A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Labor's (DOL) Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) enforces the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), which sets certain minimum standards for private sector pension plans. On the basis of GAO's prior work, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions asked GAO to review EBSA's enforcement program. Specifically, this report assesses (1) the extent to which EBSA has improved its compliance activities since 2002; (2) how EBSA's enforcement practices compare to those of other agencies; and (3) what obstacles, if any, affect ERISA enforcement. To do this, we reviewed EBSA's enforcement strategy and operations, and interviewed officials at EBSA, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), among others."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The future of intercity passenger rail service in the United States has come to a critical juncture. The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) continues to rely heavily on federal subsidies--over $1 billion annually in recent years--and operating losses have remained high. In addition, Amtrak will require billions of dollars to address deferred maintenance and achieve a "state of good repair." These needs for Amtrak come at a time when the nation faces long-term fiscal challenges. As we reported in February 2005, the federal government's financial condition and long-term fiscal outlook present enormous challenges to the nation's ability to respond to emerging forces reshaping American society, the United States' place in the world, and the future role of the federal government. Addressing the projected fiscal gaps will require policy makers to examine the affordability and sustainability of all existing programs, policies, functions, and activities throughout the federal budget. Reexamining the federal role and expenditures on intercity passenger rail service will be particularly difficult because opinions differ about what this service should be. Some advocate a greatly expanded federal role and the expansion of intercity passenger rail to relieve growing …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Oil and gas production from federal lands and waters is vital to meeting the nation's energy needs. As such, oil and gas companies lease federal lands and waters and pay royalties to the federal government based on a percentage of the oil and gas that they produce. The Minerals Management Service (MMS), an agency in the Department of the Interior, is responsible for collecting royalties from these leases. In order to promote oil and gas production, the federal government at times and in specific cases has provided "royalty relief," waiving or reducing the royalties that companies must pay. However, as production from these leases grows and oil and gas prices have risen since a major 1995 royalty relief act, questions have emerged about the financial impacts of royalty relief. Based on our work to date, GAO's statement addresses (1) the likely fiscal impacts of royalty relief on leases issued under the Outer Continental Shelf Deep Water Royalty Relief Act of 1995 and (2) other authority for granting royalty relief that could further impact future royalty revenue. To address these issues our ongoing work has included, among other things, …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO provided a strategic overview of GAO's work related to securing, stabilizing, and rebuilding Iraq. In our statement today, as requested, GAO highlighted (1) GAO's scope, authority, and coordination; (2) some of the insights stemming from our work in Iraq; and (3) the rigorous quality assurance framework that GAO uses to ensure relevant, reliable, and consistent results in all of our work. This testimony is based upon extensive work spanning several years. Since 2003, we have issued 67 Iraq-related reports and testimonies. For example, GAO sent a report to the Congress last week on a range of key issues for congressional oversight of efforts to secure, stabilize, and rebuild Iraq. Although many of our sources are classified, we strive to report information to the Congress in a public format to promote greater transparency and accountability of U.S. government policies, programs, and activities. As provided for in our congressional protocols, most of our work in Iraq has been performed under my authority to conduct evaluations on my own initiative since it is a matter of broad interest to the entire Congress and numerous committees in both chambers. Our work …

Trivalent bismuth luminescence is reported in three Sillenbismuth oxyhalide phases, SrBiO2Cl, BaBiO2Cl, and BaBiO2Br. Thesecompounds exhibit Bi 6s6->6 s2 emission under UV and X-ray radiation.At room temperature, BaBiO2Cl shows the most intense light emission, withspectral and decay properties similar to those found in Bi4Ge3O12 (BGO).At low temperatures, each phase show an increase in the photoluminescenceintensities and a narrowing of the emission peaks. In contrast to thetemperature dependence of BGO, X-ray excited luminescence intensities ofall three phases remain relatively constant throughout the temperaturerange 10 - 295 K. This result indicates that the Sillen phases undergoless thermal quenching than BGO. The low temperature and room temperatureradio-luminescence decay times were determined from pulsed x-raymeasurements. At room temperature, SrBiO2Cl exhibits faster decays thanBGO, while, BaBiO2Cl and BaBiO2Br have decay times similar toBGO.

Fourier transform visible spectroscopy, in conjunction withVUV photons produced by a synchrotron, is employed to investigate thephotodissociation of CH3CN. Emission is observed from both theCN(B2Sigma+ - X2Sigma+) and CH(A2Delta - X2PI) transitions; only theformer is observed in spectra recorded at 10.2 and 11.5 eV, whereas bothare detected in the 16 eV spectrum. The rotational and vibrationaltemperatures of both the CN(B2Sigma+) and CH(A2Delta) radical productsare derived using a combination of spectral simulations and Boltzmannplots. The CN(B2Sigma+) fragment displays a bimodal rotationaldistribution in all cases. Trot(CN(B2Sigma+)) ranges from 375 to 600 K atlower K' and from 1840 to 7700 K at higher K' depending on the photonenergy used. Surprisal analyses indicate clear bimodal rotationaldistributions, suggesting CN(B2Sigma+) is formed via either linear orbent transition states, respectively, depending on the extent ofrotational excitation in this fragment. CH(A2Delta) has a singlerotational distribution when produced at 16 eV which results inTrot(CH(A2Delta)) = 4895 +- 140 K in nu' = 0 and 2590 +- 110 K in nu' =1. From thermodynamic calculations, it is evident that CH(A2Delta) isproduced along with CN(X2Sigma+) + H2. These products can be formed by atwo step mechanism (via excited CH3* and ground state CN(X2Sigma+) or aprocess similar to the "roaming" atom mechanism; …

