Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "People are critical to any agency transformation, such as the one envisioned for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). They define an agency's culture, develop its knowledge base, and are its most important asset. Thus, strategic human capital management at DHS can help it marshal, manage, and maintain the people and skills needed to meet its critical mission. Congress provided DHS with significant flexibility to design a modern human capital management system. DHS and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) have now jointly released the final regulations on DHS's new human capital system. Last year, with the release of the proposed regulations, GAO observed that many of the basic principles underlying the regulations were consistent with proven approaches to strategic human capital management and deserved serious consideration. However, some parts of the human capital system raised questions for DHS, OPM, and Congress to consider in the areas of pay and performance management, adverse actions and appeals, and labor management relations. GAO also identified multiple implementation challenges for DHS once the final regulations for the new system were issued. This testimony provides overall observations on DHS's intended human capital …

The Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000 (INA) was enacted to help stop foreign transfers to Iran of weapons of mass destruction, missile technology, and advanced conventional weapons technology, particularly from Russia. Section 6 of the INA bans U.S. payments to Russia in connection with the International Space Station (ISS) unless the U.S. President determines that Russia is taking steps to prevent such proliferation. The ISS is currently under construction in orbit. According to current plans, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will become dependent on Russia for certain ISS crew-related services beginning in April 2006 for which NASA must pay. Thus, the INA could significantly affect U.S. utilization of ISS. This report outlines the history of INA, its effect on Russian and Iranian proliferation, its impact on the ISS program, and options for resolving associated issues.

The Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000 (INA) was enacted to help stop foreign transfers to Iran of weapons of mass destruction, missile technology, and advanced conventional weapons technology, particularly from Russia. Section 6 of the INA bans U.S. payments to Russia in connection with the International Space Station (ISS) unless the U.S. President determines that Russia is taking steps to prevent such proliferation. The ISS is currently under construction in orbit. According to current plans, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will become dependent on Russia for certain ISS crew-related services beginning in April 2006 for which NASA must pay. Thus, the INA could significantly affect the U.S. utilization of ISS. This report outlines the history of INA, its effect on Russian and Iranian proliferation, its impact on the ISS program, and options for resolving associated issues. It will not be updated.

None

During the last eight years, we have worked on the general problems associated with grain boundaries in metals with DOE support. This final report summarizes the work that has been performed. At the start of this work, we took a much more atomistic approach to grain boundaries. However, as we performed this research it became clear that such approaches had the drawbacks listed above, and that we were not proceeding toward the more general understanding of grain boundaries that we have hoped to achieve. We then moved toward more macroscopic based experiments that we could use to understand the structure and motion of grain boundaries. From these we were able to begin deducing some of the most important results of this work and to provide information that can be used by others to understand the role of grain boundaries in materials. We thus present this report in a topical way and provide the experimental and theoretical underpinning that is needed at each point as we go forward.

EMSP supported research of millimeter-wave technology for nuclear waste glass melter monitoring has been very productive in establishing this field and showing great progress. This work has garnered significant recognition, winning an R&D 100 Award for viscosity monitoring, a Best Paper Award by the American Ceramic Society for nuclear waste glass monitoring, investment by the Glass Plus industry consortium to test this technology for glass fiber manufacture, investment by Savannah River Technology Center in purchasing key hardware components for additional tests, and Japanese initiated exchange visits between MIT and the vitrification facilities at Japanese Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) in Tokai to review this technology. There are also potentially important spin offs to other areas including nuclear and fossil fuel power production, and National Institute of Health sponsored research as indicated below. Consequently, this work has the potential of becoming a major inter nationally recognized EMSP success story. A summary of the main accomplishments follows. The readers are referred to the cited reference publications for more details, many of which were EMSP supported by this work.

