A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Under the current Social Security benefit formula, retired workers receive benefits that equal about 50 percent of pre-retirement earnings for a low-wage worker but only about 30 percent for a relatively high-wage worker. Factors other than earnings also influence the distribution of benefits, including the program's provisions for disabled workers, spouses, children, and survivors. Changes in the program over time also affect the distribution of benefits across generations. Social Security faces a long-term structural financing shortfall. Program changes to address that shortfall could alter the way Social Security's benefits and revenues are distributed across the population and affect the income security of millions of Americans. To gain a better understanding of the distributional effects of potential program changes, the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Special Committee on Aging asked us to address (1) how to define and describe "progressivity," that is, the distribution of benefits and taxes with respect to earnings level, when assessing the current Social Security system or proposed changes to it; (2) what factors influence the distributional effects of the current Social Security program; and (3) what would be the …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "This report responds to a request by the Ranking Minority Member, House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, for an analysis of the findings and recommendations contained in the March 2004 report of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Task Force on Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E). The mission of the VR&E program is to provide comprehensive services and assistance necessary to enable veterans with service-connected disabilities and employment handicaps to become employable, then obtain and maintain stable and suitable employment. We agreed to review and comment on the Task Force report's key findings and recommendations and make general observations about these findings and recommendations in light of our previous and ongoing work in the area."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Under the current Social Security benefit formula, retired workers can receive benefits at age 65 that equal about 50 percent of preretirement earnings for an illustrative low-wage worker but only about 30 percent for an illustrative high-wage worker. Factors other than earnings also influence the distribution of benefits, including the program's provisions for disabled workers, spouses, children, and survivors. Changes in the program over time also affect the distribution of benefits across generations. Social Security faces a long-term structural financing shortfall. Program changes to address that shortfall could alter the way Social Security's benefits and revenues are distributed across the population and affect the income security of millions of Americans. The Chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging asked us to discuss how selected Social Security reform proposals might affect the distribution of benefits and taxes."

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "In the summer of 2000, the air traffic control system lacked the capacity to handle demand efficiently, and flight delays produced near-gridlock conditions at several U.S. airports. A combination of factors, including the crises instigated by the events of 9/11, temporarily reduced air traffic, but air traffic is now back to near pre-9/11 levels. The ability of the air traffic control system to handle expected traffic in coming years may depend in part on the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) effectiveness in planning for a long-expected wave of air traffic controller retirements. GAO's testimony focuses on (1) the magnitude and timing of the pending wave of air traffic controller retirements, (2) the challenges FAA faces in ensuring that well-qualified air traffic controllers are ready to step into the gap created by the expected large number of retirements, and (3) challenges that will affect the ability of the air traffic controller workforce to meet future changes in the airline industry and use of airspace. GAO's statement is based on past reports on the air traffic controller workforce, including GAO's 2002 report that surveyed controllers and analyzed controller workforce data. GAO …

Testimony issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Interstate pipelines carrying natural gas and hazardous liquids (such as petroleum products) are safer to the public than other modes of freight transportation. The Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS), the federal agency that administers the national regulatory program to ensure safe pipeline transportation, has been undertaking a broad range of activities to make pipeline transportation safer. However, the number of serious accidents--those involving deaths, injuries, and property damage of $50,000 or more--has not fallen. Among other things, OPS takes enforcement action against pipeline operators when safety problems are found. OPS has several enforcement tools to require the correction of safety violations. It can also assess monetary sanctions (civil penalties). This testimony is based on ongoing work for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation and for other committees, as required by the Pipeline Safety Improvement Act of 2002. The testimony provides preliminary results on (1) the effectiveness of OPS's enforcement strategy and (2) OPS's assessment of civil penalties."

This CRADA project involved the cooperative research of investigators in ORNL's Center for Engineering Science Advanced Research (CESAR) with researchers at Caterpillar, Inc. The subject of the research was the development of cooperative control strategies for autonomous vehicles performing applications of interest to Caterpillar customers. The project involved three Phases of research, conducted over the time period of November 1998 through December 2001. This project led to the successful development of several technologies and demonstrations in realistic simulation that illustrated the effectiveness of the control approaches for distributed planning and cooperation in multi-robot teams.

