This report discusses the Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) Program, also known as fire grants of the FIRE Act grant program. The program provides federal grants directly to local fire departments and unaffiliated Emergency Medical Services (EMS) organizations to help address a variety of equipment, training, and other firefighter-related and EMS needs. This report also discusses the possible reauthorization of AFG and the related Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response Firefighters (SAFER) program.

Evaluation of ion-atom charge-changing cross sections is needed for many accelerator applications. A classical trajectory Monte Carlo (CTMC) simulation has been used to calculate ionization and charge exchange cross sections. For benchmarking purposes, an extensive study has been performed for the simple case of hydrogen and helium targets in collisions with various ions. Despite the fact that the simulation only accounts for classical mechanics, the calculations are comparable to experimental results for projectile velocities in the region corresponding to the vicinity of the maximum cross section. Shortcomings of the CTMC method for multielectron target atoms are discussed.

This report addresses considerations for Congress related to Charitable Standard Mileage Rate.

This report discusses the constitutional status of child pornography and summarizes federal statutes banning and regulating child pornography as well as selected court cases that have ruled on their constitutionality or interpreted them.

Propagation of an intense charged particle beam pulse through a background plasma is a common problem in astrophysics and plasma applications. The plasma can effectively neutralize the charge and current of the beam pulse, and thus provides a convenient medium for beam transport. The application of a small solenoidal magnetic field can drastically change the self-magnetic and self- electric fields of the beam pulse, thus allowing effective control of the beam transport through the background plasma. An analytic model is developed to describe the self-magnetic field of a finite- length ion beam pulse propagating in a cold background plasma in a solenoidal magnetic field. The analytic studies show that the solenoidal magnetic field starts to infuence the self-electric and self-magnetic fields when ωce > ωpeβb, where ωce = eβ/mec is the electron gyrofrequency, ωpe is the electron plasma frequency, and βb = Vb/c is the ion beam velocity relative to the speed of light. This condition typically holds for relatively small magnetic fields (about 100G). Analytical formulas are derived for the effective radial force acting on the beam ions, which can be used to minimize beam pinching. The results of analytic theory have been verified by comparison with the simulation …

This report discusses in more detail the evolution of a national critical infrastructure policy and the institutional structures established to implement it. The report highlights five issues of Congressional concern: identifying critical assets; assessing vulnerabilities and risks; allocating resources; information sharing; and, regulation.

The objective of this program was to understand the interaction of dislocations with a wide range of obstacles commonly produced in materials under irradiation (dislocation loops, voids, helium bubbles, stacking fault tetrahedra and radiation-induced precipitates). The approach employed in this program combined multi-scale modeling and dynamic in-situ and static ex-situ transmission electron microscopy experiments.

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This report explores the basic statutory and regulatory framework that governs asylum law. This entails an outline of the requirements an applicant must meet in order to obtain relief under asylum law and a discussion about the differences between the two main forms of relief for aliens facing removal from the United States: asylum and withholding of removal. It will then examine several important issues and controversies concerning female genital mutilation (FGM) and its effect on asylum law.

The research sponsored by this project has greatly expanded the ASSET corrosion prediction software system to produce a world-class technology to assess and predict engineering corrosion of metals and alloys corroding by exposure to hot gases. The effort included corrosion data compilation from numerous industrial sources and data generation at Shell Oak Ridge National Laboratory and several other companies for selected conditions. These data were organized into groupings representing various combinations of commercially available alloys and corrosion by various mechanisms after acceptance via a critical screening process to ensure the data were for alloys and conditions, which were adequately well defined, and of sufficient repeatability. ASSET is the largest and most capable, publicly-available technology in the field of corrosion assessment and prediction for alloys corroding by high temperature processes in chemical plants, hydrogen production, energy conversion processes, petroleum refining, power generation, fuels production and pulp/paper processes. The problems addressed by ASSET are: determination of the likely dominant corrosion mechanism based upon information available to the chemical engineers designing and/or operating various processes and prediction of engineering metal losses and lifetimes of commercial alloys used to build structural components. These assessments consider exposure conditions (metal temperatures, gas compositions and pressures), alloy …

The goal of this research was to develop new algorithmic techniques for solving large-scale numerical optimization problems, focusing on problems classes that have proven to be among the most challenging for practitioners: those involving uncertainty and those involving nonconvexity. This research advanced the state-of-the-art in solving mixed integer linear programs containing symmetry, mixed integer nonlinear programs, and stochastic optimization problems.

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Congress appropriated, in P.L. 110-329, approximately $4.36 billion for state and local homeland security assistance programs. This is approximately $135 million more than was appropriated in FY2008 ($4.22 billion). Congress chose not to fund the Real ID program in FY2009, however, it did appropriate funding ($2 million) for a new assistance program titled the Center for Counterterrorism and Cyber Crime at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont.

We have developed a borehole methodology to estimate formation thermal conductivity in situ with a spatial resolution of one meter. In parallel with a fiber-optic distributed temperature sensor (DTS), a resistance heater is deployed to create a controlled thermal perturbation. The transient thermal data is inverted to estimate the formation's thermal conductivity. We refer to this instrumentation as a Distributed Thermal Perturbation Sensor (DTPS), given the distributed nature of the DTS measurement technology. The DTPS was deployed in permafrost at the High Lake Project Site (67 degrees 22 minutes N, 110 degrees 50 minutes W), Nunavut, Canada. Based on DTPS data, a thermal conductivity profile was estimated along the length of a wellbore. Using the thermal conductivity profile, the baseline geothermal profile was then inverted to estimate a ground surface temperature history (GSTH) for the High Lake region. The GSTH exhibits a 100-year long warming trend, with a present-day ground surface temperature increase of 3.0 {+-} 0.8 C over the long-term average.

