. At the time of GAO's review, the primary regulatory oversight mechanism to ensure the adequacy of anti-money laundering programs was the Bank Secrecy Act examination, which applies in the credit card industry to issuing and acquiring banks. The regulators said that the issuing banks' application screening process, fraud monitoring systems, and policies restricting cash payments lowered the risk of money laundering through credit cards."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "According to the American Association of Blood Banks, every year about 8 million individuals donate 14 million pints of blood, and 4.5 million patients receive life saving blood transfusions. The available data indicate that the blood supply has increased in the last 5 years and that growth has kept pace with the rise in demand. Blood suppliers received a high volume of blood donations immediately after the September 11 attacks. However, the small amount of blood needed to treat survivors of the attacks resulted in a nationwide surplus. The nation's blood supply can compensate for donors lost because of new donor restrictions designed to further reduce the risk of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease transmission. The average price of blood has risen over 50 percent since 1998. Although blood is primarily collected from volunteers, blood suppliers incur costs by collecting, processing, and testing donated blood."

Four manganese and iron phosphates with alluaudite or fillowite structures have been prepared by solid state reactions: Na2FeMn2(PO4)3, LiNaFeMn2(PO4)3, NaFe3(PO4)3, and Na2Mn3(PO4)3. LixNa2-xFeMn2(PO4)3 with x close to 2 was prepared from Na2FeMn2(PO4)3 by molten salt ion exchange. These materials are similar in stoichiometry to the phospho-olivines LiFe(Mn)PO4, but have a more complex structure that can accommodate mixed transition metal oxidation states. They are of interest as candidates for lithium battery cathodes because of their somewhat higher electronic conductivity, high intercalant ion mobility, and ease of preparation. Their performance as intercalation electrodes in non-aqueous lithium cells was, however, poor.

Simulation of the mixing of carbon dioxide and methane is critical to modeling gas reservoir processes induced by the injection of carbon dioxide. We have compared physical property estimates and simulation results of the mixing of carbon dioxide and methane gases from four numerical simulation codes. Test Problem 1 considers molecular diffusion in a one-dimensional stably stratified system. Test Problem 2 considers molecular diffusion and advection in an unstable two-dimensional system. In general, fair to good agreement was observed between the codes tested.

The purpose of this study was to determine which components of heavy-duty highway vehicles are candidates for the substitution of titanium materials for current materials if the cost of those Ti components is very significantly reduced from current levels. The processes which could be used to produce those low cost components were also investigated. Heavy-duty highway vehicles are defined as all trucks and busses included in Classes 2C through 8. These include heavy pickups and vans above 8,500 lbs. GVWR, through highway tractor trailers. Class 8 is characterized as being a very cyclic market, with ''normal'' year volume, such as in 2000, of approximately 240,000 new vehicles. Classes 3-7 are less cyclic, with ''normal'' i.e., year 2000, volume totaling approximately 325,000 new vehicles. Classes 3-8 are powered about 88.5% by diesel engines, and Class 2C at very roughly 83% diesel. The engine portion of the study therefore focused on diesels. Vehicle production volumes were used in estimates of the market size for candidate components.

This award supports collaborative research between Kansas State University and Sandia National Laboratories on the topic ''Molecular simulations of complex fluids in confined geometries.'' The objectives of this work are to develop new methodologies for fast and accurate simulations, and to apply simulations to various problems of interest to DOE. The success of this work will address several deficiencies in Sandia's capabilities in the area of molecular simulations. In addition, it provides educational opportunities for students and will enhance the science and technology capabilities at Kansas State through partnership with the national laboratories.

