Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since the 2000 national elections, concerns have been raised by various groups regarding the election process, including voting technologies. Beginning in 2001, GAO published a series of reports examining virtually every aspect of the elections process. GAO's complement of reports was used by Congress in framing the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which, among other things, provided for replacement of older voting equipment with more modern electronic voting systems and established the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to lead the nation's election reform efforts. GAO's later reports have raised concerns about the security and reliability of these electronic voting systems, examined the EAC's efforts to address these concerns, and surveyed state and local officials about practices used during the 2004 election, as well as plans for their systems for the 2006 election. Using its published work on electronic voting systems, GAO was asked to testify on (1) the contextual role and characteristics of electronic voting systems, (2) the range of security and reliability concerns that have been reported about these systems, (3) the experiences and management practices of states and local jurisdictions regarding these systems, and (4) the …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) requires districts with schools that receive Title I funds and that have not met state performance goals for 3 consecutive years to offer low-income students supplemental educational services (SES), such as tutoring. This testimony discusses early implementation of SES, including how (1) SES participation changed in recent years; (2) providers work with districts to deliver services; (3) states monitor and evaluate SES; and (4) the U.S. Department of Education (Education) monitors and supports SES implementation. This testimony is based on an August 2006 report (GAO-06-758) and also provides information on actions Education has taken that respond to our recommendations. For the report, GAO surveyed all states and a nationally representative sample of districts with schools required to offer SES, visited four school districts, and interviewed SES providers."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U. S. Coast Guard is a multimission agency responsible for maritime safety, security, and stewardship. It performs these missions, relating to homeland security and non-homeland security in U.S. ports and inland waterways, along the coasts, and on international waters. The President's budget request, including the request for the Coast Guard, was transmitted to Congress on February 5, 2007. This testimony, which is based on current and past GAO work, synthesizes the results of this work as it pertains to the following: budget requests and performance goals, organizational changes and related management initiatives, current acquisition efforts and challenges, and challenges related to performing traditional legacy missions."

A high-order finite volume algorithm is developed for the Fokker-Planck Operator (FPO) describing Coulomb collisions in strongly magnetized plasmas. The algorithm is based on a general fourth-order reconstruction scheme for an unstructured grid in the velocity space spanned by parallel velocity and magnetic moment. The method provides density conservation and high-order-accurate evaluation of the FPO independent of the choice of the velocity coordinates. As an example, a linearized FPO in constant-of-motion coordinates, i.e. the total energy and the magnetic moment, is developed using the present algorithm combined with a cut-cell merging procedure. Numerical tests include the Spitzer thermalization problem and the return to isotropy for distributions initialized with velocity space loss cones. Utilization of the method for a nonlinear FPO is straightforward but requires evaluation of the Rosenbluth potentials.

We investigate faint radio emission from low- to high-luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Their radio properties are inferred by coadding large ensembles of radio image cut-outs from the FIRST survey, as almost all of the sources are individually undetected. We correlate the median radio flux densities against a range of other sample properties, including median values for redshift, [O III] luminosity, emission line ratios, and the strength of the 4000{angstrom} break. We detect a strong trend for sources that are actively undergoing star-formation to have excess radio emission beyond the {approx} 10{sup 28} ergs s{sup -1} Hz{sup -1} level found for sources without any discernible star-formation. Furthermore, this additional radio emission correlates well with the strength of the 4000{angstrom} break in the optical spectrum, and may be used to assess the age of the star-forming component. We examine two subsamples, one containing the systems with emission line ratios most like star-forming systems, and one with the sources that have characteristic AGN ratios. This division also separates the mechanism responsible for the radio emission (star-formation vs. AGN). For both cases we find a strong, almost identical, correlation between [O III] and radio luminosity, …

In several cases, coupling synchrotron light into opticalfibers can substantially facilitate the use of beam diagnosticinstrumentation, that measures longitudinal beam properties by detectingsynchrotron radiation. It has been discussed in [1]with some detail, howfiberoptics can bring the light at relatively large distances from theaccelerator, where a variety of devices can be used to measure beamproperties and parameters. Light carried on a fiber can be easilyswitched between instruments so that each one of them has 100 percent ofthe photons available, rather than just a fraction , when simultaneousmeasurements are not indispensable. From a more general point of view,once synchrotron light is coupled into the fiber, the vast array oftechniques and optoelectronic devices, developed by the telecommunicationindustry becomes available.In this paper we present the results of ourexperiments at the Advanced Light Source, where we tried to assess thechallenges and limitations of the coupling process and determine whatlevel of efficiency one can typically expect to achieve.

