A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (FFATA) is intended to increase the transparency of and accountability for the over $1 trillion that federal agencies award each year in contracts, loans, grants, and other awards. Among other things, the act required the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to establish, no later than January 1, 2008, a publicly accessible Web site containing data on federal awards. The act also authorized OMB to issue guidance to federal agencies on reporting award data and instructs agencies to comply with that guidance. OMB launched the site (www.USAspending.gov) in December 2007. GAO's objectives were to determine the extent to which (1) OMB is complying with FFATA requirements to make federal award data available, (2) federal agencies are reporting required award data, and (3) inconsistencies exist between data on the Web site and records at federal agencies. To do this, GAO reviewed FFATA requirements and OMB guidance, interviewed OMB and agency officials, and examined a sample of awards reported to OMB."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The increase in security incidents and continuing weakness in security controls on information technology systems at federal agencies highlight the continuing need for improved information security. To standardize and strengthen agencies' security, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), launched the Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC) initiative in 2007. GAO was asked to (1) identify the goals, objectives, and requirements of the initiative; (2) determine the status of actions federal agencies have taken, or plan to take, to implement the initiative; and (3) identify the benefits, challenges, and lessons learned in implementing this initiative. To accomplish this, GAO reviewed policies, plans, and other documents at the 24 major executive branch agencies; reviewed OMB and NIST guidance and documentation; and interviewed officials."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To reduce the threat to federal systems and operations posed by cyber attacks on the United States, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) launched, in November 2007, the Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) initiative, and later, in 2008, the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS), operationally known as Einstein, became mandatory for federal agencies as part of TIC. For each of these initiatives, GAO was asked to (1) identify their goals, objectives, and requirements; (2) determine the status of actions federal agencies have taken, or plan to take, to implement the initiatives; and (3) identify any benefits, challenges, and lessons learned. To do this, GAO reviewed plans, reports, and other documents at 23 major executive branch agencies, interviewed officials, and reviewed OMB and DHS guidance."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Beginning in 1993 and in subsequent legislation in 1997, 1999, and 2000, Congress established the Empowerment Zone (EZ), Enterprise Community (EC), and Renewal Community (RC) programs to reduce unemployment and generate economic growth in selected Census tracts. Urban and rural communities designated as EZs, ECs, or RCs received grants, tax incentives, or a combination of both to stimulate community development and business activity. The EZ, EC, and RC programs expired on December 31, 2009, though legislation has been introduced to extend the programs. The Community Renewal Tax Relief Act of 2000 (Public Law 106-554) mandated that GAO report to Congress by January 31, 2004; 2007; and 2010 on the EZ, EC, and RC programs and their effect on poverty, unemployment, and economic growth in designated program areas. We issued the first two mandated reports in 2004 and 2006. The purpose of this report is to make publicly available information we provided in a briefing to your staffs on January 29, 2010."

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Bi-weekly student newspaper from Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

Daily student newspaper from the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas that includes local, state and campus news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Dallas, Texas that includes local, state, and national news and advertising of interest to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community.

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This report is about Calculation of lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions for the renewable Fuel Standards

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Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

We investigate the thermodynamic states occurring in explosion fields from condensed explosive charges. These states are often modeled with a Jones-Wilkins-Lee (JWL) function. However, the JWL function is not a Fundamental Equation of Thermodynamics, and therefore cannot give a complete specification of such states. We use the Cheetah code of Fried to study the loci of states of the expanded detonation products gases from C-4 charges, and their combustion products air. In the Le Chatelier Plane of specific-internal-energy versus temperature, these loci are fit with a Quadratic Model function u(T), which has been shown to be valid for T < 3,000 K and p < 1k-bar. This model is used to derive a Fundamental Equation u(v,s) for C-4. Given u(v,s), one can use Maxwell's Relations to derive all other thermodynamic functions, such as temperature: T(v,s), pressure: p(v,s), enthalpy: h(v,s), Gibbs free energy: g(v,s) and Helmholz free energy: f(v,s); these loci are displayed in figures for C-4. Such complete equations of state are needed for numerical simulations of blast waves from explosive charges, and their reflections from surfaces.

