A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A wide array of cyber and physical assets is critical to America's national security, economic well-being, and public health and safety. Information related to threats, vulnerabilities, incidents, and security techniques is instrumental to guarding these critical infrastructures against attacks and mitigating the impact of attacks that may occur. The ability to share security-related information can unify the efforts of federal, state, and local government as well as the private sector, as appropriate, in preventing and minimizing terrorist attacks. The Critical Infrastructure Information Act of 2002 was enacted to encourage nonfederal entities to voluntarily share critical infrastructure information and established protections for it. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a lead role in implementing the act. GAO was asked to determine (1) the status of DHS's efforts to implement the act and (2) the challenges it faces in carrying out the act."

One new Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) groundwater monitoring and assessment well was installed at single-shell tank Waste Management Area (WMA) T in calendar year 2005 in partial fulfillment of commitments for well installations proposed in Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order, Milestone M-24-57 (2004). The need for increased monitoring capability at this WMA was identified during a data quality objectives process for establishing a RCRA/Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)/Atomic Energy Act (AEA) integrated 200 West and 200 East Area Groundwater Monitoring Network. The initial borehole, 299-W11-25B, was located about 20 ft from existing downgradient well 299 W11-39. The specific objective for the borehole was to determine the vertical distribution of contaminants in the unconfined aquifer at the northeast corner of WMA T. The permanent casing in borehole 299-W11-25B was damaged beyond repair during well construction and replacement borehole, 299-W11-46, was drilled about 10 ft from borehole 299-W11-25B (Figure 1). Borehole 299-W11-46 was completed as a RCRA monitoring well. This document provides a compilation of all available geologic data, geophysical logs, hydrogeologic data and well information obtained during drilling, well construction, well development, pump installation, groundwater sampling and analysis activities, and preliminary results of slug …

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the CERN Laboratory will become the largest scientific instrument in the world when it starts operations in 2007. Large Scale Analysis Computer Systems (computational grids) are required to extract rare signals of new physics from petabytes of LHC detector data. In addition to file-based event data, LHC data processing applications require access to large amounts of data in relational databases: detector conditions, calibrations, etc. U.S. high energy physicists demand efficient performance of grid computing applications in LHC physics research where world-wide remote participation is vital to their success. To empower physicists with data-intensive analysis capabilities a whole hyperinfrastructure of distributed databases cross-cuts a multi-tier hierarchy of computational grids. The crosscutting allows separation of concerns across both the global environment of a federation of computational grids and the local environment of a physicist’s computer used for analysis. Very few efforts are on-going in the area of database and grid integration research. Most of these are outside of the U.S. and rely on traditional approaches to secure database access via an extraneous security layer separate from the database system core, preventing efficient data transfers. Our findings are shared by the Database Access and Integration Services Working …

The stability of localized corrosion sites on SS 316L exposed to atmospheric conditions was studied computationally. The localized corrosion system was decoupled computationally by considering the wetted cathode and the crevice anode separately and linking them via a constant potential boundary condition at the mouth of the crevice. The potential of interest for stability was the repassivation potential. The limitations on the ability of the cathode that are inherent due to the restricted geometry were assessed in terms of the dependence on physical and electrochemical parameters. Physical parameters studied include temperature, electrolyte layer thickness, solution conductivity, and the size of the cathode, as well as the crevice gap for the anode. The current demand of the crevice was determined considering a constant crevice solution composition that simulates the critical crevice solution as described in the literature. An analysis of variance showed that the solution conductivity and the length of the cathode were the most important parameters in determining the total cathodic current capacity of the external surface. A semi-analytical equation was derived for the total current from a restricted geometry held at a constant potential at one end. The equation was able to reproduce all the model computation results both …

We test the evolution of the correlation between black hole mass and bulge velocity dispersion (M{sub BH} - {sigma}), using a carefully selected sample of 14 Seyfert 1 galaxies at z = 0.36 {+-} 0.01. We measure velocity dispersion from stellar absorption lines around Mgb (5175 {angstrom}) and Fe (5270 {angstrom}) using high S/N Keck spectra, and estimate black hole mass from the H{beta} line width and the optical luminosity at 5100 {angstrom}, based on the empirically calibrated photo-ionization method. We find a significant offset from the local relation, in the sense that velocity dispersions were smaller for given black hole masses at z = 0.36 than locally. We investigate various sources of systematic uncertainties and find that those cannot account for the observed offset. The measured offset is {Delta} log M{sub BH} = 0.62 {+-} 0.10 {+-} 0.25, i.e. {Delta} log {sigma} = 0.15 {+-} 0.03 {+-} 0.06, where the error bars include a random component and an upper limit to the systematics. At face value, this result implies a substantial growth of bulges in the last 4 Gyr, assuming that the local M{sub BH} - {sigma} relation is the universal evolutionary end-point. Along with two samples of active …

One new Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) groundwater assessment well was installed at single-shell tank Waste Management Area (WMA) S-SX in fiscal year (FY) 2005 to fulfill commitments for well installations proposed in Hanford Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order, Milestone M-24-57 (2004). The need for the new well, well 299-W22-47, was identified during a data quality objectives process for establishing a RCRA/ Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA)/Atomic Energy Act (AEA) integrated 200 West and 200 East Area Groundwater Monitoring Network. This document provides a compilation of all available geologic data, spectral gamma ray logs, hydrogeologic data and well information obtained during drilling, well construction, well development, pump installation, aquifer testing, and sample collection/analysis activities. Appendix A contains the Well Summary Sheets, the Well Construction Summary Report, the geologist's Borehole Log, well development and pump installation records, and well survey results. Appendix B contains analytical results from groundwater samples collected during drilling. Appendix C contains complete spectral gamma ray logs and borehole deviation surveys.

Methods to determine genetic potential, gene expression, as well as direct enzyme activity, are all useful in planning a bioremediation.

This document addresses the remote systems and design integration aspects of the development of the Solid Waste Processing Center (SWPC), a facility to remotely open, sort, size reduce, and repackage mixed low-level waste (MLLW) and transuranic (TRU)/TRU mixed waste that is either contact-handled (CH) waste in large containers or remote-handled (RH) waste in various-sized packages.

This report provides information about the Constitutional Principles and Federal Statutes on Child Pornography. Child pornography is material that visually depicts sexual conduct by children.

This report discusses the Legislative Line Item Veto and its constitutional issues and the President’s rescission proposals must be enacted by both Houses and signed into law.

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