Eleven hours after execution of the Riola Event (at 0826 PDT on 25 September 1980) in hole U2eq of the Nevada Test Site (NTS), a release of radioactivity began. When the seepage stopped at about noon the following day, up to some 3200 Ci of activity had been dispersed by light variable winds. On 26 September, examination of the geophone records showed six hours of low-level, but fairly continuous, activity before the release. Electrical measurements indicated that most cables were still intact to a depth below the stemming platform. A survey of the ground zero area showed that the seepage came through cracks between the surface conductor and the pad, through cracks in the pad, and through a crack adjacent to the pad around the mousehole (a small hole adjacent to the emplacement hole). To preclude undue radiation exposure or injury from a surprise subsidence, safety measures were instituted. Tritium seepage was suffucient to postpone site activities until a box and pipeline were emplaced to contain and remove the gas. Radiation release modeling and calculations were generally consistent with observations. Plug-hole interaction calculations showed that the alluvium near the bottom of the plug may have been overstressed and that improvements …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Broadcasting Board of Governors' (BBG) broadcasting services, Radio Sawa, and the Alhurra satellite television networks--collectively known as the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc. (MBN)--currently aim to reach Arabic speakers in 19 countries and areas throughout the Middle East. Annual spending for current activities amounts to about $78 million. GAO reviewed MBN's (1) strategic planning to address competition in the Middle Eastern media market, (2) implementation of internal control, (3) procedures MBN has developed to ensure compliance with its journalistic standards, and (4) performance indicators and whether targets have been met."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Access to affordable broadband service is seen as vital to economic growth and improved quality of life. To extend broadband access and adoption, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act) provided $7.2 billion to the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) for grants or loans to a variety of program applicants. The agencies are awarding funds in two rounds and must obligate all funds by September 30, 2010. This report addresses the results of the first broadband stimulus funding round, the extent to which NTIA's and RUS's application reviews substantiated application information, the challenges facing NTIA and RUS in awarding the remaining funds, and actions taken to oversee grant and loan recipients. GAO analyzed program documentation, reviewed a judgmentally-selected sample of applications from first round award recipients, and interviewed agency officials and industry stakeholders."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The United States enacted legislation in May 2008 applying federal immigration law to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) subject to a transition period. The CNMI is subject to most U.S. laws but has administered its own immigration system, including admitting foreign workers, tourists, and foreign investors. The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretaries of the Interior, Labor, and State, and the Attorney General, has the responsibility to establish a transition program. GAO was asked to review how the legislation's implementation may affect the CNMI economy, in particular the CNMI's (1) labor market, including foreign workers; (2) tourism sector; and (3) foreign investment. This report is based on GAO's March 2008 report (GAO-08-466) and analysis of data on the CNMI's labor market, tourism sector, and foreign investment."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLBA) requires districts with schools that have not met state performance goals for 3 consecutive years to offer their low-income students supplemental educational services (SES), such as tutoring, if these schools receive Title I funds. SES are provided outside of the regular school day by a state-approved provider, with responsibility for implementation shared by states and districts. GAO examined (1) how SES participation changed between school years 2003-2004 and 2004-2005; (2) how SES providers are working with districts to deliver SES; (3) how states are monitoring and evaluating SES; and (4) how the Department of Education (Education) monitors and supports state implementation of SES. To collect data on SES, GAO surveyed all states and a nationally representative sample of districts with schools required to offer SES. We also visited 4 school districts, interviewed 22 SES providers, reviewed SES-related research, and interviewed Education staff."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Under the Federal Power Act, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issues licenses for up to 50 years to construct and operate nonfederal hydropower projects. These projects must be relicensed when their licenses expire to continue operating. Relevant federal resource agencies issue license conditions to protect federal lands and prescriptions to assist fish passage on these projects. Under section 241 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, parties to the licensing process may (1) request a "trial-type hearing" on any disputed issue of material fact related to a condition or prescription and (2) propose alternative conditions or prescriptions. In this context, GAO was asked to (1) determine the extent to which stakeholders have used section 241 provisions in relicensing and their outcomes and (2) describe stakeholders' views on section 241's impact on relicensing and conditions and prescriptions. GAO analyzed relicensing documents filed with FERC and conducted a total of 61 interviews with representatives from relevant federal resource agencies, FERC, licensees, tribal groups, industry groups, and environmental groups."