Other written product issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This document presents the results of GAO's survey of federal Enterprise Communities (EC) that were designated in the first round of the Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Community program in 1994. Round I ECs received $2.95 million in program grants and businesses in the ECs could use a program tax-exempt bond. The purpose of our survey was to collect data describing how Round I ECs implemented the program. Questionnaire items covered the types of governance structures ECs established, number of programs they implemented, usage of the program tax-exempt bond, and perceptions of factors influencing changes observed in poverty, unemployment, and economic growth in the ECs. We administered an e-mail survey to officials from the 60 Round I ECs--33 urban and 27 rural--that were still in operation as of June 2005 and did not receive additional designations under the Empowerment Zone or Renewal Community programs. We chose to exclude ECs that received subsequent designations, because we did not want their responses to be influenced by the benefits received under the additional designations. We created two versions of the questionnaire, one for urban ECs and another for rural ECs, …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The H-1B visa program assists U.S. employers in temporarily filling certain occupations with highly-skilled foreign workers. There is considerable interest regarding how Labor, along with Homeland Security and Justice, is enforcing the requirements of the program. This testimony summarizes our report, GAO-06-720, that describes how Labor carries out its H-1B program responsibilities and how Labor works with other agencies involved in the H-1B program."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In recent years, Congress has expressed concerns about the federal land management agencies' ability to provide quality recreational opportunities and reduce visitor confusion over the variety of user fees. In December 2004, Congress passed the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (REA) to standardize recreation fee collection and use at federal lands and waters. GAO was asked to determine (1) what the agencies have done to coordinate implementation of REA, (2) what agencies have done to implement REA, (3) the extent to which agencies have controls and accounting procedures for collected fees, (4) how projects and activities are selected to receive funding from fees, and (5) the extent of unobligated fund balances. To answer these objectives, GAO reviewed agency guidance, analyzed fee data, interviewed officials, visited 26 fee-collecting units, and administered a nationwide survey to 900 fee-collecting units."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Medicaid--the federal-state health care financing program--covered over 56 million people at a cost of $295 billion in fiscal year 2004, the latest fiscal year for which complete data are available. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is the federal agency responsible for overseeing states' Medicaid programs and ensuring the propriety of expenditures reported by states for federal reimbursement. In 2002, GAO reported on weaknesses in CMS's oversight of Medicaid financial management and made recommendations to CMS to strengthen its oversight process. In fiscal year 2003, CMS started receiving funds from the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control (HCFAC) program to help improve Medicaid financial management. GAO was asked to evaluate CMS's financial management activities, including following up on prior recommendations. In this report, GAO examined (1) the extent to which CMS has improved its ability to identify and address emerging issues that put federal Medicaid dollars at risk and (2) how CMS used funds for Medicaid from the HCFAC account."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. military has long relied on contractors to provide a variety of goods and services to U.S. forces around the world, including those located in Iraq and Afghanistan. These services range from maintaining advanced weapon systems and setting up and operating communications networks to providing gate and perimeter security, interpreting foreign languages, preparing meals and doing laundry for the troops. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) uses contractors for a variety of reasons, including a lack of skilled and qualified military personnel and the need to conserve scarce skills to ensure that they will be available for future deployments. DOD estimates that it has more than 50,000 contractor employees in support of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Depending on the types of services being offered, contractor employees may be U.S. citizens, or third country nationals, and contractors are often encouraged to hire host country nationals to help rebuild local economies and get local nationals back to work. While contractor employees can provide significant benefits to U.S. forces, contractor employees can also pose a risk to U.S. troops. For example, the terrorists who attacked the U.S.S. Cole were …

Letter from the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission to the Department of Defense requesting responses to a list of questions regarding army depots.

Mo/Si multilayer coatings reflecting at 131 {angstrom} were deposited successfully on the AIA primary and secondary flight mirrors and on two coating witness Si wafers, on November 16, 2005, at LLNL. All coatings were characterized by means of EUV reflectance measurements at beamline 6.3.2 of the Advanced Light Source (ALS) synchrotron at LBNL, and were found to be well within specifications.

This report summarizes the study of the tolerance limits on the assembly of the cathode and the Pierce electrode for the DARHT-II diode (2.5 MV, 2 kA case), performed through a series of computer simulations using the PIC code WARP [1]. We have considered sources of beam quality degradation like the errors in axial and transverse positioning, and the size of the radial gap between the cathode and the Pierce electrode (shroud). The figure of merit was chosen to be the RMS beam (edge) emittance at a distance of 1 meter from the cathode, as defined by {var_epsilon}{sub x} = 4 {beta}{gamma} {radical}(<x{sup 2}><x{prime}{sup 2}>-<xx{prime}>{sup 2}) {center_dot}. The analysis shows that to position the cathode at the correct axial and transverse location is more important than the size of the radial gap.

The AIA secondary flight mirror, previously coated at Columbia University with Mg/SiC for the 303.8 {angstrom} channel and Mo/Y for the 93.9 {angstrom} channel was characterized by means of EUV reflectance measurements at beamline 6.3.2 of the Advanced Light Source (ALS) synchrotron at LBNL on January 10, 2006. Paul Boerner (LMSAL) also participated in these measurements.