This report discusses the status of restoration activities and funding.

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NSTX High Harmonic Fast Wave (HHFW) current drive discharges will require density control for acceptable efficiency. We have compared boronization on hot and cold surfaces, varying helium glow discharge conditioning (HeGDC) durations, and brief morning boronization with between discharge boronization for improving density control. Access to Ohmic H-modes was enabled by boronization on hot surfaces, however, the duration of the effectiveness of hot and cold boronization was comparable. A 15 min HeGDC between discharges was needed for reproducible L-H transitions. Brief morning boronization followed by a comparable duration of applied HeGDC restored and enhanced good conditions. Additional short boronizations between discharges did not improve plasma performance (reduced recycling, reduced impurity luminosities, earlier L-H transitions, longer plasma current flattops, higher stored energies) if conditions were already good. Between discharge boronization requires increases in the duty cycle due to the need for additional HeGDC to remove co-deposited D{sub 2}.

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Under the sponsorship of the U.S. DOE and DHS, we have developed a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model for simulating airflow and dispersion of chemical/biological agents released in the urban environment. Our model, FEM3MP, is based on solving the three-dimensional, time-dependent, incompressible Navier-Stokes equations on massively parallel computer platforms. The numerical algorithm uses the finite element method for accurate representation of complex building shapes and variable terrain, together with a semi-implicit projection method and modern iterative solvers for efficient time integration (Gresho and Chan, 1998). Physical processes treated in our code include turbulence modeling via the RANS (Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes) and LES (Large Eddy Simulation) approaches, atmospheric stability, aerosols, UV radiation decay, surface energy budget, and vegetative canopies, etc.

Photocopy of an Alternate to Delegate Elevation Form and fax to Charles McGarry from Al Daniels on June 15, 2004, including a message: "Alternate Delegate Elevation Form."

Letter from Becky Levy to General-Purpose Political Committees County Executive Committees on June 15, 2004 discussing a semiannual campaign finance report with the Texas Ethics Commission due on July 15, 2004. Includes information regarding electronic filing, exemption from electronic filling, cash on hand, corporate expenditures for administration or solicitation purposes, civil penalty for late filing, filing deadline, filing schedules, website address, questions, and software instructions for reporting "cash on hand."

This report describes the design issues that are associated with a superconducting focusing solenoid that goes around a liquid hydrogen absorber for the Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) proposed for the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. The solenoid consists of two superconducting coils that may operated at the same polarity or at opposite polarities. As a result, the coils and their support structure must be designed to carry a 360-ton inter-coil force that is forcing the coils apart along their axis. The basic design parameters for the focusing magnet are discussed. The magnet and its cryostat are designed so that the absorber can be assembled and tested before installation into the pre-tested focusing solenoid. Safety requirements for MICE dictate that the insulating vacuum for the superconducting magnet be separated from the insulating vacuum for the absorber and that both vacuum be separated from the experiment vacuum and the vacuum within adjacent RF cavities. The safety issues associated with the arrangement of the various vacuums in the MICE focusing modules are presented. The effect of magnet operation and magnet quench on the liquid hydrogen absorber is also discussed.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.

Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.

This project addresses the need for methods to remove or degrade subsurface contaminants that are present as dense non-aqueous phase liquids (DNAPLs), and act as long-term sources of groundwater contamination. The goal is to build on a particle-based approach to subsurface contaminant remediation that is based partly on the recent success in using nanoparticle iron to degrade chlorinated compounds dissolved in groundwater, and knowledge of how colloids migrate in porous media. The objective is to engineer reactive nanoparticles that can decompose and potentially isolate DNAPL pollutants in the subsurface.

