This report discusses the current political state of Iran and its relationship with the United States. This report emphasizes in particular the Iranian presidential elections that took place on June 12, 2009; current U.S. efforts under President Obama to forge diplomatic talks with Iran while at the same time urging aggressive action in the way of certain economic and trade sanctions; and how current U.S. efforts under the Obama Administration differ and/or are similar to efforts under the Bush Administration.

The issue for Congress that is discussed in this report is how to respond to the Navy's proposed force structure and shipbuilding plans. Decisions that Congress makes on this issue could significantly affect future U.S. military capabilities, Navy funding requirements, and the Navy shipbuilding industrial base.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Established in 1964, Job Corps is the nation's largest residential, educational, and career training program for economically disadvantaged youths. Administered by the Department of Labor (Labor), Job Corps received about $1.6 billion in program year 2007 and served about 60,000 students. Some have expressed concern that Job Corps centers are not meeting planned enrollment goals, particularly for women. To address these concerns, GAO reviewed the (1) extent to which Job Corps centers are operating at or near capacity for residential students; (2) major factors that affect the recruitment and retention of residential students, particularly females; and (3) steps, if any, Labor has taken to address the recruitment and retention of residential students. To address these objectives, GAO analyzed Labor's enrollment data, surveyed Job Corps recruiters and center directors, and visited seven Job Corps centers."

This fact sheet tracks the current heads of government in Central and South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean. It provides the dates of the last and next elections for the head of government and the national independence date for each country.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relies heavily on information technology (IT) to carry out its responsibility for ensuring the safety and effectiveness of certain consumer products. Recognizing limitations in its IT capabilities that had been previously identified in studies by FDA and others, the agency has begun various initiatives to modernize its IT systems. GAO was asked to (1) evaluate the agency's overall plans for modernizing its IT systems, including the extent to which the plans address identified limitations or inadequacies in the agency's capabilities, and (2) assess to what extent the agency has put in place key IT management policies and processes to guide the implementation of its modernization projects. GAO analyzed FDA's plans to determine whether they followed best practices and addressed capability limitations, reviewed key management policies and processes, and interviewed agency officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "As a separately organized agency within the Department of Energy, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) administers the Stockpile Life Extension Program, whose purpose is to extend, through refurbishment, the operational lives of the weapons in the nuclear stockpile. NNSA encountered significant management problems with its first refurbishment for the W87 warhead. GAO was asked to assess the extent to which NNSA and the Department of Defense (DOD) have effectively managed the refurbishment of two other weapons--the B61 bomb and the W76 warhead. This report summarizes the findings of GAO's classified report on the refurbishment of the B61 bomb and W76 warhead."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), with the aid of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), plans to procure the next generation of geostationary operational environmental satellites, called the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R series (GOES-R). GOES-R is to replace the current series of satellites, which will likely begin to reach the end of their useful lives in approximately 2014. This series is considered critical to the United States' ability to maintain the continuity of data required for weather forecasting through the year 2028. GAO was asked to (1) determine the status of the GOES-R program, (2) evaluate whether plans for the acquisition address problems experienced on similar programs, and (3) determine whether NOAA's plan will be adequate to support current data requirements. To do so, GAO analyzed contractor and program data and interviewed officials from NOAA and NASA."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2008, GAO issued a report and testimony revealing gross mismanagement of property at the Indian Health Service (IHS). GAO found that 5,000 items with an acquisition value of $15.8 million were reported lost or stolen for fiscal years 2004 through 2007. GAO attributed the property mismanagement and waste to weak internal controls. GAO made 10 recommendations to IHS. IHS ultimately agreed to implement all 10 recommendations. Given the extent and seriousness of the property management problems at IHS, GAO was asked to determine (1) whether property loss, property theft, and wasteful spending continue at IHS; and (2) to what extent IHS made progress in implementing GAO's prior recommendations. GAO analyzed IHS property records from fiscal year 2008 through January 2009, conducted a full physical inventory at IHS headquarters, and performed a probability sample of information technology equipment inventory at six IHS field locations. GAO also examined IHS policies, analyzed documents, and conducted interviews with IHS officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of the Treasury (Treasury) provided $81.1 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) aid to the U.S. auto industry, including $62 billion in restructuring loans to Chrysler Group LLC (Chrysler) and General Motors Company (GM). In return, Treasury received 9.85 percent equity in Chrysler, 60.8 percent equity and $2.1 billion in preferred stock in GM, and $13.8 billion in debt obligations between the two companies. As part of Government Accountability Office's (GAO) statutory responsibilities for providing oversight of TARP, this report addresses (1) steps Chrysler and GM have taken since December 2008 to reorganize, (2) Treasury's oversight of its financial interest in the companies, and (3) considerations for Treasury in monitoring and selling its equity in the companies. GAO reviewed documents on the auto companies' restructuring and spoke with officials at Treasury, Chrysler, and GM, and individuals with expertise in finance and the auto industry."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "From fiscal year 2003 through fiscal year 2009, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) allocated about $5 billion for the Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grant program to enhance regional preparedness capabilities in the nation's highest risk urban areas (UASI regions). The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administers this program. The Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (9/11 Act) required FEMA to change the size of the geographical areas used to assess UASI regions' risk. The conference report accompanying the Consolidated Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2008 directed GAO to assess FEMA's efforts to build regional preparedness through the UASI program, and determine how the 9/11 Act change affected UASI regions. This report addresses (1) the extent to which FEMA assesses how UASI regions' collaborative efforts build preparedness capabilities, and (2) how UASI officials described their collaboration efforts and changes resulting from the 9/11 Act. GAO surveyed all 49 UASI regions that received funding prior to the 9/11 Act change, and visited 6 regions selected based on factors such as length of participation. GAO also reviewed FEMA's grant guidance and monitoring systems."

