Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2001, the Department of Defense (DOD) has relied on more than 600,000 members of the National Guard and Reserve components to support various operations abroad and at home. In particular, from September 2001 to July 2007, the department deployed more than 434,000 reservists to support operations in DOD's Central Command area of responsibility that includes Afghanistan and Iraq. Furthermore, DOD has modified its mobilization policy, which had previously limited the cumulative amount of time that reservists could be involuntarily called to active duty for the Global War on Terrorism. Under DOD's new policy, which went into effect in January 2007, involuntary mobilizations for reserve component service members are generally limited to no more than 12 months, and there are no cumulative limits on these involuntary mobilizations. While on active duty, reservists may be unable to take the required professional development courses or periodic tests needed to retain their professional currency in fields such as accounting or software engineering. The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) protects rights of qualifying National Guard members, reservists, and certain other members of the uniformed services returning to their civilian …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In connection with fulfilling our requirement to audit the financial statements of the U.S. government, we audited and reported on the Schedules of Federal Debt Managed by the Bureau of the Public Debt (BPD) for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2007 and 2006. As part of these audits, we performed a review of the general and application information security controls over key BPD financial systems. In our audit report on the Schedules of Federal Debt for the fiscal years ended September 30, 2007 and 2006, we concluded that BPD maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control relevant to the Schedule of Federal Debt related to financial reporting and compliance with applicable laws and regulations as of September 30, 2007, that provided reasonable assurance that misstatements, losses, or noncompliance material in relation to the Schedule of Federal Debt would be prevented or detected on a timely basis. However, we found matters involving information security controls that we do not consider to be significant deficiencies. As it relates to controls over financial reporting and compliance with applicable laws and regulations, BPD mitigated the potential effect of such control …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Faced with an increase in disability claims, the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) is hiring a large number of new claims processing staff. We were asked to determine: (1) What training is provided to new and experienced claims processors and how uniform is this training? (2) To what extent has VBA planned this training strategically, and how well is the training designed, implemented, and evaluated? and (3) To what extent is the performance management system for claims processors consistent with generally accepted practices? To answer the questions, GAO reviewed documents including VBA policies and training curricula; interviewed VBA central office officials; visited 4 of VBA's 57 regional offices, which were selected to achieve diversity in geographic location, number of staff, and officewide accuracy in claims processing; and compared VBA's training and performance management to generally accepted practices identified by GAO."

In order to address the needs of future scientific applications for storing and accessing large amounts of data in an efficient way, one needs to understand the limitations of current technologies and how they may cause systeminstability or unavailability. A number of factors can impact system availability ranging from facility-wide power outage to a single point of failure such as network switches or global file systems. In addition, individual component failure in a system can degrade the performance of that system. This paper focuses on analyzing both of these factors and their impacts on the computational and storage systems at NERSC. Component failure data presented in this report primarily focuses on disk drive in on of the computational system and tape drive failure in HPSS. NERSC collected available component failure data and system-wide outages for its computational and storage systems over a six-year period and made them available to the HPC community through the Petascale Data Storage Institute.

BioTiger{trademark} is a unique microbial consortia that resulted from over 8 years of extensive microbiology screening and characterization of samples collected from a century-old Polish waste lagoon. BioTiger{trademark} shows rapid and complete degradation of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, produces novel surfactants, is tolerant of both chemical and metal toxicity and shows good activity at temperature and pH extremes. Although originally developed and used by the U.S. Department of Energy for bioremediation of oil-contaminated soils, recent efforts have proven that BioTiger{trademark} can also be used to increase hydrocarbon recovery from oil sands. This enhanced ex situ oil recovery process utilizes BioTiger{trademark} to optimize bitumen separation. A floatation test protocol with oil sands from Ft. McMurray, Canada was used for the BioTiger{trademark} evaluation. A comparison of hot water extraction/floatation test of the oil sands performed with BioTiger{trademark} demonstrated a 50% improvement in separation as measured by gravimetric analysis in 4 h and a five-fold increase at 25 hr. Since BioTiger{trademark} performs well at high temperatures and process engineering can enhance and sustain metabolic activity, it can be applied to enhance recovery of hydrocarbons from oil sands or other complex recalcitrant matrices.