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The authors have measured the relaxation time of hot electrons in short pulse laser-solid interactions using a picosecond time-resolved x-ray spectrometer and a time-integrated electron spectrometer. Employing laser intensities of 10{sup 17}, 10{sup 18}, and 10{sup 19} W/cm{sup 2}, they find increased laser coupling to hot electrons as the laser intensity becomes relativistic and thermalization of hot electrons at timescales on the order of 10 ps at all laser intensities. They propose a simple model based on collisional coupling and plasma expansion to describe the rapid relaxation of hot electrons. The agreement between the resulting K{sub {alpha}} time-history from this model with the experiments is best at highest laser intensity and less satisfactory at the two lower laser intensities.

The project proposal was approved for only the phase I period. The goal for this Phase I project was to develop an industrial model that can perform continuous and efficient dewatering of fine coal slurries of the previous flotation process to fine coal cake of {approx}15% water content from 50-70%. The feasibility of this model should be demonstrated experimentally using a lab scale setup. The Phase I project was originally for one year, from May 2005 to May 2006. With DOE approval, the project was extended to Dec. 2006 without additional cost from DOE to accomplish the work. Water has been used in mining for a number of purposes such as a carrier, washing liquid, dust-catching media, fire-retardation media, temperature-control media, and solvent. When coal is cleaned in wet-processing circuits, waste streams containing water, fine coal, and noncombustible particles (ash-forming minerals) are produced. In many coal preparation plants, the fine waste stream is fed into a series of selection processes where fine coal particles are recovered from the mixture to form diluted coal fine slurries. A dewatering process is then needed to reduce the water content to about 15%-20% so that the product is marketable. However, in the dewatering process …

Monte Carlo simulations are used to establish the potential of mean force between two globular proteins in an aqueous electrolyte solution. This potential includes nonelectrostatic contributions arising from dispersion forces first, between the globular proteins, and second, between ions in solution and between each ion and the globular protein. These latter contributions are missing from standard models. The potential of mean force, obtained from simulation, is fitted to an analytic equation. Using our analytic potential of mean force and Barker-Henderson perturbation theory, we obtain phase diagrams for lysozyme solutions that include stable and metastable fluid-fluid and solid-fluid phases when the electrolyte is 0.2 M NaSCN or NaI or NaCl. The nature of the electrolyte has a significant effect on the phase diagram.

The non-equilibrium dynamics of mixing, oscillations and equilibration is studied in a field theory of flavored neutral mesons that effectively models two flavors of mixed neutrinos, in interaction with other mesons that represent a thermal bath of hadrons or quarks and charged leptons. This model describes the general features of neutrino mixing and relaxation via charged currents in a medium. The reduced density matrix and the non-equilibrium effective action that describes the propagation of neutrinos is obtained by integrating out the bath degrees of freedom. We obtain the dispersion relations, mixing angles and relaxation rates of ``neutrino'' quasiparticles. The dispersion relations and mixing angles are of the same form as those of neutrinos in the medium, and the relaxation rates are given by $\Gamma_1(k) = \Gamma_{ee}(k) \cos^2\theta_m(k)+\Gamma_{\mu\mu}(k)\sin^2\theta_m(k); \Gamma_2(k)= \Gamma_{\mu\mu}(k) \cos^2\theta_m(k)+\Gamma_{ee}(k)\sin^2\theta_m(k) $ where $\Gamma_{\alpha\alpha}(k)$ are the relaxation rates of the flavor fields in \emph{absence} of mixing, and $\theta_m(k)$ is the mixing angle in the medium. A Weisskopf-Wigner approximation that describes the asymptotic time evolution in terms of a non-hermitian Hamiltonian is derived. At long time $>>\Gamma^{-1}_{1,2}$ ``neutrinos'' equilibrate with the bath. The equilibrium density matrix is nearly diagonal in the basis of eigenstates of an \emph{effective Hamiltonian that includes self-energy corrections …

The main purpose of this report is to document the benchmarking results and verification of the RESRAD-OFFSITE code as part of the quality assurance requirements of the RESRAD development program. This documentation will enable the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its contractors, and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and its licensees and other stakeholders to use the quality-assured version of the code to perform dose analysis in a risk-informed and technically defensible manner to demonstrate compliance with the NRC's License Termination Rule, Title 10, Part 20, Subpart E, of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR Part 20, Subpart E); DOE's 10 CFR Part 834, Order 5400.5, ''Radiation Protection of the Public and the Environment''; and other Federal and State regulatory requirements as appropriate. The other purpose of this report is to document the differences and similarities between the RESRAD (onsite) and RESRAD-OFFSITE codes so that users (dose analysts and risk assessors) can make a smooth transition from use of the RESRAD (onsite) code to use of the RESRAD-OFFSITE code for performing both onsite and offsite dose analyses. The evolution of the RESRAD-OFFSITE code from the RESRAD (onsite) code is described in Chapter 1 to help the dose …

Hydraulic separators are commonly used for particle size classification and gravity concentration of minerals and coal. Unfortunately, the efficiency of these processes can be quite low due to poor equipment design and variations in feed consistency. To help alleviate these problems, an industry-driven R&D program has been undertaken to develop a new generation of hydraulic separators that are more efficient and less costly to operate and maintain. These units, which are commercially called the CrossFlow separator and HydroFloat separator, have the potential to improve performance (separation efficiency and throughput) and reduce operating costs (power consumption, water and reagent usage). In Phase I of this project, laboratory and pilot-scale test units were evaluated at various industrial sites in both the coal and mineral industries. Based on promising results obtained from Phase I, full-scale prototypes were purchased and installed by a major U.S. phosphate producer and a large eastern U.S. coal company. The test data obtained from these sites demonstrate that significant performance improvements can be realized through the application of these high-efficiency separators.

