A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The tax credit for qualified research expenses provides significant subsidies to encourage business investment in research intended to foster innovation and promote long-term economic growth. Generally the credit provides a subsidy for research spending in excess of a base amount but concerns have been raised about its design and administrability. Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to describe the credit's use, determine whether it could be redesigned to improve the incentive to do new research, and assess whether recordkeeping and other compliance costs could be reduced. GAO analyzed alternative credit designs using a panel of corporate tax returns and assessed administrability by interviewing Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and taxpayer representatives."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2004, the Department of State created the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization to coordinate U.S. planning and implementation of stabilization and reconstruction operations. In December 2005, President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 44 (NSPD-44), charging State with improving coordination, planning, and implementation of such operations and ensuring that the United States can respond quickly and effectively to overseas crises. GAO was asked to report on State's efforts to improve (1) interagency planning and coordination for stabilization and reconstruction operations, and (2) deployment of civilians to these operations. To address these objectives, we conducted interviews with officials and reviewed documents from U.S. agencies and government and private research centers."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Small Business Administration (SBA) guarantees individual loans that lenders originate. The agency uses its Loan and Lender Monitoring System (L/LMS) to assess the individual risk of each loan, and SBA's contractor developed a lender risk rating system based on L/LMS data. However, questions have been raised about the extent to which SBA has used its lender risk rating system to improve its oversight of lenders. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to examine (1) how SBA's risk rating system compares with those used by federal financial regulators and lenders and the system's usefulness for predicting lender performance and (2) how SBA uses the lender risk rating system in its lender oversight activities. To meet these objectives, GAO reviewed SBA documents; interviewed officials from three federal financial regulators and 10 large SBA lenders; analyzed SBA loan data; and interviewed SBA officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, Congress has provided about $542.9 billion, as of May 2007, to the Department of Defense (DOD) for the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). Prior GAO reports have found DOD's reported GWOT obligation data unreliable and problems with transparency over certain costs. DOD made changes to its reporting procedures, requiring components to perform a monthly variance analysis on obligation data and to include affirmation statements attesting to the accuracy of cost data. Under the Comptroller General's authority to conduct evaluations on his own initiative, GAO assessed (1) the outlook of DOD's reported GWOT obligations for fiscal year 2007 and funding requests for fiscal year 2008, (2) the effect of changes in DOD's GWOT funding guidance, and (3) DOD's progress in implementing variance analysis and affirmation statements. For this engagement, GAO analyzed fiscal year 2007 GWOTrelated appropriations and reported obligations, as well as DOD's corrective actions."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Established in January 2004 with a mission to reduce poverty through economic growth, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has committed $6.9 billion for compacts with 19 developing countries. MCC vests compact management with accountable entities in recipient countries, called Millennium Challenge Accounts (MCA). MCAs, with guidance from MCC, allocate resources, oversee and implement a financial plan, approve expenditures and procurements, and implement compact projects. This report, directed by the fiscal year 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act, assesses MCC and MCA (1) financial controls; (2) procurement practices; and (3) development, implementation, and oversight of contracts and projects. GAO focused on financial and procurement transactions and projects at MCAs in Honduras, Georgia, and Cape Verde, countries with high disbursement totals as of the end of fiscal year 2008."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "For some time, there has been concern over the increases in the prices of weapon systems spare parts and the adverse impact higher prices have had on military readiness. Prices for aviation spare parts managed by the Navy increased at an annual rate of 12 percent from 1994 to 1999. Several factors have contributed to price increases. First, the cost of repairing an item has generally gone up over time. Second, the surcharge that is charged to customers has also increased over time. The Navy has tried to alleviate customer concerns about high surcharge rates by moving certain overhead costs from the surcharge to repair costs. But this approach simply moved the overhead costs instead of reducing them. Still, the Navy understands the need to control spare parts prices and plans to further investigate the underlying causes of the increases."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2007, Medicare spent $8.3 billion for durable medical equipment (DME) and related supplies. To reduce spending, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) required that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) phase in, with several rounds of bidding, a large-scale competitive bidding program (CBP) for certain DME and other items. DME suppliers began bidding in round 1 of the CBP on May 15, 2007. After contracts were awarded, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 (MIPPA), was enacted on July 15, 2008. Because of numerous concerns MIPPA delayed the program, terminated supplier contracts, and required CMS to begin the CBP round 1 rebid in 2009. GAO was asked to report on (1) the results of CBP round 1, (2) the major challenges CMS had in conducting CBP round 1, and (3) the steps CMS has taken to improve future CBP rounds. GAO reviewed CMS data and relevant laws and regulations, and interviewed officials from CMS and its contractors, and DME suppliers and professional associations."