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Medicaid managed care rates are required to be actuarially sound. A state is required to submit its rate-setting methodology, including a description of the data used, to the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for approval. The Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 required GAO to examine the extent to which states' rates are actuarially sound. GAO assessed CMS oversight of states' compliance with the actuarial soundness requirements and efforts to ensure the quality of data used to set rates. GAO reviewed documents, including rate-setting review files, from 6 of CMS's 10 regional offices. The selected offices oversaw 26 of the 34 states with comprehensive managed care programs; the states' programs varied in size and accounted for over 85 percent of managed care enrollment. GAO interviewed CMS officials and Medicaid officials from 11 states that were chosen based in part on variation in program size and geography."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO has reported in recent years on a number of human capital issues that have hampered the Department of State's ability to carry out U.S. foreign policy priorities and objectives, particularly at posts central to the war on terror. In 2002, State implemented the Diplomatic Readiness Initiative (DRI) to address shortfalls in the number and skills of State employees. This report discusses State's progress in (1) addressing staffing shortfalls since the implementation of DRI and (2) filling gaps in the language proficiency of foreign service officers and other staff. To accomplish these objectives, GAO analyzed staffing and language data and met with State officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Marine Corps received approximately $16 billion in appropriated funds between fiscal years 2006 and 2010 for reset of aviation and ground equipment that has been degraded, damaged, and destroyed during oversees contingency operations. Reset encompasses activities for repairing, upgrading, or replacing equipment used in contingency operations. The Marine Corps continues to request funding to reset equipment used in Afghanistan. GAO initiated this review under its authority to address significant issues of broad interest to the Congress. GAO's objectives were to evaluate the extent to which the Marine Corps has made progress toward (1) developing effective reset strategies for both aviation and ground equipment used in Afghanistan and (2) providing accurate estimates of total reset costs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The United States depends on avast network of pipelines to transport energy. GAO was asked to review the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) efforts to help ensure pipeline security. This report addresses the extent to which TSA's Pipeline Security Division (PSD) has (1) assessed risk and prioritized efforts to help strengthen pipeline security, (2) implemented agency guidance and requirements of the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (9/11 Commission Act) regarding pipeline security, and (3) measured its performance in strengthening pipeline security. GAO reviewed PSD's risk assessment process and performance measures and observed 14 PSD reviews and inspections scheduled during the period of GAO's review. Although these observations are not generalizable, they provided GAO an understanding of how PSD conducts reviews and inspections."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The recording and broadcast radio industries touch the lives of most Americans through the development and distribution of music. Congress is considering legislation, the proposed Performance Rights Act (H.R. 848), that would expand copyright protection for the public performance of sound recordings. The proposed act would require AM/FM radio stations that broadcast music to pay a royalty, and this royalty would be distributed to the copyright holder, performers, and musicians. This report addresses (1) the benefits received by the recording and broadcast radio industries from their current relationship, (2) the possible effects of the proposed act on the broadcast radio industry, and (3) the possible effects of the proposed act on the recording industry. To address these objectives, GAO analyzed data on music sales, broadcast radio airplay, and broadcast radio stations' revenues; calculated potential royalty payments; and interviewed stakeholders from both industries as well as experts and government officials. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Copyright Office of the Library of Congress reviewed a draft of this report. FCC noted that it has an interest in legislation that might have an adverse impact on …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the Defense Reform Initiative (DRI), focusing on: (1) the types of performance measures used to track progress toward achieving DRI program goals; (2) opportunities to add or improve on existing performance measures; and (3) performance measurement limitations."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the challenges facing the Financial Management Service (FMS) in implementing the cross-servicing provision of the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a legislative requirement, GAO reviewed how the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in conjunction with the states, ensures the cost-effectiveness of projects funded under the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, focusing on: (1) the approaches FEMA and the states use to ensure that program grants are targeted to cost-effective mitigation projects; and (2) whether the approaches ensure that the mitigation measures are cost-effective."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Health Care Financing Administration's (HCFA) efforts to safeguard Medicare payments, focusing on: (1) how Medicare program safeguard activities have changed from fiscal years (FY) 1995 to 1999 and what changes are planned for FY 2000; (2) HCFA's actions to better manage its program safeguard activities, which respond to key findings from GAO's previous audit reports and those of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG); and (3) the initial effects of the Medicare Integrity Program (MIP) on controlling Medicare fraud and abuse, including the adequacy of HCFA's data for measuring the effectiveness of its program safeguard activities."

