The purpose of this assessment is to compare underwater and above water settler sludge sampling methods to determine if the added cost underwater sampling for the sole purpose of worker dose reductions is justified.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) provides a statutory framework by which government agencies may, when gathering foreign intelligence investigation, obtain authorization to conduct electronic surveillance or physical searches, utilize pen registers and trap and trace devices, or access specified business records and other tangible things. This report discusses three sunsetting amendments of FISA which include the "Lone Wolf" provision, "roving" wiretaps, and access to business records.

This report analyzes the barriers that are currently being constructed and maintained along the border by the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP), including historical and future cost estimates and the policy issues involved. Because the current debate has largely focused on the deployment of fencing to the border, this report will focus on the policy issues surrounding the construction of border fencing.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Some U.S. financial and pension consulting firms have recently proposed alternatives to terminating a defined benefit (DB) pension plan and contracting with insurance companies to pay promised benefits. In their proposals, a plan sponsor would typically transfer the assets and liabilities of a hard-frozen DB plan--one in which all participant benefit accruals have ceased--along with additional money, to a financial entity, which would become the new sponsor. Such buyouts would have implications for participants, plan sponsors, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the federal agency that insures private DB plans. This report addresses the following questions: (1) What is the basic model of proposed sales of frozen DB plans to third-party financial firms and how does it compare with a standard plan termination? (2) What are the potential risks and benefits of plan buyouts for participants, PBGC, plan sponsors, and other stakeholders? To address these questions, GAO reviewed proposed models for plan buyouts and analyzed regulatory and statutory issues associated with terminations and buyouts. GAO also interviewed labor and pension advocacy groups, pension regulatory agencies, and pension experts."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In carrying out its mission to ensure that securities markets are fair, orderly, and efficiently maintained, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relies extensively on computerized systems. Effective information security controls are essential to ensure that SEC's financial and sensitive information is protected from inadvertent or deliberate misuse, disclosure, or destruction. As part of its audit of SEC's financial statements, GAO assessed (1) the status of SEC's actions to correct previously reported information security weaknesses and (2) the effectiveness of SEC's controls for ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its information systems and information. To do this, GAO examined security policies and artifacts, interviewed pertinent officials, and conducted tests and observations of controls in operation."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In April 2008, the Department of Energy's (DOE) security inspection at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) found significant weaknesses, particularly in LLNL's protective force's ability to assure the protection of weapons-grade (special) nuclear material. LLNL is overseen by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized agency within DOE, and managed by a contractor. NNSA is planning to remove most of the special nuclear material from LLNL. GAO was asked to (1) characterize security deficiencies identified in the 2008 inspection; (2) determine the factors that contributed to these deficiencies; (3) identify LLNL's corrective actions to address security deficiencies; and (4) assess LLNL's plan to permanently remove the riskiest special nuclear material from its site. To conduct this work, GAO visited LLNL, reviewed numerous documents and plans, and interviewed LLNL and NNSA security officials."

As an aid to Congress in understanding nuclear weapons, nuclear proliferation, and arms control matters, this report describes which agency is responsible for research and development (R&D) of nuclear weapons (i.e., nuclear explosive devices, as distinct from the bombers and missiles that deliver them) in the nine nations with nuclear weapons and whether these agencies are civilian or military. It also traces the history of such agencies in the United States from 1942 to the present.

This report discusses government assistance for American International Group (AIG), the future of AIG and the ultimate government cost of the intervention that are unclear. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) has been the primary vehicle for most of these actions.

This report discusses Rothe Development Corporation v. Department of Defense, a case involving a constitutional challenge to a minority contracting program authorized under Section 1207 of the Department of Defense (DOD) Authorization Act of 1987. This program allowed DOD to take 10% off the price of bids or offers submitted by "small disadvantaged businesses" in determining which bid or offer had the lowest price or represented the best value for the government.

We propose a new framework for providing information to help optimize domain-specific application codes. Its design addresses problems that derive from the widening gap between the domain problem statement by domain experts and the architectural details of new and future high-end computing systems. The design is particularly well suited to program execution models that incorporate dynamic adaptive methodologies for live tuning of program performance and resource utilization. This new framework, which we call 'structured hints', couples a vocabulary of annotations to a suite of performance metrics. The immediate target is development of a process by which a domain expert describes characteristics of objects and methods in the application code that would not be readily apparent to the compiler; the domain expert provides further information about what quantities might provide the best indications of desirable effect; and the interactive preprocessor identifies potential opportunities for the domain expert to evaluate. Our development of these ideas is progressing in stages from case study, through manual implementation, to automatic or semi-automatic implementation. In this paper we discuss results from our case study, an examination of a large simulation of a neural network modeled after the neocortex.

This report examines the current state of the transatlantic relationship and discusses the key issues outlined above, which are likely to have implications for U.S. interests during the 111th Congress.

This report discusses the water quality issues. Although much progress has been made in achieving the ambitious goals that Congress established more than 35 years ago to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters, long-standing problems persist, and new problems have emerged.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Weather-related events have cost the nation billions of dollars in damages over the past decade. Many of these losses are borne by private insurers and by two federal insurance programs--the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which insures properties against flooding, and the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC), which insures crops against drought or other weather disasters. GAO was asked to (1) describe how climate change may affect future weather-related losses, (2) determine past insured weather-related losses, and (3) determine what major private insurers and federal insurers are doing to prepare for potential increases in such losses. In response, among other things, GAO reviewed key scientific assessments; analyzed insured loss data; and contacted private insurers, NFIP, and FCIC."

This report discusses the curators' evaluation of WAS release 2/3, part of the Web-at-Risk project.

This report provides information about the Status of U.N. Negotiations and Related Issues on Cyprus.Cyprus has been divided since 1974.since the 1970s,the U.N with U.S support has promoted negotiations aimed at reuniting the island.

This appendix summarizes historic and recent groundwater data collected from the uppermost aquifer beneath the 200 East and 200 West Areas. Although the area of interest is the Hanford Site Central Plateau, most of the information discussed in this appendix is at the scale of individual single-shell tank waste management areas. This is because the geologic, and thus the hydraulic, properties and the geochemical properties (i.e., groundwater composition) are different in different parts of the Central Plateau.

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Human health and ecological risk assessments are required as part of the Resource Recovery and Conservation Act (RCRA) permit renewal process for waste treatment units. This risk assessment is prepared in support of the RCRA permit renewal for the Explosives Waste Treatment Facility (EWTF) at Site 300 of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The human health risk assessment is based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency- (U.S. EPA) approved emissions factors and on California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA), California Air Resources Board (CARB) and U.S. EPA assessment and air dispersion models. This risk assessment identifies the receptors of concern and evaluates theoretical carcinogenic risk, and theoretical acute and chronic non-carcinogenic hazard, following those guidelines. The carcinogenic risk to a 30-year resident at the maximum off-site receptor location is 0.0000006 or 0.6 in 1 million. The carcinogenic risk to a 25-year worker at the maximum bystander on-site receptor location is also 0.0000006 or 0.6 in 1 million. Any risk of less than 1 in a million is below the level of regulatory concern. The acute non-carcinogenic hazard for the 30-year resident is 0.01, and the chronic non-carcinogenic hazard is 0.01. The acute non-carcinogenic hazard for the 25-year worker is 0.3, and …

This report provides background information on the history of Canadian waste imports, reviews recent developments, and discusses issues raised by the voluntary agreement and proposed legislation.

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