A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The President has emphasized the importance of safety, efficiency, and accountability in U.S. government staffing overseas by designating the achievement of a rightsized overseas presence as a part of the President's Management Agenda. One of the elements of rightsizing involves relocating certain administrative support functions from overseas posts to the United States or regional centers overseas, which can provide cheaper, safer, or more effective support. This report (1) reviews State's efforts in providing administrative support from remote locations, (2) identifies the challenges it faces in doing so, and (3) outlines the potential advantages and concerns associated with providing support remotely."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO is required to annually audit the financial statements of the Bank Insurance Fund (BIF), Savings Association Insurance Fund (SAIF), and FSLIC Resolution Fund (FRF), which are administered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). GAO is responsible for obtaining reasonable assurance about whether FDIC's financial statements for BIF, SAIF, and FRF are presented fairly in all material respects, in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, and whether FDIC maintained effective internal control over financial reporting and compliance. Also, GAO is responsible for testing FDIC's compliance with selected laws and regulations. Created in 1933 to insure bank deposits and promote sound banking practices, FDIC plays an important role in maintaining public confidence in the nation's financial system. In 1989, legislation to reform the federal deposit insurance system created three funds to be administered by FDIC: BIF and SAIF, which protect bank and savings deposits, and FRF, which was created to close out the business of the former Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation."

The need for maintaining a lower specific engine oil temperature is essential in enhancing the longevity of the oil and of the engine and its components. By decreasing the engine oil temperature the oil is able to perform its job more efficiently. It is proposed to use the carbon foam, with its exceptional thermal management capabilities, to aid in reducing and stabilizing the engine oil temperature during steady state operation. Also, it is possible to use the carbon foam to heat the engine oil during startup to reduce emissions and possibly engine wear. The mesophase pitch derived carbon foam, developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is a material that offers excellent thermal management capability. The foam has an open cell structure (0.98 fraction open porosity) with graphitic ligaments aligned parallel to the cell walls. The alignment of the graphitic ligaments in a three dimensional array gives the foam homogeneous thermal properties, unlike graphite fibers. The bulk thermal conductivity of the foam has been measured to be 175 W/m{center_dot}K, placing it on the level of 6061 aluminum, which has a bulk thermal conductivity of 180 W/m{center_dot}K. Copper has a bulk thermal conductivity over two times higher, at 400 W/m{center_dot}K. The proposed …

This cleanup verification package documents completion of remedial action for the 118-F-7, 100-F Miscellaneous Hardware Storage Vault. The site consisted of an inactive solid waste storage vault used for temporary storage of slightly contaminated reactor parts that could be recovered and reused for the 100-F Area reactor operations.

We describe the present status of the PEP-II project. The project comprises four major systems: Injector, High-Energy Ring (HER), Low-Energy Ring (LER), and Interaction Region (IR). We focus in detail on the design of the LER, as its parameters and requirements are most closely related to those required for the Beijing Tau-Charm Factory rings. The PEP-II LER is a high-current, 3.1-GeV positron ring mounted above the 9-GeV HER. The LER uses a wiggler located in one of its six straight sections to provide emittance control and additional damping. We describe the rather complicated IR, which must transport the LER beam into the plane of the HER, focus it to a common beam size, and separate the beams after the head-on collisions. Both permanent magnet and conventional electromagnets are used in this area. The LER lattice has now adopted a simplified non-interleaved sextupole correction scheme that has reduced the required number of sextupoles substantially. We describe the LER vacuum system, one of the most challenging subsystems in PEP-II. It employs several technologies. In the arcs, aluminum extrusions and titanium sublimation pumps are employed; the straight sections use stainless steel chambers with lumped ion pumps. In the wiggler area, an extended copper …

Monthly report written by the Texas Daily Newspaper Association's (TDNA's) office manager, Darla Thompson, to Ken Whalen providing a summary of revenues and account balances, programs, meetings, and other activities in the office during the previous month.

This report covers issues related to the public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management(BLM) and the national forests managed by the U.S. Forest Service(FS).

None

This report discusses the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA), P.L. 105-220, which is the nation’s chief job training legislation, authorizes several job training programs, including Youth, Adult, and Dislocated Worker Activities; and Job Corps.

None

None

This report provides a side-by-side comparison of current law with HEA reauthorization proposals that are in the House-passed version of H.R. 609.

This report discusses the political situation in Afghanistan, more specifically it discusses the recent elections, newly formed constitution and the elected government.

This is a report on Computer-based Student Financial Aid Programs under the Higher Education Act.

This report discusses the American disabilities act (ADA) and also deals with The Americans with Disabilities Act: Supreme Court Decisions.

The purpose of the Columbia River Component Data Compilation and Evaluation task was to compile, review, and evaluate existing information for constituents that may have been released to the Columbia River due to Hanford Site operations. Through this effort an extensive compilation of information pertaining to Hanford Site-related contaminants released to the Columbia River has been completed for almost 965 km of the river.

