This report discusses various policy aspects of the Agriculture appropriations bill for FY2010, which funds the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), except for the Forest Service.

This report discusses the Air Force F-22 fighter, also known as the Raptor, which is the world's most capable air-to-air combat aircraft. Procurement of F-22s began in FY1999, and a total of 187 have been procured through FY2009, including 24 in FY2009.

This report discusses political, economic, and security challenges facing Azerbaijan, including the unsettled conflict in the breakaway Nagorno Karabakh region. A table provides basic facts and biographical information. Related products include CRS Report RL33453, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, Political Developments and Implications for U.S. Interests, by Jim Nichol.

This report details the information related to Civilian Nuclear waste disposal.

This report is provides data on conventional arms transfers to developing nations by the United States and foreign countries for the preceding eight calendar years for use in its policy oversight functions. All agreement and delivery data in this report for the United States are government-to-government Foreign Military Sales (FMS) transactions.

This report discusses the current political conditions of Cuba, as well as its relationship with the United States. In particular, the report focuses on U.S. policy regarding Cuba, including various economic sanctions, human rights issues, and foreign aid appropriations.

This report describes the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" military policy, which holds that the presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in same-sex acts would create an unacceptable risk to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion which are the essence of military capability. This report also describes recent efforts by certain Members of Congress to amending this policy.

This report discuses the Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) appropriations bill, which provides funding for two of the three branches of the federal government, a city government, and 26 independent agencies with a range of functions and encompasses a number of potentially controversial issues.

This report gives an overview and current issues related to Grazing fees.

This report describes the characteristics of the Great Lakes, the interests they support, and possible threats to lake levels. It analyzes the federal laws and policies that regulate the diversion, withdrawal, and consumptive use of water from the Great Lakes. Also included is a discussion of the final Compact and Agreement and some of the issues raised by various interest groups. This report concludes with a general discussion on the relationship between compacts, federal law, and the Congress.

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The Majorana research and development is addressing key issues and risks related to the collaboration's goal of undertaking a search for neutrinoless double-beta decay (0{nu}{beta}{beta}) in {sup 76}Ge using an array of hyper-pure Ge-diodes (HPGe). The observation of this decay would provide critical insight into our understanding of neutrinos, yielding definitive evidence that neutrinos are Majorana particles and providing information on the absolute mass of neutrinos. Achieving sensitivities to 0{nu}{beta}{beta} decay half-lives on the order of 10{sup 26} years requires ultra-low backgrounds in the 2039 keV region where a 0{nu}{beta}{beta} decay peak would be observed. The goal of our R&D program has been to demonstrate the feasibility of all components of Majorana and to provide an integrated evaluation framework, allowing for optimization of these components in terms of background, background suppression, and signal detection efficiency and acceptance. This report covers work carried out by Majorana collaboration members at the University of Washington as part of the overall Majorana collaboration activities. Specifically the Majorana group at the University of Washington was involved in moving forward on demonstrating technology for clean large-scale cryostats and mounting the HPGe crystals in low-mass holders. The UW activities included assistance in the procurement and assembly of …

Numerical integration errors and volumetric locking in the near-incompressible limit are two outstanding issues in Galerkin-based meshfree computations. In this paper, we present a modified Gaussian integration scheme on background cells for meshfree methods that alleviates errors in numerical integration and ensures patch test satisfaction to machine precision. Secondly, a locking-free small-strain elasticity formulation for meshfree methods is proposed, which draws on developments in assumed strain methods and nodal integration techniques. In this study, maximum-entropy basis functions are used; however, the generality of our approach permits the use of any meshfree approximation. Various benchmark problems in two-dimensional compressible and near-incompressible small strain elasticity are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and optimal convergence in the energy norm of the maximum-entropy meshfree formulation.

MeDICi (Middleware for Data Intensive Computing) is a platform for developing high performance, distributed streaming analytic and scientific applications. Developed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), MeDICi has been released under an open source license and is based on enterprise-proven middleware technologies including a widely used Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), the standard Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), and open source message brokers. Wherever possible, we have built on existing open source, standards-based systems and integrated them into a coherent whole by creating simplified graphical programming tools such as a Workflow Designer and an easy to use and well-documented integration API. This software development approach allows us to: avoid re-creating complex service integration and orchestration systems, reap the benefits of continual improvements to the technology base, and focus on creating tools and APIs which allow for the creation of re-usable component-based software components applications and workflows. These aspects have facilitated rapid adoption of the platform within PNNL for demonstration and operational applications. In fact, MeDICi has been used for a wide range of integration projects including two sensor integration applications described later on in this paper. The remainder of this article white paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides a …

