Over the past several decades, Congress, by statute, has established a wide array of commissions, boards, and advisory bodies to provide it with assistance in meeting various legislative, investigative, and administrative responsibilities. This report contains a compilation of commissions and boards that demonstrates the range of alternative membership appointment structures.

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This report discusses the constitutionality of the creation of an at-large congressional district.

This report includes a description of the Congressional Research Service and it's benefits to the American Legislative Process

This report examines whether such as extension would violate the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech.

When a networked polymeric composite under high stress is subjected to irradiation, the resulting chemical changes like chain scissioning and cross-link formation can lead to permanent set and altered elastic modulus. Using a commercial silicone elastomer as a specific example we show that a simple 2-stage Tobolsky model in conjunction with Fricker's stress-transfer function can quantitatively reproduce all experimental data as a function of radiation dosage and the static strain at which radiation is turned on, including permanent set, stress-strain response, and net cross-linking density.

Summary of contracts reported to the Legislative Budget Board (LBB) by Texas state agencies and institutions of higher learning during fiscal year 2007. Reports include "information regarding professional services, construction or consulting contract that totals $14,000 or more, or a major information systems contract that totals $100,000 or more. The requirement also covers any amendments, modifications, renewals, and extensions for specified contracts" (p. v).

A substantial narrowmg of the plume of the cylindrical RaIl thruster (CRT) was observed upon the enhancement of the electron emission from the hollow cathode discharge, which implies the possibility for the thruster efficiency increase due to the ion beam focusing. It is demonstrated that the miniaturized CRT can be operated in the non-self-sustained regime, with the discharge current limited by the cathode electron emission. The thruster operation in this mode greatly expands the range of the plasma and discharge parameters normally accessible for the CRT.

A Corporate Assess, Improve, and Modernize review was conducted at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to evaluate the LLNL Radiation Safety Program and recommend actions to address the conditions identified in the Internal Assessment conducted July 23-25, 2007. This review confirms the findings of the Internal Assessment of the Institutional Radiation Safety Program (RSP) including the noted deficiencies and vulnerabilities to be valid. The actions recommended are a result of interviews with about 35 individuals representing senior management through the technician level. The deficiencies identified in the LLNL Internal Assessment of the Institutional Radiation Safety Program were discussed with Radiation Safety personnel team leads, customers of Radiation Safety Program, DOE Livermore site office, and senior ES&H management. There are significant issues with the RSP. LLNL RSP is not an integrated, cohesive, consistently implemented program with a single authority that has the clear roll and responsibility and authority to assure radiological operations at LLNL are conducted in a safe and compliant manner. There is no institutional commitment to address the deficiencies that are identified in the internal assessment. Some of these deficiencies have been previously identified and corrective actions have not been taken or are ineffective in addressing the issues. Serious …

This report provides an overview of each National and Community Service Act(NCSA) and Domestic Volunteer Service Act(DVSA) program and compares Corporation for National and Community Service(CNCS) funding from the FY2007 Appropriation, the FY2008 Appropriation, and the FY2009 budget request.

This Corrective Action Decision Document/Closure Report has been prepared for Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 190, Contaminated Waste Sites, Nevada Test Site, Nevada, in accordance with the Federal Facility Agreement and Consent Order that was agreed to by the State of Nevada; U.S. Department of Energy, Environmental Management; U.S. Department of Defense; and DOE, Legacy Management (1996, as amended January 2007). Corrective Action Unit 190 is comprised of the following four corrective action sites (CASs): • 11-02-01, Underground Centrifuge • 11-02-02, Drain Lines and Outfall • 11-59-01, Tweezer Facility Septic System • 14-23-01, LTU-6 Test Area The purpose of this Corrective Action Decision Document/Closure Report is to provide justification and documentation supporting the recommendation for closure of CAU 190 with no further corrective action. To achieve this, corrective action investigation (CAI) activities were performed from March 21 through June 26, 2007. All CAI activities were conducted as set forth in the Corrective Action Investigation Plan for Corrective Action Unit 190: Contaminated Waste Sites, Nevada Test Site, Nevada (NNSA/NSO, 2006). The purpose of the CAI was to fulfill the following data needs as defined during the data quality objective process: • Determine whether contaminants of concern (COCs) are present. • If COCs …

Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 546 is located in Areas 6 and 9 of the Nevada Test Site, which is approximately 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. Corrective Action Unit 546 is comprised of two Corrective Action Sites (CASs) listed below: •06-23-02, U-6a/Russet Testing Area •09-20-01, Injection Well These sites are being investigated because existing information on the nature and extent of potential contamination is insufficient to evaluate and recommend corrective action alternatives. Additional information will be obtained by conducting a corrective action investigation (CAI) before evaluating corrective action alternatives and selecting the appropriate corrective action for each CAS. The results of the field investigation will support a defensible evaluation of viable corrective action alternatives that will be presented in the Corrective Action Decision Document. The sites will be investigated based on the data quality objectives (DQOs) developed on November 8, 2007, by representatives of the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Site Office. The DQO process has been used to identify and define the type, amount, and quality of data needed to develop and evaluate appropriate corrective actions for CAU 546.