In February and March 2009, the Obama Administration announced its overall plans to increase troop levels in Afghanistan and decrease troop levels in Iraq for 2009 through 2011. Using several Department of Defense (DOD) data reports, this report describes, analyzes, and estimates deployed troop strength from the 9/11 attacks to FY2012 to provide Congress with a tool to assess current and future DOD war funding requests; implications for the U.S. military presence in the region; and deployment burdens on individual service members and each of the services.

Trafficking in persons (TIP) for the purposes of exploitation is believed to be one of the most prolific areas of international criminal activity and is of significant concern to the United States and the international community. This report discusses the global and ongoing problem of TIP in detail, as well as anti-TIP programs and U.S. and international efforts to combat TIP.

This report discusses the mission of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Afghanistan, the purpose of which is to stabilize and reconstruct Afghanistan by combating emerging threats such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This report also discusses how the Obama Administration has made the Afghanistan conflict a policy priority, and what this stance could mean for potential future endeavors.

The world has entered a global recession that is causing widespread business contraction, increases in unemployment, and shrinking government revenues. The process for coping with the crisis by countries across the globe has been manifest in four basic phases. The first has been intervention to contain the contagion and restore confidence in the system. The second has been coping with the secondary effects of the crisis, particularly the global recession and flight of capital from countries in emerging markets and elsewhere that have been affected by the crisis. The third phase of this process is to make changes in the financial system to reduce risk and prevent future crises. The fourth phase of the process is dealing with political, social, and security effects of the financial turmoil. The role for Congress in this financial crisis is multifaceted. This report describes this role, as well as the financial crisis in general, in detail.

This report discusses Iraq's political system, which has been restructured through a U.S.-supported election process. The Iraqi government is increasingly characterized by peaceful competition rather than violence, but sectarianism and ethnic and factional infighting still remain. This report discusses issues relating to opponents of the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and also discusses the atmosphere of nationwide provincial elections. The report also addresses the Obama Administration's plan to reduce the U.S. troop presence in Iraq by August 2010 and briefly addresses the Iranian influence in Iraq.

With increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, the extent of effects on the ocean and marine resources is an increasing concern. One aspect of this issue is the ongoing process whereby seawater becomes acidified (i.e., ocean acidification) as more CO2 dissolves in it, causing hydrogen ion concentration in seawater to increase. While not yet fully understood, the ecological and economic consequences of ocean acidification could be substantial. Congress is beginning to focus attention on better understanding ocean acidification and determining how this concern might be addressed.

Coupled bunch longitudinal stability in the presence of high frequency impedances is considered. A frequency domain technique is developed and compared with simulations. The frequency domain technique allows for absolute stability tests and is applied to the problem of longitudinal stability in RHIC with the new 56 MHz RF system.

