A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The federal government has created a framework to provide for EEO by prohibiting unlawful discrimination based on such factors as race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, and disability, and offers redress when discrimination and retaliation have occurred. To further EEO and help bring about a diverse workforce, federal agencies are required to carry out affirmative employment and minority recruitment programs. EEOC and OPM have primary responsibility for ensuring that the government's policies for a fair, equitable, and inclusive workplace are carried out. In response to a congressional request that GAO provide information on the federal government's performance in promoting EEO and managing its diverse workforce, this report provides information on (1) the statutory and policy framework relating to EEO, affirmative employment, and workforce diversity and (2) the roles and responsibilities of EEOC and OPM within the framework and how these agencies carry out these roles and responsibilities."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Despite its significant investment in business systems, the Department of Defense (DOD) continues to have long-standing financial and business management problems that preclude the department from producing reliable and timely information for making decisions and for accurately reporting on its billions of dollars of assets. GAO was asked to (1) identify DOD's fiscal year 2005 estimated funding for its business systems and (2) determine whether DOD has effective control and accountability over its business systems modernization investments."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) mission is to promote the safe, orderly, and expeditious flow of air traffic in the U.S. airspace system. To this end, FAA is modernizing its air traffic control systems, a multibillion dollar effort that GAO has designated as a high-risk program. GAO's research into the practices of successful public- and private-sector organizations has shown that developing and using an enterprise architecture, or blueprint, to guide and constrain systems investments is crucial to the success of such a modernization effort. GAO was asked to determine whether FAA has established effective processes for managing the development and implementation of an enterprise architecture."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "For over 125 years, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP), within the Department of the Treasury, has relied on a single contractor to supply the paper for U.S. currency. Such a long-term contracting relationship could contribute to higher costs and other risks. Another federal agency that relied on a single contractor, the U.S. Mint, decided to obtain a second supplier for coin metal. In solicitations for currency paper contracts in 1999 and 2003, BEP took steps to address barriers to competition that GAO had identified in 1998 through a survey of paper manufacturers. This report updates GAO's 1998 report using data from a second survey. It addresses (1) the changes BEP made to encourage competition and the results of its efforts, (2) the steps BEP took to ensure that it paid fair and reasonable prices, and (3) the analysis BEP has done of the advantages and disadvantages of obtaining a second supplier."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2003, 42,643 people were killed and more than 2.8 million people were injured in motor vehicle crashes. Efforts to reduce fatalities on the nation's roadways include the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration's (NHTSA) New Car Assessment Program. Under this program, NHTSA conducts vehicle crash and rollover tests to encourage manufacturers to make safety improvements to new vehicles and provide the public with information on the relative safety of vehicles. GAO examined (1) how NHTSA's New Car Assessment Program crash tests vehicles, rates their safety, and reports the results to the public; (2) how NHTSA's program compares to other programs that crash test vehicles and report results to the public; and (3) the impact of the program and opportunities to enhance its effectiveness."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2004, the Department of Defense (DOD) spent more than $200 billion to purchase goods and services. To help ensure defense contracts are awarded fairly and current and former employees do not use their knowledge of DOD acquisition activities to gain financial or other benefits, DOD personnel are required to conduct themselves in a manner that meets federal ethics rules and standards. Regulations require DOD to implement an ethics program and provide that contractors meet certain ethics standards. For this report, GAO assessed (1) DOD's efforts to train and counsel its workforce to raise awareness of ethics rules and standards as well as DOD measures of the effectiveness of these efforts and (2) DOD's knowledge of defense contractors' programs to promote ethical standards of conduct."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In recent years, federal agencies have increasingly turned to interagency contracts--where one agency, for example, places an order under an existing contract for another agency--as a way to streamline the procurement process. Interagency contracting can offer benefits of improved efficiency, but this approach needs to be effectively managed. To learn more about some of the challenges of interagency contracting, we reviewed the process that the Department of Defense (DOD) used to acquire interrogation and certain other services through the Department of the Interior to support military operations in Iraq. On behalf of DOD, Interior issued 11 task orders, valued at over $66 million, on an existing contract. This report identifies breakdowns in the procurement process, contributing factors that led to the breakdowns, and the extent to which recent actions by Interior and DOD address these contributing factors."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In its role as the nation's tax collector, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has a demanding responsibility for collecting taxes, processing tax returns, and enforcing the nation's tax laws. Since GAO's first audit of IRS's financial statements in fiscal year 1992, a number of weaknesses in IRS's financial management operations have been identified. In related reports, GAO has recommended corrective action to address those weaknesses. Each year, as part of the annual audit of IRS's financial statements, GAO not only makes recommendations to address any new weaknesses identified, but also follows up on the status of weaknesses GAO identified in previous years' audits. The purpose of this report is to assist IRS management in tracking the status of audit recommendations and actions needed to fully address them."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Because of the susceptibility of health care programs to fraud and abuse, Congress enacted the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control (HCFAC) program as part of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Pub. L. No. 104-191. HIPAA requires that the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Justice (DOJ) issue a joint annual report to Congress on amounts deposited to the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund and amounts appropriated from the trust fund for the HCFAC program. It also requires GAO to submit reports biennially. This, our final report required by law, provides the results of our review of amounts reported as (1) deposits to the trust fund, (2) appropriations from the trust fund and justification for expenditure of such amounts by HHS and DOJ, and (3) savings resulting from expenditures from the trust fund. We also report on the repeated late issuance of the annual HCFAC report as well as the status of our prior recommendations."