The impact of carbon contamination on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) masks is significant due to throughput loss and potential effects on imaging performance. Current carbon contamination research primarily focuses on the lifetime of the multilayer surfaces, determined by reflectivity loss and reduced throughput in EUV exposure tools. However, contamination on patterned EUV masks can cause additional effects on absorbing features and the printed images, as well as impacting the efficiency of cleaning process. In this work, several different techniques were used to determine possible contamination topography. Lithographic simulations were also performed and the results compared with the experimental data.

Aerosol indirect effects continue to constitute one of the most important uncertainties for anthropogenic climate perturbations. Within the international AEROCOM initiative, the representation of aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions in ten different general circulation models (GCMs) is evaluated using three satellite datasets. The focus is on stratiform liquid water clouds since most GCMs do not include ice nucleation effects, and none of the model explicitly parameterises aerosol effects on convective clouds. We compute statistical relationships between aerosol optical depth ({tau}{sub a}) and various cloud and radiation quantities in a manner that is consistent between the models and the satellite data. It is found that the model-simulated influence of aerosols on cloud droplet number concentration (N{sub d}) compares relatively well to the satellite data at least over the ocean. The relationship between {tau}{sub a} and liquid water path is simulated much too strongly by the models. This suggests that the implementation of the second aerosol indirect effect mainly in terms of an autoconversion parameterisation has to be revisited in the GCMs. A positive relationship between total cloud fraction (f{sub cld}) and {tau}{sub a} as found in the satellite data is simulated by the majority of the models, albeit less strongly than that in the …

In this study, multilayer morphology near the key anomalies in grating-like structures, namely sharp step-edges and steep walls, are examined. Different deposition schemes are employed. Based on cross section TEM analysis an explanatory model describing the morphology of the successive layers is developed. A further insight into the periodicity and the general performance of the multilayer is obtained by EUV microscopy. The main distortions in multilayer structure and hence EUV performance are found to be restricted to a region within a few hundred nanometers from the anomalies, which is very small compared to the proposed grating period (50-100 {micro}m). These multilayer coated blazed gratings can thus be considered a viable option for spectral purity enhancement of EUV light sources.

We have used magnetic transmission X-ray microscopy (M-TXM) to image in-field magnetization configurations of patterned Ni{sub 80}Fe{sub 20} domain wall 'injection pads' and attached planar nanowires. Comparison with micromagnetic simulations suggests that the evolution of magnetic domains in rectangular injection pads depends on the relative orientation of closure domains in the remanent state. The magnetization reversal pathway is also altered by the inclusion of transverse magnetic fields. These different modes explain previous results of domain wall injection into nanowires. Even more striking was the observation of domain walls injecting halfway across the width of wider (>400 nm wide) wires but over wire lengths of several micrometers. These extended Neel walls can interact with adjacent nanowires and cause a switching in the side of the wire undergoing reversal as the domain wall continues to expand.

Much work has already been done on how both the resist and line-edge roughness (LER) on the mask affect the final printed LER. What is poorly understood, however, is the extent to which system-level effects such as mask surface roughness, illumination conditions, and defocus couple to speckle at the image plane, and currently factor into LER limits. Here, we propose a 'rule-of-thumb' simplified solution that provides a fast and powerful method to obtain mask roughness induced LER. We present modeling data on an older generation mask with a roughness of 230 pm as well as the ultimate target roughness of 50 pm. Moreover, we consider feature sizes of 50 nm and 22 nm, and show that as a function of correlation length, the LER peaks at the condition that the correlation length is approximately equal to the resolution of the imaging optic.

