Report that describes and analyzes the United States Fire Administration's (USFA) FY2011 budget proposal, as well as related information and legislation.

Report regarding the Office of Federal Procurement Policy's (OFPP) proposed policy letter on defining inherently governmental functions and other "work reserved for performance by federal government employees."

Report that discusses Lebanon's Hezbollah, a Shiite Islamist militia, political party, social welfare organization, and U. S. State Department-designated terrorist organization. The report also discusses recent Hezbollah-related conflicts, Hezbollah's relationship with other Lebanese political parties, and U. S. policy regarding Hezbollah.

Report providing background information on current political and economic conditions in the Dominican Republic, as well as an overview of some of the key issues in U. S.-Dominican relations.

This report discusses what constitutes a "disadvantaged" small business for purposes of federal and federally funded contracting programs and how firms are certified or otherwise designated as such.

Report regarding the role of the United States and other foreign companies in facilitating Internet censorship by repressive regimes overseas.

This report discusses the state of the El Salvadoran government and recently elected President Mauricio Funes. This report also discusses the relationship between El Salvador and the United States, notably U.S. efforts to restore democracy and initiate economic reform in El Salvador. This report also briefly addresses the effects of the current financial crisis on El Salvador's economy, poverty levels, and crime rates.

The Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) provides duty-free tariff treatment for certain products from designated developing countries. Some in Congress have continued to call for changes to the program that could limit GSP benefits to certain countries, among other changes. Opinion within the U.S. agriculture industry is mixed, reflecting both support for and opposition to the current program. In the past few years, Congress has extended GSP through a series of short-term extensions. However, the 111th Congress did not extend the GSP in 2010, and it was set to expire December 31, 2010. The expiration of the GSP will likely become a legislative issues in the 112th Congress.

Report that provides background information regarding the Nuclear Arms Control negotiations between U.S. and Russia. Articles of the Treaty of Moscow and force structures under this treaty are discussed.

Report that discusses the firefighting activities that are traditionally the responsibility of states and local communities. The report also talks about the funding for firefighters, which is provided mostly by state and local governments. However, during the 106th Congress, many in the fire community asserted that local fire departments require and deserve greater support from the federal government.

Report that analyzes the long-run path of the federal budget in the face of a projected demographic shift as aging baby boomers retire, coupled with the 2007 financial crises.

Report that looks at the U.S. foreign policy towards the Philippines.

This report is the second in a series of studies of the impacts of the addition of Crystalline Silicotitanate (CST) and Monosodium Titanate (MST) from the Small Column Ion Exchange (SCIX) process on the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) glass waste form and the applicability of the DWPF process control models. The KT05-series glasses were selected, fabricated, and characterized to further study glass compositions where iron titanate crystals had been previously found to form. The intent was to better understand the mechanisms and compositions that favored the formation of crystals containing titanium. Formation of these crystalline phases was confirmed. Increased Na{sub 2}O concentrations had little if any impact on reducing the propensity for the formation of the iron titanate crystalline phases. Other physical properties of these glasses were not measured since the intent was to focus on crystallization. Additional studies are suggested to investigate the potential impacts of Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} and K{sub 2}O on crystallization in glasses with high TiO{sub 2} concentrations. The KT06-series glasses were selected, fabricated, and characterized to further study glass compositions that, while broader than the current projections for DWPF feeds with SCIX material, are potential candidates for future processing (i.e., the compositions are acceptable …

Colorado Northwestern Community College (CNCC) is working collaboratively with recipient vendor Chevron Energy Solutions, an energy services company (ESCO), to develop an innovative GHP project at the new CNCC Campus constructed in 2010/2011 in Craig, Colorado. The purpose of the CNCC Craig Campus Geothermal Program scope was to utilize an energy performance contracting approach to develop a geothermal system with a shared closed-loop field providing geothermal energy to each building's GHP mechanical system. Additional benefits to the project include promoting good jobs and clean energy while reducing operating costs for the college. The project has demonstrated that GHP technology is viable for new construction using the energy performance contracting model. The project also enabled the project team to evaluate several options to give the College a best value proposition for not only the initial design and construction costs but build high performance facilities that will save the College for many years to come. The design involved comparing the economic feasibility of GHP by comparing its cost to that of traditional HVAC systems via energy model, financial life cycle cost analysis of energy savings and capital cost, and finally by evaluating the compatibility of the mechanical design for GHP compared to …

