This report defines a number of terms within the realm of agricultural production.

This report provides information about the Evolution of the “One China” Policy and Key Statements from Washington, Beijing, and Taipei. Policy on "one China " covers three major aspects like sovereignty, cross-strait dialogue, PRC use of force.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (NWPA) calls for disposal of spent nuclear fuel in a deep geologic repository that is unlikely to be disturbed for thousands of years. Low-level waste sites are a state responsibility under the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act of 1980. Pursuant to that act, 10 regional compacts for disposal of low level waste have been approved by Congress. Three commercial low-level waste sites are currently operating, in the states of South Carolina, Utah, and Washington.

The little Higgs model provides an alternative to traditional candidates for new physics at the TeV scale. The new heavy gauge bosons predicted by this model should be observable at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We discuss how the LHC experiments could test the little Higgs model by studying the production and decay of these particles.

Digital television (DTV) is a new television service representing the most significant development in television technology since the advent of color television in the 1950s. DTV can provide sharper pictures, a wider screen, CD-quality sound, better color rendition, and other new services currently being developed. A successful deployment of DTV requires: the development by content providers of compelling digital programming; the delivery of digital signals to consumers by broadcast television stations, as well as cable and satellite television systems; and the widespread purchase and adoption by consumers of digital television equipment. A key issue in the Congressional debate over the digital transition has been addressing the millions of American over-the-air households whose existing analog televisions will require converter boxes in order to receive digital signals when the analog signal is turned off.

The Economic Development Administration (EDA), targeted for elimination or major “reinvention” early in the 104th Congress, gained a new lease on life in the waning days of the 105th. Having been kept alive via appropriations bills since its last authorizing legislation expired in 1982, P.L. 105-393 reauthorized the EDA and its programs for 5 years. On October 27, Congress approved a conference agreement recommending $286.7 million for EDAP and $28 million for S&E, for a totalFY2001 appropriation of$411.9 million for EDA. It became part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 4942, P.L. 106-553) signed into law on December 21, 2000.

The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA) and the Federal Power Act (FPA) were enacted to eliminate unfair practices and other abuses by electricity and gas holding companies by requiring federal control and regulation of interstate public utility holding companies. Comprehensive energy legislation has passed the House and Senate. The House passed H.R. 6 on April 11, 2003. On July 31, 2003, the Senate suspended debate on S. 14, inserted the text of H.R. 4 (107th Congress) as a substitute, and passed H.R. 6. A conference agreement was reached November 17, 2003, and passed by the House the next day. H.R. 6 includes an electricity title that would, in part, repeal PUHCA, would prospectively repeal the mandatory purchase requirement under PURPA, and would create an electric reliability organization. On June 15, 2004, H.R. 4503, a comprehensive energy policy bill, passed the House.

The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) operates a number of research and development (R&D) facilities for the U.S. Department of Energy at the Hanford Site, Washington. These facilities are subject to Clean Air Act regulations that require sampling of radionuclide air emissions from some of these facilities. A revision to an American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard on sampling radioactive air emissions has recently been incorporated into federal and state regulations and a re-evaluation of affected facilities is being performed to determine the impact. The revised standard requires a well-mixed sampling location that must be demonstrated through tests specified in the standard. It also carries a number of maintenance requirements, including inspections and cleaning of the sampling system. Evaluations were performed in 2000 – 2002 on two PNNL facilities to determine the operational and design impacts of the new requirements. The evaluation included inspection and cleaning maintenance activities plus testing to determine if the current sampling locations meet criteria in the revised standard. Results show a wide range of complexity in inspection and cleaning activities depending on accessibility of the system, ease of removal, and potential impact on building operations (need for outages). As expected, these High Efficiency Particulate Air …

This report reviews how the program works and provides analysis of program funding, recipients (numbers and characteristics), and the role being played by the program in the distribution of federal student aid. It concludes with an examination of several Pell-related issues that may be considered by the 108th Congress in the HEA reauthorization process.

The Federal Railroad Administration of the U.S. Department of Transportation is the primary federal agency that promotes and regulates railroad safety. To implement its safety responsibilities, the Federal Railroad Administration uses numerous strategies including the Safety Assurance and Compliance Program, field inspections; and to help improve its regulations, the administration uses the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee. This report contains information on the Federal Railroad Administration's Safety Program, railroad safety statistics, key reauthorization issues, and related information.

This report discusses global climate change and the market-based strategies to reduce greenhouse gases.

As part of the Campaign 4 effort in A Division we have done an analysis of several high explosives that are used in the current nuclear stockpile. In particular we have looked at samples of LX-17 and PBX-9502. The analysis was done using the glow discharge mass spectrometer that is currently located in B132N and operated by Mark Lane of the Chemistry and Material Science (CMS) Directorate. George Overturf from CMS obtained small samples of high explosive for the measurements. From the analysis we wanted to verify the actual atomic composition of the high explosive, see how that compared with the nominal composition, and understand whether any significant impurities existed in the samples. We present the analysis of several LX-17 and PBX-9502 samples using the glow discharge mass spectrometer to measure both the main constituents of the high explosive as well as any trace materials that may be present.

This report covers the background and policy issues related to the Act establishing the DHS and its implementation and will be updated as necessary

This report discusses intelligence issues for Congress including narcotics trafficking, conflicts between Israel and Palestine, in Iraq, and among the former Yugoslav states, and North Korean missile capabilities. Updated December 16, 2002.

