A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, contains, among other things, provisions designed to protect the voting rights of U.S. citizens of certain ethnic groups whose command of the English language may be limited. The Department of Justice (DOJ) enforces these provisions, and the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) serves as a national clearinghouse for election information and procedures. The Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Coretta Scott King Voting Rights Act Reauthorization and Amendments Act of 2006 mandated that GAO study the implementation of bilingual voting under Section 203 of the act. This report discusses (1) the ways that selected jurisdictions covered under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act have provided bilingual voting assistance as of the November 2006 general election and any subsequent elections through June 2007, and the challenges they reportedly faced in providing such assistance; and (2) the perceived usefulness of this bilingual voting assistance, and the extent to which the selected jurisdictions evaluated the usefulness of such assistance to language minority voters. To obtain details about this voting assistance, GAO obtained information from election officials in 14 of the 296 …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Following the 1998 embassy bombings, the Department of State (State) determined that more than 85 percent of diplomatic facilities did not meet security standards and were vulnerable to terrorist attacks. State's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) has undertaken a program to replace or upgrade the security of these facilities. As of 2007, OBO had constructed more than 50 new embassies and moved nearly 15,000 staff to safer facilities. However, most remaining facilities will not be replaced in the near term. To address these facilities, OBO has obligated about $140 million per year for its Compound Security Upgrade Program (CSUP). GAO was asked to (1) describe the process that OBO follows to prioritize and plan CSUP projects, including stakeholder involvement; (2) determine the extent to which CSUP projects met contracted cost and time frames and whether OBO has procedures to ensure security upgrades are installed; and (3) assess whether State's CSUP efforts have enhanced posts' abilities to comply with State's physical security standards. To address these objectives, GAO reviewed pertinent State documents, met with State officials in Washington, D.C., and overseas, and traveled to 11 posts …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Looking to the future, our nation faces large and growing structural deficits and escalating federal debt due primarily to rising health care costs and known demographic trends. Slowing the growth of entitlements is an essential part of the solution to these challenges. GAO was asked to identify useful insights from the entitlement reform processes in other countries. Specifically, GAO was asked to analyze (1) other countries' major efforts to reform entitlement programs, (2) the pressure(s) that led countries to undertake the reforms, (3) how reform proposals were developed, and (4) to what extent enacted reforms built in triggers requiring future actions under certain conditions; and where such trigger mechanisms did not exist, whether some adjustments nonetheless occurred. GAO conducted a literature review focusing on developed, high-income Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) countries facing similar fiscal challenges. To gain a more in-depth understanding of reform process, GAO selected three efforts for further study: Sweden's pension reform in 1998, Germany's pension reform in 2004, and the Netherlands' disability reform in 2005. For these cases GAO interviewed government officials, reform participants, and experts knowledgeable about the reforms. …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This is the second of two reports on the leveraging of federal funds in housing and community and economic development programs. Leveraging involves using a source of funds to attract other funds or combining multiple sources of funds. This report examines (1) the leverage measures and the transparency of the data and methods used to calculate them, and (2) the relevance of such measures in assessing performance that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Department of the Treasury (Treasury) reported for six selected programs. To complete this work, GAO reviewed agency policies and reports, interviewed officials, and analyzed agency data."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In January 2007, the Secretary of Defense announced an initiative to expand the Army from a total of 1,037,000 to 1,112,000 active and reserve soldiers by fiscal year 2013--an increase of 74,200 military personnel--in order to meet increasing strategic demands and to help reduce stress on the force. This planned expansion includes building six additional active modular brigade combat teams and additional modular support units, which will require a substantial increase in funding for personnel, equipment, and infrastructure. Currently, the Army estimates this expansion may require about $70 billion in increased funding through fiscal year 2013 and a significant amount in annual funding thereafter to sustain the expanded Army. The President's fiscal year 2008 budget request contained $7.7 billion for Department of the Army funding related to the Grow the Force initiative. During the course of our review of Army modularity as required by the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, we analyzed the $70.2 billion Grow the Force initiative funding plan. We are submitting this letter to Congressional staff at this time to provide the results of our analysis for Congressional consideration as …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In September 2005, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) recommended closing Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico, unless a new mission for the base could be identified by December 31, 2009. In June 2006, the Department of Defense (DOD) announced that Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) would establish a new mission at Cannon Air Force Base and the command would take ownership of the base on October 1, 2007. As a result, Cannon Air Force Base will remain open. While DOD has satisfied the intent of the recommendation by finding a new mission for the base, this BRAC recommendation was unusual because it contained a contingency clause. Therefore, we reviewed DOD's implementation of this recommendation under the authority of the Comptroller General to conduct evaluations on his own initiative. This report (1) describes the factors underpinning the decision to house AFSOC at Cannon Air Force Base and (2) provides information on the cost estimate and timeline for the movement of personnel to establish the AFSOC mission."

