The Constitution of the United States makes no specific allowance for any one of the co-equal branches to have access to information held by the others and contains no provision expressly establishing a procedure for, or a right of, public access to government information. Nonetheless, Congress has legislated various public access laws. These include two records access statutes — the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act — and two meetings access statutes — the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the Government in the Sunshine Act. This report provides background on the issue of government transparency and examines relevant litigation.

Archaeological survey report of the proposed site of the SH 289 Wetland Mitigation Project in Grayson County, Texas, performed to determine whether any historic resources were located on the proposed construction sites.

This short report provides information on Bulgaria's current political and economic situation, and foreign policy. It also discusses U.S. policy towards Bulgaria.

This report puts the human contribution of carbon to the atmosphere into the larger context of the global carbon cycle. The report focuses almost entirely on carbon dioxide (CO2), which alone is responsible for over half of the change in Earth's radiation balance. Moreover, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas released to the atmosphere from human activities.

High fidelity measurements of time-dependent strain in the plastic-bonded explosives LX-17-1 and PBX 9502 have been performed under constant, uni-axial, compressive load using a custom designed apparatus. The apparatus uses a combination of extensometers and linear variable differential transformers coupled with a data acquisition system, thermal controls, and gravitational loading. The materials being tested consist of a crystalline explosive material mixed with a polymeric binder. The behavior of each material is related to the type of explosive and to the percentage and type of binder. For any given plastic-bonded explosive, the creep behavior is also dependent on the stress level and test temperature. Experiments were conducted using a 3 x 3 stress-temperature matrix with a temperature range of 24 C to 70 C and with stresses ranging from 250-psi to 780-psi. Analysis of the data has shown that logarithmic curve fits provide an accurate means of quantification and facilitate a long-term predictive capability. This paper will discuss the design of the apparatus, experimental results, and analyses.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) is the single largest U.S. energy consumer. About three-fourths of its total consumption consists of mobility energy--the energy required for moving and sustaining its forces and weapons platforms for military operations. GAO was asked to discuss DOD's efforts to manage and reduce its mobility energy demand. This testimony addresses (1) energy issues that are likely to affect DOD in the future, (2) key departmental and military service efforts to reduce demand for mobility energy, and (3) DOD's management approach to guide and oversee these efforts. This testimony is based primarily on work conducted for a report that GAO issued today (GAO-08-426) on DOD's management of mobility energy."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) relies heavily on petroleum-based fuel for mobility energy--the energy required for moving and sustaining its forces and weapons platforms for military operations. Dependence on foreign oil, projected increases in worldwide demand, and rising oil costs, as well as the significant logistics burden associated with moving fuel on the battlefield, will likely require DOD to address its mobility energy demand. GAO was asked to (1) identify key efforts under way to reduce mobility energy demand and (2) assess the extent to which DOD has established an overarching organizational framework to guide and oversee these efforts. GAO reviewed DOD documents, policies, and studies, and interviewed agency officials."

Many chemists have been fascinated with the development of discrete supramolecular structures that encapsulate guest molecules. These structures can be assembled through covalent or hydrogen bonds, electrostatic or metal-ligand interactions. These host structures have provided valuable insight into the forces involved in small molecule recognition. Our work has focused on the design and study of metal-ligand clusters of varying sizes. The naphthalene [M{sub 4}L{sub 6}]{sup 12-} cluster 1, shown in Figure 1, has demonstrated diastereoselective guest binding and chiral induction properties as well as the ability to catalyze reactions carried out inside the cavity in an enzyme-like manner. However, the size of the cavity (ca. 300-500 {angstrom}{sup 3}) has often limited the scope of substrates for these transformations.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Established in 1971, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) library network provides access to critical environmental information that the agency needs to fulfill its mission of protecting human health and the environment. The library network also provides information and services to the public. In fiscal year 2006, the network included 26 libraries across headquarters, regional offices, research centers, and laboratories. These libraries were independently operated by several different EPA program offices, depending on the nature of the libraries' collections. In 2006, facing proposed budget cuts, EPA issued a plan to reorganize the network beginning in fiscal year 2007. The plan proposed a phased approach to closing libraries and dispersing, disposing of, and digitizing library materials. GAO was asked to summarize the findings in its report being released today, Environmental Protection: EPA Needs to Ensure That Best Practices and Procedures Are Followed When Making Further Changes to Its Library Network (GAO-08-304). GAO made four recommendations in this report aimed at best practices and procedures that EPA should follow when continuing to reorganize its library network. The agency agreed with the recommendations."

The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 will provide a tax rebate to taxpayers with a net federal tax liability and certain other eligible individuals and families. This report provides information for Social Security beneficiaries and Veterans' benefit recipients and their families on eligibility for the rebate, the rebate amount, and how they can receive an economic stimulus rebate.

This report provides a brief history of the federal grants to state and local governments.