None

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "More than 34 million workers and retirees in about 30,000 singleemployer defined benefit plans rely on a federal insurance program managed by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) to protect their pension benefits. However, the insurance program's long-term viability is in doubt and in July 2003 we placed the single-employer insurance program on our high-risk list of agencies with significant vulnerabilities for the federal government. In fiscal year 2004, PBGC's single-employer pension insurance program incurred a net loss of $12.1 billion for fiscal year 2004, and the program's accumulated deficit increased to $23.3 billion from $11.2 billion a year earlier. Further, PBGC estimated that underfunding in single-employer plans exceeded $450 billion as of the end of fiscal year 2004. This testimony provides GAO's observations on (1) some of the structural problems that limit PBGC's ability to protect itself from risk and (2) steps PBGC has taken to forecast and manage the risks that it faces."

None

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Social Security Administration (SSA) manages the two largest federal disability benefit programs and made approximately $75 billion in payments to about 8 million beneficiaries (ages 18 through 64) in 2003. Given the size of its programs, even small improvements in SSA's ability to return beneficiaries to work offer the potential for significant savings. Until recently, Social Security beneficiaries who needed help returning to work generally had to seek services from state vocational rehabilitation (VR) agencies. Few beneficiaries used these services or successfully returned to work. Therefore, Congress passed the Ticket to Work and Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999 (Ticket Act, P.L. 106-170) to create a Ticket to Work and Self-Sufficiency Program (the Ticket program). The program's goals are to expand the availability of service providers and to help enable beneficiaries to return to work, become selfsufficient, and stop receiving disability benefit payments. Eligible beneficiaries can use their tickets as vouchers to request vocational rehabilitation, employment, or other support services from the traditional state VR agencies or from new SSA-approved public or private providers, which are referred to as employment networks (EN). The act required …

This Soil Management Plan applies to all activities conducted under the auspices of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Oak Ridge Y-12 National Security Complex (Y-12) that involve soil disturbance and potential management of waste soil. The plan was prepared under the direction of the Y-12 Environmental Compliance Department of the Environment, Safety, and Health Division. Soil disturbances related to maintenance activities, utility and building construction projects, or demolition projects fall within the purview of the plan. This Soil Management Plan represents an integrated, visually oriented, planning and information resource tool for decision making involving excavation or disturbance of soil at Y-12. This Soil Management Plan addresses three primary elements. (1) Regulatory and programmatic requirements for management of soil based on the location of a soil disturbance project and/or the regulatory classification of any contaminants that may be present (Chap. 2). Five general regulatory or programmatic classifications of soil are recognized to be potentially present at Y-12; soil may fall under one or more these classifications: (a) Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) pursuant to the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) Federal Facilities Agreement; (b) Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA); (c) RCRA 3004(u) solid waste managements units pursuant …

None

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.N. regular budget for the 2004-2005 biennium exceeded $3 billion for the first time. In light of the organization's increasing demands, the U.N. Secretary General and member states have called on the Secretariat to better define priorities and eliminate outdated activities. In response, the Secretary General launched major reform initiatives in 1997 and 2002, and we reported on the status of these efforts in February 2004. Audits and investigations of the U.N. Oil for Food program have also brought attention to recurring management weaknesses. As the largest financial contributor to the United Nations, the United States has a strong interest in the completion of the Secretary General's reforms. GAO provides observations on areas for U.N. reform based on our 2004 report and our continuing review of the Oil for Food program, including our analysis of internal audit reports and other documents."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) operates one of the nation's largest health care systems. In 1999, GAO reported on VA's aged, obsolete capital assets, noting that better management of these assets could significantly reduce VA's operating costs. GAO further noted that VA could reinvest the savings to enhance veterans' health care services. In response, VA initiated its Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) process. Through CARES, VA identified what health care services it should provide and in which locations through 2022. The CARES process included assessing alternative ways to align inpatient services by closing or adding services at existing VA medical facilities or establishing new facilities. In May 2004, VA published its CARES decisions, but did not provide a national comprehensive summary of all its decisions about the alignment of inpatient services. GAO was asked to provide additional information about the inpatient service assessments and decisions made by VA. To provide a national, comprehensive summary, GAO summarized the locations where VA (1) identified a need to evaluate alternative ways to align inpatient health care service to improve quality, efficiency, or access and (2) made …

