Report that provides information about the reforms made by the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in December 2010, Congress's role in the reform process, and how the reforms could affect U.S. interests at the IMF.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO identified deficiencies in the design of key control procedures relied on by the Army and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service-Indianapolis (DFAS-IN) to detect errors in payroll disbursements to active duty Army military personnel. Specifically, GAO found that the Army's procedures for reviewing Unit Commander Finance Reports (UCFR) do not (1) provide for monitoring of required UCFR reviews to better assure detection of payroll errors, (2) require reporting on completed UCFR reviews in all cases, and (3) clearly establish time frames for completing and reporting on UCFR reviews. GAO's analysis of DFAS data on military pay debts and Army investigations of potential fraud completed over the past 2 years identified numerous instances of the effect of errors or irregularities in Army active duty payroll disbursements that went undetected for lengthy periods of time, including some that were not detected for up to 2 years or until the soldier left the Army. For example:"

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "USAID and USDA share broad objectives for nonemergency food aid programs; however, the agencies have established some planning processes to limit overlap in these programs. For example, both USAID and USDA have objectives that address financial services, infrastructure, agricultural productivity, agribusiness development, and child and maternal nutrition needs in food insecure countries. Some of these shared objectives are the result of authorizing legislation, through which Congress outlines nonemergency food aid objectives, while others are included in presidential initiatives and agency strategies. We also found that USAID and USDA nonemergency food aid programs shared common geographic focus areas in which they implemented similar activities. For example, in fiscal year 2011, both USAID and USDA had nonemergency food aid programs in Guatemala and Uganda and both programs were providing agricultural training. Furthermore, implementing partners in Guatemala and Uganda administering programs for both agencies told us that USAID and USDA have parallel administrative structures in the field and distinct requirements for performance management. However, we found that these agencies have established some processes to plan and coordinate country activities in efforts to limit overlap. For example, to improve coordination in nonemergency …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO found that DISH complied with the Special Master's examination. DISH provided the Special Master with information on its subscribers and royalty payments, and cooperated on a survey of all major network-affiliated broadcast stations nationwide. Since our March 23, 2012, report, the Special Master issued a report noting that there was no substantial evidence of improprieties by DISH regarding the Section 119 statutory license."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The QI program enrolled about 426,000 individuals nationwide in 2009--the most recent year for which comprehensive enrollment data were available--with expenditures of about $431 million. While QI enrollment increased 30 percent from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2009, program expenditures increased at a slightly faster rate, rising 39 percent during this time. On average, one quarter of individuals potentially eligible for the QI program were enrolled during fiscal years 2006 through 2009. However, the percentage of eligible individuals enrolled in the program climbed from 21 percent in fiscal year 2006 to 29 percent in fiscal year 2009. CMS does not have comprehensive national data on TMA enrollment and expenditures; the 41 states that had enrollment data reported that over 3.5 million individuals were enrolled in TMA in 2011, the most recent year for which complete enrollment data were reported by the highest number of states. Fewer states were able to report TMA expenditure data; however, 32 states reported TMA total expenditures of about $3.9 billion in 2011."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2010 required that the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) be amended within 180 days after enactment to require justifications for 8(a) sole-source contracts over $20 million. These justifications bring more attention to large 8(a) sole source contracts. The FAR Council, which updates the FAR, missed this mandatory deadline by almost 325 days. During this delay, based on data in the Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation (FPDS-NG), 42 sole-source 8(a) contracts with reported values over $20 million, totaling over $2.3 billion, were awarded without being subject to a justification. Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) representatives involved with the FAR Council's implementation of this rule attributed the delay primarily to the time required to establish a process for consulting with Indian Tribes and Alaska Native Corporations."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A small percentage of U.S. families saved in 529 plans in 2010, and those who did tended to be wealthier than others. According to the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), less than 3 percent of families saved in a 529 plan or Coverdell Education Savings Account (Coverdell)--a similar but less often used college savings vehicle also included in the SCF. While the economic downturn may have reduced income available for education savings, even among those families who considered saving for education a priority, fewer than 1 in 10 had a 529 plan (or Coverdell). Families with these accounts had about 25 times the median financial assets of those without. They also had about 3 times the median income and the percentage who had college degrees was about twice as high as for families without 529 plans (or Coverdells)."

