EDOT is a code that calculates the slowing down of a test particle in a Maxwellian plasma utilizing continuous slowing down theory. Both nuclear scattering and reactions are included. The output includes slowing down parameters as well as spectra of knock-on ions and in-flight reaction probabilities. The theory, input, and output for the code are described.

This report discusses the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA), as amended, is intended to help employees balance work and family life. The act provides eligible employees with two types of job-protected leave: regular leave and military family leave. In turn, military family leave consists of qualifying exigency leave and military caregiver leave.

This report discusses the major issues for Congress which include whether to increase inland waterway funding in the future (and by what amount); the appropriate type of revenue stream (e.g., fuel taxes or lockage fees) for the user-required portion of these projects; division of the cost-share responsibilities between the federal government and commercial users (e.g., 50/50 or some other division); and whether to initiate process-based recommendations that some argue will improve the delivery and efficiency of Corps-led IWTF projects.

This report presents a profile of the membership of the 113th Congress (2013-2014). Statistical information is included on selected characteristics of Members, including data on party affiliation, average age, occupation, education, length of congressional service, religious affiliation, gender, ethnicity, foreign births, and military service.

This report provides a brief overview of the EU's accession process and Turkey's path to EU membership. The U.S. Congress has had a long-standing interest in Turkey as a NATO ally and partner in regional foreign policy and energy security issues. Although some Members of Congress have expressed continued support for Turkey's membership in the EU, congressional interest and enthusiasm seems to have diminished recently.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2004, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) estimated that 29,400 deaths in the United States were related to consumer products. As required under Section 107 of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, this study reviews what is known about the relative incidence of preventable injuries and deaths among minority children associated with products intended for children's use and also examines what actions CPSC has taken through its public information and education initiatives to minimize these injuries and deaths. To address these issues, we assessed injury and death data sources used by CPSC, compared CPSC's consumer education efforts with key practices, and interviewed federal officials and groups representing the health and consumer interests of minority populations."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) operates one of the nation's largest health care systems. In 1999, GAO reported on VA's aged, obsolete capital assets, noting that better management of these assets could significantly reduce VA's operating costs. GAO also noted that VA could reinvest the savings to enhance veterans' health care. In response, VA initiated its Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) process to identify what health care services it should provide in which locations through fiscal year 2022. CARES resulted in decisions to realign inpatient services at some VA facilities and to leave services as currently aligned at others. VA did not complete inpatient alignment decisions across VA for long-term care and mental health services and for inpatient services at some facilities because VA lacked sufficient information on demand for such care and other factors. GAO was asked to examine key challenges VA will face in completing and implementing CARES. This report discusses three key challenges: (1) developing information to complete inpatient alignment decisions, (2) improving management of excess property, and (3) determining priorities for purchasing care to improve access. GAO's analysis is …

A chapter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO: (1) examined the estimates of social security's implicit rates of return for different birth years, earning levels, household configurations, and other demographic groupings; (2) examined rates of return available on private market investments; and (3) discussed the issues that arise from comparing social security and market investment returns."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Iraq has an estimated 115 billion barrels of crude oil reserves, the third largest in the world. Oil export revenues are critical to Iraq's reconstruction, accounting for over 90 percent of the Iraqi government's revenues. In June 2008, GAO reported low 2007 spending rates by the Iraqi government for some critical sectors in the face of declining U.S. investments in these sectors. This report examines (1) Iraq's estimated revenues from 2005 through 2008, (2) Iraq's estimated expenditures from 2005 through 2008, (3) Iraq's financial deposits through 2007 and budget surpluses, (4) U.S. cumulative expenditures on stabilization and reconstruction activities in Iraq since 2003, and (5) factors affecting Iraq's efforts to accelerate spending. GAO analyzed relevant data and reviewed documents, including Central Bank of Iraq oil receipts data, International Monetary Fund's (IMF) reports, translated copies of Iraqi budget and expenditures, and U.S. agency funding data and reports. GAO also interviewed officials from the Departments of Defense (DOD), Energy, State, Treasury, and the IMF. This report contains no recommendations. Treasury agreed with the report's findings and stated that Iraq has adequate funds to make and maintain capital investments …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "U.S. airlines are increasingly relying on code-share partnerships with foreign carriers to provide additional sources of revenue. Code-sharing is a marketing arrangement in which an airline places its designator code on a flight operated by another airline and sells and issues tickets for that flight. To determine whether the foreign code-share partners of U.S. airlines meet an acceptable level of safety, in 2000, the Department of Transportation (DOT) established the Code-Share Safety Program, which requires U.S. airlines to conduct safety audits of their foreign code-share partners as a condition of code-share authorization. GAO's objective was to assess the federal government's efforts to provide reasonable assurance of safety and security on foreign code-share flights. GAO reviewed (1) the extent to which DOT's code-share authorization process is designed to consider safety and security, (2) the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) management of the Code-Share Safety Program, and (3) the implementation of the program by airlines and the results."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "A provision in the 2002 Farm Bill requires grocery stores to identify certain commodities--beef, pork and lamb, fish and shellfish, fruits and vegetables, and peanuts--by country of origin. This provision also requires that an initial voluntary program be followed by a mandatory program by September 30, 2004. GAO was asked to identify existing programs that might be useful to USDA in crafting the new program, to update a 1998 USDA survey of major U.S. trading partners' country-of-origin labeling practices, and to assess the reasonableness of the assumptions and methodology USDA used for estimating first year record-keeping costs."