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Aqueous extract test is a laboratory technique commonly used to measure the amount of soluble salts of a soil sample after adding a known mass of distilled water. Measured aqueous extract data have to be re-interpreted in order to infer porewater chemical composition of the sample because porewater chemistry changes significantly due to dilution and chemical reactions which take place during extraction. Here we present an inverse hydrochemical model to estimate porewater chemical composition from measured water content, aqueous extract, and mineralogical data. The model accounts for acid-base, redox, aqueous complexation, mineral dissolution/precipitation, gas dissolution/ex-solution, cation exchange and surface complexation reactions, of which are assumed to take place at local equilibrium. It has been solved with INVERSE-CORE{sup 2D} and been tested with bentonite samples taken from FEBEX (Full-scale Engineered Barrier EXperiment) in situ test. The inverse model reproduces most of the measured aqueous data except bicarbonate and provides an effective, flexible and comprehensive method to estimate porewater chemical composition of clays. Main uncertainties are related to kinetic calcite dissolution and variations in CO2(g) pressure.

This Advanced Design and Production Technologies (ADAPT) project funded production process and tooling improvements to meet and sustain rate production for the program mechanism assemblies. Techniques were developed to allow evaluation and rework of sealed mechanisms that will result in prevention of the scrapping of future mechanisms. Future system mechanisms will likely be smaller with tighter tolerance parts that will require improved inspection equipment and techniques. During the latter phase of this project, the ISL (Intent Stronglink) PRT (Product Realization Team) developed designs and manufacturing processes at Sandia and at multiple KCP (Kansas City Plant) vendors, to produce glass ceramic headers to replace the brazed ceramic headers in the ISL. This achievement will result in significant production costs savings (unit cost and product scrap due to leaking headers).

Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) is a joint acquisition program between the Army and Air Force intended to procure a commercial off-the-shelf aircraft capable of meeting Army and Air Force requirements for intra-theater airlift. The C-27J Spartan, built by L-3 Communications, was awarded the JCA contract in 2007. This is an update of a report by William Knight and will be updated as conditions warrant.

Radiation induced degradation of polymeric materials occurs via numerous, simultaneous, competing chemical reactions. Though degradation is typically found to be linear in adsorbed dose, some silicone materials exhibit non-linear dose dependence due to dose dependent dominant degradation pathways. We have characterized the effects of radiative and thermal degradation on a model filled-PDMS system, Sylgard 184 (commonly used as an electronic encapsulant and in biomedical applications), using traditional mechanical testing, NMR spectroscopy, and sample headspace analysis using Solid Phase Micro-Extraction (SPME) followed by Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS). The mechanical data and {sup 1}H spin-echo NMR indicated that radiation exposure leads to predominantly crosslinking over the cumulative dose range studies (0 to 250 kGray) with a rate roughly linear with dose. {sup 1}H Multiple Quantum NMR detected a bimodal distribution in the network structure, as expected by the proposed structure of Sylgard 184. The MQ-NMR further indicated that the radiation induced structural changes were not linear in adsorbed dose and competing chain scission mechanisms contribute more largely to the overall degradation process in the range of 50 -100 kGray (though crosslinking still dominates). The SPME-GC/MS data were analyzed using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which identified subtle changes in the distributions of degradation …

Factors including intratumoral heterogeneity and variability in tissue handling potentially hamper the application of reverse phase protein arrays (RPPA) to study of the solid tumor functional proteome. To address this, RPPA was applied to quantify protein expression and activation in 233 human breast tumors and 52 breast cancer cell lines. Eighty-two antibodies that recognize kinase and steroid signaling events and their effectors were validated for RPPA because of the importance of these proteins to breast carcinogenesis. Reproducibility in replicate lysates was excellent. Intratumoral protein expression was less variable than intertumoral expression, and prognostic biomarkers retained the ability to accurately predict patient outcomes when analyzed in different tumor sites. Although 21/82 total and phosphoproteins demonstrated time-dependent instability in breast tumors that were placed at room temperature after surgical excision for 24 hours prior to freezing, the functional proteomic 'fingerprint' was robust in most tumors until at least 24 hours before tissue freezing. Correlations between RPPA and immunohistochemistry were statistically significant for assessed proteins but RPPA demonstrated a superior dynamic range and detected, for example, an 866-fold difference in estrogen receptor alpha level across breast tumors. Protein and mRNA levels were concordant (at p {le} 0.05) for 41.3% and 61.1% of assayed …

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This report defines the four specific groups of Filipino nationals who served under the command of the United States. It also outlines the Rescission Acts of 1946, benefit changes since 1946, current benefits for Filipino veterans by group, and recent legislative proposals and legislation.

Development and prototyping efforts directed towards construction of a new vertex detector for the STAR experiment at the RHIC accelerator at BNL are presented. This new detector will extend the physics range of STAR by allowing for precision measurements of yields and spectra of particles containing heavy quarks. The innermost central part of the new detector is a high resolution pixel-type detector (PIXEL). PIXEL requirements are discussed as well as a conceptual mechanical design, a sensor development path, and a detector readout architecture. Selected progress with sensor prototypes dedicated to the PIXEL detector is summarized and the approach chosen for the readout system architecture validated in tests of hardware prototypes is discussed.

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