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Income tax rates are at the center of many recent policy debates over taxes. Some policymakers argue that raising tax rates, especially on higher income taxpayers, to increase tax revenues is part of the solution for long-term debt reduction. This report examines the top tax rates since 1945 and analyzes the ways in which tax rates affect economic growth.

Under the Clean Water Act (CWA), an applicant for a federal license or permit to conduct any activity that may result in a discharge to waters of the United States must provide the federal agency with a Section 401 certification. This report discusses the certification, which provides states with two distinct powers: one, the power indirectly to deny federal permits or licenses by withholding certification; and two, the power to impose conditions upon federal permits by placing limitations on certification.

This Phase I SBIR program addressed the need for an improved manufacturing process for electropolishing niobium RF superconducting cavities for the International Linear Collider (ILC). The ILC is a proposed particle accelerator that will be used to gain a deeper understanding of the forces of energy and matter by colliding beams of electrons and positrons at nearly the speed of light. The energy required for this to happen will be achieved through the use of advanced superconducting technology, specifically ~16,000 RF superconducting cavities operating at near absolute zero. The RF superconductor cavities will be fabricated from highly pure Nb, which has an extremely low surface resistance at 2 Kelvin when compared to other materials. To take full advantage of the superconducting properties of the Nb cavities, the inner surface must be a) polished to a microscale roughness < 0.1 µm with removal of at least 100 µm of material, and b) cleaned to be free of impurities that would degrade performance of the ILC. State-of-the-art polishing uses either chemical polishing or electropolishing, both of which require hydrofluoric acid to achieve breakdown of the strong passive film on the surface. In this Phase I program, Faraday worked with its collaborators at …

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Over the past four years, REAC/TS has presented a number of case reports from its Radiation Accident Registry. Victims of radiological or nuclear incidents must meet certain dose criteria for an incident to be categorized as an “accident” and be included in the registry. Although the greatest numbers of “accidents” in the United States that have been entered into the registry involve radiation devices, the greater percentage of serious accidents have involved sealed sources of one kind or another. But if one looks at the kinds of accident scenarios that have resulted in extreme consequence, i.e., death, the greater share of deaths has occurred in medical settings.

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Magnetic fusion development toward DEMO will most likely require a number of fusion nuclear facilities (FNF), intermediate between ITER and DEMO, to test and validate plasma and nuclear technologies and to advance the level of system integration. The FNF mission space is wide, ranging from basic materials research to net electricity demonstration, so there is correspondingly a choice among machine options, scope, and risk in planning such a step. Readiness requirements to proceed with a DEMO are examined, and two FNF options are assessed in terms of the contributions they would make to closing DEMO readiness gaps, and their readiness to themselves proceed with engineering design about ten years from now. An advanced tokamak (AT) pilot plant with superconducting coils and a mission to demonstrate net electricity generation would go a long way toward DEMO. As a next step, however, a pilot plant would entail greater risk than a copper-coil FNSF-AT with its more focussed mission and technology requirements. The stellarator path to DEMO is briefly discussed. Regardless of the choice of FNF option, an accompanying science and technology development program, also aimed at DEMO readiness, is absolutely essential.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

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This poster introduces the Department of Energy (DOE) Human Subjects Research Database (HSRD), which contains information on all Department of Energy research projects involving human subjects that: are funded by DOE; are conducted in DOE facilities; are performed by DOE personnel; include current or former DOE or contract personnel.

This poster graphically presents data pertaining to occupational radiation exposure in terms of total effective dose (TED), primarily, but also collective dose and average measureable dose.