Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has increased its efforts to plan for and respond to national emergencies, including acts of terrorism and natural disasters. Additionally, in August 2004, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security announced that military and VA medical facilities were potential terrorist targets. In light of military casualties from conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and continued threats of terrorist incidents, Congress asked us to review VA's medical support role in emergency preparedness. Specifically, we agreed to provide information on the following questions: (1) What is VA's role in providing medical support within the U.S. to military personnel in wartime and during national emergencies? (2) What actions has VA taken to improve its internal emergency preparedness to ensure that it is ready to maintain continuity of operations and provision of medical services to veterans? (3) What is VA's role in participating in emergency medical response measures with other federal, state, and local agencies?"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relies extensively on computerized systems to support its financial and mission-related operations. As part of the audit of SEC's fiscal year 2004 financial statements, GAO assessed the effectiveness of the commission's information system controls in protecting the integrity, confidentiality, and availability of its financial and sensitive information."

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The long-term goal is to determine the mechanism of PETN crystallization and coarsening at the solid-vapor interface and to quantify the thermodynamic and kinetic parameters that control those processes. We achieve this goal by investigating the surface evolution of synthetic PETN single crystals using in situ atomic force microscopy (AFM) at various temperatures.

This Gordon conference will cover the areas of structural, functional and evolutionary genomics. It will take a systematic approach to genomics, examining the evolution of proteins, protein functional sites, protein-protein interactions, regulatory networks, and metabolic networks. Emphasis will be placed on what we can learn from comparative genomics and entire genomes and proteomes.

The Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on 2004 Gordon Research Conference on Reversible Associations in Structure & Molecular Biology was held at Four Points Sheraton, CA, 1/25-30/2004. The Conference was well attended with 82 participants (attendees list attached). The attendees represented the spectrum of endeavor in this field coming from academia, industry, and government laboratories, both U.S. and foreign scientists, senior researchers, young investigators, and students.

Aircraft hazards were determined to be potentially applicable to a repository at Yucca Mountain in the ''Monitored Geological Repository External Events Hazards Screening Analysis'' (BSC 2004, Section 6.4.1). That determination was conservatively based on limited knowledge of flight data in the area of concern and on crash data for aircraft of the type flying near Yucca Mountain. The purpose of this report is to identify specific aircraft hazards that may be applicable to a Monitored Geologic Repository (MGR) at Yucca Mountain using NUREG-0800, ''Standard Review Plan for the Review of Safety Analysis Reports for Nuclear Power Plants'' (NRC 1987, Section 3.5.1.6), as guidance for the inclusion or exclusion of identified aircraft hazards. NUREG-0800 is being used here as a reference because some of the same considerations apply. The intended use of this report is to provide inputs for further screening and analysis of the identified aircraft hazards based on the criteria that apply to Category 1 and 2 event sequence analyses as defined in 10 CFR 63.2 (see Section 4). The scope of this technical report includes the evaluation of military, private, and commercial use of airspace in the 100-mile regional setting of the MGR at Yucca Mountain with the …

The overall purpose of this calculation is to perform a preliminary analysis of the Site Specific Canister/Basket, subject to static gravity loads that include the self weight of the Canister Shell, the Basket, the Spent Nuclear Fuel, the Shield Plug and the related hardware, so that the loads are approximately known for sizing purposes. Based on these loads the stress levels in various components of the Site Specific Canister/Basket are evaluated.

To provide quantitative measures of the importance of fluid effects on shear waves in heterogeneous reservoirs, a model material called a ''random polycrystal of porous laminates'' is introduced. This model poroelastic material has constituent grains that are layered (or laminated), and each layer is an isotropic, microhomogeneous porous medium. All grains are composed of exactly the same porous constituents, and have the same relative volume fractions. The order of lamination is not important because the up-scaling method used to determine the transversely isotropic (hexagonal) properties of the grains is Backus averaging, which--for quasi-static or long-wavelength behavior--depends only on the volume fractions and layer properties. Grains are then jumbled together totally at random, filling all space, and producing an overall isotropic poroelastic medium. The poroelastic behavior of this medium is then analyzed using the Peselnick-Meister-Watt bounds (of Hashin-Shtrikman type). We study the dependence of the shear modulus on pore fluid properties and determine the range of behavior to be expected. In particular we compare and contrast these results to those anticipated from Gassmann's fluid substitution formulas, and to the predictions of Mavko and Jizba for very low porosity rocks with flat cracks. This approach also permits the study of arbitrary numbers …