In its operation to date TMX-U has reached values of beta which, for all except the hot electron beta, are close to the proposal values and has not encountered MHD stability problems. The hot electron beta values are presently limited by gyrotron output power and pulse length as well as ion confinement time. Further exploration of stability awaits full thermal barrier operation.

This memo summarizes simple calculations and results of the thermal analysis on the second stripper to be used in the driver linac of Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA). Both liquid (Sodium) and solid (Titanium and Vanadium) stripper concepts were considered. These calculations were intended to provide basic information to evaluate the feasibility of liquid (thick film) and solid (rotating wheel) second strippers. Nuclear physics calculations to estimate the volumetric heat generation in the stripper material were performed by 'LISE for Excel'. In the thermal calculations, the strippers were modeled as a thin 2D plate with uniform heat generation within the beam spot. Then, temperature distributions were computed by assuming that the heat spreads conductively in the plate in radial direction without radiative heat losses to surroundings.

This report summarizes the transient response of the DARHT-II Injector and the design of the ferrite damper. Initial commissioning of the injector revealed a rise time excited 7.8 MHz oscillation on the diode voltage and stalk current leading to a 7.8 MHz modulation of the beam current, position, and energy. Commissioning also revealed that the use of the crowbar to decrease the voltage fall time excited a spectrum of radio frequency modes which caused concern that there might be significant transient RF electric field stresses imposed on the high voltage column insulators. Based on the experience of damping the induction cell RF modes with ferrite, the concept of a ferrite damper was developed to address the crowbar-excited oscillations as well as the rise-time-excited 7.8 MHz oscillations. After the Project decided to discontinue the use of the crowbar, further development of the concept focused exclusively on damping the oscillations excited by the rise time. The design was completed and the ferrite damper was installed in the DARHT-II Injector in February 2006. The organization of this report is as follows. The suite of injector diagnostics are described in Section 2. The data and modeling of the injector transients excited on the rise-time …

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The primary purpose of the project was to identify materials and methods that will make the envelope of a house flood damage resistant. Flood damage resistant materials and systems are intended to be used to repair houses subsequent to flooding. This project was also intended to develop methods of restoring the envelopes of houses that have been flooded but are repairable and may be subject to future flooding. Then if the house floods again, damage will not be as extensive as in previous flood events and restoration costs and efforts will be minimized. The purpose of the first pair of field tests was to establish a baseline for typical current residential construction practice. The first test modules used materials and systems that were commonly found in residential envelopes throughout the U.S. The purpose of the second pair of field tests was to begin evaluating potential residential envelope materials and systems that were projected to be more flood-damage resistant and restorable than the conventional materials and systems tested in the first pair of tests. The purpose of testing the third slab-on-grade module was to attempt to dry flood proof the module (no floodwater within the structure). If the module could be …

This paper presents a case study of the residential heat pump water heater (HPWH) market. Its principal purpose is to evaluate the extent to which the HPWH will penetrate the residential market sector, given current market trends, producer and consumer attributes, and technical parameters. The report's secondary purpose is to gather background information leading to a generic framework for conducting market analyses of technologies. This framework can be used to compare readiness and to factor attributes of market demand back into product design. This study is a rapid prototype analysis rather than a detailed case analysis. For this reason, primary data collection was limited and reliance on secondary sources was extensive. Despite having met its technical goals and having been on the market for twenty years, the HPWH has had virtually no impact on contributing to the nation's water heating. In some cases, HPWH reliability and quality control are well below market expectations, and early units developed a reputation for unreliability, especially when measured against conventional water heaters. In addition to reliability problems, first costs of HPWH units can be three to five times higher than conventional units. Without a solid, well-managed business plan, most consumers will not be drawn …

The APS photoinjector drive laser system has been in operation since 1999 and is achieving a performance level exceeding the requirement of stable operation of the LEUTL FEL system. One remarkable number is the UV energy stability of better than 2% rms, sometimes less than 1% rms. This report summarizes the operation experience of the laser system and the improvements made along the way. We also outline the route of upgrade of the system and some frontier laser research and development opportunities in ultrabright electron beam generation.

A representative cross section of the literature on the disposal of geothermal brine was perused and some of the general information and concepts is summarized. The following sections are included: disposal statistics--Texas Railroad Commission; disposal statistics--Louisiana Office of Conservation; policies for administering salt water disposal operations; salt water disposal experience of Gulf Coast operators; and Federal Strategic Petroleum Reserve Program's brine disposal operations. The literature cited is listed in the appended list of references. Additional literature is listed in the bibliography. (MHR)

In conjunction with other divisions in the EE Department, the Nuclear Energy Systems Division is developing a Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) capability. Some of our needs in areas such as drafting, PC design, and IC design can be satisfied with existing turnkey systems. Many of our other needs, including modeling, analysis, document management and communication, software development, project management, and project communication will require the gradual development of an expanded computing environment. The purpose of this document is to describe our initial plans to implement a CAE facility.