A CRYOGENIC RESEARCH APPARATUS TO MEASURE THE MOVEMENT OF ELECTRONS UNDER A HIGH ELECTRIC FIELD IN A LIQUID HELIUM BATH WAS DESIGNED AND BUILT AT THE BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY AND THE NEVIS LABORATORY OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. THE LIQUID HELIUM CHAMBER IS A DOUBLE WALLED CYLINDRICAL CONTAINER EQUIPPED WITH 5 OPTICS WINDOWS AND 10 HIGH VOLTAGE CABLES. TO SHIELD THE LIQUID HELIUM CHAMBER AGAINST THE EXTERNAL HEAT LOADS AND TO PROVIDE THE THERMAL UNIFORMITY IN THE LIQUID HELIUM CHAMBER, THE DOUBLE WALLED JACKET WAS COOLED BY A PUMPED HELIUM BATH. THE HELIUM CHAMBER WAS BUILT INTO A COMMERICAL LN2 / LHE CRYOSTAT. THIS PAPER PRESENTS THE DESIGN AND THE NUMERICAL SIMULATION ANALYSIS ON THERMAL UNIFORMITY OF THE ELECTRON BUBBLE CHAMBER.

THIS PAPER PRESENTS A CRYOGENIC DESIGN FOR UPGRADING THE BEIJING ELECTRON POSITRON COLLIDER AT THE INSTITUTE OF HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS IN BEIJING. THE UPGRADE INVOLVES 3 NEW SUPERCONDUCTING FACILITIES, THE INTERACTION REGION QUADRUPOLE MAGNETS, THE DETECTOR SOLENOID MAGNETS AND THE SRF CAVITIES. FOR COOLING OF THESE DEVICES, A NEW CRYPLANT WITH A TOTAL CAPACITY OF 1.0KW AT 4.5K IS TO BE BUILT AT IHEP. AN INTEGRATED CRYOGENIC DESIGN TO FIT THE BEPCII CRYOGENIC LOADS WITH HIGH EFFICIENCY IS CARRIEDOUT USING COMPUTATIONAL PROCESS ANALYSIS SOFTWARE WITH THE EMPHASES ON ECONOMICS AND SAFETY IN BOTH CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF THE PLANT. THIS PAPER DESCRIBES THE CRYOGENIC CHARACTERISTICS OF EACH SUPERCONDUCTING DEVICE, THEIR COOLING SCHEMES AND THE OVERALL CRYOPLANT.

The D1 and D2 magnets, the first two types of magnets Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is building for the Insertion Regions of Large Hadron Collider (LHC), are being constructed and tested in the BNL magnet test facility. The D1 magnet is cooled using 4.5 K forced flow cooling with three types of bore tube conditions. The D2 magnet is cooled using both liquid helium and forced flow cooling. The liquid cooling scheme, using the shell of the D2 cold mass as the helium vessel and a level gauge in the end volume of the cold mass for liquid control, has been successfully demonstrated. Test results prove that both D1 and D2 meet the performance requirements and that the 4.5 K liquid cooling scheme to be used for D2 and other magnets in the Insertion Regions of LHC is adequate.

This Determination of Importance Evaluation (DIE) applies to the Subsurface Exploratory Studies Facility (ESF), encompassing the Topopah Spring (TS) Loop from Station 0+00 meters (m) at the North Portal to breakthrough at the South Portal (approximately 78+77 m), and ancillary test and operation support areas including the Enhanced Characterization of the Repository Block (ECRB) Cross Drift. This evaluation applies specifically to site characterization testing activities ongoing and planned in the Subsurface ESF. ESF site characterization activities are being performed to obtain the information necessary to determine whether the Yucca Mountain Site is suitable as a geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. A more detailed description of these testing activities is provided in Section 6 of this DIE. Generally, the construction and operation of excavations associated with these testing activities are evaluated in the DIE for the Subsurface ESF (CRWMS M&O 1999a) and the DIE for the ESF ECRB Cross Drift (CRWMS M&O 2000a). The scope of this DIE also entails the proposed Unsaturated Zone (UZ) Transport Test at Busted Butte. Although, not a part of the TS Loop or ECRB Cross Drift, the associated testing activities are Subsurface testing activities. Busted Butte is located to the …

This report examines a small slice of the assortment of federal policies that effect the incentive to invest in pharmaceutical innovation: the federal tax burden on the pharmaceutical from 1990 to 1999.

This report considers the various ways the EPA has regulated hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) in the past and the changes following the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments. Moreover, the report details four programs that the EPA will use to better identify pollutant sources and regulate them.

This report and other related CRS and congressional documents provide information on, examinations of, and preliminary comparisons among federal interagency coordinative devices.