A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2004, lenders made about $65 billion in loans through the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) to assist students in paying for postsecondary education. The Higher Education Act (HEA), which authorizes FFELP, broadly defined eligible lenders--including schools. The Department of Education's (Education) Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) is responsible for ensuring that lenders comply with FFELP laws and regulations. Recently, schools have become increasingly interested in becoming lenders, and this has raised concerns about whether it is appropriate for schools to become lenders given that they both determine students' eligibility for loans and in some cases set the price of attendance. In light of these concerns we determined (1) the extent to which schools have participated as FFELP lenders and their characteristics, (2) how schools have structured lending operations and benefits for borrowers and schools, and (3) statutory and regulatory safeguards designed to protect taxpayers' and borrowers' interests."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Mobility is critical to the nation's economy. Projections of future passenger and freight travel suggest that increased levels of investment may be needed to maintain the current levels of mobility provided by the nation's highway and transit systems. However, calls for greater investment in transportation come amid growing concerns about fiscal imbalances at all levels of the government. As a result, careful decisions will need to be made to ensure that transportation investments maximize the benefits of each federal dollar invested. In this report GAO identifies (1) the categories of benefits and costs that can be attributed to new highway and transit investments and the challenges in measuring them; (2) how state, local, and regional decision makers consider the benefits and costs of new highway and transit investments when comparing alternatives; (3) the extent to which investments meet their projected outcomes; and (4) options to improve the information available to decision makers. To address these objectives, we convened an expert panel, surveyed state departments of transportation and transit agencies, and conducted site visits to five metropolitan areas that had both a capacity-adding highway project and transit …

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 guarantees the availability and renewability of health insurance coverage for certain individuals. It permits a limited number of small businesses and self-employment individuals to establish tax-favored medical savings accounts, increases the tax deduction for health insurance for the self-employed, and amends the Internal Revenue Code to treat private long-term care policies the way health insurance policies and health care expenses are currently treated.

With the dramatic population increase in the West over the last thirty years, the Western states have been under increasing pressure from their citizens to secure future access to water. In planning to meet this goal, however, Western officials have had to confront a heretofore obscure doctrine of water law: the doctrine of Indian reserved water rights, also known as the Winters doctrine. Therefore, in order for Western water officials to effectively plan for a stable allocation of water on which all parties can rely, they must find a way to satisfy the water claims of local Indian tribes. This report provides an overview of the legal issues surrounding Indian reserved water rights disputes.

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With the Nation's coal-burning utilities facing the possibility of tighter controls on mercury pollutants, the U.S. Department of Energy is funding projects that could offer power plant operators better ways to reduce these emissions at much lower costs. Sorbent injection technology represents one of the simplest and most mature approaches to controlling mercury emissions from coal-fired boilers. It involves injecting a solid material such as powdered activated carbon into the flue gas. The gas-phase mercury in the flue gas contacts the sorbent and attaches to its surface. The sorbent with the mercury attached is then collected by the existing particle control device along with the other solid material, primarily fly ash. During 2001, ADA Environmental Solutions (ADA-ES) conducted a full-scale demonstration of sorbent-based mercury control technology at the Alabama Power E.C. Gaston Station (Wilsonville, Alabama). This unit burns a low-sulfur bituminous coal and uses a hot-side electrostatic precipitator (ESP) in combination with a Compact Hybrid Particulate Collector (COHPAC{reg_sign}) baghouse to collect fly ash. The majority of the fly ash is collected in the ESP with the residual being collected in the COHPAC{reg_sign} baghouse. Activated carbon was injected between the ESP and COHPAC{reg_sign} units to collect the mercury. Short-term mercury removal …

AC complex impedance spectroscopy studies were conducted between 600-800 C on symmetrical cells that employed strontium-and-magnesium-doped lanthanum gallate electrolyte, La{sub 0.9}Sr{sub 0.1}Ga{sub 0.8}Mg{sub 0.2}O{sub 3} (LSGM). The objective of the study was to identify the materials system for fabrication and evaluation of intermediate temperature (600-800 C) solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). The slurry-coated electrode materials had fine porosity to enhance catalytic activity. Cathode materials investigated include La{sub 1-x}Sr{sub x}MnO{sub 3} (LSM), LSCF (La{sub 1-x}Sr{sub x}Co{sub y}Fe{sub 1-y}O{sub 3}), a two-phase particulate composite consisting of LSM-doped-lanthanum gallate (LSGM), and LSCF-LSGM. The anode materials were Ni-Ce{sub 0.85}Gd{sub 0.15}O{sub 2} (Ni-GDC) and Ni-Ce{sub 0.6}La{sub 0.4}O{sub 2} (Ni-LDC) composites. Experiments conducted with the anode materials investigated the effect of having a barrier layer of GDC or LDC in between the LSGM electrolyte and the Ni-composite anode to prevent adverse reaction of the Ni with lanthanum in LSGM. For proper interpretation of the beneficial effects of the barrier layer, similar measurements were performed without the barrier layer. The ohmic and the polarization resistances of the system were obtained over time as a function of temperature (600-800 C), firing temperature, thickness, and the composition of the electrodes. The study revealed important details pertaining to the ohmic …

The objectives of this ESP (Enhanced Surveillance) project are to evaluate sensor performance for future aging studies of materials, components and weapon systems. The goal of this project is to provide analysis capability to experimentally identify and characterize the aging mechanisms and kinetics of Core Stack Assembly (CSA) materials. The work on fiber optic light sources, hermetic sealing of fiber optics, fiber optic hydrogen sensors, and detection systems will be discussed.

Amorphous SiO{sub 2} is classically understood as a continuous random network forming glass. Typically amorphous materials possess no translational symmetry, which is the signature of a crystal. Our interest in investigating SiO{sub 2}, grown as a thin film (100, 500 {angstrom}) on Si(001), is to observe how this particular amorphous phase is able to couple to the crystalline substrate and reflect a peculiar degree of order.

