A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Farmers receive about $16 billion annually in federal farm program payments. These payments go to about 2 million recipients, both individuals and entities. GAO previously has reported that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) did not consistently ensure that these payments went only to those who meet eligibility requirements. GAO was asked to evaluate (1) how effectively USDA implemented 2002 Farm Bill provisions prohibiting payments to individuals or entities whose income exceeded $2.5 million and who derived less than 75 percent of that income from farming, ranching, or forestry operations, (2) the potential impact of the 2008 Farm Bill's income eligibility provisions on individuals who receive farm payments, and (3) the distribution of income of these individuals compared with all 2006 tax filers. GAO compared USDA data on individuals receiving payments with the latest available Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data on these individuals."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Over 70 million American households receive television service from a cable television operator. In recent years, rates for cable service have increased at a faster pace than the general rate of inflation. GAO agreed to (1) examine the impact of competition on cable rates and service, (2) assess the reliability of information contained in the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) annual cable rate report, (3) examine the causes of recent cable rate increases, (4) assess the impact of ownership affiliations in the cable industry, (5) discuss why cable operators group networks into tiers, and (6) discuss options to address factors that could be contributing to cable rate increases."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To identify areas facing shortages of health care providers, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) relies on its health professional shortage area (HPSA) designation system. HHS designates geographic, population-group, and facility HPSAs. HHS also gives each HPSA a score to rank its need for providers relative to other HPSAs. The Health Care Safety Net Amendments of 2002 required GAO to report on the HPSA designation system. GAO reviewed (1) the number and location of HPSAs and federal programs that use HPSA designations to allocate resources or provide benefits, (2) available research on HPSA designation criteria and methodology, and (3) the impact of a 2002 provision that automatically designates federally qualified health centers and certain rural health clinics as facility HPSAs. GAO obtained and analyzed HHS's data on primary care HPSA designations as of September 2005 and January 2006 and identified reports on HPSA criteria and methodology through a literature search of peer-reviewed journals and other reports published since 1995."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Terrorist groups need significant amounts of money to organize, recruit, train, and equip adherents. U.S. disruption of terrorist financing can raise the costs and risks and impede their success. This report (1) provides an overview of U.S. government efforts to combat terrorist financing abroad and (2) examines U.S. government efforts to coordinate training and technical assistance. We also examined specific accountability issues the Department of the Treasury faces in its efforts to block terrorists' assets held under U.S. jurisdiction."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Registered nurses (RNs) are the largest group of health care providers employed by VA's health care system. RNs are relied on to deliver inpatient care, but VA medical centers (VAMC) face RN recruitment and retention challenges. VAMCs use a patient classification system (PCS) to determine RN staffing on inpatient units by classifying inpatients according to severity of illness to determine the amount of RN care needed. GAO reviewed VAMC inpatient units for (1) the usefulness of information generated by VA's PCS; (2) key factors that affect RN retention; and (3) factors that contribute to delays in hiring RNs. GAO performed a Web-based survey of all VAMC nurse executives; interviewed VA headquarters officials and VAMC nursing officials, and conducted RN focus groups at eight VAMCs visited by GAO. The findings of GAO's survey are generalizable to all nurse executives; however, findings from the focus groups at the eight VAMCs are not generalizable."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is responsible for implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the use of chemical weapons and requires their elimination. The United States and other member states have raised concerns that a number of management weaknesses may prevent the organization from fulfilling its mandate. As requested, GAO assessed the accuracy of the organization's budget and the impact of budget shortfalls on program activities. GAO also reviewed efforts to improve the organization's budget planning."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The federal fire community's decades old policy of suppressing wildland fires as soon as possible has caused a dangerous increase in vegetation density in our nation's forests. This density increase combined with severe drought over much of the United States has created a significant threat of catastrophic wildfires. In response to this threat, the Forest Service performs activities to reduce the buildup of brush, small trees, and other vegetation on national forest land. With the increased threat of catastrophic wildland fires, there have been concerns about delays in implementing activities to reduce these "forest fuels." Essentially, these concerns focus on the extent to which public appeals and litigation of Forest Service decisions to implement forest fuels reduction activities unnecessarily delay efforts to reduce fuels. The Forest Service does not keep a national database on the number of forest fuels reduction activities that are appealed or litigated. Accordingly, GAO was asked to develop this information for fiscal years 2001 and 2002. Among other things, GAO was asked to determine (1) the number of decisions involving fuels reduction activities and the number of acres affected, (2) the number …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Ineffective oversight and management of the Department of Defense's (DOD) travel card program, which GAO has previously reported on, have led to concerns about DOD's use of first and business class airfares. GAO was asked to (1) identify the magnitude of premium class travel, (2) determine if DOD's key internal control activities operated effectively and provide examples of control breakdowns, and (3) assess DOD's monitoring and key elements of the control environment."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO was asked by the Department of Defense (DOD) to identify ways to improve DOD's availability of high-quality spare parts for aircraft, ships, vehicles, and weapons systems. DOD's recent reports do not provide an accurate and complete picture of spare parts funding as required by financial management regulation. As a result, the reports do not provide Congress with reasonable assurance about the amount of funds being spent on spare parts. Furthermore, the reports are of limited use to Congress as it makes decisions on how best to spend resources to reduce spare parts shortages and improve military readiness."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Created in 1984, the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) was charged with developing the federal sentencing guidelines to limit disparities in sentencing among offenders with similar criminal backgrounds found guilty of similar crimes. Judges determine a specific sentence based on an applicable sentencing guideline range, such as 57 to 71 months, provided in the guidelines. Judges may impose sentences that fall anywhere within the range, above it (upward departures), or below it (downward departures). For some offenses, Congress established mandatory minimum sentences. Judges may also sentence below the minimum in certain circumstances. We examined the differences in drug offense departures from sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences among federal courts and the documents the USSC used to record and analyze sentences."

