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Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In March 2009, out of concern that the overall security situation in Afghanistan had not improved after more than 7 years of U.S. and international efforts, the administration completed a 60-day strategic review of U.S. policy and the security environment in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Based on this review, and recognizing the vital U.S. interest in addressing security threats posed by extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the administration announced a strategic goal of disrupting, dismantling, and eventually defeating these extremists and eliminating their safe havens in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Subsequently, in August 2009, the United States issued an integrated civilian-military campaign plan for support to Afghanistan. The strategy and campaign plan call for, among other things, the execution of an integrated counterinsurgency mission and continued efforts to build the capacity of military and civilian elements of the Afghan government to lead counterinsurgency and counterterrorism efforts and provide internal security for the Afghan people. Accordingly, the focus for U.S. forces in Afghanistan will be to (1) secure Afghanistan from insurgent and terrorist threats and (2) rapidly train Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF) to lead military and law enforcement operations."

We demonstrate an exchange bias in (Ga,Mn)As induced by antiferromagnetic coupling to a thin overlayer of Fe. Bias fields of up to 240 Oe are observed. Using element-specific x-ray magnetic circular dichroism measurements, we distinguish an interface layer that is strongly pinned antiferromagnetically to the Fe. The interface layer remains polarized at room temperature.

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "We have performed the procedures described in this letter, which we agreed to perform and with which the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation concurred, solely to assist the Inspector General's office in ascertaining whether the net excise tax revenue distributed to the Airport and Airway Trust Fund (AATF) for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2009, is supported by the underlying records. As agreed with the Inspector General's office, we evaluated fiscal year 2009 activity affecting excise tax distributions to the AATF."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has performed the procedures to which we agreed upon to perform and with which you concurred, solely to assist your office in ascertaining whether the net excise tax revenue distributed to the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2009, is supported by the underlying records. GAO evaluated fiscal year 2009 activity affecting excise tax distributions to the HTF. GAO conducted the engagement in accordance with U.S. generally accepted government auditing standards, which incorporate certain financial audit and attestation standards established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)."

In a previous paper, Morel and Montry used a Galerkin-based diffusion analysis to define a particular weighted diamond angular discretization for S{sub n}n calculations in curvilinear geometries. The weighting factors were chosen to ensure that the Galerkin diffusion approximation was preserved, which eliminated the discrete-ordinates flux dip. It was also shown that the step and diamond angular differencing schemes, which both suffer from the flux dip, do not preserve the diffusion approximation in the Galerkin sense. In this paper we re-derive the Morel and Montry weighted diamond scheme using a formal asymptotic diffusion-limit analysis. The asymptotic analysis yields more information than the Galerkin analysis and demonstrates that the step and diamond schemes do in fact formally preserve the diffusion limit to leading order, while the Morel and Montry weighted diamond scheme preserves it to first order, which is required for full consistency in this limit. Nonetheless, the fact that the step and diamond differencing schemes preserve the diffusion limit to leading order suggests that the flux dip should disappear as the diffusion limit is approached for these schemes. Computational results are presented that confirm this conjecture. We further conjecture that preserving the Galerkin diffusion approximation is equivalent to preserving the …

This report provides an introduction to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) and discusses Broadband grants and loans funded by the ARRA.

A presentation at the 22nd Industry Growth Forum by Marty Murphy about making connections and business opportunities in the cleantech industry.

This report provides a comparison of the cap-and-trade provisions of two bills. The first is H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. In addition to establishing a cap-and-trade system to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, this bill addresses energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other energy topics. Later, Senator Kerry introduced S. 1733, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act, which was referred to the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

This report provides an overview and analysis of issues related to the processing and distribution of congressional information by the Government Printing Office. Subsequent sections address several issues, including funding congressional printing, printing authorizations, current printing practices, and options for Congress. Finally, the report provides congressional printing appropriations, production, and distribution data in a number of tables.

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Army has three government-owned and operated manufacturing arsenals that it considers vital to the Department of Defense's (DOD) industrial base because they provide products or services that are either unavailable from private industry or ensure a ready and controlled source of technical competence and resources in case of national defense contingencies or other emergencies. These three arsenals are Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas; Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois; and Watervliet Arsenal, New York. Pine Bluff's core mission is the production of conventional ammunition and other types of munitions. Rock Island's core mission is weapons manufacturing, and the arsenal is home to the Army's only remaining foundry. Watervliet is the Army's only cannon maker and also produces other armaments and mortars. Historically, the Army's arsenals have generally had vacant or underutilized space. For many years the Army has not provided the capital investment needed to keep pace with modern manufacturing requirements and retain core skills in the arsenal workforce. Additionally, the arsenals have generally had lower workloads during peacetime, but since the onset of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan they have experienced a surge in workloads to provide vital …

This presentation, Deployment Partnerships, was given by Mike Pacheco at the Industry Growth Forum in Golden, Colorado, November 5, 2009.

