A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As a group, Asian American and Pacific Islanders represent about 5 percent of the U.S. population and hold about 8 percent of the college degrees. To better understand the educational attainment and average incomes of the subgroups that comprise this population, the Committee asked: 1) What are Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups' educational attainment and household income levels? (2) What challenges, if any, Asian American and Pacific Islander students face in pursuing and completing their post-secondary education? and (3) What federal and institutional resources do institutions with large Asian American and Pacific Islander student enrollment use to address the particular needs of these students? GAO analyzed data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Education (Education) and spoke with officials and Asian American and Pacific Islander students at eight postsecondary institutions."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Space Shuttle Program is currently supported by over 1,500 active suppliers, some of whom are the only known or certified source of a particular material, part or service. The retirement of the Shuttle and transition to planned exploration activities, as called for in the President's Vision for Space Exploration, creates the need for NASA to begin making decisions today about its supplier base needs for the future. GAO was asked to (1) describe NASA's plans and processes for managing its supplier base through the Shuttle's retirement and the transition to the Constellation's exploration activities; (2) address factors that could impact the effectiveness of those plans and processes; and (3) identify any other issues that NASA will likely encounter as the agency transitions to and implements the Constellation Program."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In June 2006, the Navy completed a feasibility assessment of both the Marine Corps Total Force System (MCTFS)--the Marine Corps' integrated personnel and payroll system--and the Defense Integrated Military Human Resources System DIMHRS. Based on the results of this assessment, the Navy expressed a preference to deploy MCTFS instead of DIMHRS. In August 2006, the Defense Business Systems Management Committee (DBSMC) made a business decision to accept the Navy's plan to proceed with the development and implementation of MCTFS. However, the Department of Defense (DOD) had already committed to deploy DIMHRS to provide a joint, integrated, standardized military personnel and pay system across all military components. According to the department, as of September 2006, it had spent over $668 million on the program. The John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, Pub. L. No. 109-364, 324 (2006) directed the Secretary of the Navy to prepare a report about MCTFS, including (1) an analysis of alternatives to MCTFS, including a comparison between the costs of deploying and operating MCTFS within the Navy and the cost of including the Navy in DIMHRS; (2) a business case analysis …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony relates to the broader question: How should we deal with our nation's long-term fiscal challenge in order to help ensure that our future is better than our past? This testimony will start with our longer-term fiscal challenge. Then it will turn to the process question you present at this hearing: the reimposition of a statutory PAYGO rule(s) as a step toward dealing with this challenge. Finally it will talk about moving beyond caps and PAYGO to some ideas on how improved transparency and process changes can help in the effort to put us on a more prudent and sustainable long-term fiscal path. As widely reported earlier this month, the Administration now expects the deficit for fiscal year 2007 to be $205 billion, down from its February estimate of $244 billion and last year's deficit of $248 billion. However, because these numbers include the Social Security surpluses, they mask what GAO likes to call the "operating deficit" now estimated to be $385 billion for fiscal year 2007. Clearly lower short-term deficits are better than higher short-term deficits. However, our real challenge is not short-term deficits, rather it's …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A 1994 Executive Order sought to ensure that minority and low-income populations are not subjected to disproportionately high levels of environmental risk. Studies have shown that these groups are indeed disproportionately exposed to air pollution and other environmental and health problems. The Order sought to address the problem by requiring EPA and other federal agencies to make achieving environmental justice part of their missions. In July 2005, GAO issued a report entitled, Environmental Justice: EPA Should Devote More Attention to Environmental Justice When Developing Clean Air Rules (GAO-05-289). Focusing on three specific rules for detailed study, the report identified a number of weaknesses in EPA's approach to ensuring that environmental justice is considered from the early stages of rule development through their issuance. The report made several recommendations, to which EPA replied in an August 24, 2006 letter. GAO also met recently with cognizant EPA staff to obtain updated information on the agency's responses to these recommendations. In this testimony, GAO (1) summarizes the key findings of its 2005 report, (2) outlines its recommendations to EPA and EPA's August 2006 responses, and (3) provides updated information on subsequent …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Small Business Administration (SBA) helps individuals and businesses recover from disasters such as hurricanes through its Disaster Loan Program. SBA faced an unprecedented demand for disaster loan assistance following the 2005 Gulf Coast hurricanes (Katrina, Rita, and Wilma), which resulted in extensive property damage and loss of life. In the aftermath of these disasters, concerns were expressed regarding the timeliness of SBA's disaster assistance. GAO initiated work and completed two reports under the Comptroller General's authority to conduct evaluations and determine how well SBA provided victims of the Gulf Coast hurricanes with timely assistance. This testimony, which is based on these two reports, discusses (1) challenges SBA experienced in providing victims of the Gulf Coast hurricanes with timely assistance, (2) factors that contributed to these challenges, and (3) steps SBA has taken since the Gulf Coast hurricanes to enhance its disaster preparedness. GAO visited the Gulf Coast region, reviewed SBA planning documents, and interviewed SBA officials."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2003, the U.S. government extended its economic assistance to the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) through an Amended Compact of Free Association. From 2004 to 2023, the United States will provide an estimated $1.5 billion to the RMI, with annually decreasing grants as well as increasing contributions to a trust fund. The assistance, targeting six sectors, is aimed at assisting the country's efforts to promote economic advancement and budgetary self-reliance. The trust fund is to be invested and provide income for the RMI after compact grants end. The Department of the Interior (Interior) administers and oversees this assistance. Drawing on prior GAO reports (GAO-05-633, GAO-06-590, GAO-07-163, GAO-07-513, GAO-07-514R), this testimony discusses (1) the RMI's economic prospects, (2) implementation of the amended compact to meet long-term goals, and (3) potential trust fund earnings. In conducting its prior work, GAO visited the RMI, reviewed reports, interviewed officials and experts, and used a simulation model to project the trust fund's income. Prior GAO reports recommended, among other things, that Interior work with the RMI to address lack of progress in implementing reforms; plan for declining grants; reliably measure progress; …