The TSTC project is a multi-university collaborative effort to develop a high-fidelity turbulent reacting flow simulation capability utilizing terascale, massively parallel computer technology. The main paradigm of our approach is direct numerical simulation (DNS) featuring highest temporal and spatial accuracy, allowing quantitative observations of the fine-scale physics found in turbulent reacting flows as well as providing a useful tool for development of sub-models needed in device-level simulations. The code named S3D, developed and shared with Chen and coworkers at Sandia National Laboratories, has been enhanced with new numerical algorithms and physical models to provide predictive capabilities for spray dynamics, combustion, and pollutant formation processes in turbulent combustion. Major accomplishments include improved characteristic boundary conditions, fundamental studies of auto-ignition in turbulent stratified reactant mixtures, flame-wall interaction, and turbulent flame extinction by water spray. The overarching scientific issue in our recent investigations is to characterize criticality phenomena (ignition/extinction) in turbulent combustion, thereby developing unified criteria to identify ignition and extinction conditions. The computational development under TSTC has enabled the recent large-scale 3D turbulent combustion simulations conducted at Sandia National Laboratories.

Based on the contributions of the chromatic sextupole families to the half-integer resonance driving terms, we discuss how to sort the chromatic sextupoles in the arcs of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) to easily and effectively correct the second order chromaticities. We propose a method with 4 knobs corresponding to 4 pairs of chromatic sextupole families to online correct the second order chromaticities. Numerical simulation justifies this method, showing that this method reduces the unbalance in the correction strengths of sextupole families and avoids the reversal of sextupole polarities. Therefore, this method yields larger dynamic apertures for the proposed RHIC 2009 100GeV polarized proton run lattices.

A beam excited 56 MHz Radio Frequency (RF) Niobium Quarter Wave Resonator (QWR) has been proposed to enhance RHIC beam luminosity and bunching. Being a RF cavity, multipacting is expected; therefore an extensive study was carried out with the Multipac 2.1 2D simulation code. The study revealed that multipacting occurs in various bands up to peak surface electric field 50 kV/m and is concentrated mostly above the beam gap and on the outer conductor. To suppress multipacting, a ripple structure was introduced to the outer conductor and the phenomenon was successfully eliminated from the cavity.

In the article we evaluate the dynamic apertures of the proposed lattices for the coming Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) 2009 polarized proton (pp) 100 GeV and 250 GeV runs. One goal of this study is to find out the appropriate {beta}* for the coming 2009 pp runs. Another goal is to study the effect of second order chromaticity correction in the RHIC pp runs.

There is a strong interest in low-energy RHIC operations in the single-beam total energy range of 2.5-25 GeV/nucleon [1-3]. Collisions in this energy range, much of which is below nominal RHIC injection energy, will help to answer one of the key questions in the field of QeD about the existence and location of a critical point on the QCD phase diagram [4]. There have been several short test runs during 2006-2008 RHIC operations to evaluate RHIC operational challenges at these low energies [5]. Beam lifetimes observed during the test runs were limited by machine nonlinearities. This performance limit can be improved with sufficient machine tuning. The next luminosity limitation comes from transverse and longitudinal Intra-beam Scattering (IBS), and ultimately from the space-charge limit. Detailed discussion of limiting beam dynamics effects and possible luminosity improvement with electron cooling can be found in Refs. [6-8]. For low-energy RHIC operation, particle losses from the RF bucket are of particular concern since the longitudinal beam size is comparable to the existing RF bucket at low energies. However, operation below transition energy allows us to exploit an Intra-beam Scattering (IBS) feature that drives the transverse and longitudinal beam temperatures towards equilibrium by minimizing the longitudinal …

This research consisted of a theoretical investigation of the properties of surface-based nanostructures, having as a main goal the deeper understanding of the atomic-scale mechanisms responsible for the formation and stability of such structures. This understanding will lead to the design of improved systems for applications in diverse areas such as novel electronic devices, sensors, field-effect transistors, substrates with enhanced hydro-phobic (water repelling) or hydro-philic (water absorbing) behavior for coatings of various surfaces used in bioengineering, flexible displays, organic photovoltaics, etc. The research consisted of developing new theoretical methodologies and applying them to a wide range of interesting physical systems. Highlights of the new methodologies include techniques for bridging different scales, from the quantum-mechanical electronic level to the meso-scopic level of large molecular structures such as DNA, carbon nanotubes and two-dimensional assemblies of organic molecules. These methodologies were successfully applied to investigate interactions between systems that are large on the atomic scale (reaching the scale of microns in length or milliseconds in time), but still incorporating all the essential elements of the atomic-scale structure. While the research performed here did not address applications directly, the implications of its finding are important in guiding experimental searches and in coming up with …

The beam lifetime is an important parameter for any storage ring. For protons in RHIC it is dominated by the non-linear nature of the head-on collisions that causes the particles to diffuse outside the stable area in phase space. In this report we show results from diffusion simulation and lifetime calculation for the 2006 and 2008 polarized proton runs in RHIC.