A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Planned federal information technology (IT) spending has now risen to at least $81 billion for fiscal year 2012. As GAO has previously reported, although a variety of best practices exists to guide their successful acquisition, federal IT projects too frequently incur cost overruns and schedule slippages while contributing little to mission-related outcomes. Recognizing these problems, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has launched several initiatives to improve the oversight and management of IT investments. GAO was asked to identify (1) federal IT investments that were or are being successfully acquired and (2) the critical factors that led to the successful acquisition of these investments. To do this, GAO interviewed agency officials from selected federal departments responsible for each investment. In commenting on a draft of GAO's report, three departments generally agreed with the report. OMB and the other departments either provided minor technical comments, or stated that they had no comments at all."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "International flights bound for the United States continue to be targets of terrorist activity, as demonstrated by the October 2010 discovery of explosive devices in air cargo packages bound for the United States from Yemen. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is responsible for securing the nation's civil aviation system, which includes ensuring the security of U.S.-bound flights. As requested, GAO evaluated (1) the steps TSA has taken to enhance its foreign airport assessment program since 2007, and any remaining program challenges; (2) TSA's assessment results, including how TSA uses the results to guide future efforts; and (3) what opportunities, if any, exist to enhance the program. To conduct this work, GAO reviewed foreign airport assessment procedures and results, interviewed TSA and foreign aviation security officials, and observed TSA conduct a foreign airport assessment. While these interviews and observations are not generalizable, they provided insights on TSA's program. This is the public version of a sensitive report GAO issued in September, 2011. Information that TSA deemed sensitive has been omitted."

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

This report summarizes the work performed to evaluate multiple, cesium loading, and elution cycles for small columns containing SRF resin using a simple, high-level waste (HLW) simulant. Cesium ion exchange loading and elution curves were generated for a nominal 5 M Na, 2.4E-05 M Cs, 0.115 M Al loading solution traced with 134Cs followed by elution with variable HNO3 (0.02, 0.07, 0.15, 0.23, and 0.28 M) containing variable CsNO3 (5.0E-09, 5.0E-08, and 5.0E-07 M) and traced with 137Cs. The ion exchange system consisted of a pump, tubing, process solutions, and a single, small ({approx}15.7 mL) bed of SRF resin with a water-jacketed column for temperature-control. The columns were loaded with approximately 250 bed volumes (BVs) of feed solution at 45 C and at 1.5 to 12 BV per hour (0.15 to 1.2 cm/min). The columns were then eluted with 29+ BVs of HNO3 processed at 25 C and at 1.4 BV/h. The two independent tracers allowed analysis of the on-column cesium interaction between the loading and elution solutions. The objective of these tests was to improve the correlation between the spent resin cesium content and cesium leached out of the resin in subsequent loading cycles (cesium leakage) to help establish …

In the second half of 2007 a major upgrade has been implemented on the Frascati DA{Phi}NE collider in order to test the novel idea of Crab-Waist collisions. New vacuum chambers and permanent quadrupole magnets have been designed, built and installed to realize the new configuration. At the same time the performances of relevant hardware components, such as fast injection kickers and shielded bellows have been improved relying on new design concepts. The collider has been successfully commissioned in this new configuration. The paper describes several experimental results about linear and non-linear optics setup and optimization, damping of beam-beam instabilities and discusses the obtained luminosity performances. DA{Phi}NE [1] is the Frascati lepton collider working at the c m. energy of the {Phi} meson resonance (1020). It came in operation in 2001 and till summer 2007 provided luminosity, in sequence, to three different experiments which logged a total integrated luminosity of {approx} 4.4 fb{sup -1}. During these years the collider reached its best performances in terms of luminosity and background (L{sub peak} = 1.6 x 10{sup 32} cm{sup -2}s{sup -1} L{sub day} {approx} 10 pb{sup -1}) by means of several successive upgrades, relying on the experience gathered during the collider operations and …

We describe a lattice simulation of the masses and decay constants of the lowest-lying vector and axial resonances, and the electroweak S parameter, in an SU(3) gauge theory with N{sub f} = 2 and 6 fermions in the fundamental representation. The spectrum becomes more parity doubled and the S parameter per electroweak doublet decreases when N{sub f} is increased from 2 to 6, motivating study of these trends as N{sub f} is increased further, toward the critical value for transition from confinement to infrared conformality.

The design and performance optimization of particle accelerators are essential for the success of the DOE scientific program in the next decade. Particle accelerators are very complex systems whose accurate description involves a large number of degrees of freedom and requires the inclusion of many physics processes. Building on the success of the SciDAC-1 Accelerator Science and Technology project, the SciDAC-2 Community Petascale Project for Accelerator Science and Simulation (ComPASS) is developing a comprehensive set of interoperable components for beam dynamics, electromagnetics, electron cooling, and laser/plasma acceleration modelling. ComPASS is providing accelerator scientists the tools required to enable the necessary accelerator simulation paradigm shift from high-fidelity single physics process modeling (covered under SciDAC1) to high-fidelity multiphysics modeling. Our computational frameworks have been used to model the behavior of a large number of accelerators and accelerator R&D experiments, assisting both their design and performance optimization. As parallel computational applications, the ComPASS codes have been shown to make effective use of thousands of processors.

This proposal emphasizes investigations of the thermal and electrical transport properties of new and novel solid-state materials, with the specific goal of achieving higher efficiency solid-state thermoelectric materials. This program will continue to build a very strong collaborative research effort between researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ONRL) and Clemson University. We propose three new faculty hires and major equipment purchases in order to further enhance our level of national recognition. We will be positioned for competition for major non-EPSCoR DOE and DOD funding (i.e. NSF-Materials Research Center) and able to address many other areas of DOE and national importance. Graduate and undergraduate students will be extensively involved in this project, spending significant time at ORNL, thus gaining important training and educational opportunities. We will also include an outreach program to bring in outside students and faculty. An External Advisory Board of distinguished scientists will provide oversight to the program.