Cane-based Celotex{trademark} has been used extensively in various Department of Energy (DOE) packages as a thermal insulator and impact absorber. Cane-based Celotex{trademark} fiberboard was only manufactured by Knight-Celotex Fiberboard at their Marrero Plant in Louisiana. However, Knight-Celotex Fiberboard shut down their Marrero Plant in early 2007 due to impacts from hurricane Katrina and other economic factors. Therefore, cane-based Celotex{trademark} fiberboard is no longer available for use in the manufacture of new shipping packages requiring the material as a component. Current consolidation plans for the DOE Complex require the procurement of several thousand new Model 9975 shipping packages requiring cane-based Celotex{trademark} fiberboard. Therefore, an alternative to cane-based Celotex{trademark} fiberboard is needed. Knight-Celotex currently manufactures Celotex{trademark} fiberboard from other cellulosic materials, such as hardwood and softwood. A review of the relevant literature has shown that softwood-based Celotex{trademark} meets all parameters important to the Model 9975 shipping package.

TOUGH2-MP is a massively parallel (MP) version of the TOUGH2 code, designed for computationally efficient parallel simulation of isothermal and nonisothermal flows of multicomponent, multiphase fluids in one, two, and three-dimensional porous and fractured media. In recent years, computational requirements have become increasingly intensive in large or highly nonlinear problems for applications in areas such as radioactive waste disposal, CO2 geological sequestration, environmental assessment and remediation, reservoir engineering, and groundwater hydrology. The primary objective of developing the parallel-simulation capability is to significantly improve the computational performance of the TOUGH2 family of codes. The particular goal for the parallel simulator is to achieve orders-of-magnitude improvement in computational time for models with ever-increasing complexity. TOUGH2-MP is designed to perform parallel simulation on multi-CPU computational platforms. An earlier version of TOUGH2-MP (V1.0) was based on the TOUGH2 Version 1.4 with EOS3, EOS9, and T2R3D modules, a software previously qualified for applications in the Yucca Mountain project, and was designed for execution on CRAY T3E and IBM SP supercomputers. The current version of TOUGH2-MP (V2.0) includes all fluid property modules of the standard version TOUGH2 V2.0. It provides computationally efficient capabilities using supercomputers, Linux clusters, or multi-core PCs, and also offers many user-friendly features. …

The large range of time and length scales involved in type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) requires the use of flame models. As a prelude to exploring various options for flame models, we consider, in this paper, high-resolution three-dimensional simulations of the small-scale dynamics of nuclear flames in the supernova environment in which the details of the flame structure are fully resolved. The range of densities examined, 1 to 8 x 107 g cm-3, spans the transition from the laminar flamelet regime to the distributed burning regime where small scale turbulence disrupts the flame. The use of a low Mach number algorithm facilitates the accurate resolution of the thermal structure of the flame and the inviscid turbulent kinetic energy cascade, while implicitly incorporating kinetic energy dissipation at the grid-scale cutoff. For an assumed background of isotropic Kolmogorov turbulence with an energy characteristic of SN Ia, we find a transition density between 1 and 3 x 107 g cm-3 where the nature of the burning changes ualitatively. By 1 x 107 g cm-3, energy diffusion by conduction and radiation is exceeded, on the flame scale, by turbulent advection. As a result, the effective Lewis Number approaches unity. That is, the flame resembles …

