Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), Congress required the Small Business Administration (SBA) to implement a total of eight administrative provisions to help facilitate small business lending and enhance liquidity in the secondary markets. These administrative provisions include (1) temporarily requiring SBA to reduce or eliminate certain fees on 7(a) and 504 loans; (2) temporarily increasing the maximum 7(a) guarantee from 85 percent to 90 percent; and (3) implementing provisions designed specifically to facilitate secondary markets, such as extending existing guarantees in the 504 program and making loans to systemically important brokerdealers that operate in the 7(a) secondary market. Further, ARRA established deadlines for SBA to issue regulations that implement certain administrative provisions, such as those pertaining to facilitating secondary market activities. Specifically, ARRA required SBA to issue regulations extending the guarantee related to the 504 program within 15 days after enactment (March 4, 2009) and for making loans to systemically important broker-dealers within 30 days after enactment (March 19, 2009). ARRA also mandates that we report within 60 days after the date of enactment, April 17, 2009, on SBA's initial efforts to comply …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This correspondence formally transmits the briefing we prepared in response to Senate Report 110-335 accompanying the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009. The Senate Report required the Comptroller General to conduct an assessment of medical and dental personnel requirements of the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, including their reserve components. To satisfy this requirement, we previously provided to Congress on April 1, 2009 a copy of the draft briefing we sent to DOD for comment."

Tax Credit Bonds (TCBs) are a type of bond that offers the holder a federal tax credit instead of interest. This report explains the tax credit mechanism and describes the market for the bonds. It also discusses related pieces of legislation and what the most common uses of the proceeds from TCBs are.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Port Aransas, Texas on Mustang Island that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

Bill introduced by the Texas Senate relating to methods for the recovery of system restoration costs incurred by electric utilities following hurricanes, tropical storms, ice or snow storms, floods, and other weather-related events and natural disasters.

Daily student newspaper from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

Weekly Jewish newspaper from Fort Worth, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Canadian, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with some advertising.

Semi-weekly newspaper from Bastrop, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with advertising.

This report provides information about 16- to 24-Year Olds Who Are Not Working or In School on Disconnected Youth. Policymakers and youth advocates have begun to focus greater attention on young people who are not working or in school.

This study was motivated by a desire to improve understanding of the sources contributing to the carbon that is an important component of airborne particulate matter (PM). The ultimate goal of this project was to lay a ground work for future tools that might be easily implemented with archived or routinely collected samples. A key feature of this study was application of radiocarbon measurement that can be interpreted to indicate the relative contributions from fossil and non-fossil carbon sources of atmospheric PM. Size-resolved PM and time-resolved PM{sub 10} collected from a site in Sacramento, CA in November 2007 (Phase I) and March 2008 (Phase II) were analyzed for radiocarbon and source markers such as levoglucosan, cholesterol, and elemental carbon. Radiocarbon data indicates that the contributions of non-fossil carbon sources were much greater than that from fossil carbon sources in all samples. Radiocarbon and source marker measurements confirm that a greater contribution of non-fossil carbon sources in Phase I samples was highly likely due to residential wood combustion. The present study proves that measurement of radiocarbon and source markers can be readily applied to archived or routinely collected samples for better characterization of PM sources. More accurate source apportionment will support …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Duncanville, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Drifting of experimental set-ups with change of temperature or other environmental conditions is the limiting factor of many, if not all, precision measurements. The measurement error due to a drift is, in some sense, in-between random noise and systematic error. In the general case, the error contribution of a drift cannot be averaged out using a number of measurements identically carried out over a reasonable time. In contrast to systematic errors, drifts are usually not stable enough for a precise calibration. Here a rather general method for effective suppression of the spurious effects caused by slow drifts in a large variety of instruments and experimental set-ups is described. An analytical derivation of an identity, describing the optimal measurement strategies suitable for suppressing the contribution of a slow drift described with a certain order polynomial function, is presented. A recursion rule as well as a general mathematical proof of the identity is given. The effectiveness of the discussed method is illustrated with an application of the derived optimal scanning strategies to precise surface slope measurements with a surface profiler.

Develop an experimental and theoretical data base for heat transfer in tubes and channels cooled by water and CO2 at supercritical pressures.

We discuss how the different estimates of elliptic flow are influenced by flow fluctuations and nonflow effects. It is explained why the event-plane method yields estimates between the two-particle correlation methods and the multiparticle correlation methods. It is argued that nonflow effects and fluctuations cannot be disentangled without other assumptions. However, we provide equations where, with reasonable assumptions about fluctuations and nonflow, all measured values of elliptic flow converge to a unique mean v_2,PP elliptic flow in the participant plane and, with a Gaussian assumption on eccentricity fluctuations, can be converted to the mean v_2,RP in the reaction plane. Thus, the 20percent spread in observed elliptic flow measurements from different analysis methods is no longer mysterious.

This grant project examines multiple aspects of the pelletizing process to determine the feasibility of pelletizing biomass using a mobile form factor system. These aspects are: the automatic adjustment of the die height in a rotary-style pellet mill, the construction of the die head to allow the use of ceramic materials for extreme wear, integrating a heat exchanger network into the entire process from drying to cooling, the use of superheated steam for adjusting the moisture content to optimum, the economics of using diesel power to operate the system; a break-even analysis of estimated fixed operating costs vs. tons per hour capacity. Initial development work has created a viable mechanical model. The overall analysis of this model suggests that pelletizing can be economically done using a mobile platform.

The US Congress funded the Puget Sound and Coastal Washington Hatchery Reform Project via annual appropriations to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) beginning in fiscal year 2000. Congress established the project because it recognized that while hatcheries have a necessary role to play in meeting harvest and conservation goals for Pacific Northwest salmonids, the hatchery system was in need of comprehensive reform. Most hatcheries were producing fish for harvest primarily to mitigate for past habitat loss (rather than for conservation of at-risk populations) and were not taking into account the effects of their programs on naturally spawning populations. With numerous species listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), conservation of salmon in the Puget Sound area was a high priority. Genetic resources in the region were at risk and many hatchery programs as currently operated were contributing to those risks. Central to the project was the creation of a nine-member independent scientific review panel called the Hatchery Scientific Review Group (HSRG). The HSRG was charged by Congress with reviewing all state, tribal and federal hatchery programs in Puget Sound and Coastal Washington as part of a comprehensive hatchery reform effort to: conserve indigenous salmonid …

We received funding to fabricate and characterize dichroic beamsplitters for optical filtering applications in astronomical instrumentation. A competitive bidding process led to the selection of a vendor who has successfully fabricated subcomponents that meet our optical specifications. The final assembly of the subcomponents into a complete optical module is under way, and we expect final delivery of the part to our laboratory in May 2009.

In 2006, the design phase of this project was kicked off and was for the most part modeled after the Full Flow PIT installation installed at Lower Monumental Dam during winter and spring of 2006 and 2007. As the Goose Full Flow design progressed and the project started to move towards construction, issues within contracting occurred and the project was put on delay for 1 year. Starting in mid December of 2008, Harcon Inc. was awarded the contract and construction of the new Goose Full Flow PIT-tag detection system began. The purpose of this document is to summarize the installation of the Little Goose Full Flow project from start to finish and to highlight the notable successes and challenges that the installation presented along with the final results and current status.