A well-homogenized Pu-2 at.% Ga alloy can be retained in the metastable face-centered cubic {delta} phase at room temperature. Ultimately, this metastable {delta} phase will decompose via a eutectoid transformation to the thermodynamically stable monoclinic {alpha} phase and the intermetallic compound Pu{sub 3}Ga over a period of approximately 10,000 years [1]. In addition, these low solute-containing {delta}-phase Pu alloys are metastable with respect to an isothermal martensitic phase transformation to the {alpha}{prime} phase during low temperature excursions [2, 3] and are also metastable with respect to a {delta} {yields} {alpha}{prime} phase transformation with increases in pressure [3-5]. The low temperature {delta} {yields} {alpha}{prime} isothermal martensitic phase transformation in the Pu-2 at.% Ga alloy only goes to {approx}25% completion with the resultant {approx}20 {micro}m long by 2 {micro}m wide lath-shaped {alpha}{prime} particles dispersed within the {delta} matrix. In recently reported studies, Faure et al. [4] have observed a {delta} {yields} {gamma} {yields} {alpha}{prime} pressure-induced phase transformation sequence during a diamond anvil cell investigation and, based on x-ray diffraction and density and compressibility experiments, Harbur [5] has concluded that both {alpha}{prime} and an amorphous phase are present in samples that were pressurized and recovered. In this work, a large volume moissanite anvil …

The adsorption of hydrogen on Ru(001) was studied by scanning tunneling microscopy at temperatures around 50 K. Hydrogen was found to adsorb dissociatively forming different ordered structures as a function of coverage. In order of increasing coverage {theta} in monolayers (ML) these were ({radical}3 x {radical}3)r30{sup o} at {theta} = 0.3 ML; (2 x 1) at {theta} = 0.50 ML, (2 x 2)-3H at {theta} = 0.75, and (1 x 1) at {theta} = 1.00. Some of these structures were observed to coexist at intermediate coverage values. Close to saturation of 1 ML, H-vacancies (unoccupied three fold fcc hollow Ru sites) were observed either as single entities or forming transient aggregations. These vacancies diffuse and aggregate to form active sites for the dissociative adsorption of hydrogen.

The rapid growth of the photovoltaics (PV) industry is threatened by the ongoing shortage of suitable solar grade (SoG) silicon. Until 2004, the PV industry relied on the off spec polysilicon from the electronics industry for feedstock. The rapid growth of PV meant that the demand for SoG silicon predictably surpassed this supply. The long-term prospects for PV are very bright as costs have come down, and efficiencies and economies of scale make PV generated electricity ever more competitive with grid electricity. However, the scalability of the current process for producing poly silicon again threatens the future. A less costly, higher volume production technique is needed to supply the long-term growth of the PV industry, and to reduce costs of PV even further. This long-term need was the motivation behind this SBIR proposal. Upgrading metallurgical grade (MG) silicon would fulfill the need for a low-cost, large-scale production. Past attempts to upgrade MG silicon have foundered/failed/had trouble reducing the low segregation coefficient elements, B, P, and Al. Most other elements in MG silicon can be purified very efficiently by directional solidification. Thus, in the Phase I program, Crystal Systems proposed a variety of techniques to reduce B, P, and Al in …

An adjustable permanent magnet quadrupole has been developed for the final focus (FF) in a linear collider. Recent activities include a newly fabricated inner ring to demonstrate the strongest field gradient at a smaller bore diameter of 15mm and a magnetic field measurement system with a new rotating coil. The prospects of the R&D will be discussed.