The thermal stability of formohydroxamic acid (FHA) was evaluated to address the potential for exothermic decomposition during storage and its use in the uranium extraction process. Accelerating rate calorimetry showed rapid decomposition at a temperature above 65 {degree}C; although, the rate of pressure rise was greater than two orders of magnitude less than the lower bound for materials which have no explosive properties with respect to transportation. FHA solutions in water and nitric acid did not reach runaway conditions until 150 {degree}C. Analysis by differential scanning calorimetry showed that FHA melted at 67 {degree}C and thermally decomposed at 90 {degree}C with an enthalpy of -1924 J/g. The energics of the FHA thermal decomposition are comparable to those measured for aqueous solutions of hydroxylamine nitrate. Solid FHA should be stored in a location where the temperature does not exceed 20-25 {degree}C. As a best practice, the solid material should be stored in a climate-controlled environment such as a refrigerator or freezer. FHA solutions in water are not susceptible to degradation by acid hydrolysis and are the preferred way to handle FHA prior to use.

New low emittance lattices have been designed for the asymmetric SuperB accelerator, aiming at a luminosity of 10{sup 36} cm{sup -2} s{sup -1}. Main optics features are two alternating arc cells with different horizontal phase advance, decreasing beam emittance and allowing at the same time for easy chromaticity correction in the arcs. Emittance can be further reduced by a factor of two for luminosity upgrade. Spin rotation schemes for the e{sup -} beam have been studied to provide longitudinal polarization at the IP, and implementation into the lattice is in progress.

Realizing the experimental potential of high-brightness, next generation synchrotron and free-electron laser light sources requires the development of reflecting x-ray optics capable of wavefront preservation and high-resolution nano-focusing. At the Advanced Light Source (ALS) beamline 5.3.1, we are developing broadly applicable, high-accuracy, in situ, at-wavelength wavefront measurement techniques to surpass 100-nrad slope measurement accuracy for diffraction-limited Kirkpatrick-Baez (KB) mirrors. The at-wavelength methodology we are developing relies on a series of wavefront-sensing tests with increasing accuracy and sensitivity, including scanning-slit Hartmann tests, grating-based lateral shearing interferometry, and quantitative knife-edge testing. We describe the original experimental techniques and alignment methodology that have enabled us to optimally set a bendable KB mirror to achieve a focused, FWHM spot size of 150 nm, with 1 nm (1.24 keV) photons at 3.7 mrad numerical aperture. The predictions of wavefront measurement are confirmed by the knife-edge testing.The side-profiled elliptically bent mirror used in these one-dimensional focusing experiments was originally designed for a much different glancing angle and conjugate distances. This work demonstrates that high-accuracy, at-wavelength wavefront-slope feedback can be used to optimize the pitch, roll, and mirror-bending forces in situ, using procedures that are deterministic and repeatable.

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The major responsibilities of the PI were identified as 1) the formulation of campaign plans, 2) the representation of AVP in various scientific communities inside and outside of ARM and the associated working groups, 3) the coordination and selection of the relative importance of the three different focus areas (routine observations, IOPs, instrument development program), 4) the examination and quality control of the data collected by AVP, and 5) providing field support for flight series. This report documents the accomplishments in each of these focus areas for the 3 years of funding for the grant that were provided.

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This report summarizes important recent developments in Pakistan and in Pakistan-U.S. relations. Obama Administration engagement with Pakistan has been seriously disrupted by recent events. A brief analysis of the current state of Pakistan-U.S. relations illuminates the main areas of contention and uncertainty. Vital U.S. interests related to links between Pakistan and indigenous American terrorism, Islamist militancy in Pakistan and Islamabad's policies toward the Afghan insurgency, Pakistan's relations with historic rival India, nuclear weapons proliferation and security, and the troubled status of Pakistan's domestic setting are reviewed. Ongoing human rights concerns and U.S. foreign assistance programs for Pakistan are briefly summarized, and the report closes with an analysis of current U.S.-Pakistan relations.

This report begins by defining and quantifying the criminal alien population, to the extent possible. The following sections describe current and historical programs designed in whole or in part to target this population, including CAP, Secure Communities, the § 287(g) program, and NFOP. After describing how these programs function and key differences among them, the report reviews their recent appropriations history and enforcement statistics.

Melter feeds for high-level nuclear waste (HLW) typically contain a large number of constituents that evolve gas on heating, Multiple gas-evolving reactions are both successive and simultaneous, and include the release of chemically bonded water, reactions of nitrates with organics, and reactions of molten salts with solid silica. Consequently, when a sample of a HLW feed is subjected to thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), the rate of change of the sample mass reveals multiple overlapping peaks. In this study, a melter feed, formulated for a simulated high-alumina HLW to be vitrified in the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant, currently under construction at the Hanford Site in Washington State, USA, was subjected to TGA. In addition, a modified melter feed was prepared as an all-nitrate version of the baseline feed to test the effect of sucrose addition on the gas-evolving reactions. Activation energies for major reactions were determined using the Kissinger method. The ultimate aim of TGA studies is to obtain a kinetic model of the gas-evolving reactions for use in mathematical modeling of the cold cap as an element of the overall model of the waste-glass melter. In this study, we focused on computing the kinetic parameters of individual reactions without identifying …