A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As a result of internal control deficiencies discussed in GAO's 2007 report on certain contracts at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), GAO was asked to identify the extent to which CMS (1) implemented effective control procedures over contract actions, and (2) established a strong control environment for contract management. GAO used a statistical random sample of 2008 CMS contract actions (including contract awards and modifications) to assess CMS internal control procedures. The results were projected to the population of 2008 CMS contract actions. GAO also determined the extent to which CMS implemented recommendations GAO made in 2007 to improve internal control over contracting and payments to contractors. GAO reviewed contract file documentation and interviewed senior acquisition management officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) relies on a global network of defense critical infrastructure so essential that the incapacitation, exploitation, or destruction of an asset within this network could severely affect DOD's ability to deploy, support, and sustain its forces and operations worldwide and to implement its core missions, including those in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its homeland defense and strategic missions. In October 2008, DOD identified its 34 most critical assets in this network--assets of such extraordinary importance to DOD operations that according to DOD, their incapacitation or destruction would have a very serious, debilitating effect on the ability of the department to fulfill its missions. Located both within the United States and abroad, DOD's most critical assets include both DOD- and non-DOD-owned assets. DOD relies overwhelmingly on commercial electrical power grids for secure, uninterrupted electrical power supplies to support its critical assets. DOD is the single largest consumer of energy in the United States, as we have noted in previous work. According to a 2008 report by the Defense Science Board Task Force on DOD's Energy Strategy, DOD has traditionally assumed that …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "There is ongoing concern about the security of federal buildings and their occupants. The Federal Protective Service (FPS) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for providing law enforcement and related security services for nearly 9,000 federal buildings under the control and custody of the General Services Administration (GSA). In 2004, GAO identified a set of key protection practices from the collective practices of federal agencies and the private sector that included: allocating resources using risk management, leveraging technology, and information sharing and coordination. As requested, GAO determined whether FPS's security efforts for GSA buildings reflected key practices. To meet this objective, GAO used its key practices as criteria, visited five sites to gain firsthand knowledge, analyzed pertinent DHS and GSA documents, and interviewed DHS, GSA, and tenant agency officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Built in 1943, the Kansas City Plant (KCP)--the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) primary production plant for manufacturing nonnuclear components of nuclear warheads and bombs--is to be modernized because of its age and the high cost of maintenance and operation. Among other changes, NNSA plans to relocate KCP to a new facility and increase components obtained from external suppliers from about 54 to 70 percent. KCP's continued supply of these components is essential for maintaining a reliable nuclear weapons stockpile. GAO was asked to determine (1) how KCP developed plans for modernization, (2) actions KCP has taken to ensure uninterrupted production of components, and (3) actions KCP has taken to address the risks of outsourcing. GAO reviewed planning documents and met with officials from NNSA, KCP, and Sandia National Laboratories, which designs many of the components produced at KCP."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Civil Rights Division (Division) of the Department of Justice (DOJ) is the primary federal entity charged with enforcing federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion, and national origin. GAO was asked to review the Division's enforcement efforts. This report addresses the activities the Division undertook from fiscal years 2001 through 2007 to implement its enforcement responsibilities through four of its sections (1) Employment Litigation, (2) Housing and Civil Enforcement, (3) Voting, and (4) Special Litigation. To conduct our review, GAO analyzed data on cases filed in court and matters (e.g., a referral or allegation of discrimination) investigated. To supplement this analysis, GAO also reviewed a sample of closed matter files (about 210 of 5,400). GAO randomly selected matters investigated under different statutes for each section and considered the government role (e.g., plaintiff or defendant) and type of issues investigated (e.g., the nature of the alleged discrimination or violation) to ensure that the sample reflected the breadth of the work and practices of each section. While not representative of all closed matters, the sample results provided examples of why matters were …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) program is intended to provide federal contracting opportunities to qualified firms. In fiscal year 2007, the Small Business Administration (SBA) reported $4 billion in governmentwide sole source and set aside SDVOSB contract awards. Given the amount of federal contract dollars being awarded to SDVOSB firms, GAO was asked to determine (1) whether cases of fraud and abuse exist within the SDVOSB program, and (2) whether the program has effective fraud-prevention controls in place. To identify whether cases exist, GAO reviewed SDVOSB contract awards and protests since 2003, and complaints sent to our fraud hotline. GAO defined a case as one or more affiliated firms who were awarded one or more SDVOSB contracts. To assess fraud-prevention controls, GAO reviewed laws and regulations and conducted interviews with SBA and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officials. GAO did not attempt to project the extent of fraud and abuse in the program."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Although employer-sponsored retirement plans can be an important component of income security after retirement, only about half of all workers participate in such plans. To foster greater participation among workers who have access to such plans, Congress included provisions that facilitate plan sponsors' adoption of automatic enrollment policies in the Pension Protection Act of 2006. To foster greater retirement savings among workers who do not have access to an employer-sponsored plan, proposals have been made at the federal level for an "automatic IRA" and at the state level for state-based programs. Because of questions about the extent of retirement savings and prospects for a sound retirement for all Americans, GAO was asked to determine (1) what is known about the effect of automatic enrollment policies among the nation's 401(k) plans, and the extent of and future prospect for such policies; and (2) the potential benefits and limitations of automatic IRA proposals and state-assisted retirement savings proposals. To answer these questions, GAO reviewed available reports and data, and interviewed plan sponsors, industry groups, investment professionals, and relevant federal agencies."

