The child tax credit was enacted in 1997, as Congress addressed concerns that the income tax structure did not adequately reflect a family's reduced ability to pay taxes as family size increased. This report covers current law, legislative history, policy issues, and analysis as well as related information regarding the child tax credit.

This report contains information about the economy including an overview of the current economic conditions, fiscal and monetary policies, forecasts for 2008-2009, and other topics related to economic growth.

This report is intended as a primer to describe disability evaluation in general, including evaluations used by the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), in addition to civilian evaluations used by the Social Security Administration (SSA) and by workers' compensation programs.

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Effects of stray electrons are a main factor limiting performance of many accelerators. Because heavy-ion fusion (HIF) accelerators will operate in regimes of higher current and with walls much closer to the beam than accelerators operating today, stray electrons might have a large, detrimental effect on the performance of an HIF accelerator. A primary source of stray electrons is electrons generated when halo ions strike the beam pipe walls. There is some research on these types of secondary electrons for the HIF community to draw upon, but this work is missing one crucial ingredient: the effect of grazing incidence. The overall goal of this project was to develop the numerical tools necessary to accurately model the effect of grazing incidence on the behavior of halo ions in a HIF accelerator, and further, to provide accurate models of heavy ion stopping powers with applications to ICF, WDM, and HEDP experiments.

With a conventional military and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) threat from Saddam Hussein's regime removed, Iran seeks to ensure that Iraq can never again become a threat to Iran, either with or without U.S. forces present in Iraq. By supporting armed Shiite factions, Iran's influence in Iraq has at times hindered U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq, and has heightened the U.S. threat perception of Iran generally. However, Iran faces difficult choices in Iraq now that its protege Shiite factions, formerly united, are competing and often fighting each other.

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This project funded production process and tooling improvements to meet and sustain rate production for the W76-1 mechanism assemblies. Techniques were developed to allow evaluation and disposition of sealed stronglinks that resulted in prevention of the scrapping of numerous stronglinks and firesets. Improved processes and tooling allowed D-Test rates to be reduced in favor of E-Test, thus saving millions of dollars over the life of the program. Future system mechanisms will likely be smaller with tighter toleranced parts that will require improved inspection equipment and techniques. During the latter phase of this project, a method of improving inspection was developed that will have benefits for existing and future system mechanical assemblies.

This report discusses the permissible "political activities" in which organizations, associations, or businesses may engage if such entities receive federal funds through a grant or a federal contract.

In this paper we report on observations and interpretations of a new class of global MHD eigenmode solutions arising in gaps in the low frequency Alfven-acoustic continuum below the geodesic acoustic mode frequency. These modes have been just reported (Gorelenkov et al 2007 Phys. Lett. 370 70-7) where preliminary comparisons indicate qualitative agreement between theory and experiment. Here we show a more quantitative comparison emphasizing recent NSTX experiments on the observations of the global eigenmodes, referred to as beta-induced Alfven-acoustic eigenmodes (BAAEs), which exist near the extrema of the Alfven-acoustic continuum. In accordance to the linear dispersion relations, the frequency of these modes may shift as the safety factor, q, profile relaxes. We show that BAAEs can be responsible for observations in JET plasmas at relatively low beta <2% as well as in NSTX plasmas at relatively high beta >20%. In NSTX plasma observed magnetic activity has the same properties as predicted by theory for the mode structure and the frequency. Found numerically in NOVA simulations BAAEs are used to explain the observed properties of relatively low frequency experimental signals seen in NSTX and JET tokamaks.

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This report discusses the Social Security system that provides monthly benefits to qualified retirees, disabled workers, and their spouses and dependents.

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World Trade Organization (WTO) Members must grant immediate and unconditional most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment to the products of other Members regarding tariffs and other trade-related measures. Programs such as the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), under which developed countries grant preferential tariff rates to developing country goods, are facially inconsistent with this obligation because they accord goods of some countries more favorable tariff treatment than that accorded to goods of other WTO Members. This report discusses various issues regarding such trade preferences.

This report describes utility-scale wind power issues in the United States. The report is divided into the following sections: Background on wind energy; wind resources and technology; industry composition and trends; wind power economics; and policy issues.

This report analyzes the key factors affecting the various winter fuels markets, including consumption, production, reserves, and storage volumes.