A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Mandated to screen all checked baggage using explosive detection systems at airports by December 31, 2003, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) deployed two types of screening equipment: explosives detection systems (EDS), which use computer-aided tomography X-rays to recognize the characteristics of explosives, and explosives trace detection (ETD) systems, which use chemical analysis to detect traces of explosive material vapors or residues. This report assesses (1) TSA's use of budgeted funds to install EDS and ETD systems and the impact of initially deploying these systems, (2) TSA and airport actions to install EDS machines in-line with baggage conveyor systems, and the federal resources made available for this purpose, and (3) actions taken by TSA to optimally deploy checked baggage screening systems."

The CH-TRU Waste Content Codes (CH-TRUCON) document describes the inventory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) CH-TRU waste within the transportation parameters specified by the Contact-Handled Transuranic Waste Authorized Methods for Payload Control (CH-TRAMPAC). The CH-TRAMPAC defines the allowable payload for the Transuranic Package Transporter-II (TRUPACT-II) and HalfPACT packagings. This document is a catalog of TRUPACT-II and HalfPACT authorized contents and a description of the methods utilized to demonstrate compliance with the CH-TRAMPAC. A summary of currently approved content codes by site is presented in Table 1. The CH-TRAMPAC describes "shipping categories" that are assigned to each payload container. Multiple shipping categories may be assigned to a single content code. A summary of approved content codes and corresponding shipping categories is provided in Table 2, which consists of Tables 2A, 2B, and 2C. Table 2A provides a summary of approved content codes and corresponding shipping categories for the "General Case," which reflects the assumption of a 60-day shipping period as described in the CH-TRAMPAC and Appendix 3.4 of the CH-TRU Payload Appendices. For shipments to be completed within an approximately 1,000-mile radius, a shorter shipping period of 20 days is applicable as described in the CH-TRAMPAC and Appendix 3.5 …

This report addresses relevant policy questions in current U.S.-China relations, discusses trends and key legislation in the current Congress and provides a chronology of developments and high-level exchanges.

The purpose of this project was to build an extensible cross-platform infrastructure to facilitate the development of accurate and portable performance analysis tools for current and future high performance computing (HPC) architectures. Major accomplishments include tools and techniques for multidimensional performance analysis, as well as improved support for dynamic performance monitoring of multithreaded and multiprocess applications. Previous performance tool development has been limited by the burden of having to re-write a platform-dependent low-level substrate for each architecture/operating system pair in order to obtain the necessary performance data from the system. Manual interpretation of performance data is not scalable for large-scale long-running applications. The infrastructure developed by this project provides a foundation for building portable and scalable performance analysis tools, with the end goal being to provide application developers with the information they need to analyze, understand, and tune the performance of terascale applications on HPC architectures. The backend portion of the infrastructure provides runtime instrumentation capability and access to hardware performance counters, with thread-safety for shared memory environments and a communication substrate to support instrumentation of multiprocess and distributed programs. Front end interfaces provides tool developers with a well-defined, platform-independent set of calls for requesting performance data. End-user tools have …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Air Force is on the verge of making a major commitment to the multi-billion dollar E-10A Multi-sensor Command and Control Aircraft program. Due to the substantial investment needed and technological challenges in developing the aircraft, the Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces asked GAO to examine the soundness of the E-10A business case as well as the risks associated with the current acquisition strategy."

Heat-exchangers, particle filters, turbines, and other components in integrated coal gasification combined cycle system must withstand the highly sulfiding conditions of the high-temperature coal gas over an extended period of time. The performance of components degrades significantly with time unless expensive high alloy materials are used. Deposition of a suitable coating on a low-cost alloy may improve its resistance to such sulfidation attack, and decrease capital and operating costs. The alloys used in the gasifier service include austenitic and ferritic stainless steels, nickel-chromium-iron alloys, and expensive nickel-cobalt alloys. During this period, we conducted two 300-hour tests. In the first test, we exposed samples at 900 C under conditions simulating the high-temperature heat recovery unit (HTHRU). The second test was at 370 C, corresponding to the filter units following the HTHRU. The tests were showed the resilience of silicon nitride as a coating component, and the new coating procedures better penetrated the pores in sintered metal filter samples. Finally, we also received samples that were exposed in the Wabash River plant. Unfortunately, all these samples, that were prepared last year, were severely eroded and/or corroded.

This report discusses farm commodity programs, which represent the heart of U.S. farm policy. The 2002 farm bill (P.L. 107-171) establishes farm income support and commodity price support programs for the 2002-2007 crop years. The 109th Congress is facing several issues regarding farm commodity programs, including budget reconciliation that could reopen the farm bill, payment limits (S. 385), dairy program extension (H.R. 1260, S. 273, S. 307), international trade, and planting flexibility (S. 194).