Various recycle strategies have been proposed to manage the inventory of transuranics in commercial spent nuclear fuel (CSNF), with a particular goal of increasing the loading capacity of spent fuel and reprocessing wastes in the Yucca Mountain repository. Transuranic recycling in commercial LWRs can be seen as a viable means of slowing the accumulation of transuranics in the nationwide CSNF stockpile. Furthermore, this type of approach is an important first step in demonstrating the benefits of a nuclear fuel cycle which incorporates recycling, such as envisioned for Generation-IV reactor systems under development. Recycling strategies of this sort are not proposed as an attempt to eliminate the need of a geologic nuclear waste repository, but as a means to enhance the usefulness of the repository currently under construction in the U.S., perhaps circumventing the need for a second facility. A US-DOE Secretarial recommendation on the need for the construction of a second geologic repository is required by 2010. The Advanced Fuel Cycle Initiative (AFCI) has supported a breadth of work to evaluate the ideal transuranic separation and recycle strategy. Previous AFCI studies of LWR-based transmutation have considered the benefits of homogeneously recycling plutonium, plutonium and neptunium, and all transuranic (TRU) species. …

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), Bureau of Environmental Science and Engineering, Office of Radiological Health (ORH) [as the primary local technical consultant in the event of a radiological or nuclear incident within the boundaries of New York City] requested the assistance of Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) with the development of a Feasibility Study for Potassium Iodide (KI) distribution in the unlikely event of a significant release of radioactive iodine in or near New York City. Brookhaven National Laboratory had previously provided support for New York City with the development of the radiological/nuclear portions of its All Hazards Emergency Response Plans. The work is funded by Medical and Health Research Association (MHRA) of New York City, Inc., under a work grant by the Federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for Public Health Preparedness and Response for Bioterrorism. This report is part of the result of that effort. The conclusions of this report are that: (1) There is no credible radiological scenario that would prompt the need for large segments of the general population of New York City to take KI as a result of a projected plume exposure to radioiodine reaching even the lowest threshold …

Personnel completed a rapid study of organic entrainment during operation of a CINC V-5 contactor under prototypical conditions covering the range of expected MCU operation. The study only considered the entrainment of organic into the strip acid effluent destined for the Defense Waste Processing Facility. Based on this work, the following observations are noted: (1) Concentrations of total organic from the contactor discharge, based upon modifier measurements, in the acid typically averaged 330 ppm{sub m}, for a range to 190-610 ppm{sub m}. (2) Entrained droplet sizes remained below 18 microns for samples collected at the decanter outlet and below 11 microns for samples taken from the contactor discharge. (3) Scouting tests showed that a vendor coalescer material promotes coalescence of smaller size droplets from the decanter effluent. (4) Personnel observed a previously unreported organic impurity in the solvent used for this study. Additional efforts are needed to ascertain the source of the impurity and its implication on the overall process. (5) Process throughputs and planned operating conditions result in very stable hydraulics, suggesting that the MCU stripping stages will have spare operating capacity. (6) The V-5 contactors show operated with relatively cool surfaces under the planned operating conditions. (7) If …

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 coccolithophorids could be carried …

The ZeaChem indirect method is a radically new approach to producing fuel ethanol from renewable resources. Sugar and syngas processing platforms are combined in a novel way that allows all fractions of biomass feedstocks (e.g. carbohydrates, lignins, etc.) to contribute their energy directly into the ethanol product via fermentation and hydrogen based chemical process technologies. The goals of this project were: (1) Collect engineering data necessary for scale-up of the indirect route for ethanol production, and (2) Produce process and economic models to guide the development effort. Both goals were successfully accomplished. The projected economics of the Base Case developed in this work are comparable to today's corn based ethanol technology. Sensitivity analysis shows that significant improvements in economics for the indirect route would result if a biomass feedstock rather that starch hydrolyzate were used as the carbohydrate source. The energy ratio, defined as the ratio of green energy produced divided by the amount of fossil energy consumed, is projected to be 3.11 to 12.32 for the indirect route depending upon the details of implementation. Conventional technology has an energy ratio of 1.34, thus the indirect route will have a significant environmental advantage over today's technology. Energy savings of 7.48 …

This Final Technical Report provides a concise retrospective and summary of all facets of the Sheldon Jackson College electrical Infrastructure Renovation portion of the Indian River Hydroelectric Project Grant of the City and Borough of Sitka, Alaska. The Project Overview describes the origins of the project, the original conditions that provided the impetus for the grant funding, how the grant amendment was developed, the conceptual design development, and the actual parameters of the final project as it went out to bid. The Project Overview also describes the ''before and after'' conditions of the project. The Objectives division of this Final Technical Report describes the amendment-funded goals of the project. It also describes the milestones of project development and implementation, as well as, the rationale behind the milestone array. The Description of Activities Performed division of this report provides an in-depth chronological analysis of progressive project implementation. Photographs will provide further illustration of particular functional aspects of the renovation project within project parameters. The Conclusions and Recommendations division of this report provides a comprehensive retrospective analysis of the project.

