A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the last 25 years, pension coverage has shifted primarily from "traditional" defined benefit (DB) plans, in which workers accrue benefits based on years of service and earnings, toward defined contribution (DC) plans, in which participants accumulate retirement balances in individual accounts. DC plans provide greater portability of benefits, but shift the responsibility of saving for retirement from employers to employees. This report addresses the following issues: (1) What percentage of workers participate in DC plans, and how much have they saved in them? (2) How much are workers likely to have saved in DC plans over their careers and to what degree do key individual decisions and plan features affect plan saving? (3) What options have been recently proposed to increase DC plan coverage, participation, and savings? GAO analyzed data from the Federal Reserve Board's 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the latest available, utilized a computer simulation model to project DC plan balances at retirement, reviewed academic studies, and interviewed experts."

The 200-ZP-1 Groundwater Operable Unit (OU) is one of two groundwater OUs located within the 200 West groundwater aggregate area of the Hanford Site. The primary risk-driving contaminants within the 200-ZP-1 OU include carbon tetrachloride and technetium-99 (Tc-99). A pump-and-treat system for this OU was initially installed in 1995 to control the 0.002 kg/m{sup 3} (2000 {micro}g/L) contour of the carbon tetrachloride plume. Carbon tetrachloride is removed from groundwater with the assistance of an air-stripping tower. Ten extraction wells and three injection wells operate at a combined rate of approximately 0.017m{sup 3}/s (17.03 L/s). In 2005, groundwater from two of the extraction wells (299-W15-765 and 299-W15-44) began to show concentrations greater than twice the maximum contaminant level (MCL) of Tc-99 (33,309 beq/m{sup 3} or 900 pCi/L). The Tc-99 groundwater concentrations from all ten of the extraction wells when mixed were more than one-half of the MCL and were slowly increasing. If concentrations continued to rise and the water remained untreated for Tc-99, there was concern that the water re-injected into the aquifer could exceed the MCL standard. Multiple treatment technologies were reviewed for selectively removing Tc-99 from the groundwater. Of the treatment technologies, only ion exchange was determined to be …

This is the final technical report for DOE Outstanding Junior Investigator (OJI) Award, 'Systematic Studies of Heavy Ion Collisions to Search for Quark-Gluon Plasma', grant DE-FG02-02ER41219, Principal Investigator (PI) Fuqiang Wang. The research under the grant was divided into two phases. The first concentrated on systematic studies of soft hadron production at low transverse momentum (p{sub T}), in particular the production of (anti-)baryon and strangeness in heavy ion collisions at RHIC energies. The second concentrated on measurements of di-hadron and multi-hadron jet-correlations and investigations of medium response to jets. The research was conducted at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL with the Solenoidal Tracker At RHIC (STAR) experiment. The total grant is $214,000. The grant established a PC farm solely used for this research. The PC farm consists of 8 nodes with a total of 16 CPUs and 3 disk servers of total 2 TB shared storage. The current balance of the grant is $19,985. The positive balance is because an initial purchase of $22,600 for the PC farm came out of the PI's start-up fund due to the lateness of the award. The PC farm is an integral part of the Purdue Physics Department's computer cluster. The grant …

The Savannah River Site (SRS), a Department of Energy (DOE) facility, has over 30 million gallons of legacy waste from its many years of processing nuclear materials. The majority of waste is stored in 49 buried tanks. Available underground piping is the primary and desired pathway to transfer waste from one tank to another until the waste is delivered to the glass plant, DWPF, or the grout plant, Saltstone. Prior to moving the material, the tank contents need to be evaluated to ensure the correct destination for the waste is chosen. Access ports are available in each tank top in a number of locations and sizes to be used to obtain samples of the waste for analysis. Material consistencies vary for each tank with the majority of waste to be processed being radioactive salts and sludge. The following paper describes the progression of equipment and techniques developed to obtain core samples of salt and solid sludge at SRS.

Radiation damage to structural and cladding materials, including austenitic stainless steels, ferritic steels, and zirconium alloys, in nuclear reactor environments results in significant mechanical property degradation, including yield strength increases, severe ductility losses and flow localization, which impacts reliability and performance. Generation IV and advanced fuel cycle concepts under consideration will require the development of advanced structural materials, which will operate in increasingly hostile environments. The development of predictive models is required to assess the performance and response of materials in extreme Gen IV reactor operating conditions (temperature, stress, and pressure), to decrease the time to rapidly assess the properties of new materials and insert them into technological applications (Gen IV and Advanced Fuel Cycle Operations).

Results are presented for several simulated waste tests related to development of the fractional crystallization process. Product salt dissolution rates were measured to support pilot plant equipment design. Evaporation tests were performed to evaluate the effects of organics on slurry behavior and to determine optimum antifoam addition levels. A loss-of-power test was performed to support pilot plant accident scenario analysis. Envelope limit tests were done to address variations in feed composition.