Small 4 K coolers are used to cool superconducting magnets.These coolers are usually used with high temperature suerconductor (HTS)leads. In most cases, magnet is shielded with iron or active shieldcoils. Thus the field at the cooler is low. There are instances when thecooler must be in a magnetic field. Gifford McMahon (GM) coolers or pulsetube coolers are commercially available to cool the magnets. This paperwill discuss how the two types of coolers are affected by the straymagnetic field. Strategies for using coolers on magnets that generatestray magnetic fields are discussed.

Our research tasks span the range of technology areas for transmutation, gas-cooled reactor technology, and high temperature heat exchangers, including separation of actinides from spent nuclear fuel, methods of fuel fabrication, reactor-accelerator coupled experiments, corrosion of materials exposed to lead-bismuth eutectic, and special nuclear materials protection and accountability.

We report herein a series of ab initio simulations of water under both static and shocked conditions. We have calculated the coherent x-ray scattering intensity of several phases of water under high pressure, using ab initio Density Functional Theory (DFT). We provide new atomic scattering form factors for water at extreme conditions, which take into account frequently neglected changes in ionic charge and electron delocalization. We have also simulated liquid water undergoing shock loading of velocities from 5-11 km/s using the Multi-Scale Shock Technique (MSST). We show that Density Functional Theory (DFT) molecular dynamics results compare extremely well to experiments on the water shock Hugoniot.

This report documents the decontamination and decommissioning (D&D) and the demolition of the 153-N, 1515-N, 1516-N, 1517-N, 1518-N, 1519-N, 1331-N, 1332-N, and 181-NC facilities in the 100 Area of the Hanford Site. The D&D and demolition of these facilities included characterization, engineering, removal of hazardous and radiologically contaminated materials, equipment removal, utility disconnection, deactivation, decontamination, demolition of the structure, and removal of the remaining slabs.

This cleanup verification package documents completion of remedial action for the 118-C-1, 105-C Solid Waste Burial Ground. This waste site was the primary burial ground for general wastes from the operation of the 105-C Reactor and received process tubes, aluminum fuel spacers, control rods, reactor hardware, spent nuclear fuel and soft wastes.

