Since the early 1960s, the United States has imposed a range of economic sanctions on Cuba, the most prominent of which is a comprehensive embargo prohibiting trade with Cuba. This Congressional Research Service report first provides an overview of U.S.-Cuba relations and U.S. policy toward Cuba. It then examines the history and current legislative and executive authorities of the various components of U.S. sanctions against Cuba, including aid, trade, and other restrictions.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether section 231.006 of the Family Code, regarding eligibility of child support obligors to enter into contracts paid with state funds, applies to Medicaid providers (RQ-792)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether the Parker County Hospital District is reponsible for the payment of health care costs for inmates in the Parker County Jail who are "eligible residents" of the hospital districts under chapter 61 of the Health and Safety Code and related questions (RQ-863)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether the State Board of Education may adopt a rule prescribing general content requirements for textbooks used in public schools, and whether the board's authority over textbook adoption extends to anicllary materials provided by publishers to schools at no cost to the state (RQ-903)

Letter opinion issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification; Whether a peace officer may request a polygraph examination of a person who charges or seeks to charge in a complaint the commission of an offense under Penal Code section 21.11, 22.011, 22.021, or 25.02 (ID# 33693)

Letter opinion issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Dan Morales, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the district judges who appoint the county auditor or the county commissioners court may require the county auditor to document the auditor’s travel expenses (ID# 38805)

Keyboard macros provide shortcuts to many repetitive command sequences in Pro/Engineer. They map any number of frequently used command sequences to user-selected keyboard keys. They may be nested within each other and may also include user keyboard entry within the macro. Another powerful feature of Pro/Engineer is adding menu options. Menu options may be added to any Pro/Engineer menu and is an effective way to graphically display keyboard macros to make them more accessible. Command sequences are mapped to a single user-defined menu option added to the bottom of any Pro/Engineer window. The '{at}setbutton' command added to the 'menu{_}def.pro' file specifies the commands to associate with added menu options. Menu options may also be used to execute non-Pro/Engineer commands. The associated command is linked to a menu option within Pro/Engineer's Utilities menu (in the Misc menu) and is issued whenever the menu option is selected. Such a feature is useful for adding menu options to start the Pro/Engineer User Guide utility, start a text editor from within Pro/Engineer, or perform system level actions. The '{at}setbutton{_}exec' command is used in the 'menu{_}def.pro' file for non-Pro/Engineer commands. A more detailed description of adding menu options can be found in the Pro/Engineer Fundamentals …

The Acquire Commercial Technology for Retrieval program seeks commercial solutions to measure any waste residual (i.e., heel)left after waste retrieval operations of underground radioactive storage tanks. The technology identified should operate in a range of waste depth thickness of 0 - 6 inches. This report provides a description of the need, requirements, and constraints for the residual waste volume measurement system; describes a logical approach to measuring waste volume; provides a brief review and assessment of available technologies; and outlines a set of integrated tests that will evaluate the performance of candidate technologies.

This report addresses the statutory basis for covert actions, criteria for their use in the post-Cold War world, and procedures for their planning, conducting, and funding.

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The evolution of the Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instability in a compressible medium has been investigated at an accelerating embedded interface and at the ablation front in a series of experiments on the Nova laser. The x-ray drive generated in a gold hohlraum ablatively accelerated a planar target consisting of a doped plastic pusher backed by a higher density titanium payload with perturbations placed at the plastic-Ti interface. The targets were diagnosed by face-on and side-on radiography. In previous work focusing on single mode perturbations, wavelengths as short as 10 m have been observed to grow strongly at the embedded interface. Here multimode perturbations consisting of either 2, 10 or 20 modes superposed in phase have been investigated.

There is growing evidence that global warming could become a major global environmental threat during the 21st century. The precautionary principle commands preventive action, at both national and international levels, to minimize this potential threat. Many near-term, relatively inexpensive, mitigation options are available. In addition, long-term research is required to evaluate and develop advanced, possibly more expensive, countermeasures, in the eventuality that they may be required. The utilization of power plant CO{sub 2} and its recycling into fossil fuel substitutes by microalgae cultures could be one such long-term technology. Microalgae production is an expanding industry in the U.S., with three commercial systems (of approximately 10 hectare each) producing nutriceuticals, specifically beta-carotene, extracted from Dunaliella, and Spirulina biomass. Microalgae are also used in wastewater treatment. Currently production costs are high, about $10,000/ton of algal biomass, almost two orders of magnitude higher than acceptable for greenhouse gas mitigation. This report reviews the current state-of-the-art, including algal cultivation and harvesting-processing, and outlines a technique for achieving very high productivities. Costs of CO{sub 2} mitigation with microalgae production of oils ({open_quotes}biodiesel{close_quotes}) are estimated and future R&D needs outlined.