Sludge Batch 4 (SB4) is currently being processed in the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) using Frit 510. The slurry pumps in Tank 40 are experiencing in-leakage of bearing water, which is causing the sludge slurry feed in Tank 40 to become dilute at a rapid rate. Currently, the DWPF is removing this dilution water by performing caustic boiling during the Sludge Receipt and Adjustment Tank (SRAT) cycle. In order to alleviate prolonged SRAT cycle times that may eventually impact canister production rates, decant scenarios of 100, 150, and 200 kilogallons of supernate were proposed for Tank 40 during the DWPF March outage. Based on the results of the preliminary assessment issued by the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), the Liquid Waste Organization (LWO) issued a Technical Task Request (TTR) for SRNL to (1) perform a more detailed evaluation using updated SB4 compositional information and (2) assess the viability of Frit 510 and determine any potential impacts on the SB4 system. As defined in the TTR, LWO requested that SRNL validate the sludge--only SB4 flowsheet and the coupled operations flowsheet using the 100K gallon decant volume as well as the addition of 3 wt% sodium on a calcined oxide basis. …

Since 1999, SunLine Transit Agency has worked with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to develop and test hydrogen infrastructure, fuel cell buses, a heavy-duty fuel cell truck, a fuel cell neighborhood electric vehicle, fuel cell golf carts and internal combustion engine buses operating on a mixture of hydrogen and compressed natural gas (CNG). SunLine has cultivated a rich history of testing and demonstrating equipment for leading industry manufacturers in a pre-commercial environment. Visitors to SunLine's "Clean Fuels Mall" from around the world have included government delegations and agencies, international journalists and media, industry leaders and experts and environmental and educational groups.

The Organization of Midwest ISO States (OMS) launched the Midwest Demand Resource Initiative (MWDRI) in 2007 to identify barriers to deploying demand response (DR) resources in the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO) region and develop policies to overcome them. The MWDRI stakeholders decided that a useful initial activity would be to develop more detailed information on existing retail DR programs and dynamic pricing tariffs, program rules, and utility operating practices. This additional detail could then be used to assess any"seams issues" affecting coordination and integration of retail DR resources with MISO's wholesale markets. Working with state regulatory agencies, we conducted a detailed survey of existing DR programs, dynamic pricing tariffs, and their features in MISO states. Utilities were asked to provide information on advance notice requirements to customers, operational triggers used to call events (e.g. system emergencies, market conditions, local emergencies), use of these DR resources to meet planning reserves requirements, DR resource availability (e.g., seasonal, annual), participant incentive structures, and monitoring and verification (M&V) protocols. This report describes the results of this comprehensive survey and discusses policy implications for integrating legacy retail DR programs and dynamic pricing tariffs into organized wholesale markets. Survey responses from 37 MISO members and …

Enzymatic ligation of discrete nanoparticle?DNA conjugates creates nanoparticle dimer and trimer structures in which the nanoparticles are linked by single-stranded DNA, rather than double-stranded DNA as in previous experiments. Ligation is verified by agarose gel and small-angle X-ray scattering. This capability is utilized in two ways: first to create a new class of multiparticle building blocks for nanoscale self-assembly; second to develop a system which can amplify a population of discrete nanoparticle assemblies.

Here we report nano- through microsecond time-resolved IR experiments of iron-catalyzed alkene isomerization in room-temperature solution. We have monitored the photochemistry of a model system, Fe(CO){sub 4}({eta}{sup 2}-1-hexene), in neat 1-hexene solution. UV-photolysis of the starting material leads to the dissociation of a single CO to form Fe(CO){sub 3}({eta}{sup 2}-1-hexene), in a singlet spin state. This CO loss complex shows a dramatic selectivity to form an allyl hydride, HFe(CO){sub 3}({eta}{sup 3}-C{sub 6}H{sub 11}), via an internal C-H bond-cleavage reaction in 5-25 ns. We find no evidence for the coordination of an alkene molecule from the bath to the CO loss complex, but do observe coordination to the allyl hydride, indicating that it is the key intermediate in the isomerization mechanism. Coordination of the alkene ligand to the allyl hydride leads to the formation of the bis-alkene isomers, Fe(CO){sub 3}({eta}{sup 2}-1-hexene)({eta}{sup 2}-2-hexene) and Fe(CO){sub 3}({eta}{sup 2}-1-hexene){sub 2}. Because of the thermodynamic stability of Fe(CO){sub 3}({eta}{sup 2}-1-hexene)({eta}{sup 2}-2-hexene) over Fe(CO){sub 3}({eta}{sup 2}-1-hexene){sub 2} (ca. 12 kcal/mol), nearly 100% of the alkene population will be 2-alkene. The results presented herein provide the first direct evidence for this mechanism in solution and suggest modifications to the currently accepted mechanism.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Eligibility of particular owners to sign a zoning change protest under section 211.006(d), Local Government Code (RQ-0654-GA)