This report describes the results of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities for salmonid fish populations and habitat in the Klickitat River subbasin in south-central Washington. The M&E activities described here were conducted as a part of the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA)-funded Yakima/Klickitat Fisheries Project (YKFP) and were designed by consensus of the scientists with the Yakama Nation (YN) Fisheries Program. YKFP is a joint project between YN and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). Overall YKFP goals are to increase natural production of and opportunity to harvest salmon and steelhead in the Yakima and Klickitat subbasins using hatchery supplementation, harvest augmentation and habitat improvements. Klickitat subbasin M&E activities have been subjected to scientific and technical review by members of the YKFP Science/Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) as part of the YKFP's overall M&E proposal. Yakama Nation YKFP biologists have transformed the conceptual design into the tasks described. YKFP biologists have also been involved with the Collaborative Systemwide Monitoring and Evaluation Project (CSMEP - a project aimed at improving the quality, consistency, and focus of fish population and habitat data to answer key M&E questions relevant to major decisions in the Columbia Basin) and are working towards keeping Klickitat M&E activities …

This report provides background information on options for technologies that could reduce the Navy's dependence on oil for its ships, as well as four general strategies for reducing the Navy's dependence on oil for its ships: reducing energy use on Navy ships; alternative hydrocarbon fuels; nuclear propulsion; and sail and solar power.

This report discusses federal research and development (R&D) funding. As in the recent past, the FY2007 increase over the FY2006 estimated funding levels is due to significant funding increases in the Department of Defense (DOD) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) space vehicles development program.

In 1976, Congress approved legislation to establish the regulatory framework for building a pipeline to bring natural gas from the Alaska North Slope to the lower 48 states. This report focuses on two major issues or uncertainties that may serve as economic constraints on a capital investment undertaking of this major scale.

Western Research Institute (WRI) in conjunction with the University of Wyoming, Department of Renewable Resources and the U.S. Department of Energy, under Task 35, conducted a laboratory-scale study of hydrocarbon biodegradation rates versus a variety of physical and chemical parameters to develop a base model. By using this model, biodegradation of Petroleum hydrocarbons in heterogeneous soils can be predicted. The base model, as developed in this study, have been tested by both field and laboratory data. Temperature, pH, and nutrients appear to be the key parameters that can be incorporate into the model to predict biodegradation rates. Results to date show the effect of soil texture and source on the role of each parameter in the rates of hydrocarbon biodegradation. Derived from the existing study, an alternative approach of using CO{sub 2} accumulation data has been attempted by our collaborators at the University of Wyoming. The model has been modified and fine tuned by incorporating these data to provide more information on biodegradation.

The Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) is preparing for vitrification of High Level Waste (HLW) Sludge Batch 4 (SB4) in early FY2007. To support this process, the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) has provided a recommendation to utilize Frit 503 for vitrifying this sludge batch, based on the composition projection provided by the Liquid Waste Organization on June 22, 2006. Frit 418 was also recommended for possible use during the transition from SB3 to SB4. A critical step in the SB4 qualification process is to demonstrate the applicability of the durability models, which are used as part of the DWPF's process control strategy, to the glass system of interest via a variability study. A variability study is an experimentally-driven assessment of the predictability and acceptability of the quality of the vitrified waste product that is anticipated from the processing of a sludge batch. At the DWPF, the durability of the vitrified waste product is not directly measured. Instead, the durability is predicted using a set of models that relate the Product Consistency Test (PCT) response of a glass to the chemical composition of that glass. In addition, a glass sample is taken during the processing of that sludge batch, the …

The report describes activites carried out at the palnt to identify energy savings in various energy user systems. The results list areas of energy savings potential and metods of energy savings.

We describe a new class of heterogeneous catalysts called supported molten metal catalysis (SMMC), in which molten metal catalysts are dispersed as nanodroplets on the surface of porous supports, allowing much larger active surface area than is possible in conventional contacting techniques for catalytic metals that are molten under reaction conditions, thus greatly enhancing their activity and potential utility. Specific examples of different types of reactions are provided to demonstrate the broad applicability of the technique in designing active, selective, and stable new catalysts. It is shown that dispersing the molten metal on a support in the suggested manner can enhance the rate of a reaction by three to four orders of magnitude as a result of the concomitant increase in the active surface area. New reaction examples include {gamma}-Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} supported molten Te (melting point 450 C) and Ga (MP 30 C) catalysts for bifunctional methylcyclohexane dehydrogenation. These catalysts provide activity similar to conventional Pt-based catalysts for this with better resistance to coking. In addition, results are described for a controlled pore glass supported molten In (MP 157 C) catalyst for the selective catalytic reduction of NO with ethanol in the presence of water, demonstrating activities superior to …