A systematic investigation of candidate hydrogen permeation materials applied to a substrate using Pulsed Laser Deposition has been performed. The investigation focused on application of leading permeation-resistant materials types (oxide, carbides, and metals) on a stainless steel substrate. and evaluation of the stability of the applied coatings. Type 304L stainless steel substrates were coated with aluminum oxide, chromium oxide, and aluminum. Characterization of the coating-substrate system adhesion was performed using scratch adhesion testing and microindentation. Coating stability and environmental susceptibility were evaluated for two conditions-air at 350 degrees Celsius and Ar-H2 at 350 degrees Celsius for up to 100 hours. Results from this study have shown the pulsed laser deposition process to be an extremely versatile technology that is capable of producing a sound coating/substrate system for a wide variety of coating materials.

Recent laser ignition experiments on octahydro-1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-terrazocine (HMX) and 1,3,5-triamino-2,4,6-trinitrobenzene (TATB) subjected to laser fluxes ranging from 10 to 800 W/cm{sup 2} produced ignition times from seconds to milliseconds. Global chemical kinetic thermal decomposition models for HMX and TATB have been developed to calculate times to thermal explosion for experiments in the seconds to days time frame. These models are applied to the laser ignition experimental data in this paper. Excellent agreement was obtained for TATB, while the calculated ignition times were longer than experiment for HMX at lower laser fluxes. At the temperatures produced in the laser experiments, HMX melts. Melting generally increases condensed phase reaction rates so faster rates were used for three of the HMX reaction rates. This improved agreement with experiments at the lower laser fluxes but yielded very fast ignition at high fluxes. The calculated times to ignition are in reasonable agreement with the laser ignition experiments, and this justifies the use of these models for estimating reaction times at impact and shock ''hot spot'' temperatures.

Advanced Technology Systems, Inc. (ATS), with Desert Research Institute (DRI) and Ohio University as subcontractors, was contracted by the NETL in September 1998 to manage the Upper Ohio River Valley Project (UORVP), with a goal of characterizing the ambient fine particulate in this region, including examination of urban/rural variations, correlations between PM{sub 2.5} and gaseous pollutants, and influences of artifacts on PM{sub 2.5} measurements in this region. Two urban and two rural monitoring sites were included in the UORVP. The four sites selected were all part of existing local and/or state air quality programs. One urban site was located in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania at an air quality monitoring station operated by the Allegheny County Health Department. A second urban site was collocated at a West Virginia Division of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) monitoring station at the airport in Morgantown, West Virginia. One rural site was collocated with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) at a former NARSTO-Northeast site near Holbrook, Greene County, Pennsylvania. The other rural site was collocated at a site operated by the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OHEPA) and managed by the Ohio State Forestry Division in Gifford State Forest near Athens, Ohio. Previous Semi-Annual …

The newly discovered exotic {Theta} baryon of mass 1540 MeV (and very small width) truly has a very low mass, if it is a pentaquark system of even parity. A schematic model in which the coherent interaction of u{bar s} and d{bar s} pairs leads to a very large residual (non-confining) attractive interaction is introduced. This collective vibrational model accounts for the mass and small decay width to the KN channel, but yields a significant coupling to the virtual K*N channel. The schematic model predicts an attractive {Theta}-nucleon interaction strong enough to bind a {Theta} particle to a nucleus in a state that is stable against decay via strong interactions. The discovery of {Theta}-nuclei could be a definitive proof that the {Theta} parity is even.

We show that a gravitational interaction between the derivative of the Ricci scalar curvature and the baryon-number current dynamically breaks CPT in an expanding universe and, combined with baryon-number-violating interactions, can drive the universe towards an equilibrium baryon asymmetry that is observationally acceptable.

This report examines the factors that bolster or weaken international relations between the U.S. and Indonesian including the rise of separatist movements and terrorist activities in Indonesia.

