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Under contract with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), staff from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Sandia National Laboratory (SNL)-Albuquerque reviewed the evacuation time estimate (ETE) analysis dated April 2006 prepared by IEM for the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant (VEGP). The ETE analysis was reviewed for consistency with federal regulations using the NRC guidelines in Review Standard (RS)-002, Supplement 2 and Appendix 4 to NUREG-0654, and NUREG/CR-4831. Additional sources of information referenced in the analysis and used in the review included NUREG/CR-6863 and NUREG/CR-6864. The PNNL report includes general comments, data needs or clarifications, and requests for additional information (RAI) resulting from review of the ETE analysis.

A cultural resources survey of two proposed well pad sites and approximately 4,000 feet of pipeline performed in order to determine the presence or absence of archaeological sites. This report details the results and findings of the survey.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2003, violent conflict in Darfur, Sudan, broke out between rebel groups and government troops and government-supported Arab militias. While few would dispute that many thousands of Darfur civilians have died, less consensus exists about the total number of deaths attributable to the crisis. Estimates by the Department of State (State) and other parties report death tolls up to about 400,000 for varying populations and periods of time between February 2003 and August 2005. Based on the views of experts convened by GAO and the National Academy of Sciences, interviews with estimate authors, and a review of relevant literature, this report (1) evaluates six Darfur death estimates, (2) identifies general challenges to estimating deaths in such crises, and (3) discusses measures to improve death estimates."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2003, violent conflict in Darfur, Sudan broke out between rebel groups, government troops, and government-supported Arab militias, known as the Janjaweed. The conflict has displaced about 2 million Darfurians and has so affected over 1.9 million others that they require assistance. Since October 2003, the U.S. government has provided humanitarian assistance in Darfur and supported African Union Mission in Sudan's (AMIS) efforts to fulfill a peace support mandate. This report reviews (1) U.S. humanitarian assistance provided to Darfur and the challenges that have been encountered and (2) African Union efforts to fulfill its mandate and challenges that have affected these efforts."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Department of Defense (DOD) obligations for service contracts rose from $82.3 billion in fiscal year 1996 to $141.2 billion in fiscal year 2005. DOD is becoming increasingly more reliant on the private sector to provide a wide range of services, including those for critical information technology and mission support. DOD must maximize its return on investment and provide the warfighter with needed capabilities and support at the best value for the taxpayer. GAO examined DOD's approach to managing services in order to (1) identify the key factors DOD should emphasize to improve its management of services and (2) assess the extent to which DOD's current approach exhibited these factors."

This report addresses defense transformation from a Department of Defense (DOD) perspective.

The overall objective of this program was to develop technology that can be applied to the production of various chemicals and plastics from seed oils. This research and development program included activities in all four key barrier areas identified in the US DOE Technology Roadmap for Plant/Crop-Based Renewable Resources, namely Plant Science, Production, Processing, and Utilization. Participants in the project included The Dow Chemical Company, Castor Oil, Inc., and the USDA Western Regional Research Center (WRRC). The objective of this production task was to evaluate and develop metathesis catalyst technology as a means of utilizing seed oils as feedstocks for the chemical industry. Specifically, ethenolysis of fatty acid methyl esters, FAME’s, leads to functionalized derivatives. These serve as valuable starting points for materials which cascade into a variety of applications, many of which have a current market presence. The relatively recent discovery and commercial availability of a family of metathesis catalysts which are tolerant of polar functional groups and the acquisition and implementation of high throughput synthesis and screening infrastructure led to a prime opportunity to investigate this project area.

On August 24, 2006, the Food and Drug Administration announced the approval of an application to switch to Plan B, an emergency contraceptive, from a prescription-only drug to an over-the-counter drug for women 18 years of age and older. This report contains information on the background of the emergency contraceptive, FDA approval, legal issues, state policies, and related information.

The 109th Congress is considering proposals to amend the Endangered Species Act (ESA; P.L. 93-205, 16 U.S.C. §§1531-1543). Major issues in recent years have included changing the role of science in decision-making, modifying critical habitat (CH) procedures, incorporating further protection and incentives for property owners, and increasing protection of listed species, among others. In addition, many have advocated enacting as law some ESA regulations promulgated during the Clinton Administration. This report identifies other bills that have been introduced in the 109th Congress to address specific concerns related to how the ESA is implemented and how endangered species are managed.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Because of the significance of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) collections to overall federal receipts and, in turn, to the consolidated financial statements of the U.S. government, which GAO is required to audit, and Congress's interest in financial management at IRS, GAO audits IRS's financial statements annually to determine whether (1) the financial statements are reliable and (2) IRS management maintained effective internal controls. GAO also tests IRS's compliance with selected provisions of significant laws and regulations and its financial systems' compliance with the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act of 1996 (FFMIA)."

This report briefs the context of India - U.S relations and also discusses its bilateral issues

Abstract - ProSensing Inc. has developed a G-band (183 GHz) water Vapor Radiometer (GVR) for long-term, unattended measurements of low concentrations of atmospheric water vapor and liquid water. Precipitable water vapor and liquid water path are estimated from zenith brightness temperatures measured from four double-sideband receiver channels, centered at 183.31 1, 3 and 7, and 14 GHz. A prototype ground-based version of the instrument was deployed at the DOE ARM program?s North Slope of Alaska site near Barrow AK in April 2005, where it collected data continuously for one year. A compact, airborne version of this instrument, packaged to operate from a standard 2-D PMS probe canister, has been tested on the ground and is scheduled for test flights in the summer of 2006. This paper presents design details, laboratory test results and examples of retrieved precipitable water vapor and liquid water path from measured brightness temperature data.

