ABSTRACT: Changes in irrigation and land use may impact discharge of the Snake River Plain aquifer, which is a major contributor to flow of the Snake River in southern Idaho. The Snake River Basin planning and management model (SRBM) has been expanded to include the spatial distribution and temporal attenuation that occurs as aquifer stresses propagate through the aquifer to the river. The SRBM is a network flow model in which aquifer characteristics have been introduced through a matrix of response functions. The response functions were determined by independently simulating the effect of a unit stress in each cell of a finite difference groundwater flow model on six reaches of the Snake River. Cells were aggregated into 20 aquifer zones and average response functions for each river reach were included in the SRBM. This approach links many of the capabilities of surface and ground water flow models. Evaluation of an artificial recharge scenario approximately reproduced estimates made by direct simulation in a ground water flow model. The example demonstrated that the method can produce reasonable results but interpretation of the results can be biased if the simulation period is not of adequate duration.

Surface water and ground water systems are often intimately connected. Industrial, commercial, and agricultural land uses impact aquifer recharge and discharge, which in turn impact spring discharge to, and seepage from, surface water bodies. Irrigated agriculture is a significant component of river and aquifer water budgets in many areas of the western United States. Surface water applied in excess of crop consumptive requirements enters the ground water system increasing aquifer water levels and spring discharge. Ground water pumping for irrigation or other consumptive uses creates the opposite effect. The Snake River in southern Idaho is a prime example of a surface water system that is greatly affected by ground water conditions that change in response to irrigation practices.

As the Snake River passes through south central Idaho, greater than 50 percent of the annual flow is derived from spring discharge. As a result of incidental recharge from surface water irrigation, spring discharge along the Thousand Springs reach of the Snake River increased from approximately 85 m^sup 3^/s in the 1930s to over 180 m^sup 3^/s by the 1950s (Kjelstrom, 1995). With the introduction of more efficient irrigation methods and a transition from surface water to ground water irrigation sources, spring discharges began to decline, directly impacting base flow of the Snake River. The resulting lower base flows come at a time when instream and offstream water demands are growing and diversifying.

The flow of the Snake River is the object of many competing demands. Historically, river flows and reservoirs were managed primarily for irrigation. Demands associated with hydroelectric power, recreation, and fish and wildlife needs were generally of secondary concern. Federal and state policies, in response to changing values and public sentiment, have placed higher values on maintaining fish and wildlife habitat, species protection, and recreation. Additionally, the recent increases in the value of electrical power have stimulated a stronger competition for the resource by the hydropower industry. This change in values is placing the traditional irrigation demands in direct competition with nontraditional demands. Federal and state management agencies are attempting to adjust to changing values while maintaining most, if not all, of the traditional demands.

Field operating agencies are subdivisions that carry out activities under the operational control of a headquarters Air Force manager.

Air Force Agency for Modeling and Simulation, Orlando, Fla.: Implements Air Force, joint and Department of Defense modeling and simulation policies and standards, supports corporate Air Force modeling and simulation planning, requirements and investment, supports establishment, transition and integration of major Air Force modeling and simulation initiatives and programs, and supports Air Force decision making and mission execution. Supports cross-cutting initiatives such as distributed mission operations and the joint synthetic battlespace, manages the Air Force modeling and simulation professional development program and sponsors the annual Air Force modeling and simulation conference. Manages the Air Force modeling and simulation resource repository and staffs the Air Force modeling and simulation help desk.www.afams.af.mil

Air Force Center for Environmental Excellence, Brooks City-Base, Texas: Provides a full range of technical and professional environmental and construction management services, including environmental restoration, pollution prevention, environmental compliance natural and cultural resources conservation housing facility design and construction and comprehensive planning. Manages the Air Force's premier environmental clearinghouse and research service, PRO-ACT. providing real-time online assistance to Air Force personnel. Center of expertise for the Air Force Environmental Impact Analysis process as well as for architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, medical facility design, construction management and military family housing privatization. Executes and maintains the Air Force Family Housing toaster plan. Serves as the focal point for evaluation, application and transfer of environmental cleanup technologies from the laboratory to the field. Advocates for the Air Force before state, local, regional and federal environmental authorities, and offers major commands and installations assistance with environmental issues. www.afcee.brooks.af.mil

