This report examines compulsory DNA collection by law enforcement and its implications in regards to 4th amendment protections by examining legal precedents and considering the contemporary scientific understanding of DNA.

This report discusses the passing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which included tax cut and spending provisions totaling at a cost of $787 billion in an attempt to mitigate the economic fallout of the housing and financial crises on the general economy. The report examines issues surrounding fiscal stimulus such as timeliness, the magnitude of stimulus, long-term effects and previously adopted policies.

This annual report provides details on the research conducted at EMSL--the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory in Fiscal Year 2008.

This report discusses the history of the Federal Protective Service, which is responsible for protecting federal government property, personnel, visitors, and customers, including property leased by the General Services Administration (GSA). FPS currently employs over 15,000 contract security guards to protect federal property.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced an increase to its immigration and naturalization application fees by an average of 86 percent, effective July 2007, contributing to a surge in application volume that challenged the agency's pre-adjudicative operations. In July 2007, the incoming application volume increased an unprecedented 100 percent over the prior month and the processing of 1.47 million applications was delayed. GAO was asked to review USCIS's current fee design and compare it to the principles in GAO's user-fee design guide and USCIS's management of operations affected by the new fees, specifically in projecting application volumes and contracting for application processing services. To do so, GAO reviewed legislation and agency documentation; compared the fee design to GAO's principles of effective user-fee design (equity, efficiency, revenue adequacy, and administrative burden); visited processing centers; and interviewed agency officials at these locations and in headquarters."

This report discusses the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG), which are a set of technical standards for voting systems that use computers to assist in recording or counting votes. Systems covered include most used in the United States—not only DREs (direct recording electronic systems) such as touchscreen voting machines, but also optical scan and punch card systems. Hand-counted paper-ballot and lever-machine systems, which do not involve computers, are not covered. However, they are used by a small and decreasing number of election jurisdictions.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is responsible for granting or denying immigration benefits to individuals. USCIS charges fees for the millions of immigration applications it receives each year to fund the cost of processing and adjudicating them. In February 2007, USCIS completed a study to determine the full costs of its operations and the level at which application fees should be set to recover those costs. USCIS's new fee schedule increased application fees by a weighted average of 86 percent. Almost 96 percent of USCIS's fiscal year 2008 budget of $2.6 billion was expected to have come from fees. GAO was asked to review the methodology USCIS used in its fee review and controls in place over collection and use of fees. In this report, GAO addresses the consistency of the methodology with federal accounting standards and principles and other guidance, including whether key assumptions and methods were sufficiently justified and documented. The report also addresses internal controls USCIS has in place over the collection and use of fees."

This report discusses the primary civil, criminal, and immigration-related penalties associated with immigration-related document fraud. In order to enter or remain in the United States and be eligible for various immigration-related benefits, non-citizens (aliens) must comply with a number of document requirements under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

This report discusses provisions of the Detainee Treatment Act concerning standards for the interrogation and treatment of detainees.

Failure occurs when one or more of the intended functions of a product are no longer fulfilled to the customer's satisfaction. The most critical product failures are those that escape design reviews and in-house quality inspection and are found by the customer. The product may work for a while until its performance degrades to an unacceptable level or it may have not worked even before customer took possession of the product. The end results of failures which may lead to unsafe conditions or major losses of the main function are rated high in severity. Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a tool widely used in the automotive, aerospace, and electronics industries to identify, prioritize, and eliminate known potential failures, problems, and errors from systems under design, before the product is released (Stamatis, 1997). Several industrial FMEA standards such as those published by the Society of Automotive Engineers, US Department of Defense, and the Automotive Industry Action Group employ the Risk Priority Number (RPN) to measure risk and severity of failures. The Risk Priority Number (RPN) is a product of 3 indices: Occurrence (O), Severity (S), and Detection (D). In a traditional FMEA process design engineers typically analyze the 'root …

This report discusses the mission of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Afghanistan, the purpose of which is to stabilize and reconstruct Afghanistan by combating emerging threats such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This report also discusses how the Obama Administration has made the Afghanistan conflict a policy priority, and what this stance could mean for potential future endeavors.