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This report briefly discusses charging fees for grazing private livestock on federal lands, which is a long-standing but contentious practice. Generally, livestock producers who use federal lands want to keep fees low, while conservation groups and others believe fees should be raised to approximate "fair market value."

DOE`s FY 1996 budget of $18 billion included $1.1 billion for construction projects; ensuring that these projects meet bonafide existing or future DOE needs becomes increasingly important as DOE`s missions evolve and its organization changes. In 1994 and 1995, IG issued several reports expressing concerns about the construction planning process and questioned whether planned construction was necessary to meet mission needs. The reports also pointed out that DOE did not ensure that originally identified needs were still valid several years after a project`s conception. (The problems identified were at single locations.) While DOE management did not agree with all aspects of the audit reports, it canceled or downsized several projects and initiated a number of process improvements to enhance the construction planning process. Purpose of this report is to synthesize issues from these prior reports to assist management in focusing process improvement efforts to avoid construction of unneeded or oversized facilities.

Toxicological consequences were calculated for a postulated maximum caustic soda (NaOH) solution spray leak during addition to a waste tank to adjust tank pH. Although onsite risk guidelines were exceeded for the unmitigated release, site boundary consequences were below the level of concern. Means of mitigating the release so as to greatly reduce the onsite consequences were recommended.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), through the Interagency Agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), has initiated a three-phase program with the Consortium for Coal-Water Mixture Technology, with the aim of decreasing DOD`s reliance on imported oil by increasing its use of coal. The program is being conducted as a cooperative agreement between the Consortium and DOE. Activities this reporting period are summarized by phase. During this reporting period, preparation of the Phase I final report continued. Work on Phase II focused on emissions reductions, coal beneficiation/preparation studies, and economic analyses of coal use. Emissions reductions investigations included initiating a study to identify appropriate SO{sub 2} and NO{sub x} control technologies for coal-fired industrial boilers. In addition, work started on the design of a ceramic filtering device for installation on the demonstration boiler. The ceramic filter device will be used to demonstrate a more compact and efficient filtering device for retrofit applications. Coal preparation and utilization activities, and the economic analysis were completed and work focused on preparing the final report. Work on Phase III focused on coal preparation studies and economic analyses of coal use. Coal preparation studies were focused on continuing activities on particle size control, …

Reported is the study of 11 catch tanks in the 200-East Area and the 7 catch tanks in the 200-West Area listed as active. The location, capacity, material of construction, annual total accumulation, annual rain intrusion, waste transfer rate, and access for chemical injection in these tanks are documented. The present and future utilization and isolation plans for the catch tanks are established.

An estimate of tanker inventory using radiological attenuation calculations.

We have made the first measurement of defects in an aged sample of {delta} phase, Ga stabilized Pu, using positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy. This measurement validates the procedure necessary to perform measurements on this highly toxic material and obtain data representative of sample conditions. Comparison of the positron annihilation lifetime analysis of the data with calculated values suggests that He filled vacancies or vacancy clusters dominate the defect population. Such defects are the necessary precursor to void growth and swelling. The evolution of defects resulting from the radioactive decay of Pu during its life in the stockpile is one of the unknown quantities affecting our confidence in predictions of the limit on stockpile components. Radiation damage leads to changes in the size and strength of metals studied for reactor and accelerator use and similar effects may be expected in Pu. The evolution of radiation produced vacancies into larger void structures and accompanying macroscopic swelling may occur in Pu at some age. A detailed understanding of the defects in self irradiated Pu is required to predict the time scale of void swelling and related radiation effects. 1 fig.

The authors describe a numerical optimization scheme for fusion reactors. The particular application described is to find the smallest copper coil spherical tokamak, although the numerical scheme is sufficiently general to allow many other problems to be solved. The solution to the steady state energy balance is found by first selecting the fixed variables. The range of all remaining variables is then selected, except for the temperature. Within the specified ranges, the temperature which satisfies the power balance is then found. Tests are applied to determine that remaining constraints are satisfied, and the acceptable results then stored. Results are presented for a range of auxiliary current drive efficiencies and different scaling relationships; for the range of variables chosen the machine encompassing volume increases or remains approximately unchanged as the aspect ratio is reduced.