A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "A number of states have adopted laws that allow medical use of marijuana. Federal law, however, does not recognize any accepted medical use for marijuana and individuals remain subject to federal prosecution for marijuana possession. Debate continues over medical effectiveness of marijuana, and over government policies surrounding medical use. State laws in Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, and California allow medical use of marijuana under specified conditions. All four states require a patient to have a physician's recommendation to be eligible for medical marijuana use. Alaska, Hawaii, and Oregon have established state-run registries for patients and caregivers to document their eligibility to engage in medical marijuana use; these states require physician documentation of a person's debilitating condition to register. Laws in these states also establish maximum allowable of marijuana for medical purposes. California's law does not establish a state-run registry or establish maximum allowable amounts of marijuana. Relatively few people had registered to use marijuana for medical purposes in Oregon, Hawaii, and Alaska. As of Spring 2002, 2,450 people, or about 0.05 percent of the total population of the three states combined, had registered as medical marijuana users. …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Agencies across the federal government are embarking on large-scale organizational transformations to address 21st century challenges. One proposed approach to address systemic federal governance and management challenges involves the creation of a senior-level position--a chief operating officer (COO)/chief management officer (CMO)--in selected federal agencies to help elevate, integrate, and institutionalize responsibility for key management functions and business transformation efforts. GAO was asked to develop criteria and strategies for establishing and implementing COO/CMO positions in federal agencies. To do so, GAO (1) gathered information on the experiences and views of officials at four organizations with COO/CMO-type positions and (2) convened a forum to gather insights from individuals with experience in business transformation."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, domestic military installations increased their antiterrorism measures to their highest levels. These measures were reduced in the weeks following the attacks, but because of the persistent nature of the threat, the antiterrorism posture at domestic installations remains at a higher than normal level more than 1 year later. The Department of Defense's (DOD) budget request for fiscal year 2003 includes more than $10 billion for combating terrorism activities, which includes a substantial increase in funding for antiterrorism measures to safeguard personnel and strategic issues. The service headquarters GAO reviewed did not use a comprehensive results-oriented management framework to guide their antiterrorism efforts. According to service officials, a comprehensive results-oriented management framework for antiterrorism efforts is not consistently used across all services and commands because DOD does not require it, and service officials indicated that they were reluctant to develop such an approach before the forthcoming DOD-wide antiterrorism strategy was issued. Although the Department has recently restarted its efforts toward developing this strategy, it has not set a specific time frame for its completion. The services and commands are following …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The attacks on the World Trade Center had a substantially negative impact on the New York City economy, severely affecting businesses. In the aftermath of the attacks, Congress, among other things, appropriated emergency supplemental funds to several federal agencies to aid and rebuild the affected areas. The Chairman of the House Committee on Small Business asked GAO to describe the assistance provided to small businesses that is funded from emergency supplemental appropriations of federal Community Development Block Grant funds and other sources."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Subcontracting on federal contracts is a large and growing marketplace for small businesses. The Small Business Administration's (SBA) Commercial Marketing Representatives (CMRs) have long been considered to be key to fostering small businesses' participation in subcontracts. GAO was asked to assess the role that CMRs are playing in administering SBA's subcontracting assistance program."

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, organizations and donors have provided Russia with tens of billions of dollars in economic assistance to helping it transition to a market economy within a democratic state. This transition presents opportunities and challenges to the Russians and to those providing economic assistance. This report focuses on the assistance given to Russia by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank's International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the 1992 Freedom Support Act, and the European Union's Technical Assistance to the Commonwealth of Independent States program. GAO found that the success of the assistance programs has been mixed. Although there have been several individual successes, such as small business development, GAO's interviews with the financial institutions revealed that overall program goals are not being met. GAO identified three obstacles toward attaining program objectives: (1) difficult conditions in Russia, (2) limitations in how programs were designed and implemented, and (3) the interdependent nature of Russia's transition needs. The financial institutions and donors, along with the Russian government, are reevaluating the design of their programs. …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "million members of the armed forces have been deployed in service to the United States. Congress enacted the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act to recognize the needs of those servicemembers who are deployed in the midst of pursuing postsecondary education or repaying student loans. GAO was asked to determine (1) how the Department of Education has implemented HEROES, (2) the policies and practices federal student loan lenders have in place to assist borrowers serving on active duty, and (3) the policies and practices postsecondary schools have to assist students who are serving on active duty. To address these objectives, GAO interviewed representatives from the nine largest Federal Family Education Loan program lenders, surveyed a random sample of postsecondary schools, and visited four colleges and universities."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The D.C. School Choice Incentive Act created the first private kindergarten-through-grade-12 school-choice program supported by federal funds. The program was named the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). GAO was asked to assess the (1) accountability mechanisms governing the use of funds, (2) results of the grantee's efforts to meet the program's recruiting priorities and eligibility requirements and inform parents of their choices, and (3) extent that the evaluation of OSP reflects statutory requirements and the implementation of the program supported the detection of useful and generalizable findings. To assess the program, GAO analyzed financial, program, and evaluation data. GAO did not assess the performance of participating private schools nor did GAO evaluate the impact of the program."