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For the fourth quarter ARM metric we will make use of new liquid water data that has become available, and called the 'Microbase' value added product (referred to as OBS, within the text) at three sites: the North Slope of Alaska (NSA), Tropical West Pacific (TWP) and the Southern Great Plains (SGP) and compare these observations to model forecast data. Two time periods will be analyzed March 2000 for the SGP and October 2004 for both TWP and NSA. The Microbase data have been averaged to 35 pressure levels (e.g., from 1000hPa to 100hPa at 25hPa increments) and time averaged to 3hourly data for direct comparison to our model output.

Bromide and resting-cell bacteria tracer tests carried out in a sand and gravel aquifer at the USGS Cape Cod site in 1987 were reinterpreted using a three-dimensional stochastic approach and Lagrangian particle tracking numerical methods. Bacteria transport was strongly coupled to colloid filtration through functional dependence of local-scale colloid transport parameters on hydraulic conductivity and seepage velocity in a stochastic advection-dispersion/attachment-detachment model. Information on geostatistical characterization of the hydraulic conductivity (K) field from a nearby plot was utilized as input that was unavailable when the original analysis was carried out. A finite difference model for groundwater flow and a particle-tracking model of conservative solute transport was calibrated to the bromide-tracer breakthrough data using the aforementioned geostatistical parameters. An optimization routine was utilized to adjust the mean and variance of the lnK field over 100 realizations such that a best fit of a simulated, average bromide breakthrough curve is achieved. Once the optimal bromide fit was accomplished (based on adjusting the lnK statistical parameters in unconditional simulations), a stochastic particle-tracking model for the bacteria was run without adjustments to the local-scale colloid transport parameters. Good predictions of the mean bacteria breakthrough data were achieved using several approaches for modeling components of …

In May of 2006, a committee was formed to assess the fundamental needs and opportunities in scientific software for x-ray data reduction, analysis, modeling, and simulation. This committee held a series of discussions throughout the summer, conducted a poll of the members of the x-ray community, and held a workshop. This report details the findings and recommendations of the committee. Each experiment performed at the APS requires three crucial ingredients: the powerful x-ray source, an optimized instrument to perform measurements, and computer software to acquire, visualize, and analyze the experimental observations. While the APS has invested significant resources in the accelerator, investment in other areas such as scientific software for data analysis and visualization has lagged behind. This has led to the adoption of a wide variety of software with variable levels of usability. In order to maximize the scientific output of the APS, it is essential to support the broad development of real-time analysis and data visualization software. As scientists attack problems of increasing sophistication and deal with larger and more complex data sets, software is playing an ever more important role. Furthermore, our need for excellent and flexible scientific software can only be expected to increase, as the …

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While thermodynamic properties of pure aqueous electrolytes are relatively well known at ambient temperature, there are far fewer data for binary systems extending to elevated temperatures and high concentrations. There is no general theoretically sound basis for prediction of the temperature dependence of ionic activities, and consequently temperature extrapolations based on ambient temperature data and empirical equations are uncertain and require empirical verification. Thermodynamic properties of mixed brines in a wide range of concentrations would enhance the understanding and precise modeling of the effects of deliquescence of initially dry solids in humid air in geological environments and in modeling the composition of waters during heating, cooling, evaporation or condensation processes. These conditions are of interest in the analysis of waters on metal surfaces at the proposed radioactive waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The results obtained in this project will be useful for modeling the long-term evolution of the chemical environment, and this in turn is useful for the analysis of the corrosion of waste packages. In particular, there are few reliable experimental data available on the relationship between relative humidity and composition that reveals the eutonic points of the mixtures and the mixture deliquescence RH. The deliquescence RH for …

The summary of Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) on Sagem 05R0025 secondary substrate: (1) 2 x 2 {micro}m{sup 2} and 10 x 10 {micro}m{sup 2} AFM measurements and analysis on Sagem 05R0025 secondary substrate at LLNL indicate rather uniform and extremely isotropic finish across the surface, with high-spatial frequency roughness {sigma} in the range 5.1-5.5 {angstrom} rms; (2) the marked absence of pronounced long-range polishing marks in any direction, combined with increased roughness in the very high spatial frequencies, are consistent with ion-beam polishing treatment on the surface. These observations are consistent with all earlier mirrors they measured from the same vendor; and (3) all data were obtained with a Digital Instruments Dimension 5000{trademark} atomic force microscope.