It turns out that gyrokinetic theory can be geometrically formulated as special cases of a geometrically generalized Vlasov-Maxwell system. It is proposed that the phase space of the spacetime is a 7-dimensional fiber bundle P over the 4-dimensional spacetime M, and that a Poincare-Cartan-Einstein 1-form {gamma} on the 7-dimensional phase space determines particles worldlines in the phase space. Through Liouville 6-form {Omega} and fiber integral, the 1-form {gamma} also uniquely defines a geometrically generalized Vlasov-Maxwell system as a field theory for the collective electromagnetic field. The geometric gyrokinetic theory is then developed as a special case of the geometrically generalized Vlasov-Maxwell system. In its most general form, gyrokinetic theory is about a symmetry, called gyro-symmetry, for magnetized plasmas, and the 1-form {gamma} again uniquely defines the gyro-symmetry. The objective is to decouple the gyro-phase dynamics from the rest of particle dynamics by finding the gyro-symmetry in {gamma}. Compared with other methods of deriving the gyrokinetic equations, the advantage of the geometric approach is that it allows any approximation based on mathematical simplification or physical intuition to be made at the 1-form level, and yet the field theories still have the desirable exact conservation properties such as phase space volume conservation …

In this note we describe a conceptual design of a part ofthe electron beam delivery system for FERMI@Elettra free electron laser(FEL) located between the end of the linac and the entrance to the FEL.This part includes the emittance diagnostic section, the electron beamswitchyard for two FELs called spreader and matching sections. The designmeets various constrains imposed by the existing and planned buildingboundaries, desire for utilization of existing equipment and demands forvarious diagnostic instruments.

The coupling of mechanical and optical properties insemiconductor nanostructures can potentially lead to new types ofdevices. This work describes our theoretical examination of themechanical properties of CdSe tetrapods under directional forces, such asmay be induced by AFM tips. In addition to studying the general behaviorof the mechanical properties under modifications of geometry,nanocrystal-substrate interaction, and dimensional scaling, ourcalculations indicate that mechanical deformations do not lead to largechanges in the band-edge state eigenenergies, and have only a weak effecton the oscillator strengths of the lowest energy transitions.

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Weekly Jewish newspaper from Fort Worth, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

This report discusses the federal tax treatment of alien individuals, i.e., foreign nationals, who are working in the United States.

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This Explanation of Significant Differences (ESD) applies to the remedial actions performed under the Final Record of Decision for Test Area North, Operable Unit 1-1 0, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (DOE-ID 1999) as amended by the Explanation of Significant Differences for the Record of Decision for the Test Area North Operable Unit 1-10 (DOE-ID 2003), the Record of Decision Amendment for the V-Tanks (TSF-09 and TSF-18) and Explanation of Significant Differences for the PM-2A Tanks (TSF-26) and TSF-06, Area IO, at Test Area North, Operable Unit 1-1 0 (DOE-ID 2004a), and the Explanation of Significant Differences for the Record of Decision for the Test Area North Operable Unit 1-10 (DOE-ID 2005). The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Idaho Operations Office; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Region 10; and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare-now identified as the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ)-signed the Record of Decision (ROD) in December 1999, the 2003 ESD in April 2003, the ROD Amendment/ESD in February 2004, and the 2005 ESD in January 2005. The EPA and DEQ support the need for this ESD.

The objective of this brief report is to document the ESBWR pedestal wall finite element analyses that were performed as a quick turnaround effort in July 2005 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and describe the assumptions and failure criteria used for these analyses [Ref 4]. The analyses described within are for the pedestal wall design that included an internal steel liner. The goal of the finite element analyses was to assist in determining the load carrying capacity of the ESBWR pedestal wall subjected to an impulsive pressure generated by a steam explosion.

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This paper will describe the importance of public and stakeholder involvement to the decisions being made at Savannah River Site (SRS) regarding the cleanup of major production facilities. For over a decade the Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) have operated under a three party agreement (known as the Federal Facilities Agreement or FFA) to clean up the SRS from the remnants of the Cold War plutonium production at SRS. During this time, the 3 agencies have consulted with the surrounding and impacted public to gain stakeholder input on the decisions concerning the clean up of various wastes at the SRS. The primary instrument of public input has been and remains the SRS Community Advisory Board (CAB). Much progress has been made over the years in cleaning up the SRS and the CAB has provided invaluable stakeholder input. Many planned decisions have been modified and changed as a result of the input of the CAB. Recently, DOE has decided to move forward with the Decommissioning of excess facilities at the SRS. These facilities include many buildings involved in the various missions of radioactive isotope production …

This document is a Engineering/Tools Evaluates for tools used to fill the Cross-Site transfer line encasements with nitrogen.

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