Air Force Civil Engineer Support Agency, Tyndall AFB Fla.: Maximizes Air Force civil engineers capabilities in basr and contingency operations by providing the best tools, practices and professional support. Comprises, technical and professional experts in a variety of traditional and non-traditional civil engineer functional areas, including electrical mechanical and structural engineering, readiness. training and education, management analysis. fire protection, systems engineering, explosive ordinance disposal, computer automation. energy management, vehicle and equipment acquisition, and weapons of mess destruction response. Manages, the Prime Base Engineer Emergency Force and RED HORSE programs and holds Readiness Challenge. Administers the Air Force Contract Augmentation Program contract to provide worldwide on-call contractor support for disaster response, contingency deployment operations and military operations other than war. Specializes in pavement structural evaluations and recommendations, utility rates negotiation, and repairing heating. ventilation and air conditioning systems, airfield lighting and aircraft arresting Systems. www.Meesa.af.mil

Air Force Command and Control, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Center, Langley AFB, Va.: Supports initiatives to influence, integrate and improve Air Force command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. Focuses on the joint force and joint force air component capability to dominate the battlespace and control forces by developing the science of control to enable the art of command. Engages the joint warfighter through the joint Forces Command joint battle management command and control board of directors. Executes the Air Force chief of staff's vision of the air operations center integration with the distributed common ground system as the hub of the command and control constellation and the CONTROLnet, enabled by the joint tactical radio system and tactical data link revolution in the Air Force's ability to control airpower. Represents warfighters from all major commands and provides the operational warfighter perspective to Air Force command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance spiral development and systems acquisition commands and processes. Includes the Command and Control Battlelab at Hurlburt Field, Fla., and the Air Force Experimentation Office, which leads the planning and execution of the biannual joint force expeditionary experiment.

There was little overall movement among the 15 largest talent agencies in Los Angeles County, with 11 firms holding their respective positions, including the top six.

But as is typical in the agency business, there were lots of comings and goings--most of it involving top-ranked Creative Artists Agency, which recruited several prominent agents from No. 2 William Morris Agency, No. 3 International Creative Management Inc., No. 4 United Talent Agency and No. 6 Endeavor Agency LLC.

The 15 largest agencies reported a combined 941 L.A. County-based agents, up 2.3 percent over the past 12 months. As for rankings, the Gersh Agency and Innovative Artists Talent & Literary Agency Inc. flip-flopped at Nos. 7 and 8, respectively. The Broder-Webb-Chervin-Silber Agency, No. 10 this year, and Abrams Artists Agency, No. 11 this year, also swapped spots.

BEVERLY Hills-based CAA remained the largest talent agency in Los Angeles County for the fourth consecutive year. The agency added 20 L.A.-based agents over the past 12 months, bringing its total to 220 agents.

CAA also signed up numerous clients, including Angelina Jolie, Will Ferrell, Hilary Duff, Sofia Coppola, Lindsay Lohan, Tony Hawk, Kate Winslet and Cate Blanchett. They join a roster that includes Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. Its marketing department has added Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. and Song Airlines, operated by Delta Air Lines Inc.

CAA will move its headquarters into the new 2000 Avenue of the Stars complex in Century City. The facility is expected to be ready by fall 2006. CAA was founded in 1975 by a group of former William Morris agents and now employs 597 people in its Beverly Hills office. It currently has four offices worldwide, including its newest office, in Beijing, that was opened during the past year. It also has offices in New York and Nashville.

his article, the third in a four-part series, describes the development of an analytics platform by SunTrust that integrates Basel II requirements for data-based risk assessment into a Windows-like interface allowing sophisticated statistical models to be developed, validated, and documented quickly and efficiently.

Although the previous two articles in this series provided some basic guidelines to analytics, the truth is that modeling is as much of an art as a science. Painting the most lifelike picture of risk can involve a variety of statistical tools. Each tool has its strong points and carries with it a unique programming language. Therefore, one of the biggest systems challenges is combining these tools to maximize efficiency, minimize errors, and basically make things as simple as possible.

SunTrust decided to build a standardized platform specifically geared to analytics. Regardless of the statistical tools necessary for performing specific tasks, the user would go to just one place--a customized graphical user interface (GUI). Some general benefits of the system are that it:

The development of SunTrust's modeling platform was done in two stages. The first stage consisted of writing customized code in each statistical programming language to capitalize on their strengths and create tailored routines for handling specialized tasks. These statistical packages included SAS, S-PLUS, SHAZAM, and a GIS (Geographic Information System) tool called ARCVIEW, which gives the modeling platform the capability of mapping spatial aspects of the data.

The second stage involved the creation of a GUI to consolidate the various statistical tools under a single umbrella of buttons and windows. Since the number of users was expected to be relatively small and localized, a Web solution was not necessary. Therefdore, Visual Basic 6.0 was selected as the application development language because it's easy to use and most users are familiar with it. SunTrust wanted a design that would offer maximum flexibility in the art of model building yet would be structured to provide consistency of methodology. Features were included that would allow the system to