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Southwest Research Institute{reg_sign} (SwRI{reg_sign}) has utilized its expertise in large-area vacuum deposition methods to conduct research into the fabrication of dense, freestanding Pd-alloy membranes that are 3-5 microns thick and over 100 in{sup 2} in area. The membranes were deposited onto flexible and rigid supports that were subsequently removed and separated using novel techniques developed over the course of the project. Using these methods, the production of novel alloy compositions centered around the Pd-Cu system were developed with the objective of producing a thermally stable, nano-crystalline grain structure with the highest flux recorded as 242 SCFH/ft{sup 2} for a 2 {micro}m thick Pd{sub 53}Cu{sub 47} at 400 C and 20 psig feed pressure which when extrapolated is over twice the 2010 Department of Energy pure H{sub 2} flux target. Several membranes were made with the same permeability, but with different thicknesses and these membranes were highly selective. Researchers at the Colorado School of Mines supported the effort with extensive testing of experimental membranes as well as design and modeling of novel alloy composite structures. IdaTech provided commercial bench testing and analysis of SwRI-manufactured membranes. The completed deliverables for the project include test data on the performance of experimental membranes fabricated …

Fact sheet provides framework for gas station owners to access what a reasonable cost would be to install E85 infrastructure.

For synchrotron light sources and for damping rings of linear colliders it is important to be able to minimize the vertical emittance and to correct the spurious vertical dispersion. This allows one to maximize the brightness and/or the luminosity. A commonly used tool to measure the skew error distribution is the analysis of orbit response matrices using codes like LOCO. Using the new Matlab version of LOCO and 18 newly installed power supplies for individual skew quadrupoles at the ALS the emittance ratio could be reduced below 0.1% at 1.9 GeV yielding a vertical emittance of about 5 pm. At those very low emittances, additional effects like intra beam scattering become more important, potentially limiting the minimum emittance for machine like the damping rings of linear colliders.

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.

The Nevada Test Site (NTS) is a test bed for implementation of the Safeguards First Principles Initiative (SFPI), a risk-based approach to Material Control & Accountability (MC&A) requirements. The Comprehensive Assessment of Safeguards Strategies (COMPASS) model is used to determine the effectiveness of MC&A systems under SFPI. Under this model, MC&A is divided into nine primary elements. Each element is divided into sub-elements. Then each sub-element is assigned two values, effectiveness and contribution, that are used to calculate the rating. Effectiveness is a measure of subelement implementation and how well it meets requirements. Contribution is a relative measure of the importance, and functions as a weighting factor. The COMPASS model provides the methodology for calculation of sub-element and element ratings, but not the actual criteria. Each site must develop its own criteria. For the rating to be meaningful, the effectiveness criteria must be objective and based on explicit, measurable criteria. Contribution (weights) must reflect the importance within the MC&A program. This paper details the NTS approach to system effectiveness and contribution values, and will cover the following: the basis for the ratings, an explanation of the contribution “weights,” and the objective, performance based effectiveness criteria. Finally, the evaluation process will …

The BestPractices program area, which has evolved into the Save Energy Now (SEN) Initiative, is a component of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Industrial Technologies Program (ITP) that provides technical assistance and disseminates information on energy-efficient technologies and practices to U.S. industrial firms. The BestPractices approach to information dissemination includes conducting training sessions which address energy-intensive systems (compressed air, steam, process heat, pumps, motors, and fans) and distributing DOE software tools on those same topics. The current report documents a recent Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) study undertaken to determine the implementation rate, attribution rate, and reduction factor for industrial end-users who received BestPractices training and registered software in FY 2006. The implementation rate is the proportion of service recipients taking energy-saving actions as a result of the service received. The attribution rate applies to those individuals taking energy-saving actions as a result of the services received and represents the portion of the savings achieved through those actions that is due to the service. The reduction factor is the saving that is realized from program-induced measures as a proportion of the potential savings that could be achieved if all service recipients took action. In addition to examining those factors, …

The Cygnus Dual Beam Radiographic Facility consists of two identical radiographic sources - Cygnus 1 and Cygnus 2. Each source has the following x-ray output: 1-mm diameter spot size, 4 rad at 1 m, 50-ns Full Width Half Max. The diode pulse has the following electrical specifications: 2.25 MV, 60 kA, 60 ns. This Radiographic Facility is located in an underground tunnel test area at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The sources were developed to produce high-resolution images on subcritical tests which are performed at NTS. Subcritical tests are single-shot, high-value events. For this application, it is desirable to maintain a high level of reproducibility in source output. The major components of the Cygnus machines are: Marx generator, water-filled pulse–forming line (PFL), water-filled coaxial transmission line, three-cell inductive voltage adder, and rod-pinch diode. A primary source of fluctuation in Cygnus shot-to-shot performance is jitter in breakdown of the main PFL switch, which is a “self-break” switch. The PFL switch breakdown time determines the peak PFL charging voltage, which ultimately affects the diode pulse. Therefore, PFL switch jitter contributes to shot-to-shot variation in source endpoint energy and dose. In this paper we will present PFL switch jitter analysis for both Cygnus …

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The purpose of this work was to acquire Sensor Fish data on turbine passage at Bonneville II, John Day, and Ice Harbor dams for later analysis and use. The original data sets have been entered into a database and are being maintained by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory pending delivery to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers when requested. This report provides documentation for the data sets acquired and details about the operations of the Sensor Fish and interpretation of Sensor Fish data that will be necessary for later use of the acquired data. A limited review of the acquired data was conducted to assess its quality and to extract information that might prove useful to its later use.

This report discusses the Davis-Bacon Act (DBA), which established a prevailing wage requirement for persons working under government contracts, and the Clean Water Act (CWA), which includes a related requirement for the construction of wastewater treatment plants. In particular, it considers the impact on state revolving loan funds (SRF), in which states contribute part of the needed funds for projects and would need to account for the prevailing wage requirement.

This report provides a description of debt-for-nature transactions and a summary of the Tropical Forest Conservation Act.