A combination of a regenerating biochemical mixture and an organic surfactant has been applied to wells in the East Texas Field with the goal of restoring permeability, reversing formation damage, mobilizing hydrocarbons, and ultimately increasing production. Initial work in task 1 was designed to open the perforations and remove blockages of scale, asphaltene, and other corrosion debris. This was accomplished on three wells that produce from the Woodbine, and was necessary to prepare the wells for more substantial future treatments. Secondly, in task 2, two wells were treated with much larger quantities of the biochemical mixture, e.g. 25 gallons, with a 2% KCl carrier solution that carried the active biochemical solution into the near wellbore area adjacent to producing reservoir. After a 7 to 10 day acclamation and reaction period, the wells were put back into production. The biochemical solution successfully broke down the scale, paraffin and other binders blocking permeability and released significant debris, which was immediately produced into the flow lines and separators. Oil production was clearly improved and the removed debris was a maintenance issue until the surface equipment could be modified. In task 3 the permeability restrictions in a cylindrical area of 10 to 20 feet …

The objective of this work is to improve the process for CO{sub 2} capture by alkanolamine absorption/stripping by developing an alternative solvent, aqueous K{sub 2}CO{sub 3} promoted by piperazine. Stripper modeling suggests the energy requirement with a simple stripper will be about the same for 5 m K{sup +}/2.5 m PZ and 7 m MEA. Modeling with a generic solvent shows that the optimum heat of CO{sub 2} desorption to minimize heat duty lies between 15 and 25 kcal/gmol. On-line pH and density measurements are effective indicators of loading and total alkalinity for the K+/PZ solvent. The baseline pilot plant campaign with 30% MEA has been started.

The goal of this project was to carry out the necessary experiments and analyses to extend current capabilities for modeling fuel transformations to the new conditions anticipated in next-generation coal-based, fuel-flexible combustion and gasification processes. This multi-organization, multi-investigator project has produced data, correlations, and submodels that extend present capabilities in pressure, temperature, and fuel type. The combined experimental and theoretical/computational results are documented in detail in Chapters 1-8 of this report, with Chapter 9 serving as a brief summary of the main conclusions. Chapters 1-3 deal with the effect of elevated pressure on devolatilization, char formation, and char properties. Chapters 4 and 5 deal with advanced combustion kinetic models needed to cover the extended ranges of pressure and temperature expected in next-generation furnaces. Chapter 6 deals with the extension of kinetic data to a variety of alternative solid fuels. Chapter 7 focuses on the kinetics of gasification (rather than combustion) at elevated pressure. Finally, Chapter 8 describes the integration, testing, and use of new fuel transformation submodels into a comprehensive CFD framework. Overall, the effects of elevated pressure, temperature, heating rate, and alternative fuel use are all complex and much more work could be further undertaken in this area. Nevertheless, …

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We review the current state of ENDL99, ENDF/B-VI.r8, JENDL-3.3, JEFF-3.0 and ENDF/B-VII.{beta}0 plutonium evaluations and lay out a tentative plan for updating all of the ENDL99 plutonium evaluations. In some specific cases, an evaluation for a particular isotope is of sufficient quality for us to adopt in ENDL99. More often, the quality of all evaluations for an isotope are low enough that we will need to perform a new evaluation.

In spring and summer 2003, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory led a team that conducted mobile and fixed hydroacoustic surveys in the forebay of The Dalles Dam for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - Portland District, for the Anadromous Fish Evaluation Program. The surveys provided information on the distribution and movement of smolt-sized fish relative to ambient factors such as flow, bathymetry, or diel cycle in the forebay at The Dalles Dam. This information is intended to provide baseline data for the development of a surface bypass alternative for juvenile salmon at The Dalles Dam. We sampled the forebay of The Dallas Dam one day and night each week for six weeks in the spring and another six weeks in the summer. In general, during the day in the spring, the greatest densities of smolt-sized fish were observed in the thalweg of the main channel from the Washington bank, to the east side of the powerhouse, along the powerhouse, and concentrated in the areas next to the sluiceway. Fish density was lower on the Washington side of the river and west of mid-powerhouse (north spillway side). The spring night distribution was similar, with a few notable differences. The density …

The 107th Congress version of (H.R. 7), passed by the House, had eight new tax provisions designed to benefit charities and charitable giving, the most important one being the charitable deduction for non-itemizers.This report focuses on the economic effect of the deduction for nonitemizers, assessing the incentive such deductions would create for increased charitable giving.

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This document discusses functions and capabilities of a typical building/facility energy management and control systems (EMCS). The overall intent is to provide a building operator, manager or engineer with basic background information and recommended functions, capabilities, and good/best practices that will enable the control systems to be fully utilized/optimized, resulting in improved building occupant quality of life and more reliable, energy efficient facilities.