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The House considers bills and resolutions on the floor under several different sets of procedures governing the time for debate and the opportunities for amendment. Some procedures allow 40 or 60 minutes for debate; others permit debate to continue until a majority of Members vote to end it. Some procedures prohibit most or all floor amendments; others allow Members to offer any amendments that meet the requirements of the House’s rules and precedents. Notwithstanding these differences, the rules, precedents, and practices of the House generally are designed to permit the majority to work its will in a timely manner. This report provides a brief overview of this procedure.

The objective of this project was to build a high temperature, cost-effective, logging while drilling (HT-LWD) system with the ability to operate at 175 C with more than 100 hours mean time between failures (MTBF). Such a commercial real-time formation evaluation (FE) system would help operators to drill and produce hydrocarbon resources from moderately deep, hot reservoirs which otherwise might be uneconomic to drill. The project plan was to combine the existing Sperry-Sun high temperature directional and gamma logging system with lower temperature FE sensors which were upgraded to higher temperature operation as part of the project. The project was to be completed in two phases. Phase I included the development of the HT system, building two complete systems, demonstrating operational capability at 175 C and survivability at 200 C in the laboratory, and successfully testing the system in two low temperature field tests. Phase II was to test the system in a well with a bottom hole temperature of 175 C. The high temperature FE sensors developed as part of this project include gamma ray (DGR), resistivity (EWR-Phase 4), neutron (CTN), and density (SLD). The existing high temperature pulser and telemetry system was upgraded to accommodate the data and …

The report describes the reactive distillation experiments for the SI Cycle.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2004, the Department of Housing and Urban Development's Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Housing Service (RHS) guaranteed approximately $136 billion in mortgages for single-family homes, multifamily rental housing, and healthcare facilities under a variety of programs. In past years, both agencies have occasionally had to suspend the issuance of guarantees under some programs when they exhausted the dollar amounts of their commitment authority (which serves as a limit on the volume of new loans that an agency can guarantee) or credit subsidy budget authority (the authority to cover the long-term costs--known as credit subsidy costs--of extending these guarantees) before the end of a fiscal year. These suspensions can be disruptive to homebuyers, developers, and lenders. GAO was asked to determine (1) how often and why FHA and RHS have suspended their loan guarantee programs over the last decade, (2) how these agencies manage and notify Congress of the rate at which the authorities for these programs will be exhausted, and (3) options Congress and the agencies could exercise to help prevent future suspensions and the potential implications of …

The major project objective is to determine the feasibility of using the char from coal and/or biomass pyrolysis, ammonia and CO2 emissions at smokestacks to produce clean hydrogen and a sequestered carbon fertilizer. During this work period, literature review has been completed. The project plan, design and test schedules were made on the basis of discussion with partner in experimental issues. Installation of pilot scale units was finished and major units tests were fully performed. Modification of the pyrolyzer, reformer and gas absorption tank have been done. Integration testing is performing recently. Lab scale tests are in operation phase. The experimental installations are discussed in this paper.

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This report is based on CRS testimony at a March 10, 2005, hearing on Navy force structure and ship acquisition before the Projection Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. Since February 2003, if not earlier, there has been no current, officially approved, unambiguous plan for the future size and structure of the Navy.

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This report contains information regarding the Safe Drinking Water Act. Amendments to the act, drinking water infrastructure funding, and drinking water security are among topics discussed in this report.

Report detailing the vision for space exploration, including budget changes for NASA, public reaction, and more.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Air Force is preparing a modernization plan that expands the capabilities of the F/A-22, which was first designed to serve as an air-to-air fighter aircraft with very limited ability to strike targets on the ground. The Air Force now intends to transform it by adding robust air-to-ground capabilities to attack enemy ground threats and by adding onboard intelligence data gathering capabilities. After the recent budget cut, DOD estimates F/A-22 cost at $63.8 billion for 178 aircraft. It has been in development for more than 19 years, a decade longer than originally envisioned. In the face of significant cost and schedule overruns, Congress mandates that GAO annually assess the F/A-22 program. In this report, GAO addresses (1) the Air Force's business case for the F/A-22 modernization plan and (2) the recently completed initial operational test and evaluation."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Under the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act of 2005, GAO is required to to review the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program annually for the next 5 years. This is the first GAO report, and it (1) analyzes the JSF program's business case for delivering new capabilities to the warfighter and (2) determines whether the JSF program's acquisition strategy follows an evolutionary, knowledge-based approach. Also, the act requires GAO to certify whether we had access to sufficient information to make informed judgments on the matters contained in our report."

This report discusses proposals for international tsunami early warning systems and examines U.S. policy regarding tsunamis.

The authors study mix from analytical and numerical points of view. These investigations are linked. The analytical studies (in addition to laboratory experiments) provide bench marks for the direct simulation of mix. However, direct simulation is too detailed to be useful and to expensive to be practical. They also consider averaged equations. Here the major issue is the validation of the closure assumptions. They appeal to the direct simulation methods for this step. They have collaborated with several NNSA teams; moreover, Stony Brook alumni (former students, faculty and research collaborators) presently hold staff positions in NNSA laboratories.