This report provides information about the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Amendments of 110th Congress where that statute specified nine categories of information that may be permissibly exempted from the rule of disclosure.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses H.R. 3268, the "Government Accountability Office (GAO) Act of 2007" and other GAO reforms, to discuss the results of the survey that Congress previously requested that the Employee Advisory Council (EAC) conduct of all GAO employees (except Senior Executive Service/SL and interns) on GAO's Band II restructuring and the Watson Wyatt market-based compensation study used to set salary ranges. The EAC was established by Comptroller General David Walker to provide a consolidated forum for him to meet with representatives from the various employee liaison groups (e.g. Advisory Council for Persons with Disabilities, Blacks In Government, Gay and Lesbian Employee Association, etc.) so that these groups could voice the concerns of their constituency groups. He also decided to include representatives from each of the staff positions (i.e. Administrative Professional Support Staff (APSS), attorneys, and each of the Band levels). Consequently, the EAC was chartered in January 2000 to serve as an advisory body to the Comptroller General and other senior executives by seeking and conveying the views and concerns of the individual employee groups they represent, proposing solutions to those concerns where appropriate, providing input by …

None

Lithium borohydride, magnesium hydride and the 2:1 'destabilized' ball milled mixtures (2LiBH{sub 4}:MgH{sub 2}) underwent liquid phase hydrolysis, gas phase hydrolysis and air oxidation reactions monitored by isothermal calorimetry. The experimentally determined heats of reaction and resulting products were compared with those theoretically predicted using thermodynamic databases. Results showed a discrepancy between the predicted and observed hydrolysis and oxidation products due to both kinetic limitations and to the significant amorphous character of observed reaction products. Gas phase and liquid phase hydrolysis were the dominant reactions in 2LiBH{sub 4}:MgH{sub 2} with approximately the same total energy release and reaction products; liquid phase hydrolysis displayed the maximum heat flow for likely environmental exposure with a peak energy release of 6 (mW/mg).

The hyperfine-induced 2s2p {sup 3}P{sub 0}-2s{sup 2} {sup 1}S{sub 0} transition rate for Be-like {sup 47}Ti{sup 18+} was recently measured in a storage-ring experiment by Schippers et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 033001 (2007)]. The measured value of 0.56(3) s{sup -1} is almost 60% larger than the theoretical value of 0.356 s{sup -1} from a multiconfiguration Dirac-Fock calculation by Marques et al. [Phys. Rev. A 47, 929 (1993)]. In this work, we use a large-scale relativistic configuration-interaction method to calculate these hyperfine-induced rates for ions with Z = 6-92. Coherent hyperfine-quenching effects between the 2s2p {sup 1,3}P{sub 1} states are included in a perturbative as well as a radiation damping approach. Contrary to the claims of Marques et al., contributions from the {sup 1}P{sub 1} state are substantial and lead to a hyperfine-induced rate of 0.67 s{sup -1}, in better agreement with, though larger than, the measured value.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has ambitious goals to improve enforcement, improve taxpayer service, increase research, and continue investing in systems modernization. The President's 2009 proposed budget is a roadmap for how IRS intends to achieve these goals. IRS's 2008 filing season performance, along with the performance of paid preparers who help taxpayers, is a key indicator of the tax system's impact on taxpayers. GAO was asked to (1) assess how the budget request allocates resources compared to prior years, (2) determine the status of systems modernization efforts, (3) assess filing season performance, and (4) assess IRS's ability to identify paid preparers. GAO compared the budget request to prior years, updated our previous reporting, compared IRS's filing season performance to prior years and goals, and interviewed IRS officials."

None

None

We examine the response of Arctic gas and aerosol concentrations to perturbations in pollutant emissions from Europe, East and South Asia, and North America using results from a coordinated model intercomparison. These sensitivities to regional emissions (mixing ratio change per unit emission) vary widely across models and species. Intermodel differences are systematic, however, so that the relative importance of different regions is robust. North America contributes the most to Arctic ozone pollution. For aerosols and CO, European emissions dominate at the Arctic surface but East Asian emissions become progressively more important with altitude, and are dominant in the upper troposphere. Sensitivities show strong seasonality: surface sensitivities typically maximize during boreal winter for European and during spring for East Asian and North American emissions. Mid-tropospheric sensitivities, however, nearly always maximize during spring or summer for all regions. Deposition of black carbon (BC) onto Greenland is most sensitive to North American emissions. North America and Europe each contribute {approx}40% of total BC deposition to Greenland, with {approx}20% from East Asia. Elsewhere in the Arctic, both sensitivity and total BC deposition are dominated by European emissions. Model diversity for aerosols is especially large, resulting primarily from differences in aerosol physical and chemical processing …

Both MD simulations and experimental studies have shown that liquid and gas flow through carbon nanotubes with nanometer size diameter is exceptionally fast. For applications in separation technology, selectivity is required together with fast flow. In this work, we use pressure-driven filtration experiments to study ion exclusion in silicon nitride/sub-2-nm CNT composite membranes as a function of solution ionic strength, pH, and ion valence. We show that carbon nanotube membranes exhibit significant ion exclusion at low salt concentration. Our results support a rejection mechanism dominated by electrostatic interactions between fixed membrane charges and mobile ions, while steric and hydrodynamic effects appear to be less important. Comparison with commercial nanofiltration membranes for water softening reveals that our carbon nanotube membranes provides far superior water fluxes for similar ion rejection capabilities.

None

None

This report discusses the campaign and results of Russia's March 2, 2008, presidential election and implications for Russia and U.S. interests. Popular outgoing President Vladimir Putin endorsed his First Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitriy Medvedev, who easily won an election viewed by some observers as not free and fair.