We present the ongoing analysis of Lattice Quantum Chromodynamics runs on the LLNL BG/L supercomputer. This installment adds the density analysis of the p4rhmc for the first five thousand trajectories and the AsqTad action results for N{sub {tau}} = 6 results for ten thousand trajectories.

We present a twin Higgs model based on left-right symmetry with a tree level quartic. This is made possible by extending the symmetry of the model to include two Z_2 parities, each of which is sufficient to protect the Higgs from getting a quadratically divergent mass squared. Although both parities are brokenexplicitly, the symmetries that protect the Higgs from getting a quadratically divergent mass are broken only collectively. The quadratic divergences of the Higgs mass are thus still protected at one loop. We find that the fine-tuning in this model is reduced substantially compared to the original left-right twin Higgs model. This mechanism can also be applied to the mirror twin Higgs model to get a significant reduction of the fine-tuning, while keeping the mirror photon massless.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

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

This fiscal year Annual Report on Major State Investment Funds presents the financial performance for Texas' major investment funds.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Two devices have been installed in the Joint European Torus (JET) vacuum vessel near the plasma boundary to investigate the loss of energetic ions and fusion products in general and alpha particles in particular during the upcoming JET experiments. These devices are (i) a set of multichannel thin foil Faraday collectors, and (ii) a well collimated scintillator which is optically connected to a charge-coupled device. Initial results, including the radial energy and poloidal dependence of lost ions from hydrogen and deuterium plasmas during the 2005–06 JET restart campaign, will be presented.

Riverscreen irrigation pumps are a relatively new design in which the pump intake floats on the river surface, pulling water in only from the bottom side and surrounded by a self-cleaning screen. The Walla Walla County Conservation District recently started replacing old pump screens with the Riverscreen and was interested in whether the screens are protective of juvenile salmonids. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory evaluated approach velocities and operations at the Riverscreen installation on the Dallas Thompson property, approximately 3 mi. north of Touchet, Washington and 300 ft north of Hofer Dam, on June 18, 2007. Evaluation of this site consisted of underwater videography and water velocity measurements. The Dallas Thompson Riverscreen was pumping approximately 930 gpm during our evaluation, which is close to the maximum pumping rate for this model. Underwater videography showed only slow movement of water-borne particulates toward the pump intake, and the screen material was clean. All water velocity measurements were taken below the pump intake opening and between 3 to 6 in. from the screen face. All approach velocities (flow toward the screen and pump) were below National Marine Fisheries Service draft guidelines for juvenile fish screens.

An innovative approach to integrate the activities of a decommissioning and deactivation program (D&D) with a soil-groundwater clean up program has had significant positive results saving both money and time at the Department of Energy's Savannah River Site. The accomplishments that have been achieved by the combining the two programs have been remarkable including significant cost savings, economies of scale for sampling and document generation, and alignment of common objectives. Because of the coordination of both activities area-wide ''end states'' can be formulated and be consistent with the customers' cleanup goals and federal regulations. This coordinates and aligns both the environmental clean up and D&D objectives because each must be addressed simultaneously and comprehensively. In this respect, resources from both organizations can be pooled to take advantage of the strengths of each. The new approach allows more efficient use of lean financial resources and optimizes workforce activities to attain the common objectives while being more cost effective, more protective of the environment, and optimizing the use existing resources.

The task of designing high performance X-ray optical systemsrequires the development of sophisticated X-ray scattering calculationsbased on rigorous information about the optics. One of the mostinsightful approaches to these calculations is based on the powerspectral density (PSD) distribution of the surface height. The majorproblem of measurement of a PSD distribution with an interferometricand/or atomic force microscope arises due to the unknown ModulationTransfer Function (MTF) of the instruments. The MTF characterizes theperturbation of the PSD distribution at higher spatial frequencies. Here,we describe a new method and dedicated test surfaces for calibration ofthe MTF of a microscope. The method is based on use of a speciallydesigned Binary Pseudo-random (BPR) grating. Comparison of atheoretically calculated PSD spectrum of a BPR grating with a spectrummeasured with the grating provides the desired calibration of theinstrumental MTF. The theoretical background of the method, as well asresults of experimental investigations are presented.

see the attached report