This report provides a legislative history and funding levels for Cuba Broadcasting. It discusses specific concerns some lawmakers have had with Radio and TV Marti over the years, and presents the Panel's recommendations and the USIA Director's response and determinations, as required by the FYI994 appropriations act.

In the separation of mixtures of radioactive iron and cobalt from neutron irradiated targets and in the removal of iron from cobalt targets for cyclotron production of radioiron, it is desirable to have a method superior to extraction from isopropyl ether in efficiency and ease of manipulation. Recent studies by Moore and Kraus on the separation of cobalt and nickel and on the behavior of iron in hydrochloric acid on Dowex-l resin in relation to the selective adsorption of chloride complexes of these elements have suggested the use of resin for the separation of iron and cobalt.

This document reports the results of Phase I Single Cell testing of an SO{sub 2}-Depolarized Water Electrolyzer. Testing was performed primarily during the first quarter of FY 2008 at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) using an electrolyzer cell designed and built at SRNL. Other facility hardware were also designed and built at SRNL. This test further advances this technology for which work began at SRNL in 2005. This research is valuable in achieving the ultimate goal of an economical hydrogen production process based on the Hybrid Sulfur (HyS) Cycle. The focus of this work was to conduct single cell electrolyzer tests to further develop the technology of SO{sub 2}-depolarized electrolysis as part of the HyS Cycle. The HyS Cycle is a hybrid thermochemical cycle that may be used in conjunction with advanced nuclear reactors or centralized solar receivers to produce hydrogen by water-splitting. Like all other sulfur-based cycles, HyS utilizes the high temperature thermal decomposition of sulfuric acid to produce oxygen and regenerate sulfur dioxide. The unique aspect of HyS is the generation of hydrogen in a water electrolyzer that is operated under conditions where dissolved sulfur dioxide depolarizes the anodic reaction, resulting in substantial voltage reduction. Low cell …

Reactivity transients have been analyzed with an updated RELAPS-3D (ver. 2.4.2) system model of the pin core design for the 2400MWt gas-cooled fast reactor (GCFR). Additional reactivity parameters were incorporated in the RELAP5 point-kinetics model to account for reactivity feedbacks due to axial and radial expansion of the core, fuel temperature changes (Doppler effect), and pressure changes (helium density changes). Three reactivity transients without scram were analyzed and the incidents were initiated respectively by reactivity ramp, loss of load, and depressurization. During the course of the analysis the turbine bypass model for the power conversion unit (PCU) was revised to enable a better utilization of forced flow cooling after the PCU is tripped. The analysis of the reactivity transients demonstrates the significant impact of the PCU on system pressure and core flow. Results from the modified turbine bypass model suggest a success path for the GCFR to mitigate reactivity transients without scram.