From the formation of microscopic cracks in the fuel pipe liner of the space shuttle to the safety of roadway bridges, the fracture of materials has enormous implications throughout our society. The ability to assess and design safe engineering structures requires a detailed knowledge of this failure process. The fracture process depends on both the loading history and the detailed microscopic structure (microstructure) of the material. Weak points, such as inclusions and grain boundary junctions, are the locations from which microscopic fractures (voids and cracks) originate. Once nucleated, these fractures quickly link together to form a macroscopic crack. Despite this qualitative understanding, little is known about voids nucleation, plastic deformation in the surrounding material, and the mechanisms of linking. Central to Stockpile Stewardship is an understanding of shock loading of materials. During the passage of a shock wave, the material is compressed at a very high rate. This compression produces a high density of dislocation defects and other changes to the microstructure that are poorly understood. When the shock wave reflects from a free surface, the compression is rapidly released and extreme tension is produced inside the material. If this tension exceeds the internal rupture strength, microscopic fractures form and …

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Ductile metals subjected to shock loading can develop internal damage through nucleation growth and coalescence of voids. The extent of damage can range from a well-defined spall plane induced by light shocks to more widespread damage caused by strong shocks. Because damage materials are often part of a dynamic system, significant additional deformation can occur in extensively damaged materials. To represent material behavior in simulation codes for stockpile stewardship calculations, both the damage and the recompression processes must be modeled accurately. Currently, no experimentally based models of recompression behavior are available for use in numerical simulations. The goals of this project are to (1) perform recompression experiments on samples containing controlled and well-characterized damage, (2) develop a model capturing the recompression behavior and residual strength based on the experimental data and micro-mechanical models, and (3) implement the model in an Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASCI) code (ALE3D). The recompression model, together with failure models based on underlying physical mechanisms, will provide a more accurate representation of material behavior-information that is needed for simulations of explosively loaded materials such as those required by the Stockpile Stewardship Program.

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The formation of Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs) sets the stage for the formation of protostellar systems by the gravitational collapse of dense regions within the GMC that fragment into smaller core components that in turn condense into stars. Developing a comprehensive theory of star formation remains one of the most elusive, and most important, goals of theoretical astrophysics. Inherent in the difficulty in attaining this goal is that the gravitational collapse depends critically upon initial conditions within the cores which only recently have been known with sufficient accuracy to permit a realistic theoretical attack on the problem. Observations of stars in the vicinity of the Sun show that binary systems are prevalent and appear to be a general outcome of the collapse and fragmentation process. Despite years of progress, theoretical studies have still not determined why binary stars occur with such frequency, or indeed, even what processes determine the transition from single stars to binaries and thence to multiple stellar systems. One of the major goals of this research is to understand the nature of the formation of binary and multiple stellar systems with typical low mass stars 0.2 to 3 M{sub {circle_dot}} and the physical properties of these systems. …

Metals are used in structural engineering applications because they can yield and deform before they break. However, under certain conditions of dynamic loading, metals can fail prematurely. This behavior is often associated with shear localization phenomena, with a shear band acting as a precursor to crack formation. These phenomena have been observed in metals for some time, however modeling this behavior in a continuum simulation code has met with very limited success. We are pursuing a series of model experiments closely linked to new model development in order to gain a fundamental understanding of shear localization and fracture. Many NNSA and DoD related missions require modeling and simulation of the response of metals to high explosive (HE) loading and whether those metals fail or fracture. HE loading differs from the loading experienced by a specimen in a traditional engineering application. In HE loading, the first process to occur is the passage of a strong shock through the metal due to detonation. This shock completely changes the microstructure of the metal by inducing intense dislocation multiplication, sometimes accompanied by the formation of deformation twins. This change in microstructure strongly modifies the mechanical response of the metal, changing its yield strength, work …

The conference was aimed at early career physicists who were interested in exploring the possibilities of working at the interface between physics and biology, in particular, graduate students and postdocs considering applying the methods of physics to biological research. Areas of major importance were genomics and evolution, biological networks, biomolecular dynamics, high-resolution imaging of living cells, and technologies for biological investigation. A total of 205 persons attended the conference.

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An updated, self-consistent point design for a heavy ion fusion (HIF) power plant based on an induction linac driver, indirect-drive targets, and a thick liquid wall chamber has been completed. Conservative parameters were selected to allow each design area to meet its functional requirements in a robust manner, and thus this design is referred to as the Robust Point Design (RPD-2002). This paper provides a top-level summary of the major characteristics and design parameters for the target, driver, final focus magnet layout and shielding, chamber, beam propagation to the target, and overall power plant.

This paper presents two new hardware-assisted rendering techniques developed for interactive visualization of the terascale data generated from numerical modeling of next generation accelerator designs. The first technique, based on a hybrid rendering approach, makes possible interactive exploration of large-scale particle data from particle beam dynamics modeling. The second technique, based on a compact texture-enhanced representation, exploits the advanced features of commodity graphics cards to achieve perceptually effective visualization of the very dense and complex electromagnetic fields produced from the modeling of reflection and transmission properties of open structures in an accelerator design. Because of the collaborative nature of the overall accelerator modeling project, the visualization technology developed is for both desktop and remote visualization settings. We have tested the techniques using both time varying particle data sets containing up to one billion particle s per time step and electromagnetic field data sets with millions of mesh elements.