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Implementation of changes to tax proceedings required by recently enacted House Bill 1010, which provides for the consolidation of appraisal districts (RQ-0655-GA)

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The Social Security Administration (SSA) administers the Social Security program (Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance, or OASDI) and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, and provides administrative support to Medicare and several other federal programs. Total SSA spending in FY2007 was about $624 billion, about 99% of which was mandatory spending on benefit payments. This report focuses on SSA’s spending for administrative expenses, which is discretionary and amounts to about 1% of SSA’s total spending. This funding is provided in the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill.

This report discusses the regulation of stormwater drainage. Stormwater discharge systems are the pipes and sewer lines that carry rainwater or snow melt, but not domestic sanitary wastes, away from urban areas and commercial and industrial facilities. For many years the focus of the nation's water quality programs was on controlling pollutants associated with industrial process wastewaters and municipal sewage discharges.

This is one part in the series of reports that provide a background and analysis, and most recent developments regarding broadband or high-speed Internet access. The report starts out by answering questions; what is broadband and why is it important? This report also discusses broadband technologies, the status of broadband deployment and the related policy issues, as well as the legislation in congress.

Food safety has re-emerged as an issue in the 110th Congress following a series of widely publicized incidents -- including adulterated Chinese seafood and pet food ingredient imports, findings of bacteria-tainted spinach, meat, and poultry produced domestically, and several large food recalls. In May 2008, Congress approved a new omnibus farm law (P.L. 110-234; H.R. 2419) that includes, among other provisions, several changes affecting U.S. food safety programs. Changes in the livestock title (Title XI) include subjecting catfish to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) mandatory inspections similar to those for red meat and poultry; creating an option for state-inspected meat and poultry plants to ship their products across state lines; and requiring meat and poultry establishments to notify USDA about potentially adulterated or misbranded products.

The Department of Defense (DOD) through a Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) component called the Defense Utilization and Marketing Service (DRMS) has a policy for disposing of government equipment and supplies considered surplus or deemed unnecessary to the agency's currently designated mission. DRMS is charged with responsibility for property reuse (including resale), precious metal recovery, recycling, hazardous property disposal, and the demilitarization of military equipment.

The protection of classified national security and other controlled information is of concern not only to the executive branch - which determines what information is to be safeguarded, for the most part - but also to Congress, which uses the information to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities. It has established mechanisms to safeguard controlled information in its custody, although these arrangements have varied over time between the two chambers and among panels in each. This report explores and analyzes said mechanisms. It also discusses various proposals for standardization of and modifications to current policies.

Negotiations to launch a free trade agreement (FTA) between the United States and the five members of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland) began on June 3, 2003. A potential FTA would eliminate tariffs over time, reduce or eliminate non-tariff barriers, liberalize service trade, protect intellectual property rights, and provide technical assistance to help SACU nations achieve the goals of the agreement. This potential agreement would be subject to congressional approval.

Members of Congress this year have expressed concern about a projected inventory shortfall in Navy and Marine Corps strike-fighters. Some industry sources believe the shortfall is likely to be much larger than the Navy currently projects. Options for addressing the shortfall include extending strike-fighter service lives and increasing planned procurement of strike-fighters.