This presentation, Working With NREL, was given by Casey Porto at the Industry Growth Forum in Golden, Colorado, November 5, 2009.

Highly industrialized areas pose significant challenges for surface based electrical resistivity characterization and monitoring due to the high degree of metallic infrastructure. The infrastructure is typically several orders of magnitude more conductive than the desired targets, preventing the geophysicist from obtaining a clear picture of the subsurface. These challenges may be minimized if steel-cased wells are used as long electrodes. We demonstrate a method of using long electrodes in a complex nuclear waste facility to monitor a simulated leak from an underground storage tank. The leak was simulated by injecting high conductivity fluid in a perforated well and the resistivity measurements were made before and after the leak test. The data were processed in four dimensions, where a regularization procedure was applied in both the time and space domains. The results showed a lowered resistivity feature develop south of the injection site. The time lapsed regularization parameter had a strong influence on the differences in inverted resistivity between the pre and post datasets, potentially making calibration of the results to specific hydrogeologic parameters difficult.

This report discusses the foreign direct investment in the United States, which declined sharply after 2000 when a record $300 billion was invested in U.S. businesses and real estate.

This report gives a brief overview of P.L. 110-49, the Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007. This law broadens Congress's oversight role in formulating the scope and direction of U.S. foreign investment policy. It also explicitly includes the areas of homeland security and critical infrastructure as separately-identifiable components of national security that the President must consider when evaluating the implications of a foreign investment transaction.

This report provides information on enacted FY2009 and FY2010 funding for these grant programs. It also identifies potential issues Congress may wish to address.

This report analyzes developments since the Guinean military's seizure of power in December 2008, Guinea's relations with the United States, and U.S. policy in the wake of the coup. It also provides background on Guinean history and politics.

The report opens with a discussion of how to analyze the impact of immigrants on the pay and job opportunities of native-born workers. It then uses this framework to examine and interpret the empirical literature on the subject. The report concludes with a discussion of policy implications.

Metal corrosion tests were conducted with four high waste loading non-Fe-limited HLW glass compositions. The results at 1150 C (the WTP nominal melter operating temperature) show corrosion performance for all four glasses that is comparable to that of other typical borosilicate waste glasses, including HLW glass compositions that have been developed for iron-limited WTP streams. Of the four glasses tested, the Bi-limited composition shows the greatest extent of corrosion, which may be related to its higher phosphorus content. Tests at higher suggest that a moderate elevation of the melter operating temperature (up to 1200 C) should not result in any significant increase in Inconel corrosion. However, corrosion rates did increase significantly at yet higher temperatures (1230 C). Very little difference was observed with and without the presence of an electric current density of 6 A/inch{sup 2}, which is the typical upper design limit for Inconel electrodes. The data show a roughly linear relationship between the thickness of the oxide scale on the coupon and the Cr-depletion depth, which is consistent with the chromium depletion providing the material source for scale growth. Analysis of the time dependence of the Cr depletion profiles measured at 1200 C suggests that diffusion of Cr …

This report discusses congressional interest in the pace of U.S. technological advancement due to its influence on U.S. economic growth, productivity, and international competitiveness. The proper role of the federal government in technology development and the competitiveness of U.S. industry continues to be a topic of congressional debate.

This report discusses the reasons that Iran is considered a threat to U.S. security, including Iran's nuclear program, involvement with terrorist organizations, and involvement with neighboring countries' local governments. The report also discusses ways which the U.S. hopes to modify Iran's behavior with sanctions, and the effectiveness of these sanctions.

Laser-induced magnetic fields in ICF capsules Final Report, DE-FG02-08ER85128, Phase 1 E. L. LINDMAN, Otowi Technical Services, Los Alamos, NM. The performance of an inertial-confinement-fusion (ICF) capsule can be improved by inserting a magnetic field into it before compressing it [Kirkpatrick, et al., Fusion Technol. 27, 205 (1995)]. To obtain standoff in an ICF power generator, a method of inserting the field without the use of low-inductance leads attached to the capsule is desired. A mechanism for generating such a field using a laser was discovered in Japan [Sakagami, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 42, 839 (1979), Kolodner and Yablonovitch, Phys. Rev. Lett. 43, 1402 (1979)] and studied at Los Alamos in the 1980s [M. A. Yates, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 49, 1702 (1982); Forslund and Brackbill, Phys. Rev. Lett. 48, 1614 (1982)]. In this mechanism, a p-polarized laser beam strikes a solid target producing hot electrons that are accelerated away from the target surface by resonant absorption. An electric field is created that returns the hot electrons to the target. But, they do not return to the target along the same trajectory on which they left. The resulting current produces a toroidal magnetic field that was observed to …

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