This Strategic Plan for Sustainable Energy Management and Environmental Stewardship states goals, measures progress toward goals and how actions are monitored to achieve continuous improvement for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

GIT and IEC developed thin-film Si bottom cell and showed that deposition of top cell in tandem device did not reduce bottom cell performance.

The dual issues of energy security and climate change mitigation are driving a renewed debate over how to best provide safe, secure, reliable and environmentally responsible electricity to our nation. The combination of growing energy demand and aging electricity generation infrastructure suggests major new capacity additions will be required in the years ahead.

It is the policy of the Department of Energy (DOE) that sustainable energy and transportation fuels management will be integrated into DOE operations to meet obligations under Executive Order (EO) 13423 "Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management," the Instructions for Implementation of EO 13423, as well as Guidance Documents issued in accordance thereto and any modifcations or amendments that may be issued from time to time. In furtherance of this obligation, DOE established strategic performance-based energy and transportation fuels goals and strategies through the Transformational Energy Action Management (TEAM) Initiative, which were incorporated into DOE Order 430.2B "Departmental Energy, Renewable energy, and Transportation Management" and were also identified in DOE Order 450.1A, "Environmental Protection Program." These goals and accompanying strategies are to be implemented by DOE sites through the integration of energy and transportation fuels management into site Environmental Management Systems (EMS).

Property-based testing is a testing technique that evaluates executions of a program. The method checks that specifications, called properties, hold throughout the execution of the program. TASpec is a language used to specify these properties. This paper compares some attributes of the language with the specification patterns used for model-checking languages, and then presents some descriptions of properties that can be used to detect common security flaws in programs. This report describes the results of a one year research project at the University of California, Davis, which was funded by a University Collaboration LDRD entitled ''Property-based Testing for Cyber Security Assurance''.

Deep X-ray lithography on PMMA resist is used in the LIGA process. The resist is exposed to synchrotron X-rays through a patterned mask and then is developed in a liquid developer to make high aspect ratio microstructures. The limitations in dimensional accuracies of the LIGA generated microstructure originate from many sources, including synchrotron and X-ray physics, thermal and mechanical properties of mask and resist, and from the kinetics of the developer. This work addresses the thermal analysis and temperature rise of the mask-resist assembly during exposure in air at the Advanced Light Source (ALS) synchrotron. The concern is that dimensional errors generated at the mask and the resist due to thermal expansion will lower the accuracy of the lithography. We have developed a three-dimensional finite-element model of the mask and resist assembly that includes a mask with absorber, a resist with substrate, three metal holders, and a water-cooling block. We employed the LIGA exposure-development software LEX-D to calculate volumetric heat sources generated in the assembly by X-ray absorption and the commercial software ABAQUS to calculate heat transfer including thermal conduction inside the assembly, natural and forced convection, and thermal radiation. at assembly outer and/or inner surfaces. The calculations of assembly …

This document presents the mathematical theory implemented in the CFEST (Coupled Flow, Energy, and Solute Transport) simulator. The simulator is a three-dimensional finite element model that can be used for evaluating flow and solute mass transport. Although the theory for thermal transport is presented in this guide, it has not yet been fully implemented in the simulator. The flow module is capable of simulating both confined and unconfined aquifer systems, as well as constant and variable density fluid flows. For unconfined aquifers, the model uses a moving boundary for the water table, deforming the numerical mesh so that the uppermost nodes are always at the water table. For solute transport, changes in concentration of a single dissolved chemical constituent are computed for advective and hydrodynamic transport, linear sorption represented by a retardation factor, and radioactive decay. Once fully implemented, transport of thermal energy in the groundwater and solid matrix of the aquifer can also be used to model aquifer thermal regimes. Mesh construction employs “collapsible”, hexahedral finite elements in a three-dimensional coordinate system. CFEST uses the Galerkin finite element method to convert the partial differential equations to algebraic form. To solve the coupled equations for momentum, solute and heat transport, …

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Distortion frequently occurs during machining of age hardening aluminum alloys due to residual stresses introduced during the quenching step in the heat treatment process. This report quantifies, compares, and discusses the effectiveness of several methods for minimizing residual stresses and machining distortion in aluminum alloys 7075 and 6061.