The particle removal efficiency (PRE) of cleaning processes diminishes whenever the minimum defect size for a specific technology node becomes smaller. For the sub-22 nm half-pitch (HP) node, it was demonstrated that exposure to high power megasonic up to 200 W/cm{sup 2} did not damage 60 nm wide TaBN absorber lines corresponding to the 16 nm HP node on wafer. An ammonium hydroxide mixture and megasonics removes {ge}50 nm SiO{sub 2} particles with a very high PRE, A sulfuric acid hydrogen peroxide mixture (SPM) in addition to ammonium hydroxide mixture (APM) and megasonic is required to remove {ge}28 nm SiO{sub 2} particles with a high PRE. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy (TOFSIMS) studies show that the presence of O{sub 2} during a vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) ({lambda} = 172 nm) surface conditioning step will result in both surface oxidation and Ru removal, which drastically reduce extreme ultraviolet (EUV) mask life time under multiple cleanings. New EUV mask cleaning processes show negligible or no EUV reflectivity loss and no increase in surface roughness after up to 15 cleaning cycles. Reviewing of defect with a high current density scanning electron microscope (SEM) drastically reduces PRE and deforms SiO{sub 2} particles. 28 nm SiO{sub …

EUV-wavelength actinic microscopy yields detailed information about EUV mask patterns, architectures, defects, and the performance of defect repair strategies, without the complications of photoresist imaging. The measured aerial image intensity profiles provide valuable feedback to improve mask and lithography system modeling methods. In order to understand the photon-flux-dependent pattern measurement limits of EUV mask-imaging microscopy, we have investigated the effects of shot noise on aerial image linewidth measurements for lines in the 22 and 16-nm generations. Using a simple model of image formation near the resolution limit, we probe the influence of photon shot noise on the measured, apparent line roughness. With this methodology, we arrive at general flux density requirements independent of the specific EUV microscope configurations. Analytical and statistical analysis of aerial image simulations in the 22 and 16-nm generations reveal the trade-offs between photon energy density (controllable with exposure time), effective pixel dimension on the CCO (controlled by the microscope's magnification ratio), and image log slope (ILS). We find that shot-noise-induced linewidth roughness (LWR) varies imersely with the square root of the photon energy density, and is proportional to the imaging magnification ratio. While high magnification is necessary for adequate spatial resolution, for a given flux density, …

The availability of defect-free masks remains one of the key challenges for inserting extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) into high volume manufacturing. yet link data is available for understanding native defects on real masks. In this paper, a full-field EUV mask is fabricated to investigate the printability of various defects on the mask. The printability of defects and identification of their source from mask fabrication to handling were studied using wafer inspection. The printable blank defect density excluding particles and patterns is 0.63 cm{sup 2}. Mask inspection is shown to have better sensitivity than wafer inspection. The sensitivity of wafer inspection must be improved using through-focus analysis and a different wafer stack.

The hydrogen peroxide decomposer columns at the 200 Area Effluent Treatment Facility (ETF) have been taken out of service due to ongoing problems with particulate fines and poor destruction performance from the granular activated carbon (GAC) used in the columns. An alternative search was initiated and led to bench scale testing and then pilot scale testing. Based on the bench scale testing three manganese dioxide based catalysts were evaluated in the peroxide destruction pilot column installed at the 300 Area Treated Effluent Disposal Facility. The ten inch diameter, nine foot tall, clear polyvinyl chloride (PVC) column allowed for the same six foot catalyst bed depth as is in the existing ETF system. The flow rate to the column was controlled to evaluate the performance at the same superficial velocity (gpm/ft{sup 2}) as the full scale design flow and normal process flow. Each catalyst was evaluated on peroxide destruction performance and particulate fines capacity and carryover. Peroxide destruction was measured by hydrogen peroxide concentration analysis of samples taken before and after the column. The presence of fines in the column headspace and the discharge from carryover was generally assessed by visual observation. All three catalysts met the peroxide destruction criteria by …