Recent program requirements of the US Department of Energy/NNSA have led to a need for a criticality accident alarm system to be installed at a newly activated facility. The Criticality Safety Group of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) was able to recover and store for possible future use approximately 200 neutron criticality detectors and 20 master alarm panels from the former Rocky Flats Plant in Golden, Colorado when the plant was closed. The Criticality Safety Group participated in a facility analysis and evaluation, the engineering design and review process, as well as the refurbishment, testing, and recalibration of the Rocky Flats criticality alarm system equipment to be used in the new facility. In order to demonstrate the functionality and survivability of the neutron detectors to the effects of an actual criticality accident, neutron detector testing was performed at the French CEA Valduc SILENE reactor from October 7 to October 19, 2010. The neutron detectors were exposed to three criticality events or pulses generated by the SILENE reactor. The first excursion was performed with a bare or unshielded reactor, and the second excursion was made with a lead shielded/reflected reactor, and the third excursion with a polyethylene reflected core. These …

A combined theoretical and experimental study of the effect of microhydration on ionization energies (IEs) of thymine is presented. The experimental IEs are derived from photoionization efficiency curves recorded using tunable synchrotron VUV radiation. The onsets of the PIE curves are 8.85+-0.05, 8.60+-0.05, 8.55+-0.05, and 8.40+-0.05 eV for thymine, thymine mono-, di-, and tri-hydrates, respectively. The computed (EOM-IP-CCSD/cc-pVTZ) AIEs are 8.90, 8.51, 8.52, and 8.35 eV for thymine and the lowest isomers of thymine mono-, di-, and tri-hydrates. Due to large structural relaxation, the Franck-Condon factors for the 0<-- 0 transitions are very small shifting the apparent PIE onsets to higher energies. Microsolvation strongly affects IEs of thymine -- addition of each water molecule reduces the first vertical IE by 0.10-0.15 eV. The adiabatic IE decreases even more (up to 0.4 eV). The magnitude of the effect varies for different ionized states and for different isomers. For the ionized states that are localized on thymine the dominant contribution to the IE reduction is the electrostatic interaction between the delocalized positive charge on thymine and the dipole moment of the water molecule.

Ion exchange modeling was conducted at the Savannah River National Laboratory to compare the performance of two organic resins in support of Small Column Ion Exchange (SCIX). In-tank ion exchange (IX) columns are being considered for cesium removal at Hanford and the Savannah River Site (SRS). The spherical forms of resorcinol formaldehyde ion exchange resin (sRF) as well as a hypothetical spherical SuperLig{reg_sign} 644 (SL644) are evaluated for decontamination of dissolved saltcake wastes (supernates). Both SuperLig{reg_sign} and resorcinol formaldehyde resin beds can exhibit hydraulic problems in their granular (nonspherical) forms. SRS waste is generally lower in potassium and organic components than Hanford waste. Using VERSE-LC Version 7.8 along with the cesium Freundlich/Langmuir isotherms to simulate the waste decontamination in ion exchange columns, spherical SL644 was found to reduce column cycling by 50% for high-potassium supernates, but sRF performed equally well for the lowest-potassium feeds. Reduced cycling results in reduction of nitric acid (resin elution) and sodium addition (resin regeneration), therefore, significantly reducing life-cycle operational costs. These findings motivate the development of a spherical form of SL644. This work demonstrates the versatility of the ion exchange modeling to study the effects of resin characteristics on processing cycles, rates, and cold chemical …

Daily newspaper from Sweetwater, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

