A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Many of our nation's military and civilian personnel depend on Department of Defense (DOD) schools to meet their children's educational needs. These schools provide a range of educational services including programs for students with disabilities and those who struggle to read, some of whom may have a condition referred to as dyslexia. To determine how DOD supports students with dyslexia and how it used $3.2 million in funds designated to support them, GAO was asked to examine: (1) what professional development DOD provides its staff to support students with dyslexia and how the fiscal year 2004-to-2006 funds designated for this purpose were used, (2) what identification and instructional services DOD provides to students who may have dyslexia, and (3) how DOD assesses the academic achievement of students with disabilities, including dyslexia. To address these objectives, GAO conducted a survey of all school principals and interviewed agency officials, school personnel, and parents in six school districts."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To help ensure that veterans are properly compensated for disabilities, VA is required to perform disability reevaluations for specific disabilities. VA also performs reevaluations whenever it determines there is a need to verify either the continued existence or current severity of veterans' disabilities. VBA completed about 17,700 reevaluations in fiscal year 2005. GAO was asked to review the Veterans Benefits Administration's (VBA) disability reevaluation program. This report assesses (1) the operational controls VA uses to ensure the effectiveness of the disability reevaluation process and (2) the management information VA collects and uses to manage the disability reevaluation process. To conduct this study, GAO analyzed VBA data, reviewed federal regulations and VBA procedures, conducted site visits, and interviewed VBA officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Destruction of the nation's remaining stockpile of chemical weapons in a safe, efficient, and timely manner is essential to meet Chemical Weapons Convention treaty obligations and to reduce the risk of a potential catastrophic event. The Department of Defense (DOD) established the Chemical Demilitarization Program to manage the destruction of the remaining stockpile. GAO was asked to evaluate the (1) progress DOD and the Army have made in addressing GAO's prior recommendations to strengthen program management, (2) reasonableness of schedule milestones, (3) reliability of cost estimates, and (4) effectiveness of efforts to provide monetary incentives to the systems contractors. GAO reviewed relevant planning documents, schedules, cost estimates, and contracts; interviewed program and contractor officials; and visited chemical agent destruction sites."

The program was tasked with implementing time dependent analysis of charges particles into an existing finite element code with adaptive meshing, called Beam Optics Analyzer (BOA). BOA was initially funded by a DOE Phase II program to use the finite element method with adaptive meshing to track particles in unstructured meshes. It uses modern programming techniques, state-of-the-art data structures, so that new methods, features and capabilities are easily added and maintained. This Phase II program was funded to implement plasma simulations in BOA and extend its capabilities to model thermal electrons, secondary emissions, self magnetic field and implement a more comprehensive post-processing and feature-rich GUI. The program was successful in implementing thermal electrons, secondary emissions, and self magnetic field calculations. The BOA GUI was also upgraded significantly, and CCR is receiving interest from the microwave tube and semiconductor equipment industry for the code. Implementation of PIC analysis was partially successful. Computational resource requirements for modeling more than 2000 particles begin to exceed the capability of most readily available computers. Modern plasma analysis typically requires modeling of approximately 2 million particles or more. The problem is that tracking many particles in an unstructured mesh that is adapting becomes inefficient. In particular …

ITER Central Solenoid uses butt joints for connecting the pancakes in the CS module. The principles of the butt joining of the CICC were developed by the JAPT during CSMC project. The difference between the CSMC butt joint and the CS butt joint is that the CS butt joint is an in-line joint, while the CSMC is a double joint through a hairpin jumper. The CS butt joint has to carry the hoop load. The straight length of the joint is only 320 mm, and the vacuum chamber around the joint has to have a split in the clamp shell. These requirements are challenging. Fig.1 presents a CSMC joint, and Fig.2 shows a CS butt joint. The butt joint procedure was verified and demonstrated. The tool is capable of achieving all specified parameters. The vacuum in the end was a little higher than the target, which is not critical and readily correctable. We consider, tentatively that the procedure is established. Unexpectedly, we discover significant temperature nonuniformity in the joint cross section, which is not formally a violation of the specs, but is a point of concern. All testing parameters are recorded for QA purposes. We plan to modify the butt …