Water injection has been recognized as a powerful techniquefor enhancing energy recovery from vapor-dominated geothermal systemssuch as The Geysers. In addition to increasing reservoir pressures,production well flow rates, and long-term sustainability of steamproduction, injection has also been shown to reduce concentrations ofnon-condensible gases (NCGs) in produced steam. The latter effectimproves energy conversion efficiency and reduces corrosion problems inwellbores and surface lines.This report reviews thermodynamic andhydrogeologic conditions and mechanisms that play an important role inreservoir response to water injection. An existing general-purposereservoir simulator has been enhanced to allow modeling of injectioneffects in heterogeneous fractured reservoirs in three dimensions,including effects of non-condensible gases of different solubility.Illustrative applications demonstrate fluid flow and heat transfermechanisms that are considered crucial for developing approaches to insitu abatement of NCGs.

This compliance demonstration document provides an analysis of the Idaho CERCLA Disposal Facility (ICDF) Complex compliance with DOE Order 435.1. The ICDF Complex includes the disposal facility (landfill), evaporation pond, administration facility, weigh scale, and various staging/storage areas. These facilities were designed and constructed to be compliant with DOE Order 435.1, Resource Conservation and Recovery act Subtitle C, and Toxic Substances Control Act polychlorinated biphenyl design and construction standards. The ICDF Complex is designated as the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) facility for the receipt, staging/storage, treatment, and disposal of INL Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) waste streams.

Two-dimensional fully kinetic simulations are performed using global boundary conditions relevant to model the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX) [M. Yamada et al., Phys Plasmas 4, 1936 (1997)]. The geometry is scaled in terms of the ion kinetic scales in the experiment, and a reconnection layer is created by reducing the toroidal current in the flux cores in a manner similar to the actual experiment. The ion-scale features in these kinetic simulations are in remarkable agreement with those observed in MRX, including the reconnection inflow rate and quadrupole field structure. In contrast, there are significant discrepancies in the simulated structure of the electron layer that remain unexplained. In particular, the measured thickness of the electron layers is 3�5 times thicker in MRX than in the kinetic simulations. The layer length is highly sensitive to downstream boundary conditions as well as the time over which the simulation is driven. However, for a fixed set of chosen boundary conditions, an extrapolation of the scaling with the ion to electron mass ratio implies that at realistic mass ratio both the length and width will be too small compared to the experiment. This discrepancy implies that the basic electron layer physics may differ significantly between …

In September 2005, periodic sampling of groundwater was initiated by the Commodity Credit Corporation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (CCC/USDA) in the vicinity of a grain storage facility formerly operated by the CCC/USDA at Centralia, Kansas. The sampling at Centralia is being performed on behalf of the CCC/USDA by Argonne National Laboratory, in accord with a monitoring program approved by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE). The objective is to monitor levels of carbon tetrachloride contamination identified in the groundwater at Centralia (Argonne 2003, 2004, 2005a). Under the KDHE-approved monitoring plan (Argonne 2005b), the groundwater is being sampled twice yearly (for a recommended period of two years) for analyses for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), as well as measurement of selected geochemical parameters to aid in the evaluation of possible natural contaminant degradation (reductive dechlorination) processes in the subsurface environment. The sampling is presently conducted in a network of 10 monitoring wells and 6 piezometers (Figure 1.1), at locations approved by the KDHE (Argonne 2006a). The results of groundwater sampling and VOCs analyses in September-October 2005, March 2006, September 2006, March 2007, and September 2007 were documented previously (Argonne 2006a,b, 2007a, 2008). The results have demonstrated the presence …

In this paper a method is developed, using higher order statistics, to identify the type and degree of neutron and gamma ray cross talk between detectors that are placed in proximity to one another. A set of measurements was performed using the Nuclear Materials Identification System (NMIS) to acquire the time-dependent bicovariance of the pulses in fast plastic scintillating detectors. These signatures were analyzed to infer the degree and type of false coincidences (cross talk) in relation to true coincidences.

