A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Information technology (IT) is critical to the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) ability to carry out its home ownership and community development mission. By statutory mandate, HUD is to develop and submit to Congress an expenditure plan for its efforts to modernize the department's IT environment that satisfies certain conditions, including being reviewed by GAO. GAO's objectives were to determine the extent to which (1) HUD's expenditure plan meets statutory conditions and (2) HUD has in place key institutional IT modernization management capabilities. To accomplish this, GAO assessed the plan against the statutory conditions and assessed department documentation of efforts to institutionalize IT modernization management capabilities against open GAO recommendations."

Military uniforms are procured through the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), an agency of the Department of Defense (DOD). DLA is DOD's largest combat support agency, providing worldwide logistics support for the United States (U.S.) military services, civilian agencies, and foreign countries. With headquarters in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, DLA operates three supply centers, one of which is the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia (DSCP), in Philadelphia, PA. DSCP is responsible for procuring nearly all of the food, clothing, and medical supplies used by the military; about 90% of the construction material used by troops in the field, as well as repair parts for aircraft, combat vehicles, and other weapons system platforms. According to DLA Troop Support's website, sales of goods exceeded $14.5 billion during 2009.

This report provides an overview of Senate standing committee sizes and ratios for the 94th Congress through the 111th Congress. Also included are data on permanent select committees with legislative jurisdiction. A table for each Congress shows the party division in the Senate, total number of seats on each committee, number of seats assigned to the majority and minority parties, and, where present, number of seats assigned to independents. The tables also provide the number of majority-minority caucus seat margins in the chamber and for each committees.

The President's FY2011 budget request, released February 1, 2010, included $733.3 billion in new budget authority for national defense. This report discusses and break downs these defense appropriations.

Deep C Wind, a consortium headed by the University of Maine will test the first U.S. offshore wind platforms in 2012. In advance of final siting and permitting of the test turbines off Monhegan Island, residents of the island off Maine require reassurance that the noise levels from the test turbines will not disturb them. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, at the request of the University of Maine, and with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy Wind Program, modeled the acoustic output of the planned test turbines.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) commitment to assuring the health and safety of its workers includes the conduct of epidemiologic surveillance activities that provide an early warning system for health problems among workers. The Illness and Injury Surveillance Program monitors illnesses and health conditions that result in an absence of workdays, occupational injuries and illnesses, and disabilities and deaths among current workers.

As a part of the US Department of Energy's Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity (AVTA), a model year 2010 Ford Fusion was procured by eTec (Phoenix, AZ) and sent to ANL's Advanced Powertrain Research Facility for the purposes of vehicle-level testing in support of the Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity. Data was acquired during testing using non-intrusive sensors, vehicle network information, and facilities equipment (emissions and dynamometer). Standard drive cycles, performance cycles, steady-state cycles, and A/C usage cycles were conducted. Much of this data is openly available for download in ANL's Downloadable Dynamometer Database. The major results are shown in this report. Given the benchmark nature of this assessment, the majority of the testing was done over standard regulatory cycles and sought to obtain a general overview of how the vehicle performs. These cycles include the US FTP cycle (Urban) and Highway Fuel Economy Test cycle as well as the US06, a more aggressive supplemental regulatory cycle. Data collection for this testing was kept at a fairly high level and includes emissions and fuel measurements from an exhaust emissions bench, high-voltage and accessory current/voltage from a DC power analyzer, and CAN bus data such as engine speed, engine load, and electric machine …

The proposed stainless steel beampipe for the LCLS undulator has a measurable shielding effect on the magnetic field of the LCLS undulators. This note describes the tests used to determine the magnitude of the shielding effect, as well as deviations in the shielding effect caused by placing different phase shims in the undulator gap. The effect of the proposed Steel strongback which will be used to support the beam pipe, was also studied. A hall probe on a 3 axis movement system was set up to measure the main component of the magnetic field in the Prototype Undulator. To account for temperature variations of the magnetic field of the undulator for successive tests, a correction is applied which is described in this technical note. Using this method, we found the shielding effect, the amount which the field inside the gap was reduced due to the placement of the beampipe, to be {approx}10 Gauss. A series of tests was also performed to determine the effect of phase shims and X and Y correction shims on the shielding. The largest effect on shielding was found for the .3 mm phase shims. The effect of the .3 mm phase shims was to increase …