A trial coating run has been performed at Teer Coating LTD to assess the use of a barrel coating system as a viable option to coat multilayer spheres. Hollow glass spheres (3M K15) ranging in diameter from 70-120 microns were cleaned in a process using a 0.1 M HCl solution. Comparative photos before and after the cleaning process are shown in figure 1. Approximately, 2 liters of cleaned spheres were sent to Teer for the trial coating in their barrel coater. A picture of barrel coating system is shown in figure 2. The coating process was one layer of titanium followed by one layer of aluminum. The target thickness for each layer is 500 nm, however, no rate runs were performed to calibrate the parameters. Each layer was sputtered for 10 hours, for a total of 20 hours. After the coating process, the coated spheres were sent back to LLNL for SEM analysis. In order to quickly examine the coating in cross-section, the spheres were broken with a spatula. Photos of the broken spheres are shown in Fig 3. One sphere was chosen to look at the uniformity around the sphere. As can be seen in Figure 4, there is …

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To address the DOE need for the storage and handling of terabyte of nuclear physics data, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) developed a new multi-terabit, 90° recording geometry 3D holographic archival optical memory storage and search system. In contrast to state-of-the-art memory approaches, 3DHAM handles the data through highly parallel optical processing in conjunction with highly redundant hologram multiplexing. The 3DHAM system advantages also stem from its unique 3D volume-recording medium, which theoretically has a significantly greater data density than diskbased systems.

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Anthropogenic CO2 released from fossil fuel combustion is a primary greenhouse gas which contributes to “global warming.” It is estimated that stationary power generation contributes over one-third of total CO2 emissions. Reducing CO2 in the atmosphere can be accomplished either by decreasing the rate at which CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere or by increasing the rate at which it is removed from it. Extensive research has been conducted on determining a fast and inexpensive method to sequester carbon dioxide. These methods can be classified into two categories, CO2 fixation by natural sink process for CO2, or direct CO2 sequestration by artificial processes. In direct sequestration, CO2 produced from sources such as coal-fired power plants, would be captured from the exhausted gases. CO2 from a combustion exhaust gas is absorbed with an aqueous ammonia solution through scrubbing. The captured CO2 is then used to synthesize ammonium bicarbonate (ABC or NH4HCO3), an economical source of nitrogen fertilizer. In this work, we studied the carbon distribution after fertilizer is synthesized from CO2. The synthesized fertilizer in laboratory is used as a “CO2 carrier” to “transport” CO2 from the atmosphere to crops. After biological assimilation and metabolism in crops treated with ABC, a …

Surfactant flooding has the potential to significantly increase recovery over that of conventional waterflooding. The availability of a large number of surfactant structures makes it possible to conduct a systematic study of the relation between surfactant structure and its efficacy for oil recovery. A mixture of two surfactants was found to be particularly effective for application in carbonate formations at low temperature. The mixture is single phase for higher salinity or calcium concentrations than that for either surfactant used alone. This makes it possible to inject the surfactant slug with polymer close to optimal conditions and yet be single phase. A formulation has been designed for a particular field application. It uses partially hydrolyzed polyacrylamide for mobility control. The addition of an alkali such as sodium carbonate makes possible in situ generation of naphthenic soap and significant reduction of synthetic surfactant adsorption. The design of the process to maximize the region of ultra-low IFT takes advantage of the observation that the ratio of soap to synthetic surfactant is a parameter in the conditions for optimal salinity. Even for a fixed ratio of soap to surfactant, the range of salinity for low IFT was wider than that reported for surfactant systems …

This report contains a summary of 401(k) plans, including the different plan types, enrollment practices, IRS rulings, and policy issues.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Health savings accounts (HSA) and the high-deductible health insurance plans that are eligible to be coupled with them are a new type of consumer-directed health plan attracting interest among employers and consumers. Employers and plan enrollees may contribute to tax-advantaged HSAs, and enrollees can use the accounts to pay for health care expenses. Because HSAs and HSA-eligible plans are new, there is interest in the experiences of plan enrollees, as well as in comparing the plan features and enrollee characteristics with those of traditional plans, such as preferred provider organization (PPO) plans. GAO reviewed (1) the financial features of HSA-eligible plans in comparison with those of traditional plans, (2) the characteristics of HSA-eligible plan enrollees in comparison with those of traditional plan enrollees, (3) HSA funding and use, and (4) enrollees' experiences with HSA-eligible plans. GAO analyzed data regarding HSA-eligible and traditional plans and enrollees from national employer health benefits surveys, three selected employers, and a national broker of health insurance. GAO compared Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data for tax filers reporting HSA contributions with corresponding data for all tax filers under 65 years old. GAO …

This report provides information about the Recommendation of the 9/11 Commission and Related Issues for Detection of Explosives on Airline Passengers. The key issue for congress is balancing various costs of mandating passenger explosives trace detection.

Present the results of an extensive computational investigation of flow through structured fibrous media.