This report is the third annual report of a six-year project to evaluate the cumulative effects of habitat restoration action in the Columbia River Estuary (CRE). The project is being conducted for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) by the Marine Sciences Laboratory of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the Pt. Adams Biological Field Station of the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Columbia River Estuary Study Taskforce. Measurement of the cumulative effects of ecological restoration projects in the Columbia River estuary is a formidable task because of the size and complexity of the estuarine landscape and the meta-populations of salmonids in the Columbia River basin. Despite the challenges presented by this system, developing and implementing appropriate indicators and methods to measure cumulative effects is the best way to enable estuary managers to track the overall effectiveness of investments in estuarine restoration projects. This project is developing methods to quantify the cumulative effects of multiple restoration activities in the CRE. The overall objectives of the 2006 study were to continue to develop techniques to assess cumulative effects, refine the standard monitoring protocols, and initiate development of an adaptive management system for Corps of Engineers’ habitat restoration monitoring efforts in …

ITER TF coils will see a significant longitudinal magnetic field in the event of the plasma disruption. This abrupt change of magnetic fields results in the appearance of an additional electrical field in the strands. The mechanism of this electrical field is the induced currents that expel the flux from the strands. This effect was known since the late 1970's [1-3] and most of the details necessary for the analyses given in this report are presented in [4]. Let's assume for simplicity a zero transport current in the strand. When a longitudinal pulsed field is applied, the outer filaments will carry an induced current repelling the change of flux. The current density of this current is 'critical' in the simplification of Bean's critical state model, where superconducting transition is represented as j=j{sub c} at any non-zero electrical field and zero where the electrical field has not penetrated. In reality, since the current density is roughly logarithmic with the electrical field, E=E{sub c}*exp[(j-j{sub c})/jo], Bean's model is just a simplification, and current density is slightly nonuniform in the outer filament and more so for the interior strands. The inner portion of the filaments will carry a current of the opposite sign. …

The smartDESKTOP Initiative at the Indiana Humanities Council received critical support in building and delivering a “digital desktop” for Indiana educators through the Department of Energy Grant—DE-FG02-06ER64282. During the project period September 2006 through October of 2007, the number of Indiana educators with accounts on the smartDESKTOP more than tripled from under 2,000 to more than 7,000 accounts. An external review of the project conducted for the purposes of understanding the impact of the service in Indiana schools revealed that the majority of respondents felt that using the smartDESKTOP did reduce the time they spent managing paper. The same study revealed the challenges of implementing a digital desktop meant to help teachers leverage technology to improve their teaching and ultimately student learning. The most significant outcome of this project is that the Indiana Department of Education expressed interest in assuming responsibility for sustaining this project. The transition of the smartDESKTOP to the Indiana Department of Education was effective on November 1, 2007.

This report analyzes different tax exclusions and mortgage debt relief acts in an attempt to outline qualifications for mortgage and tax exclusions.

Over the past century, health and spatial extent of seagrasses has decreased dramatically in the Gulf of Mexico. While some of the changes can be explained by direct impacts to the seagrass beds, we hypothesize that changes in the land use in the watersheds can also be correlated with the decline of seagrasses. Through this meta-analysis, we researched historical and compared trends in seagrass populations and land use in five bays and their watersheds within the Gulf of Mexico: Mobile Bay, Perdido Bay, Tampa Bay, Charlotte Harbor, and Galveston Bay. Using both historical records and spatial datasets, we examined land use and seagrass trends in these five areas.

This report discusses four major vehicle technologies — electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids, and fuel cell vehicles — as well as advanced component technologies. Each technology is discussed in terms of cost, fueling and maintenance infrastructure, and performance.

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This report discusses the senate PAYGO rule. It also points out how it applies only to legislation considered by the senate.

This report provides current statistical information, profiles the Afghanistan narcotics trade's participants, explores linkages between narcotics, insecurity, and corruption, and reviews U.S. and international policy responses since late 2001. The report also considers ongoing policy debates regarding the counternarcotics role of coalition military forces, poppy eradication, alternative livelihoods, and funding issues for Congress.

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This report addresses Legislative Initiatives in the 110th Congress of the Alternative Minimum Tax for Individuals.

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