The study of the transport of electrons, and the flow of energy into a solid target or dense plasma, is instrumental in the development of fast ignition inertial confinement fusion. An extreme ultraviolet (XUV) imaging diagnostic at 256 eV and 68 eV provides information about heating and energy deposition within petawatt laser-irradiated targets. XUV images of several irradiated solid targets are presented.

This procedure provides instructions forassembling the following CH packaging payload: Drum payload assembly Standard Waste Box (SWB) assembly Ten-Drum Overpack (TDOP)

Morphology- and layer-dependent electronic structure and dynamics at the PTCDA/Ag(111) interface have been studied with angle-resolved two-photon photoemission. In Stranski-Krastanov growth modes, the exposed wetting layer inhibited the evolution of the vacuum level and valence band to bulk values. For layer-by-layer growth, we observed the transition of electron structure from monolayer to bulk values within eight monolayers. Effective masses and lifetimes of the conduction band and the n=1 image potential state were measured to be larger for disordered layers. The effective mass was interpreted in the context of charge mobility measurements.

The Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies (HRC) at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) acquired quarterly and continuous data on water levels from approximately 26 boreholes that comprise a periodic monitoring network (Table 1) between October 2003 and September 2007. During this period we continued to observe and analyze short and long-term ground water level trends in periodically monitored boreholes. In this report we summarize and discuss four key findings derived from analysis of water level data acquired during this period: 1. Rapid ground water level rise after storm events in Forty Mile Canyon; 2. Seismically-induced ground water level fluctuations; 3. A sample of synoptic observations and barometric influences on short term fluctuations; and 4. Long term ground water level trends observed from mid-2001 through late-2005.

A treatability test plan has been prepared to address options for remediating portions of the deep vadose zone beneath a portion of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Hanford Site. The vadose zone is the region of the subsurface that extends from the ground surface to the water table. The overriding objective of the treatability test plan is to recommend specific remediation technologies and laboratory and field tests to support the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 remedial decision-making process in the Central Plateau of the Hanford Site. Most of the technologies considered involve removing water from the vadose zone or immobilizing the contaminants to reduce the risk of contaminating groundwater. A multi-element approach to initial treatability testing is recommended, with the goal of providing the information needed to evaluate candidate technologies. The proposed tests focus on mitigating two contaminants--uranium and technetium. Specific technologies are recommended for testing at areas that may affect groundwater in the future, but a strategy to test other technologies is also presented.

Production-cost models for high-power laser-diodes indicate systems of 10GW peak power coupled with facilitization of semi-conductor manufacturing capacity could yield costs below $0.02/Watt. This is sufficient to make IFE competitive with other nuclear power technologies.

We present new observations of Jupiter's ring system at a wavelength of 2.2 {micro}m obtained with the 10-m W. M. Keck telescopes on three nights during a ring plane crossing: UT 19 December 2002, and 22 and 26 January 2003. We used conventional imaging, plus adaptive optics on the last night. Here we present detailed radial profiles of the main ring, halo and gossamer rings, and interpret the data together with information extracted from radio observations of Jupiter's synchrotron radiation. The main ring is confined to a 800-km-wide annulus between 128,200 and 129,000 km, with a {approx} 5000 km extension on the inside. The normal optical depth is 8 x 10{sup -6}, 15% of which is provided by bodies with radii a {approx}> 5 cm. These bodies are as red as Metis. Half the optical depth, {tau} {approx} 4 x 10{sup -6}, is attributed to micron-sized dust, and the remaining {tau} {approx} 3 x 10{sup -6} to grains tens to hundreds of {micro}m in size. The inward extension consists of micron-sized (a {approx}< 10 {micro}m) dust, which probably migrates inward under Poynting-Robertson drag. The inner limit of this extension falls near the 3:2 Lorentz resonance (at orbital radius r = …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

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.

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

This report is about a free trade agreement between the United States and Bahrain.

An administrative report for the Texas Daily Newspaper Association board of directors meeting December 6, 2007. The document serves as a mean to update the board of directors, as well as association members, what is happening within TDNA as well as explain future goals and accomplishes.

A membership status report for the Texas Daily Newspaper Association board of directors meeting December 6, 2007 at the Headliners Club in Austin, Texas. The document states that TDNA expects to receive $404,103 in member dues for 2007 and gives further details on the dues and TDNA members in the rest of the report.

An introduction to the 2008 budget draft for the Texas Daily Newspaper Association board of directors meeting to be held on December 6, 2007 at the Headliners Club in Austin, Texas. The document states that TDNA's fund balance will be nearing $200,000 by the end of 2008 and that the 2008 budget draft produces a net balance of $37,322. The document goes into details about the expected income and expenses for the associations 2008 year.

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

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.