The properties of pentaamine (5-cyano-2H-tetrazolato-N2) cobalt (III) perchlorate (CP), which was first synthesized in 1968, continues to be of interest for predicting behavior in handling, shipping, aging, and thermal cook-off situations. We report coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) values over four specific temperature ranges, decomposition kinetics using linear heating rates, and the reaction to three different types of stimuli: impact, spark, and friction. The CTE was measured using a Thermal Mechanical Analyzer (TMA) for samples that were uniaxially compressed at 10,000 psi and analyzed over a dynamic temperature range of -20 C to 70 C. Using differential scanning calorimetry, DSC, CP was decomposed at linear heating rates of 1, 3, and 7 C/min and the kinetic triplet calculated using the LLNL code Kinetics05. Values are also reported for spark, friction, and impact sensitivity.

The Target Engineering team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) builds precision laser targets for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) and the Omega Laser in Rochester, NY, and other experimental facilities. The physics requirements demand precision in these targets, which creates a constant need for innovative manufacturing processes. As experimental diagnostics improve, there is greater demand for precision in fabrication, assembly, metrology, and documentation of as-built targets. The team specializes in meso-scale fabrication with core competencies in diamond turning, assembly, and metrology. Figure 1 shows a typical diamond turning center. The team builds over 200 laser targets per year in batches of five to fifteen targets. Thus, all are small-lot custom builds, and most are novel designs requiring engineering and process development. Component materials are metals, polymers and low density aerogel foams. Custom fixturing is used to locate parts on the Diamond Turning Machines (DTM) and assembly stations. This ensures parts can be repeatably located during manufacturing operations. Most target builds involve a series of fabricating one surface with features and then relocating the components on another fixture to finish the opposite side of the component. These components are then assembled to complete multiple-component targets. These targets are typically built …

Grid convergence is often assumed as a given during computational analyses involving discretization of an assumed continuum process. In practical use of finite difference and finite element analyses, perfect grid convergence is rarely achieved or assured, and this fact must be addressed to make statements about model validation or the use of models in risk analysis. We have previously provided a 4-step quantitative implementation for a quantitative V&V process. One of the steps in the 4-step process is that of Solution Verification. Solution Verification is the process of assuring that a model approximating a physical reality with a discretized continuum (e.g. finite element) code converges in each discretized domain to a converged answer on the quantity of subsequent validation interest. The modeling reality is that often we are modeling a problem with a discretized code because it is neither continuous spatially (e.g. contact and impact) nor smooth in relevant physics (e.g. shocks, melting, etc). The typical result is a non-monotonic convergence plot that can lead to spurious conclusions about the order of convergence, and a lack of means to estimate residual solution verification error or uncertainty at confidence. We compare ten techniques for grid convergence assessment, each formulated to enable …

Common Internet services can be reliably distinguished based solely upon the locations of clusters in traffic-based features (ratios of inbound to outbound packets, ratios of packets to payloads, etc.) This capability has value in revealing the nature of ''hidden'' (tunneled) services and in detecting anomalous changes to known services. We provide measures of session capture volumes sufficient to make confidence-level assertions regarding ''unknown'' services, and outline a throughput system for providing alarms for service anomalies.

The authors propose a parallel algebraic multilevel algorithm (AMG), which has the novel feature that the subproblem residing in each processor is defined over the entire partition domain, although the vast majority of unknowns for each subproblem are associated with the partition owned by the corresponding processor. This feature ensures that a global coarse description of the problem is contained within each of the subproblems. The advantages of this approach are that interprocessor communication is minimized in the solution process while an optimal order of convergence rate is preserved; and the speed of local subproblem solvers can be maximized using the best existing sequential algebraic solvers.

This report contains information on the general structure of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate committee structure, types of committees, and subcommittees.

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This report provides summary of the principal rules governing HSAs and then compares HSAs to the other types of tax-advantaged accounts mentioned above.

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This report includes information such as background, summary, and possible reauthorization issues of the Higher Education Act.

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This report provides an overview of Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spending on HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome) as well as budget numbers for other federal government programs targeting HIV/AIDS.

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