An updated deterministic version of the Techa River Dosimetry System (TRDS-2009D) has been developed to estimate individual doses from external exposure and intake of radionuclides for residents living on the Techa River contaminated as a result of radioactive releases from the Mayak plutonium facility in 1949–1956. The TRDS-2009D is designed as a flexible system that uses, depending on the input data for an individual, various elements of system databases to provide the dosimetric variables requested by the user. Several phases are included in the computation schedule. The first phase includes calculations with use of a common protocol for all cohort members based on village-average-intake functions and external dose rates; individual data on age, gender and history of residence are included in the first phase. This phase results in dose estimates similar to those obtained with system TRDS-2000 used previously to derive risks of health effects in the Techa River Cohort. The second phase includes refinement of individual internal doses for those persons who have had body-burden measurements or exposure parameters specific to the household where he/she lived on the Techa River. The third phase includes summation of individual doses from environmental exposure and from radiological examinations. The results of TRDS-2009D …

Radiation portal monitors used for interdiction of illicit materials at borders include highly sensitive neutron detection systems. The main reason for having neutron detection capability is to detect fission neutrons from plutonium. The currently deployed radiation portal monitors (RPMs) from Ludlum and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) use neutron detectors based upon 3He-filled gas proportional counters, which are the most common large neutron detector. There is a declining supply of 3He in the world, and thus, methods to reduce the use of this gas in RPMs with minimal changes to the current system designs and sensitivity to cargo-borne neutrons are being investigated. Reported here are the results of tests of the 6Li/ZnS(Ag)-coated non-scintillating plastic fibers option. This testing measured the required performance for neutron detection efficiency and gamma ray rejection capabilities of a system manufactured by Innovative American Technology (IAT).

This best practices guide is the ninth in a series of guides for builders produced by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building America Program. This guide book is a resource to help builders design and construct homes that are among the most energy-efficient available, while addressing issues such as building durability, indoor air quality, and occupant health, safety, and comfort. With the measures described in this guide, builders in the hot-dry and mixed-dry climates can achieve homes that have whole house energy savings of 40% over the Building America benchmark (a home built to mid-1990s building practices roughly equivalent to the 1993 Model Energy Code) with no added overall costs for consumers. These best practices are based on the results of research and demonstration projects conducted by Building America’s research teams. The guide includes information for managers, designers, marketers, site supervisors, and subcontractors, as well as case studies of builders who are successfully building homes that cut energy use by 40% in the hot-dry and mixed-dry climates.

This brief report documents the selection of parameters needed to support individual-dose calculations from 131I released into the environment with gaseous effluents from the Mayak Production Association.

This Wildland Fire Management Plan (FMP) for Brookhaven National Lab (BNL) updates the 2003 plan incorporating changes necessary to comply with DOE Order 450.1 and DOE P 450.4, Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and Program Review; Wildland and Prescribed Fire Management Policy and implementation Procedures Reference Guide. This current plan incorporates changes since the original draft of the FMP that result from new policies on the national level. This update also removes references and dependence on the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Department of the Interior, fully transitioning Wildland Fire Management responsibilities to BNL. The Department of Energy policy for managing wildland fires requires that all areas, managed by the DOE and/or its various contractors, that can sustain fire must have a FMP that details fire management guidelines for operational procedures associated with wild fire, operational, and prescribed fires. Fire management plans provide guidance on fire preparedness, fire prevention, wildfire suppression, and the use of controlled, 'prescribed' fires and mechanical means to control the amount of available combustible material. Values reflected in the BNL Wildland FMP include protecting life and public safety; Lab properties, structures and improvements; cultural and historical sites; neighboring private and public properties; and endangered, threatened, …

A search for muon neutrinos from Kaluza-Klein dark matter annihilations in the Sun has been performed with the 22-string configuration of the IceCube neutrino detector using data collected in 104.3 days of live-time in 2007. No excess over the expected atmospheric background has been observed. Upper limits have been obtained on the annihilation rate of captured lightest Kaluza-Klein particle (LKP) WIMPs in the Sun and converted to limits on the LKP-proton cross-sections for LKP masses in the range 250 - 3000 GeV. These results are the most stringent limits to date on LKP annihilation in the Sun.