This report evaluates collapse evolution for selected Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) underground nuclear tests at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS, formerly called the Nevada Test Site). The work is being done at the request of Navarro-Interra LLC, and supports environmental restoration efforts by the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration for the Nevada Site Office. Safety decisions must be made before a surface crater area, or potential surface crater area, can be reentered for any work. Our statements on cavity collapse and surface crater formation are input into their safety decisions. These statements do not include the effects of erosion that may modify the surface collapse craters over time. They also do not address possible radiation dangers that may be present. Subject matter experts from the LLNL Containment Program who had been active in weapons testing activities performed these evaluations. Information used included drilling and hole construction, emplacement and stemming, timing and sequence of the selected test and nearby tests, geology, yield, depth of burial, collapse times, surface crater sizes, cavity and crater volume estimations, and ground motion. Both classified and unclassified data were reviewed. Various amounts of information are available for these tests, depending on their …

Solid-state lasers have been demonstrated as attractive drivers for inertial confinement fusion on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and at the Omega Facility at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) in Rochester, NY. For power plant applications, these lasers must be pumped by semiconductor diode lasers to achieve the required laser system efficiency, repetition rate, and lifetime. Inertial fusion energy (IFE) power plants will require approximately 40-to-80 GW of peak pump power, and must operate efficiently and with high system availability for decades. These considerations lead to requirements on the efficiency, price, and production capacity of the semiconductor pump sources. This document provides a brief summary of these requirements, and how they can be met by a natural evolution of the current semiconductor laser industry. The detailed technical requirements described in this document flow down from a laser ampl9ifier design described elsewhere. In brief, laser amplifiers comprising multiple Nd:glass gain slabs are face-pumped by two planar diode arrays, each delivering 30 to 40 MW of peak power at 872 nm during a {approx} 200 {micro}s quasi-CW (QCW) pulse with a repetition rate in the range of 10 to 20 Hz. The baseline design of …

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) started user commissioning in October of 2009, producing Free Electron Laser (FEL) radiation between 800 eV and 8 keV [1]. The fundamental wavelength of the FEL dominates radiation in the beamlines, but the beam also produces nonnegligible levels of radiation at higher harmonics. The harmonics may be desirable as a source of harder X-rays, but may also contribute backgrounds to user experiments. In this paper we present preliminary measurements of the second and third harmonic content in the FEL. We also measure the photon energy cutoff of the soft X-ray mirrors to determine the extent to which higher harmonics reach the experimental stations. We present preliminary second and third harmonic measurements for LCLS. At low energies (below 1 keV fundamental) we measure less than 0.1% second harmonic content. The second harmonic will be present in the soft X-ray beam line for fundamental photon energies below approximately 1.1 keV. At low and high energies, we measure third harmonic content ranging from 0.5% to 3%, which is consistent with expectations. For both second and third harmonics, experimental work is ongoing. More rigorous analysis of the data will be completed soon.

This report discusses about the safety and benefits of Fluoridation, Regulation of Fluoride in Drinking Water and 2006 NRC Review of EPA's Fluoride Standards.

This report describes grandfather plans and summarizes the PPACA insurance reforms that will affect such plans, including the requirements concerning medical loss ratios, dependent coverage, and preexisting health condition coverage.

The United States (U.S.) currently utilizes a once-through fuel cycle where used nuclear fuel (UNF) is stored on-site in either wet pools or in dry storage systems with ultimate disposal in a deep mined geologic repository envisioned. Within the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE), the Fuel Cycle Research and Development Program (FCR&D) develops options to the current commercial fuel cycle management strategy to enable the safe, secure, economic, and sustainable expansion of nuclear energy while minimizing proliferation risks by conducting research and development of advanced fuel cycles, including modified open and closed cycles. The safe management and disposition of used nuclear fuel and/or nuclear waste is a fundamental aspect of any nuclear fuel cycle. Yet, the routine disposal of used nuclear fuel and radioactive waste remains problematic. Advanced fuel cycles will generate different quantities and forms of waste than the current LWR fleet. This study analyzes the quantities and characteristics of potential waste forms including differing waste matrices, as a function of a variety of potential fuel cycle alternatives including: (1) Commercial UNF generated by uranium fuel light water reactors (LWR). Four once through fuel cycles analyzed in this study differ by varying the assumed expansion/contraction …