A study of dark currents has been initiated at the Argonne Wakefield Accelerator Facility (AWA). Emission of dark current is closely related to a breakdown. Breakdown may include several factors such as local field enhancement, explosive electron emission, Ohmic heating, tensile stress produced by electric field, and others. The AWA is building a dedicated facility to test various models for breakdown mechanisms and to determine the roles of different factors in the breakdown. An imaging system is being put together to identify single emitters on the cathode surface. This will allow us to study dark current properties in the gun. We also plan to trigger breakdown events with a high-powered laser at various wavelengths (IR to UV). Another experimental idea follows from the recent work on a Schottky-enabled photoemission in an RF photoinjector that allows us to determine in situ the field enhancement factor on a cathode surface. Monitoring the field enhancement factor before and after can shed some light on a modification of metal surface after the breakdown.

The Low-Loss shape cavity design has been proposed as a possible alternative to the baseline TESLA cavity design for the ILC main linacs. The advantages of this design over the TESLA cavity are its lower cryogenic loss, and higher achievable gradient due to lower surface fields. High gradient prototypes for such designs have been tested at KEK (ICHIRO) and TJNAF (LL). However, issues related to HOM damping and multipacting still need to be addressed. Preliminary numerical studies of the prototype cavities have shown unacceptable damping factors for some higher-order dipole modes if the typical TESLA HOM couplers are directly adapted to the design. The resulting wakefield will dilute the beam emittance thus reducing the machine luminosity. Furthermore, high gradient tests on a 9-cell prototype at KEK have experienced multipacting barriers although a single LL cell had achieved a high gradient. From simulations, multipacting activities are found to occur in the end-groups of the cavity. In this paper, we will present the optimization results of the end-groups for the Low-Loss designs for effective HOM damping and alleviation of multipacting.

Electrical and thermal conductivities are presented for aluminum, iron and copper plasmas at various temperatures, and for gold between 15000 and 30000 Kelvin. The calculations are based on the continuum wave functions computed in the potential of the temperature and density dependent self-consistent 'average atom' (AA) model of the plasma. The cross sections are calculated by using the phase shifts of the continuum electron wave functions and also in the Born approximation. We show the combined effect of the thermal and radiative transport on the effective Rosseland mean opacities at temperatures from 1 to 1000 eV. Comparisons with low temperature experimental data are also presented.

Background: The Rosebud Sioux Tribe (RST) is located in south central South Dakota near the Nebraska border. The nearest community of size is Valentine, Nebraska. The RST is a recipient of several Department of Energy grants, written by Distributed Generation Systems, Inc. (Disgen), for the purposes of assessing the feasibility of its wind resource and subsequently to fund the development of the project. Disgen, as the contracting entity to the RST for this project, has completed all the pre-construction activities, with the exception of the power purchase agreement and interconnection agreement, to commence financing and construction of the project. The focus of this financing is to maximize the economic benefits to the RST while achieving commercially reasonable rates of return and fees for the other parties involved. Each of the development activities required and its status is discussed below. Land Resource: The Owl Feather War Bonnet 30 MW Wind Project is located on RST Tribal Trust Land of approximately 680 acres adjacent to the community of St. Francis, South Dakota. The RST Tribal Council has voted on several occasions for the development of this land for wind energy purposes, as has the District of St. Francis. Actual footprint of wind …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

This report provides background information regarding the Nuclear Arms Control negotiations between U.S. and Russia. In addition it discusses treaties, the content and form of the agreements.

This report discusses the physical security at nuclear power plants and concerns of radiological sabotage, a deliberate act against a plant that could directly or indirectly endanger public health and safety through exposure to radiation.

Weekly magazine edition of the daily student newspaper from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Dallas, Texas that includes local, state, and national news and advertising of interest to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a member of the Village of Wimberly City Council may seve simultaneously on the board of directors of the Wimberly Water Supply Corporation.

None

None

None