Predictions of increasing levels of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) and the specter of global warming have intensified research efforts to identify ways to sequester carbon. A number of novel avenues of research are being considered, including bioprocessing methods to promote and accelerate biosequestration of CO{sub 2} from the environment through the growth of organisms such as coccolithophorids, which are capable of sequestering CO{sub 2} relatively permanently. Calcium and magnesium carbonates are currently the only proven, long-term storage reservoirs for carbon. Whereas organic carbon is readily oxidized and releases CO{sub 2} through microbial decomposition on land and in the sea, carbonates can sequester carbon over geologic time scales. This proposal investigates the use of coccolithophorids ? single-celled, marine algae that are the major global producers of calcium carbonate ? to sequester CO{sub 2} emissions from power plants. Cultivation of coccolithophorids for calcium carbonate (CaCO{sub 3}) precipitation is environmentally benign and results in a stable product with potential commercial value. Because this method of carbon sequestration does not impact natural ecosystem dynamics, it avoids controversial issues of public acceptability and legality associated with other options such as direct injection of CO{sub 2} into the sea and ocean fertilization. Consequently, cultivation of …

In order to reduce recirculating power fraction to acceptable levels, the spherical torus concept relies on the simultaneous achievement of high toroidal {beta} and high bootstrap fraction in steady state. In the last year, as a result of plasma control system improvements, the achievable plasma elongation on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) has been raised from {kappa} {approx} 2.1 to {kappa} {approx} 2.6--approximately a 25% increase. This increase in elongation has lead to a doubling increase in the toroidal {beta} for long-pulse discharges. The increase in {beta} is associated with an increase in plasma current at nearly fixed poloidal {beta}, which enables higher {beta}{sub t} with nearly constant bootstrap fraction. As a result, for the first time in a spherical torus, a discharge with a plasma current of 1 MA has been sustained for 1 second. Data is presented from NSTX correlating the increase in performance with increased plasma shaping capability. In addition to improved shaping, H-modes induced during the current ramp phase of the plasma discharge have been used to reduce flux consumption during and to delay the onset of MHD instabilities. A modeled integrated scenario, which has 100% non-inductive current drive with very high toroidal {beta}, will …

The Department of Energy's Hanford Nuclear Site located in Washington State has accumulated over 2 million curies of radioactive waste from activities related to the production of plutonium (Ahearne, 1997). Sixty-seven of the single-shelled tanks located at the site are thought to have leaked, allowing between 2 and 4 million liters of waste fluids into the underlying vadose zone. The chemical processes employed at the Hanford Site to extract plutonium, as well as the need to minimize corrosion of the high-carbon steel storage tanks, resulted in uncharacterized hyperalkaline waste streams rich in radionuclides as well as other species including significant amounts of sodium and aluminum.

This report examines what we currently know about preprimary programs, including numbers of children served and their family characteristics; as well as data on the efficacy of preprimary programs in enhancing later learning and other life skills. Current federal programs that serve preschool age children are described, and policy issues which may arise as the federal role in early childhood education is debated are discussed.

The Sixteenth Official OPCW Proficiency Test started in October 2004. The samples were prepared by scientists affiliated with the Forensic Science Center at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, USA. The work was funded by the US Department of Energy. The test scenario and the spiking and background chemicals were discussed and agreed in advance with the OPCW. The samples were prepared in accordance with ''Work Instruction for the Preparation of Test Samples for OPCW Proficiency Tests'' (Document No.: QDOC/LAB/WI/PT2). The preparation of the test samples and their analysis are described in this report.

This report discusses various issues in the 109th Congress pertaining to water infrastructure and water quality standards. Legislative initiatives to comprehensively amend the Clean Water Act (CWA) have stalled for some time as interested parties have debated whether and exactly how to change the law. Congress has recently focused legislative attention on narrow bills to extend or modify selected CWA programs, rather than taking up comprehensive proposals.

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This goal of this project was to evaluate the capability and limits of current scientific simulation development tools and technologies with specific focus on their suitability for use with the next generation of scientific parallel applications and High Performance Computing (HPC) platforms. The opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors, and reflect the authors' current understanding and functionality of the many tools investigated. As a deliverable for this effort, we are presenting this report describing our findings along with an associated spreadsheet outlining current capabilities and characteristics of leading and emerging tools in the high performance computing arena. This first chapter summarizes our findings (which are detailed in the other chapters) and presents our conclusions, remarks, and anticipations for the future. In the second chapter, we detail how various teams in our local high performance community utilize HPC tools and technologies, and mention some common concerns they have about them. In the third chapter, we review the platforms currently or potentially available to utilize these tools and technologies on to help in software development. Subsequent chapters attempt to provide an exhaustive overview of the available parallel software development tools and technologies, including their strong and weak points …

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Tests were performed to evaluate the accuracy, precision and response time of certain commercially available handheld toxic gas monitors. The tests were conducted by PNNL in the Chemical Chamber Test Facility for CH2MHill Hanford Company. The instruments were tested with a set of dilute test gases including ammonia, nitrous oxide, and a mixture of organic vapors (acetone, benzene, ethanol, hexane, toluene and xylene). The certified gases were diluted to concentrations that may be encountered in the outdoor environment above the underground tank farms containing radioactive waste at the U.S. Department of Energy's Hanford site, near Richland, Washington. The challenge concentrations are near the lower limits of instrument sensitivity and response time. The performance test simulations were designed to look at how the instruments respond to changes in test gas concentrations that are similar to field conditions.

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This report summarizes current housing issues, cites legislative proposals, and in some cases, presents brief pro/con discussions.