This multi-investigator project was concerned with the development and application of new methods and computer codes that would allow realistic modeling of nanosystems. Carter's part in this team effort involved two method/algorithm/code development projects during the first 14 months of this grant. Carter's group has been advancing theory and applications of the orbital-free density functional theory (OF-DFT), the only DFT method that exhibits linear scaling for metals. Such a method offers the possibility of simulating large numbers of atoms with quantum mechanics, such that properties of metallic nanostructures (e.g. nanowires of realistic dimensions) could be investigated. In addition, her group has been developing and applying an embedded correlated wavefunction theory for treating localized excited states in condensed matter (including metals). The application of interest here is spin manipulation at the nanoscale, i.e., spintronics, in which local electron excitations interact with the surrounding material. Her embedded correlation method is ideal for studying such problems.

This report outlines some of the current supply issues facing biofuels industries, including implications for agricultural feedstocks, infrastructure concerns, energy supply for biofuels production, and fuel price uncertainties.

This document summarizes the performance of the groundwater restoration systems installed by the Commodity Credit Corporation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (CCC/USDA) at the former CCC/USDA grain storage facility in Utica, Nebraska, during the fourth year of system operation, from December 1, 2007, until November 30, 2008. Performance in earlier years was reported previously (Argonne 2005, 2006, 2008). In the project at Utica, the CCC/USDA is cooperating with multiple state and federal agencies to remove carbon tetrachloride contamination from a shallow aquifer underlying the town and to provide supplemental treated groundwater for use in the restoration of a nearby wetlands area. Argonne National Laboratory assisted the CCC/USDA by providing technical oversight for the aquifer restoration effort and facilities during this review period. This document presents overviews of the aquifer restoration facilities (Section 2) and system operations (Section 3). The report then describes groundwater production results (Section 4); groundwater treatment results (Section 5); and associated maintenance, system modifications, and costs during the review period (Section 6). Section 7 summarizes the present year of operation.

A paper about how the United States Environmental Protection Agency accepts applications from federally recognized Tribal governments and Tribal consortia with specific focus on the availability of funds and solicits applications from eligible entities to receive financial assistance through the Sustainability for the 7th Generation Initiative (SGI).

This report frames potential policy questions concerning the U.S. Secret Service's (USSS's) mission and organization through an examination of the USSS history and its statutory authorities, mission, and present activities within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2007, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) spent about $4.1 billion on long-term care for veterans. VA provides--through VA or other providers--institutional care in nursing homes and noninstitutional care in veterans' homes or the community. In response to a statute, VA published in 2007 a long-term care strategic plan through fiscal year 2013. VA includes long-term care spending estimates in its annual budget justifications for Congress. These estimates are based on workload projections--the amount of care to be provided--and cost assumptions. VA has discretion in allocating appropriated funds among its medical services, such as long-term care. GAO examined (1) VA's reporting of planned workload in its 2007 long-term care strategic plan and (2) VA's long-term care spending estimates, including its cost assumptions and workload projections, in VA's fiscal year 2009 budget justification. GAO analyzed budget and planning documents and interviewed VA officials."

This report analyzes the agriculture, nutrition, and rural provisions in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA, P.L. 111-5). The ARRA boosts government spending on various infrastructure programs and government benefits programs, and offers individual and business tax benefits.

This report covers carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), but not other types of carbon sequestration activities whereby CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and stored in vegetation, soils, or oceans. Forests and agricultural lands store carbon, and the world's oceans exchange huge amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere through natural processes.

This report provides an overview of the fundamental choices involved between a cost (tax) and a quantity (cap) control instrument, including a discussion of policy tools that could be employed to bridge the gap between a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade program. It also analyzes the potential advantages and disadvantages of a carbon tax, discusses implementation issues for a carbon tax -- including where to apply the tax, at what level to set the tax, and options for distributing the tax revenues-- and provides conclusions.

This report summarizes highlights of scientific research and assessments related to human-induced climate change.

This report begins by reviewing the record of working conditions in the coal mining industry. It then describes the regulatory regime of the U.S. Department of Labor's Mine Safety and Health Administration, incorporating discussion of the standard-setting required by the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006. The report closes with an examination of recent legislative initiatives.

A system for collecting solid, post-explosion debris samples from the NIF chamber and their subsequent radiochemical analysis is currently under development. If the debris that condenses out of the plasma can be collected and analyzed, the number and type of nuclear reactions that occurred in the capsule material can be determined. this has applications both for radiochemical diagnostics of NIF capsule performance as well as radiochemical measurements relevant to basic science and stockpile stewardship. Several design prototypes have been studied and a prioritized list of radiochemical measurements that could be performed on NIF is under development based on interactions with capsule design, fabrication, and WCI design divisions.

Deposit summary to American National Bank of Texas of $2,788.30 made on February 23, 2009.