A plasma-based resonant backward Raman amplifier/compressor for high power amplification of short laser pulses might, under ideal conditions, convert as much as 90% of the pump energy to the seed pulse. While the theoretical highest possible efficiency of this scheme has not yet been achieved, larger efficiencies than ever before obtained experimentally (6.4%) are now being reported, and these efficiencies are accompanied by strong pulse compression. Based on these recent extensive experiments, it is now possible to deduce that the experimentally realized efficiency of the amplifier is likely constrained by two factors, namely the pump chirp and the plasma wavebreaking, and that these experimental observations may likely involve favorable compensation between the chirp of the laser and the density variation of the mediating plasma. Several methods for further improvement of the amplifier e�ciency in current experiments are suggested.

None

This compliance demonstration document provides an analysis of the Idaho CERCLA Disposal Facility (ICDF) Complex compliance with DOE Order 435.1. The ICDF Complex includes the disposal facility (landfill), evaporation pond, administration facility, weigh scale, and various staging/storage areas. These facilities were designed and constructed to be compliant with DOE Order 435.1, Resource Conservation and Recovery act Subtitle C, and Toxic Substances Control Act polychlorinated biphenyl design and construction standards. The ICDF Complex is designated as the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) facility for the receipt, staging/storage, treatment, and disposal of INL Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) waste streams.

The 100-D-50:5 subsite encompasses the southern process sewers formerly servicing the 183-DR coagulation and sedimentation basins and proximate surface runoff collection drains. The results of confirmatory sampling of pipeline sediments and underlying soils at the 100-D-50:5 subsite demonstrated that residual contaminant concentrations do not preclude any future uses and allow for unrestricted use of shallow zone soils. The results also showed that residual contaminant concentrations are protective of groundwater and the Columbia River.

The primary gaseous pollutants (excluding CO{sub 2}) produced by combustion of low-sulfur diesel fuel oxides of nitrogen (NO{sub x}), carbon monoxide (CO), and hydrocarbons (C{sub y}H{sub z}). The last two of these can be readily ameliorated by an oxidation catalyst in the O{sub 2}-rich environment of diesel exhaust but NO{sub x} can not.[1] For this reason NO{sub x} remediation strategies such as selective catalytic reduction (SCR) [2, 3] and the lean NO{sub x} trap (LNT) [4, 5] are being actively pursued. The ideal implementation of these strategies would employ NO{sub x} sensors to control reagent injection in the case of SCR and trap regeneration in the case of LNT. Two different NO{sub x} sensors for this application are at or near commercialization: An amperometric NO{sub x} sensor developed by NGK [6] and a 'mixed potential' NO{sub x} sensor developed by Riken [7]. The NGK sensor works by passing the sampled exhaust through a series of two chambers. In the first chamber O{sub 2} is pumped from the exhaust and in the second, NO{sub x} is decomposed electrochemically and the current from this decomposition is measured in order to determine [NO{sub x}]. Since the NO{sub x} concentrations can be small, on …

This report discusses the background and potential effects of the DTV Delay Act, which directs that all over-the-air full-power television broadcasts will become digital only.

This report provides an annotated list of U.N. agencies that are involved in Iraq, key U.S. government agencies, and a sample list of major international and U.S.-based aid organizations that are providing humanitarian assistance to Iraq. Internet links to the U.N. agencies and humanitarian aid organizations are also provided.

The testing reported here was performed on K East Basin consolidated sludge samples to generate data needed for the evaluation and design of the systems that will be used to disposition the K Basin sludge to T-Plant for interim storage. The tests were conducted by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory from May through November 1999 under the direction of the Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) Project. The samples used in the work discussed here were collected by the SNF Characterization Project from the KE Basin floor and canisters during March and April 1999. These samples (3 from the floor and 3 from the canisters) were shipped to the storage pool at the Postirradiation Testing Laboratory (327 Building) and later transferred to the PNNL Radiochemical Processing Laboratory (325 Building), where they were recovered for testing and analysis. Testing activities presented in this report include particle size measurement via wet sieving, sludge settling and sludge density measurements, sludge shear strength measurement, and measurement of sludge dissolution enthalpy to ascertain the uranium metal content of the sludge. Section 1.0 provides the summary and conclusions to date. Section 2.0 describes the consolidated sample container system, the sample collection and transfer, inspection, and recovery of the samples …

This report describes dairy pricing and examines several related issues. The report concludes with a discussion of alternative approaches that the dairy industry is proposing as a way to deal with dairy pricing.

This report discusses Section 106 of P.I. 109-8, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, that creates credit counseling requirements for consumers seeking to file for bankruptcy.

None

This report provides an overview of aspects of ESEA Title I-A that have been focus of substantial debate as the 110th Congress considers whether to extend and amend the ESEA.