Numerical Modeling of Solid Gas Flow, System Identification for purposes of modeling and control, and Wireless Sensor and Actor Network design were pursued as part of this project. Time series input-output data was obtained from NETL's Morgantown CFB facility courtesy of Dr. Lawrence Shadle. It was run through a nonlinear kernel estimator and nonparametric models were obtained for the system. Linear and first-order nonlinear kernels were then utilized to obtain a state-space description of the system. Neural networks were trained that performed better at capturing the plant dynamics. It is possible to use these networks to find a plant model and the inversion of this model can be used to control the system. These models allow one to compare with physics based models whose parameters can then be determined by comparing them against the available data based model. On a parallel track, Dr. Kumar designed an energy-efficient and reliable transport protocol for wireless sensor and actor networks, where the sensors could be different types of wireless sensors used in CFB based coal combustion systems and actors are more powerful wireless nodes to set up a communication network while avoiding the data congestion. Dr. Ahmadi's group studied gas solid flow in …

Staff of the King County Wastewater Treatment Division (WTD) have concern about the aftermath of a radiological dispersion event (RDE) leading to the introduction of significant quantities of radioactive material into the combined sanitary and storm sewer system in King County, Washington. Radioactive material could come from the use of a radiological dispersion device (RDD). RDDs include "dirty bombs" that are not nuclear detonations but are explosives designed to spread radioactive material (National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) 2001). Radioactive material also could come from deliberate introduction or dispersion of radioactive material into the environment, including waterways and water supply systems. This document develops plausible and/or likely scenarios, including the identification of likely radioactive materials and quantities of those radioactive materials to be involved. These include 60Co, 90Sr, 137Cs, 192Ir, 226Ra, plutonium, and 241Am. Two broad categories of scenarios are considered. The first category includes events that may be suspected from the outset, such as an explosion of a "dirty bomb" in downtown Seattle. The explosion would most likely be heard, but the type of explosion (e.g., sewer methane gas or RDD) may not be immediately known. Emergency first responders must be able to quickly detect the radioisotopes …

Goal is to develop a Hall cell cathode, which will reduce the specific energy consumption of existing commercial cells by 20 to 25%. Basis of the improvement is the utilization of titanium diboride (TiB/sub 2/), a material that is wetted by molten aluminum, as the cell cathode. This provides a stable cathode surface, thereby allowing the cell to be operated at a smaller anode-cathode distance (ACD). Energy savings arise as a result of reduced resistive losses through the cryolite electrolyte. This phase of the program is comprised of three integrated parts: (1) materials characterization, (2) pilot cell testing, and (3) a full-sized cell demonstration. During this quarter emphasis continued on rebuilding the 15KA pilot cell to accommodate a highly sloped electrode system. TiB/sub 2/ cathode materials were received, and construction of cell components and peripheral equipment was completed.

Strict limitations on the emission of H/sub 2/S from new geothermal power plants in The Geysers area of northern California have been imposed by Lake and Northern Sonoma County Air Pollution Control Districts. Lake County, under new source review rules, has stipulated that specific technologies shall be utilized to limit H/sub 2/S emissions to 5 lb/h as a condition for determination of compliance. The status of these technologies as well as other ongoing technology development efforts to conserve steam and abate H/sub 2/S are evaluated. Although projections indicate that it may be possible to meet the 5 lb/h limit, there is no firm assurance of achievement at this time because of the unproven, full-scale performance status of some key technologies specified by the air pollution control districts.

Abstract: A definitive investigation of the boron-carbon equilibrium system is being made by X-ray diffraction, metallographic, and thermal analytical techniques. Alloys are being produced by sintering pressed powder aggregates with subsequent arc melting. Alloys have been made at two atomic percent intervals up to thirty atomic per cent carbon. In the future, higher carbon compositions are to be investigated. Techniques have been worked out for the metallographic preparation of the extremely hard and friable alloys.

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This quarterly progress report details ongoing work at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory as part of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion Project. Topics of discussion include reactor theory and design, shielding research, materials research, appendixes with information on ongoing analytical chemical studies.

The progress report discusses activities of the P Division for the month of July, 1949. The B and F piles operated at 275 megawatts and the D pile at 305 megawatts throughout the month except for outages listed under Area Activities. A total of 57.5 tons of metal, at an average concentration of 363 megawatt days/ton (MWD/ton) was discharged from the piles during the month. This included 41.9 tons of Class V (alpha-rolled, triple-dipped, completely transformed) metal at an average concentration of 397 MWD/ton which was discharged without difficulty. A portion of this material was inspected and appears to be satisfactory for exposures at this concentration.

This report explains the nature of U.S. authority over offshore areas pursuant to international and domestic law. It also describes the laws, at both the state and federal levels, governing the development of offshore oil and gas and the litigation that has flowed from development under these legal regimes. Also included is an outline of the changes to the authorities regulating offshore development wrought by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and subsequent legislation and executive action as well as a discussion of recent executive action and legislative proposals to encourage further offshore exploration and production.