The results of mid-rapidity (0 < y < 0.8) neutral pion spectra over an extended transverse momentum range (1 < p{sub T} < 12 GeV/c) in {radical}s{sub NN} = 200 GeV Au+Au collisions, measured by the STAR experiment, are presented. The neutral pions are reconstructed from photons measured either by the STAR Barrel Electro-Magnetic Calorimeter (BEMC) or by the Time Projection Chamber (TPC) via tracking of conversion electron-positron pairs. Our measurements are compared to previously published {pi}{sup {+-}} and {pi}{sup 0} results. The nuclear modification factors R{sub CP} and R{sub AA} of {pi}{sup 0} are also presented as a function of p{sub T}. In the most central Au+Au collisions, the binary collision scaled {pi}{sup 0} yield at high p{sub T} is suppressed by a factor of about 5 compared to the expectation from the yield of p+p collisions. Such a large suppression is in agreement with previous observations for light quark mesons and is consistent with the scenario that partons suffer considerable energy loss in the dense medium formed in central nucleus-nucleus collisions at RHIC.

This Progress Report for Project 1.4 of the U.S.–Russia Joint Coordinating Committee on Radiation Effects Research continues in the abbreviated format of providing details only on the work accomplished during this six-month reporting period.

This is the concluding Progress Report for Project 1.1 of the U.S./Russia Joint Coordinating Committee on Radiation Effects Research (JCCRER). An overwhelming majority of our work this period has been to complete our primary obligation of providing a new version of the Techa River Dosimetry System (TRDS), which we call TRDS-2009D; the D denotes deterministic. This system provides estimates of individual doses to members of the Extended Techa River Cohort (ETRC) and post-natal doses to members of the Techa River Offspring Cohort (TROC). The latter doses were calculated with use of the TRDS-2009D. The doses for the members of the ETRC have been made available to the American and Russian epidemiologists in September for their studies in deriving radiogenic risk factors. Doses for members of the TROC are being provided to European and Russian epidemiologists, as partial input for studies of risk in this population. Two of our original goals for the completion of this nine-year phase of Project 1.1 were not completed. These are completion of TRDS-2009MC, which was to be a Monte Carlo version of TRDS-2009 that could be used for more explicit analysis of the impact of uncertainty in doses on uncertainty in radiogenic risk factors. The …

In order to provide more accurate and precise estimates of individual dose (and thus more precise estimates of radiation risk) for the members of the ETRC, a new dosimetric calculation system, the Techa River Dosimetry System-2009 (TRDS-2009) has been prepared. The deterministic version of the improved dosimetry system TRDS-2009D was basically completed in April 2009. Recent developments in evaluation of dose-response models in light of uncertain dose have highlighted the importance of different types of uncertainties in the development of individual dose estimates. These include uncertain parameters that may be either shared or unshared within the dosimetric cohort, and also the nature of the type of uncertainty as aleatory or epistemic and either classical or Berkson. This report identifies the nature of the various input parameters and calculational methods incorporated in the Techa River Dosimetry System (based on the TRDS-2009D implementation), with the intention of preparing a stochastic version to estimate the uncertainties in the dose estimates. This report reviews the equations, databases, and input parameters, and then identifies the author’s interpretations of their general nature. It presents the approach selected so that the stochastic, Monte-Carlo, implementation of the dosimetry System - TRDS-2009MC - will provide useful information regarding the …

The Mayak Production Association (MPA) was established in the late 1940s in accordance with a special Decree of the USSR Government for the production of nuclear weapons. In early years of MPA operation, due to the lack of experience and absence of effective methods of RW management, the enterprise had extensive routine (designed) and non-routine (accidental) releases of gaseous radioactive wastes to the atmosphere. These practices resulted in additional technogenic radiation exposure of residents inhabiting populated areas near the MPA. The primary objective of ongoing studies under JCCRER Project 1.4 is to estimate doses to the residents of Ozersk due to releases of radioactive substances from the stacks of MPA. Preliminary scoping studies have demonstrated that releases of radioactive iodine (131I) from the stacks of the Mayak Radiochemical Plant represented the major contribution to the dose to residents of Ozersk and of other nearby populated areas. The behavior of 131I in the environment and of 131I migration through biological food chains (vegetation-cows-milk-humans) indicated a need for use of special mathematical models to perform the estimation of radiation doses to the population. The goal of this work is to select an appropriate model of the iodine migration in biological food chains …

This report provides background information and issues for Congress on the modernization of the Coast Guard's polar icebreaker fleet, which performs a variety of missions supporting U.S. interests in polar regions.

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).

This report discusses the current political state of Afghanistan, as well as the Afghan government. This report also discusses Afghanistan's relationship with the United States, particularly U.S. efforts to urge President Hamid Karzai to address corruption within the Afghan government.

This report provides an overview of home visitation for families with young children. It also provides models and Congressional proposals for Home Visiting programs.

This report discusses issues for Congress in FY2011, which are whether to approve, reject, or modify DOD's new KC-X competition strategy, and whether to approve, reject, or modify the Air Force's request for FY2011 research and development funding for the new KC-X program.

This report provides background information and oversight issues for Congress on the Coast Guard's Deepwater acquisition programs for replacing and modernizing the service's aging fleet of deepwater-capable ships and aircraft.