This year the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) delivered nearly 900 million core hours of science. The research conducted at their leadership class facility touched our lives in both minute and massive ways - whether it was studying the catalytic properties of gold nanoparticles, predicting protein structures, or unearthing the secrets of exploding stars. The authors remained true to their vision to act as the forefront computational center in extending science frontiers by solving pressing problems for our nation. Our success in this endeavor was due mainly to the Department of Energy's (DOE) INCITE (Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment) program. The program awards significant amounts of computing time to computationally intensive, unclassified research projects that can make high-impact scientific advances. This year, DOE allocated 400 million hours of time to 28 research projects at the ALCF. Scientists from around the world conducted the research, representing such esteemed institutions as the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and European Center for Research and Advanced Training in Scientific Computation. Argonne also provided Director's Discretionary allocations for research challenges, addressing such issues as reducing aerodynamic noise, critical for next-generation 'green' energy systems. Intrepid - the …

Improved material for use in organic photovoltaics (OPV) devices, also called polymer-solar cells (PSC), has been developed. Increased ordering of the active layer of bulk heterojunction (BHJ) cells has been achieved by the use of inert silica spheres in conjunction with suitable fullerene derivatives. Silica spheres with average diameters between 10 and 15 nm, consistent with the exciton diffusion length in the active layer, have been added. The potential for significantly improved device performance due to a higher degree of photon absorption, enabled by increased light scattering, and a maximized interface between electron donor and acceptor, ensuring efficient exciton dissociation, has been demonstrated. A method allowing for the covalent attachment of fullerene derivatives to the silica sphere surface has been developed.

Emittance growth seen during the last commissioning run in the bunch compressor optics section, BC1, was blamed on inadequate dipole field quality. The significant linear and nonlinear field non-uniformities generated large horizontal dispersion errors beyond BC1. The linear dispersion after BC1 was corrected using two small 'corrector' quadrupoles placed in BC1 for this purpose, but the remaining nonlinear field caused growth of the normalized horizontal emittance of 40% or more. At best {gamma}{epsilon}{sub x} went from 1.2 {micro}m before BC1 up to 1.7 {micro}m after BC1. The problem was magnified by the larger-than-design energy spread in BC1 due to a long initial bunch length. To improve the field quality we decided to modify the two 'inner dipoles', BX12 and BX13, of the four magnet chicane during the four month down time in the Fall of 2007. Only the two inner dipoles were chosen because of the limited time available and the fact that the beam is particularly sensitive to field quality of the inner dipoles due to its very large transverse size when going through them. The modifications were completed in November and included new poles and a new pinning scheme. The outer dipoles were left unchanged.

We evaluated covariances in the neutron resonance region for capture and elastic scattering cross sections on minor structural materials, {sup 50,53}Cr, {sup 54,57}Fe and {sup 60}Ni. Use was made of the recently developed covariance formalism based on kernel approximation along with data in the Atlas of Neutron Resonances. Our results of most interest for advanced fuel cycle applications, elastic scattering cross section uncertainties at energies around 100 keV, are on the level of about 7-10%.

This report addresses the frequently asked questions related to the new technologies and procedures deployed for screening passengers at airport checkpoints.

This report discusses the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (PTPA) and the two types of formal dispute settlement it contains: 1) State-State and 2) investor-State. The report also discusses how the PTPA differs from earlier U.S. Free Trade Agreements (FTAs).

This report describes many of the questions that are debate n international climate change fora. It aims to inform Congressional decision-making on the magnitude and mechanisms of financial assistance that the United States may provide to low-income countries to address climate change.