Neutron Imaging is a key diagnostic for use in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments, and has been fielded on experiments at Omega and Z. It will also be a key diagnostics at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and eventually at the Laser Megajoule in France. Most systems are based on a neutron pinhole array placed at the target chamber while it is imaged by a scintillating fiber block. The light output of this scintillator is coupled via a reducer to a fiber bundle which transports the image to a CCD camera. Alternatively some systems use optical lens assemblies to focus the light onto a camera.For ICF applications the neutron imaging systems will primarily look at 14.2 MeV neutrons. However, 2.2 MeV and 20+ MeV neutrons will also be present and will potentially provide key information.

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Biologically synthesized magnetite (Fe{sub 3}O{sub 4}) nanoparticles are studied using x-ray absorption and x-ray magnetic circular dichroism following exposure to hexavalent Cr solution. By examining their magnetic state, Cr cations are shown to exist in trivalent form on octahedral sites within the magnetite spinel surface. The possibility of reducing toxic Cr(VI) into a stable, non-toxic form, such as a Cr{sup 3+}-spinel layer, makes biogenic magnetite nanoparticles an attractive candidate for Cr remediation.

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A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "American workers increasingly rely on defined contribution (DC) plans like 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts (IRA) for retirement income. Together with other DC plans--401(a), 403(b), and 457 plans--these accounts hold about $7.1 trillion. As workers accrue earnings on their investments, they also pay a number of fees that may significantly decrease retirement savings over the course of a career. GAO examined: (1) the types of fees charged to participants and investments of various DC plans; (2) how DC plan sponsor actions affect participant fees; (3) how fee disclosure requirements vary; and (4) the effectiveness of DC plan oversight. GAO reviewed laws and regulations and consulted with experts, federal officials, service providers, and six plan sponsors."

The Neutron Imager diagnostic at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) will produce high-resolution, gated images of neutron-generating implosions. A similar pinhole imaging experiment (PINEX) diagnostic was recently deployed at the Z facility at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL). Both the SNL and LLNL neutron imagers use similar fiber array scintillators (BCF-99-555). Despite diverse resolution and magnification requirements, both diagnostics put significant onus on the scintillator spatial quality and alignment precision to maintain optimal point spread. Characterization and alignment of the Z-PINEX scintillator and imaging system were done at NSTec/Livermore Operations in 2009, and is currently underway for the NIF Neutron Imager.

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.

Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly infectious vesicular disease of cloven-hoofed animals caused by foot-and-mouth disease virus. It spreads by direct contact between animals, by animal products (milk, meat and semen), by mechanical transfer on people or fomites and by the airborne route - with the relative importance of each mechanism depending on the particular outbreak characteristics. Over the years a number of workers have developed or adapted atmospheric dispersion models to assess the risk of foot-and-mouth disease virus spread through the air. Six of these models were compared at a workshop hosted by the Institute for Animal Health/Met Office during 2008. A number of key issues emerged from the workshop and subsequent modelling work: (1) in general all of the models predicted similar directions for 'at risk' livestock with much of the remaining differences strongly related to differences in the meteorological data used; (2) determination of an accurate sequence of events is highly important, especially if the meteorological conditions vary substantially during the virus emission period; and (3) differences in assumptions made about virus release, environmental fate, and subsequent infection can substantially modify the size and location of the downwind risk area. Close relationships have now been established between participants, …

This report focuses on Bush Administration policy regarding earmarks originated by Congress and related issues. Specific definitions for the term earmark (and related terms, like congressional earmark, presidential earmark, and others) vary considerably and are controversial.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) are large livestock and poultry operations that raise animals in a confined situation. CAFOs can improve the efficiency of animal production but large amounts of manure produce can, if not properly managed, degrade air and water quality. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for regulating CAFOs and requires CAFOs that discharge certain pollutants to obtain a permit. This report discusses the (1) trends in CAFOs over the past 30 years, (2) amounts of waste they generate, (3) findings of key research on CAFOs' health and environmental impacts, (4) EPA's progress in developing CAFO air emissions protocols, and (5) effect of recent court decisions on EPA's regulation of CAFO water pollutants. GAO analyzed U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) data from 1982 through 2002, for large farms as a proxy for CAFOs; reviewed studies, EPA documents, laws, and regulations; and obtained the views of federal and state officials."