This report provides background on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), discusses the categories of records FOIA exempts from public release, and analyzes statistics on FOIA administration. The report also provides background on several legal and policy issues related to FOIA, including the release of controversial records, the growth in use of certain FOIA exemptions, and the adoption of new technologies to improve FOIA administration. The report concludes with an examination of potential FOIA-related policy options for Congress.

A heuristic model for the plasma scrape-off width balances magnetic drifts against parallel loss at c{sub s} /2, resulting in a SOL width ~ {rho}{sub p}. T{sub sep} is calculated from Spitzer–Härm parallel thermal conduction. This results in a prediction for the power scrape-off width in quantitative agreement both in magnitude and scaling with recent experimental data. To achieve the ~ c{sub s} /2 flow assumed in this model and measured experimentally sets requirements on the ratio of upstream to total SOL particle sources, relative to the square-root of the ratio of target to upstream temperature. The Pfisch-Schlüter model for equilibrium flows has been modified to allow near-sonic flows, appropriate for gradient scale lengths of order {rho}{sub p}, resulting in a new quadrupole radial flow pattern. The strong parallel flows and plasma charging implied by this model suggest a mechanism for H-mode transition, consistent with many observations

This report explains the role of the thrift savings plan on the federal employees' retirement system.

The main purpose of the Coordinated Infrastructure for Fault Tolerance in Systems initiative has been to conduct research with a goal of providing end-to-end fault tolerance on a systemwide basis for applications and other system software. While fault tolerance has been an integral part of most high-performance computing (HPC) system software developed over the past decade, it has been treated mostly as a collection of isolated stovepipes. Visibility and response to faults has typically been limited to the particular hardware and software subsystems in which they are initially observed. Little fault information is shared across subsystems, allowing little flexibility or control on a system-wide basis, making it practically impossible to provide cohesive end-to-end fault tolerance in support of scientific applications. As an example, consider faults such as communication link failures that can be seen by a network library but are not directly visible to the job scheduler, or consider faults related to node failures that can be detected by system monitoring software but are not inherently visible to the resource manager. If information about such faults could be shared by the network libraries or monitoring software, then other system software, such as a resource manager or job scheduler, could ensure …

This report provides an overview of actions taken by Congress to provide FY2013 appropriations for the accounts funded by the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill.

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This report describes the history and rationale behind the creation of the House Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), its operations, and its relationship with the House Committee on Ethics, and options potentially available for Congress if further amendments to the House ethics process are desired.

This report provides links to selected authoritative resources related to cybersecurity issues. This report includes information on Legislation, Executive Orders and Presidential Directives, Data and Statistics, Cybersecurity Glossaries", Reports by Topic, Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports, White House/Office of Management and Budget reports, Military/DOD, Cloud Computing, Critical Infrastructure, National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC), Cybercrime/Cyberwar, International, Education/Training/Workforce, and Research and Development (R&D)

This report discusses New Zealand's developing security cooperation with the United States.