The objective of this research project was to improve the basis for estimating environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposures in a variety of indoor environments. The research utilized experiments conducted in both laboratory and ''real-world'' buildings to (1) study the transport of ETS species from room to room, (2) examine the viability of using various chemical markers as tracers for ETS, and (3) to evaluate to what extent re-emission of ETS components from indoor surfaces might add to the ETS exposure estimates. A three-room environmental chamber was used to examine multi-zone transport and behavior of ETS and its tracers. One room (simulating a smoker's living room) was extensively conditioned with ETS, while a corridor and a second room (simulating a child's bedroom) remained smoking-free. A series of 5 sets of replicate experiments were conducted under different door opening and flow configurations: sealed, leaky, slightly ajar, wide open, and under forced air-flow conditions. When the doors between the rooms were slightly ajar the particles dispersed into the other rooms, eventually reaching the same concentration. The particle size distribution took the same form in each room, although the total numbers of particles in each room depended on the door configurations. The particle number …

We investigate the Butcher-Oemler effect using samples of galaxies brighter than observed frame K* + 1.5 in 33 clusters at 0.1 {approx}< z {approx}< 0.9. We attempt to duplicate as closely as possible the methodology of Butcher & Oemler. Apart from selecting in the K-band, the most important difference is that we use a brightness limit fixed at 1.5 magnitudes below an observed frame K* rather than the nominal limit of rest frame M(V ) = -20 used by Butcher & Oemler. For an early type galaxy at z = 0.1 our sample cutoff is 0.2 magnitudes brighter than rest frame M(V ) = -20, while at z = 0.9 our cutoff is 0.9 magnitudes brighter. If the blue galaxies tend to be faint, then the difference in magnitude limits should result in our measuring lower blue fractions. A more minor difference from the Butcher & Oemler methodology is that the area covered by our galaxy samples has a radius of 0.5 or 0.7 Mpc at all redshifts rather than R{sub 30}, the radius containing 30% of the cluster population. In practice our field sizes are generally similar to those used by Butcher & Oemler. We find the fraction of …

A research effort performed by the Target Fabrication Group has developed a method for producing precision, meso-scale gold support rings for laser targets. Many different laser targets consist of planar components that are built upon a gold support ring, such as the HyDiv and RadG targets shown in Figure 1. Because of the sequence in which laser targets such as these must be built to achieve the required overall precision, the washer-shaped support rings must fit precisely onto fixtures that are used throughout the manufacturing process. Because the support ring is the fundamental structure onto which the target is built, any imprecision in the support ring propagates through the entire target. Thus, even if the physics performance of a laser target does not require a flat and precise support ring, the manufacturing methods used to achieve the overall level of precision demanded in the targets rely heavily on the precision of the support rings. Past efforts to purchase gold support rings from outside vendors have been either extremely costly, or the vendors were unable to deliver acceptable parts. On several occasions, difficulties in obtaining acceptable support rings in a timely manner have compromised the ability to manufacture and deliver targets …

The Lynx arc, with a redshift of 3.357, was discovered during spectroscopic follow-up of the z = 0.570 cluster RX J0848+4456 from the ROSAT Deep Cluster Survey. The arc is characterized by a very red R - K color and strong, narrow emission lines. Analysis of HST WFPC 2 imaging and Keck optical and infrared spectroscopy shows that the arc is an H II galaxy magnified by a factor of {approx} 10 by a complex cluster environment. The high intrinsic luminosity, the emission line spectrum, the absorption components seen in Ly{alpha} and C IV, and the restframe ultraviolet continuum are all consistent with a simple H II region model containing {approx} 10{sup 6} hot O stars. The best fit parameters for this model imply a very hot ionizing continuum (T{sub BB} {approx} 80, 000 K), high ionization parameter (log U {approx} -1), and low nebular metallicity (Z/Z{sub {circle_dot}} {approx} 0.05). The narrowness of the emission lines requires a low mass-to-light ratio for the ionizing stars, suggestive of an extremely low metallicity stellar cluster. The apparent overabundance of silicon in the nebula could indicate enrichment by past pair instability supernovae, requiring stars more massive than {approx}140M{sub {circle_dot}}.