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The ability to determine fuel assembly burnup has important non-proliferation implications since proliferation activities involve either irradiating fuel assemblies to a much lower level of burnup than is normal in commercial Light Water Reactor (LWR) practice, and/or irradiation of separate targets. Similarly, a method of determining burnup could be used to confirm declared operation for a reactor that is operating under IAEA safeguards. It is possible to determine fuel assembly burnup by measuring gamma radiation from specific fission products; however this technique is only useable after the fuel assembly has been out of the reactor for at least a year, and is not very useful after the assembly has been out of the reactor for 10 years or more. The use of isotope ratio measurements to measure the level of neutron exposure that material has received is well-known for graphite applications. The current project is an attempt to demonstrate that isotope ratio measurements can be performed on zirconium alloys used in LWR fuel assemblies. Zirconium alloys are used for structural elements of fuel assemblies and for the fuel element cladding. This report covers proof-of-principle measurements done on unirradiated zirconium alloys, these measurements show that: Titanium 48/Titanium 49 ratios can be …

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Discovery of aging phenomena in the materials of a structure may arise after its design and construction that impact its structural integrity. This condition can be addressed through a demonstration of integrity with the material-specific degraded conditions. Two case studies of development of fracture and crack growth property data, and their application in development of in-service inspection programs for nuclear structures in the defense complex are presented. The first case study covers the development of fracture toughness properties in the form of J-R curves for rolled plate Type 304 stainless steel with Type 308 stainless steel filler in the application to demonstrate the integrity of the reactor tanks of the heavy water production reactors at the Savannah River Site. The fracture properties for the base, weld, and heat-affected zone of the weldments irradiated at low temperatures (110-150 C) up to 6.4 dpa{sub NRT} and 275 appm helium were developed. An expert group provided consensus for application of the irradiated properties for material input to acceptance criteria for ultrasonic examination of the reactor tanks. Dr. Spencer H. Bush played a lead advisory role in this work. The second case study covers the development of fracture toughness for A285 carbon steel in …

Search engines, such as Google, assign scores to news articles based on their relevancy to a query. However, not all relevant articles for the query may be interesting to a user. For example, if the article is old or yields little new information, the article would be uninteresting. Relevancy scores do not take into account what makes an article interesting, which would vary from user to user. Although methods such as collaborative filtering have been shown to be effective in recommendation systems, in a limited user environment there are not enough users that would make collaborative filtering effective. I present a general framework for defining and measuring the ''interestingness'' of articles, called iScore, incorporating user-feedback including tracking multiple topics of interest as well as finding interesting entities or phrases in a complex relationship network. I propose and have shown the validity of the following: 1. Filtering based on only topic relevancy is insufficient for identifying interesting articles. 2. No single feature can characterize the interestingness of an article for a user. It is the combination of multiple features that yields higher quality results. For each user, these features have different degrees of usefulness for predicting interestingness. 3. Through user-feedback, a …

This annual report summarizes the activities of the Cornell Center for Pulsed-Power-Driven High-Energy-Density Plasma Studies, for the 12-month period October 1, 2005-September 30, 2006. This period corresponds to the first year of the two-year extension (awarded in October, 2005) to the original 3-year NNSA/DOE Cooperative Agreement with Cornell, DE-FC03-02NA00057. As such, the period covered in this report also corresponds to the fourth year of the (now) 5-year term of the Cooperative Agreement. The participants, in addition to Cornell University, include Imperial College, London (IC), the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), the University of Rochester (UR), the Weizmann Institute of Science (WSI), and the P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute (LPI), Moscow. A listing of all faculty, technical staff and students, both graduate and undergraduate, who participated in Center research activities during the year in question is given in Appendix A.