Creation of 20-year data set of surface infrared fluxes from satellite measurements. A reliable estimate of the surface downwelling longwave radiation flux (DLF) is a glaring void in available forcing data sets for models of Arctic sea ice and ocean circulation. We have developed a new method to estimate the DLF from a combination of satellite sounder retrievals and brightness temperatures from the TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS), which has flown on NOAA polar-orbiting satellites continuously since late 1979. The overarching goal of this project was to generate a 20-year data set of surface downwelling longwave flux measurements from TOVS data over the Arctic Ocean. Daily gridded fields of DLF were produced with a spatial resolution of (100 km){sup 2} north of 60{sup o}N for 22.5 years rather than only 20. Surface measurements from the field station at Barrow, AK--part of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program --and from the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic (SHEBA) were used to validate the satellite-derived fluxes and develop algorithm improvements for conditions that had resulted in systematic errors in early versions of the algorithm. The resulting data set has already been sent to two other investigators for incorporation into their research, and …

To address the chemical sensing needs of DOE, a new class of chemical sensors is being developed that enables qualitative and quantitative, remote, real-time, optical diagnostics of chemical species in hazardous gas, liquid, and semi-solid phases by employing evanescent wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy (EW-CRDS). The feasibility and sensitivity of EW-CRDS was demonstrated previously under Project No.60231. The objective of this project is to enhance the selectivity and range of application of EW-CRDS. Selectivity is achieved spectroscopically by using vibrational overtones in the near infrared and chemically by using modified surfaces to encourage selective adsorption of analyte while preventing non-selective adsorption. The range of application is expanded by extending EW-CRDS to liquids and by combining EW-CRDS with the unique optical properties of nanoparticles.

The goal of this proposed work is to directly address the need for rapid on-line characterization of the physical properties of HLW slurries during all phases of the remediation process, from in-tank characterization of sediments to monitoring of the concentration, particle size, and degree of agglomeration and gelation of slurries during transport. Current technologies are not capable of characterizing the HLW waste stream without dilution. The results from this work will be utilized to develop new methodologies to characterize the HLW stream in-situ. There are three tasks: (1) develop new optical and acoustic scattering measurements to provide the fundamental science needed for successful device development and implementation, (2) develop theories that describe the interrelationship between wave propagation and the physical properties of the slurry, and (3) perform inversions of the theories and compare them with the experimental measurements to non-intrusively characterize slurries.

An efficient new method is presented to calculate the quantum transports using periodic boundary conditions. This method allows the use of conventional ground state ab initio programs without big changes. The computational effort is only a few times of a normal groundstate calculations, thus is makes accurate quantum transport calculations for large systems possible.

On-farm conversion of poultry litter into energy is a unique market connected opportunity for commercialization of small modular bioenergy systems. The United States Department of Energy recognized the need in the poultry industry for alternative litter management as an opportunity for bioenergy. The DOE created a relevant topic in the December 2000 release of the small business innovative research (SBIR) grant solicitation. Community Power Corporation responded to this solicitation by proposing the development of a small modular gasification and gas cleanup system to produce separate value streams of clean producer gas and mineral rich solids. This phase II report describes our progress in the development of an on-farm litter to energy system.

Radionuclide and metal contaminants are present in the vadose zone and groundwater throughout the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) weapons complex. In situ containment and stabilization of these contaminants in vadose zones or groundwater is a cost-effective treatment strategy. Our facilitated approach relies upon the hydrolysis of introduced urea to cause the acceleration of calcium carbonate precipitation (and trace metal coprecipitation) by increasing groundwater pH and alkalinity (Fujita et al., 2000; Warren et al., 2001). Subsurface urea hydrolysis is catalyzed by the urease enzyme, which may be either introduced with the urea or produced in situ by ubiquitous subsurface urea hydrolyzing microorganisms. Because the precipitation processes are irreversible and many western aquifers are saturated with respect to calcite, the co-precipitated metals and radionuclides will be effectively removed from groundwater. The rate at which trace metals are incorporated into calcite is a function of calcite precipitation kinetics, adsorption interactions between the calcite surface and the trace metal in solution (Zachara et al., 1991), solid solution properties of the trace metal in calcite (Tesoriero and Pankow, 1996), and also the surfaces upon which the calcite is precipitating. A fundamental understanding of the coupling of calcite precipitation and trace metal partitioning, and how …