A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has established a program--the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT)--to collect, maintain, and share information, including biometric identifiers, on selected foreign nationals entering and exiting the United States. US-VISIT uses these identifiers (digital fingerscans and photographs) to screen persons against watch lists and to verify that a visitor is the person who was issued a visa or other travel document. Visitors are also to confirm their departure by having their visas or passports scanned and undergoing fingerscanning at selected air and sea ports of entry (POE). GAO has made many recommendations to improve the program, all of which DHS has agreed to implement. GAO was asked to report on DHS's progress in responding to 18 of these recommendations."

This report discusses a focus group that was part of the Web-at-Risk project. The report includes the following three sections: (a) the methodology used to conduct the focus groups and analyze the data, (b) the detailed results of the analysis organized into phases of the collection development process, and (c) a discussion of the key findings.

This report addresses the the Americans with Disabilities Act and Emergency Preparedness and Response.

This report discusses two programs that exclusively attempt to reduce teenage pregnancy. The Adolescent Family Life (AFL) demonstration program was enacted in 1981 as Title XX of the Public Health Service Act, and the Abstinence Education program was enacted in 1996 as part of the welfare reform legislation.

We have investigated fiber-based lasers that mode-lock via three nonlinear mechanisms: pulse evolution, bend loss, and tunneling. Experiments with nonlinear pulse evolution proved especially promising; we report here a fiber laser that produces 25 nJ, sub-200 fs pulses, an energy that is 60% higher than previous reports. Experiments with nonlinear bend loss were inconclusive; though bend-loss data show that the effect exits, we were not able to use the phenomenon to lock a laser. New models suggest that nonlinear tunneling could provide an alternate path.

This paper presents a literature survey of the occurrences of radionuclide plumes in saturated, fractured rocks. Three sites, Idaho National laboratory, Hanford, and Oak Ridge are discussed in detail. Results of a modeling study are also presented showing that the length to width ratio of a plume starting within the repository footprint at the Yucca Mountain Project site, decreases from about 20:1 for the base case to about 4:1 for a higher value of transverse dispersivity, indicating enhanced lateral spreading of the plume. Due to the definition of regulatory requirements, this lateral spreading does not directly impact breakthrough curves at the 18 km compliance boundary, however it increases the potential that a plume will encounter reducing conditions, thus significantly retarding the transport of sorbing radionuclides.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory operated two Class II surface impoundments that stored wastewater that was discharged from a number of buildings located on the Site 300 Facility (Site 300). The wastewater was the by-product of explosives processing. Reduction in the volume of water discharged from these buildings over the past several years significantly reduced the wastewater storage needs. In addition, the impoundments were constructed in 1984, and the high-density polyethylene (HDPE) geomembrane liners were nearing the end of their service life. The purpose of this project was to clean close the surface impoundments and provide new wastewater storage using above ground storage tanks at six locations. The tanks were installed and put into service prior to closure of the impoundments. This Clean Closure Report (Closure Report) complies with State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) Section 21400 of the California Code of Regulations Title 27 (27 CCR section 21400). As required by these regulations and guidance, this Closure Report provides the following information: (1) a brief site description; (2) the regulatory requirements relevant to clean closure of the impoundments; (3) the closure procedures; and (4) the findings and documentation of clean closure.

The Floret test has been developed as a screening test to study the performance of a small amount of HE. Numerical simulations have been performed recently using CTH. The objective of this study is to perform numerical simulations in order to better understand the shock waves interactions, involved in the dent formation. Different 3D wedge configurations have been tested using the Ignition and Growth reactive flow model for the HE receptor with Ls-Dyna.

This report includes information regarding welfare reauthorization. Topics of discussion include trends under welfare reform, TANF work requirements, and child support enforcement.

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This report examines the structure and operations of the major components of the Federal Reserve System, and provides an overview of congressional oversight activities.

Advanced fuel injection experimental results on a single cylinder engine operating at part load show the path to NOx vs SFC tradeoffs. Hybrid battery vibration tests have been performed. Analysis of advanced Battery Management System field validation results showed effective SOC estimation. A fuel optimizer simulation lab has been completed.

The fuel injection hardware on the single cylinder research engine was upgraded and performance trends were quantified. The effects of fuel injection rate shapes were studied. Long-term cycling of subscale battery cell assemblies has identified aging trends. Follow-up vibration testing of an instrumented COTS battery was performed. Optimal trip planning algorithms were implemented and demonstrated in the interactive, real-time simulation environment.

This project provided for the implementation of an advanced, model predictive multi-variant controller that works with the mill that has existing distributed control system. The method provides real time and online predictive models and modifies control actions to maximize quality and minimize energy costs. Using software sensors, the system can predict difficult-to-measure quality and process variables and make necessary process control decisions to accurately control pulp quality while minimizing electrical usage. This method of control has allowed Augusta Newsprint Company to optimize the operation of its Thermo Mechanical Pulp mill for lower energy consumption and lower pulp quality variance.

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Engineering fluid mechanics simulations at high Reynolds numbers have traditionally been performed using the Reynolds-Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) equations and a turbulence model. The RANS methodology has well-documented shortcomings in the modeling of separated or bluff body wake flows that are characterized by unsteady vortex shedding. The resulting turbulence statistics are strongly influenced by the detailed structure and dynamics of the large eddies, which are poorly captured using RANS models (Rodi 1997; Krishnan et al. 2004). The Large Eddy Simulation (LES) methodology offers the potential to more accurately simulate these flows as it resolves the large-scale unsteady motions and entails modeling of only the smallest-scale turbulence structures. Commercial computational fluid dynamics products are beginning to offer LES capability, allowing practicing engineers an opportunity to apply this turbulence modeling technique to much wider array of problems than in dedicated research codes. Here, we present a preliminary evaluation of the LES capability in the commercial CFD solver StarCD by simulating the flow around a cylinder at a Reynolds number based on the cylinder diameter, D, of 3900 using the constant coefficient Smagorinsky LES model. The results are compared to both the experimental and computational results provided in Kravchenko & Moin (2000). We …

An alternative method is developed to compute the magnetic field from a circular cylindrical magnetic source. Specifically, a Fourier series expansion whose coefficients are toroidal functions is introduced which yields an alternative to the more familiar spherical harmonic solution or the Elliptic integral solution. This alternate formulation coupled with a method called charge simulation allows one to compute the external magnetic field from an arbitrary magnetic source in terms of a toroidal expansion. This expansion is valid on any finite hypothetical external observation cylinder. In other words, the magnetic scalar potential or the magnetic field intensity is computed on a exterior cylinder which encloses the magnetic source. This method can be used to accurately compute the far field where a finite element formulation is known to be inaccurate.

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Report on military pay and benefits, including recent developments, pay computations, historic pay increases, potential pay gaps, and more.

Report on the War Powers Resolution and an examination of its use, including recent developments, background issues, United Nations actions, and more.

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This report discusses the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program and the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (P.L. 109-171). The act will reduce the federal matching rate for laboratory costs associated with paternity establishment from 90% to 66%, end the federal matching of state expenditures of federal CSE incentive payments reinvested back into the program, and require states to assess a $25 annual user fee for child support services provided to families with no connection to the welfare system.