Alloy 600 corrosion coupon tests were performed: (1) to quantify the temperature dependency of general corrosion and (2) to characterize the composition and structure of bulk surface corrosion films for comparison with ongoing primary water SCC (PWSCC) crack tip corrosion film analyses. Results suggest that the thermal activation energy of Alloy 600 corrosion is consistent with the thermal activation energy of nickel alloy PWSCC. Analytical investigations of the structure and composition of Alloy 600 bulk surface corrosion oxides revealed a duplex (inner and outer) oxide layer structure. The outer layer is discontinuous and comprised of relatively large (1 to 3 {micro}m) nickel ferrite crystals and smaller ({approx}0.1 {micro}m) chromium containing nickel ferrite crystals. The inner layer consists of a relatively continuous chromite spinel (major phase) and chromia (Cr{sub 2}O{sub 3} minor phase) which formed through non-selective oxidation. Chromia and dealloyed Alloy 600 (highly Ni enriched metal) were only observed at 337 C (640 F) and only along the boundaries of deformation induced fine grains and subcells. Specimens having deformation free surfaces exhibited continuous uniform inner chromite spinel oxide layers. Specimens with machining induced surface deformation produced non-uniform inner layer oxides (chromite spinel, Cr{sub 2}O{sub 3} and unoxidized material). PWSCC crack …

By means of hadronic B decays, the BABAR experiment aims to constrain the CKM matrix performing CP parameter measurements. It also seeks to test QCD factorization predictions and other models for B structure and decay mechanisms. We will present some of the on-going CP related analyses in the first section, while the second section will be dedicated to report on the conducted investigations on subjects as diverse as probing the gluon component in the B meson wave function, new physics and final state interactions in annihilation processes, intrinsic charm searches and first observation of strange charmed baryon production in B decays.

Literature survey has been performed for a compendium of mechanical properties of carbon and low alloy steels following hydrogen exposure. The property sets include yield strength, ultimate tensile strength, uniform elongation, reduction of area, threshold stress intensity factor, fracture toughness, and fatigue crack growth. These properties are drawn from literature sources under a variety of test methods and conditions. However, the collection of literature data is by no means complete, but the diversity of data and dependency of results in test method is sufficient to warrant a design and implementation of a thorough test program. The program would be needed to enable a defensible demonstration of structural integrity of a pressurized hydrogen system. It is essential that the environmental variables be well-defined (e.g., the applicable hydrogen gas pressure range and the test strain rate) and the specimen preparation be realistically consistent (such as the techniques to charge hydrogen and to maintain the hydrogen concentration in the specimens).

Rapid granular flows and particle-laden flows were studied in laboratory experiments, molecular dynamics simulations, and simulations of continuum equations. The research demonstrated that the inclusion of friction is crucial in realistic modeling of granular flows; hence extensive previous analyses and simulations by many researchers for frictionless particles must be reconsidered in the light of our work.

The Babar experiment at the SLAC B factory has accumulated a high luminosity that offers the possibility of systematic studies of quarkonium spectroscopy and of investigating rare new phenomena. Recent results in this field are presented. In recent times spectroscopy has become exciting again, after the discovery of new states that are not easily explained by conventional models. States such as the X(3872) and the Y(4260) could be new excited charmonium states, but require precise measurements for positive identification. The BaBar experiment [1] is installed at the asymmetric storage ring PEP-II. 90% of the data accumulated by BaBar are taken at the Y(4S) (10.58 GeV) and 10% just below (10.54 GeV). The BaBar detector includes a 5-layer, double-sided silicon vertex tracker and a 40-layer drift chamber in a 1.5 T solenoidal magnetic field, which detect charged particles and measures their momenta and ionization energy losses. Photons, electrons, and neutral hadrons are detected with a CsI(Tl)-crystal electromagnetic calorimeter. An internally reflecting ring-imaging Cherenkov is also used for particle id. Penetrating muon and neutral hadrons are identified by an array of resistive-plate chambers embedded in the steel of the flux return. The detector allows good track and vertex resolution, good particle id …

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