The majority of the research supported by the NSF is conducted at U.S. colleges and universities. Approximately 82.7% ($3,094.8 million) of NSF's FY2006 $3,740.6 million research and development (R&D) budget was awarded to U.S. colleges and universities. On September 30, 2008, the President signed into law the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009 (P.L. 110-329, H.R. 2638). The act includes, among other things, three of the 12 regular appropriations acts for FY2009. The Continuing Appropriations Act funds the NSF until passage of the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Appropriations bill or until March 6, 2009, whichever occurs first. P.L. 110-329 funds the NSF at the FY2008 level.

In this report we derive a model for a highly scattering medium, implemented as a set of MATLAB functions. This model is used to analyze an approach for using time-reversal to enhance the detection of a single frequency source in a highly scattering medium. The basic approach is to apply the singular value decomposition to the multistatic response matrix for a time-reversal array system. We then use the array in a purely passive mode, measuring the response to the presence of a source. The measured response is projected onto the singular vectors, creating a time-reversal pseudo-spectrum. We can then apply standard detection techniques to the pseudo-spectrum to determine the presence of a source. If the source is close to a particular scatterer in the medium, then we would expect an enhancement of the inner product between the array response to the source with the singular vector associated with that scatterer. In this note we begin by deriving the Foldy-Lax model of a highly scattering medium, calculate both the field emitted by the source and the multistatic response matrix of a time-reversal array system in the medium, then describe the initial analysis approach.

If carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technologies areimplemented on a large scale, the amounts of CO2 injected and sequesteredunderground could be extremely large. The stored CO2 then replaces largevolumes of native brine, which can cause considerable pressureperturbation and brine migration in the deep saline formations. Ifhydraulically communicating, either directly via updipping formations orthrough interlayer pathways such as faults or imperfect seals, theseperturbations may impact shallow groundwater or even surface waterresources used for domestic or commercial water supply. Possibleenvironmental concerns include changes in pressure and water table,changes in discharge and recharge zones, as well as changes in waterquality. In compartmentalized formations, issues related to large-scalepressure buildup and brine displacement may also cause storage capacityproblems, because significant pressure buildup can be produced. Toaddress these issues, a three-year research project was initiated inOctober 2006, the first part of which is summarized in this annualreport.