This report presents results from the development and optimization of a reference commercialscale high-temperature electrolysis (HTE) plant for hydrogen production. The reference plant design is driven by a high-temperature helium-cooled reactor coupled to a direct Brayton power cycle. The reference design reactor power is 600 MWt, with a primary system pressure of 7.0 MPa, and reactor inlet and outlet fluid temperatures of 540° C and 900°C, respectively. The electrolysis unit used to produce hydrogen consists of 4.176 × 10 6 cells with a per-cell active area of 225 cm2. A nominal cell area-specific resistance, ASR, value of 0.4 Ohm•cm2 with a current density of 0.25 A/cm2 was used, and isothermal boundary conditions were assumed. The optimized design for the reference hydrogen production plant operates at a system pressure of 5.0 MPa, and utilizes an air-sweep system to remove the excess oxygen that is evolved on the anode side of the electrolyzer. The inlet air for the air-sweep system is compressed to the system operating pressure of 5.0 MPa in a four-stage compressor with intercooling. The overall system thermal-to-hydrogen production efficiency (based on the low heating value of the produced hydrogen) is 49.07% at a hydrogen production rate of 2.45 kg/s …

The results and procedure of the alignment of the MINOS Far Detector are presented. The far detector has independent alignments of SM1 and SM2. The misalignments have an estimated uncertainty of {approx}850 {micro}m for SM1 and {approx}750 {micro}m for SM2. The alignment has as inputs the average rotations of U and V as determined by optical survey and strip positions within modules measured from the module mapper. The output of this is a module-module correction for transverse mis-alignments. These results were verified by examining an independent set of data. These alignment constants on average contribute much less then 1% to the total uncertainty in the transverse strip position.

Integrating renewable energy and distributed generations into the Smart Grid architecture requires power electronic (PE) for energy conversion. The key to reaching successful Smart Grid implementation is to develop interoperable, intelligent, and advanced PE technology that improves and accelerates the use of distributed energy resource systems. This report describes the simulation, design, and testing of a single-phase DC-to-AC inverter developed to operate in both islanded and utility-connected mode. It provides results on both the simulations and the experiments conducted, demonstrating the ability of the inverter to provide advanced control functions such as power flow and VAR/voltage regulation. This report also analyzes two different techniques used for digital signal processor (DSP) code generation. Initially, the DSP code was written in C programming language using Texas Instrument's Code Composer Studio. In a later stage of the research, the Simulink DSP toolbox was used to self-generate code for the DSP. The successful tests using Simulink self-generated DSP codes show promise for fast prototyping of PE controls.

The vapor-liquid-solid growth process for synthesis of group-IV semiconducting nanowires using silane, germane, disilane and digermane precursor gases has been investigated. The nanowire growth process combines in situ gold seed formation by vapor deposition on atomically clean silicon (111) surfaces, in situ growth from the gaseous precursor(s), and real-time monitoring of nanowire growth as a function of temperature and pressure by a novel optical reflectometry technique. A significant dependence on precursor pressure and growth temperature for the synthesis of silicon and germanium nanowires is observed, depending on the stability of the specific precursor used. Also, the presence of a nucleation time for the onset of nanowire growth has been found using our new in situ optical reflectometry technique.

This report documents the key results from the DOE Controlled Hydrogen Fleet and Infrastructure Validation and Demonstration project. This project is also referred to as the fuel cell vehicle and infrastructure learning demonstration.

Acoustic sensing systems are critical elements in detection of sniper events. The microphones developed in this project enable unique sensing systems that benefit significantly from the enhanced sensitivity and extremely compact foot-print. Surface and bulk micromachining technologies developed at Sandia have allowed the design, fabrication and characterization of these unique sensors. We have demonstrated sensitivity that is only available in 1/2 inch to 1 inch studio reference microphones--with our devices that have only 1 to 2mm diameter membranes in a volume less than 1cm{sup 3}.

The results of Monte Carlo radiation shielding study performed with the MARS15 code for the vertical test facility at the A0 north cave enclosure at Fermilab are presented and discussed. The vertical test facility at the A0 north cave is planned to be used for testing 1.3 GHz single-cell superconducting RF cavities with accelerating length of 0.115 m. The operations will be focused on high accelerating gradients--up to 50 MV/m. In such a case the facility can be a strong radiation source [1]. When performing a radiation shielding design for the facility one has to take into account gammas generated due to interactions of accelerated electrons with cavity walls and surroundings (for example, range of 3.7-MeV electrons in niobium is approximately 3.1 mm while the thickness of the niobium walls of such RF cavities is about 2.8 mm). The electrons are usually the result of contamination in the cavity. The radiation shielding study was performed with the MARS15 Monte Carlo code [2]. A realistic model of the source term has been used that describes spatial, energy and angular distributions of the field-emitted electrons inside the RF cavities. The results of the calculations are normalized using the existing experimental data on …