We present an experimental realization of the classical Jeffery-Hamel flows inside a wedge-shaped channel. We compare the measured velocity fields with the predictions of Jeffery-Hamel theory. A detailed experimental study of bifurcation diagrams for the solutions reveals the absolute stability of the pure outflow solution and an interesting hysteretic structure for bifurcations. We also observe a multiple vortex flow regime predicted earlier numerically and analytically. Experimental studies of the stability of the flow to perturbations at the channel exit are also conducted.

This month's issue has the following articles: (1) Homeland Security Begins Abroad--Commentary by John C. Doesburg; (2) Out of Harm's Way--New physical protection and accountability systems, together with a focus on security, safeguard nuclear materials in the Russian Federation; (3) A Calculated Journey to the Center of the Earth--Determining the permeability of partially melted metals in a mineral matrix unlocks secrets about the formation of Earth's core; (4) Wireless That Works--Communication technologies using ultrawideband radar are improving national security; and (5) Power to the People--Edward Teller envisioned safe and plentiful nuclear power for peaceful applications.

X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) will produce photon pulses with a unique and desirable combination of properties. Their short X-ray wavelengths allow penetration into materials and the ability to probe structure at and below the nanometer scale. Their ultra-short duration gives information about this structure at the fundamental time-scales of atoms and molecules. The extreme intensity of the pulses will allow this information to be acquired in a single shot, so that these studies can be carried out on non-repeatable processes or on weakly-scattering objects that will be modified by the pulse. A fourth property of XFEL pulses is their high transverse coherence, which brings the promise of decades of innovation in visible optics to the X-ray regime, such as holography, interferometry, and laser-based imaging. Making an effective use of XFEL pulses, however, will benefit from innovations that are new to both X-ray science and coherent optics. One such innovation is the new method of time-delay X-ray holography [1], recently demonstrated at the FLASH FEL at DESY in Hamburg, to measure the evolution of objects irradiated by intense pulses. One of the pressing questions about the high-resolution XFEL imaging and characterization of non-periodic or weakly-scattering objects is the effect of the …

An Access Grid Venue Server provides access to individual Virtual Venues, virtual spaces where users can collaborate using the Access Grid Venue Client software. This manual describes the Venue Server component of the Access Grid Toolkit, version 2.3. Covered here are the basic operations of starting a venue server, modifying its configuration, and modifying the configuration of the individual venues.

There is vital need for a compact, lightweight, and efficient energy-storage system that is both affordable and has an acceptable cycle life for the large-scale production of electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). Most of the current research employs a battery-storage unit (BU) combined with a fuel cell (FC) stack in order to achieve the operating voltage-current point of maximum efficiency for the FC system. A system block diagram is shown in Fig.1.1. In such a conventional arrangement, the battery is sized to deliver the difference between the energy required by the traction drive and the energy supplied by the FC system. Energy requirements can increase depending on the drive cycle over which the vehicle is expected to operate. Peak-power transients result in an increase of losses and elevated temperatures which result in a decrease in the lifetime of the battery. This research will propose a novel two-input direct current (dc) dc to dc converter to interface an additional energy-storage element, an ultracapacitor (UC), which is shown in Fig.1.2. It will assist the battery during transients to reduce the peak-power requirements of the battery.

Annual Illness and Injury Surveillance Program report for the Hanford site. The IISP monitors illnesses and health conditions that result in an absence of workdays, occupational injuries and illnesses, and disabilities and deaths among current workers. The prpogram is part of DOE's commitment to assuring the health and safety of its workers and includes the conduct of epidemiologic surveillance activities that provide an early warning system for health problems among workers.

Annual Illness and Injury Surveillance Program report for 2004 for the Hanford site. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) commitment to assuring the health and safety of its workers includes the conduct of epidemiologic surveillance activities that provide an early warning system for health problems among workers. The IISP monitors illnesses and health conditions that result in an absence of workdays, occupational injuries and illnesses, and disabilities and deaths among current workers.

Annual Illness and Injury Surveillance Program for 2004 for the Hanford site. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) commitment to assuring the health and safety of its workers includes the conduct of epidemiologic surveillance activities that provide an early warning system for health problems among workers. The Illness and Injury Surveillance Program monitors illnesses and health conditions that result in an absence of workdays, occupational injuries and illnesses, and disabilities and deaths among current workers.

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