This report discusses the Earthquake in Chile, the current condition, the response from Chilean government, international humanitarian response, as well as the U.S. humanitarian response. The report provides background information on Chile and U.S. relations and policy issues.

This report provides a brief historical background of Chile, examines recent political and economic developments, and addresses issues in U.S.-Chilean relations.

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to determining whether selected public safety and criminal justice agencies are conforming to the State's Position Classification Plan by ensuring the proper classification of program specialist positions.

This report discusses the MultiPollutant approaches to controlling Powerplant emissions regarding Clean Air after the Clean Air Interstate Rule(CAIR) decision.

Integrated energy, environment and economics modeling suggests electrical energy use will increase from 2.4 TWe today to 12 TWe in 2100. It will be challenging to provide 40% of this electrical power from combustion with carbon sequestration, as it will be challenging to provide 30% from renewable energy sources. Thus nuclear power may be needed to provide ~30% by 2100. Calculations of the associated stocks and flows of uranium, plutonium and minor actinides indicate that the proliferation risks at mid-century, using current light-water reactor technology, are daunting. There are institutional arrangements that may be able to provide an acceptable level of risk mitigation, but they will be difficult to implement. If a transition is begun to fast-spectrum reactors at mid-century, without a dramatic change in the proliferation risks of such systems, at the end of the century proliferation risks are much greater, and more resistant to mitigation. The risks of nuclear power should be compared with the risks of the estimated 0.64oC long-term global surface-average temperature rise predicted if nuclear power were replaced with coal-fired power plants without carbon sequestration. Fusion energy, if developed, would provide a source of nuclear power with much lower proliferation risks than fission.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Key scientific assessments have underscored the urgency of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide to help mitigate potentially negative effects of climate change; however, many countries with significant greenhouse gas emissions, including the United States, China, and India, have not committed to binding limits on emissions to date, and carbon dioxide levels continue to rise. Recently, some policymakers have raised questions about geoengineering--large-scale deliberate interventions in the earth's climate system to diminish climate change or its potential impacts--and its role in a broader strategy of mitigating and adapting to climate change. Most geoengineering proposals fall into two approaches: solar radiation management (SRM), which offset temperature increases by reflecting a small percentage of the sun's light back into space, and carbon dioxide removal (CDR), which address the root cause of climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Today's testimony focuses on GAO's preliminary observations on (1) the state of the science regarding geoengineering approaches and their effects, (2) federal involvement in geoengineering activities, and (3) the views of experts and federal officials about the extent to which federal laws and international agreements apply to geoengineering. To address these …

The Cumulus Humilis Aerosol Processing Study (CHAPS) provided a unique opportunity to study aerosol and cloud processing. Clouds play an active role in the processing and cycling of atmospheric constituents. Gases and particles can partition to cloud droplets by absorption and condensation as well as activation and impact scavenging. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) G-1 aircraft was used as one of the main platforms in CHAPS. Flight tracks were designed and implemented to characterize freshly emitted aerosols at cloud top and cloud base as well as within the cloud, i.e., cumulus humilis (or fair-weather cumulus), in the vicinity of Oklahoma City. Measurements of interstitial aerosols and residuals of activated condensation cloud nuclei were conducted simultaneously. The interstitial aerosols were measured downstream of an isokinetic inlet, and the activated particles downstream of a counter-flow virtual impactor (CVI). The sampling line to the Aerodyne Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (AMS) was switched between the isokinetic inlet and the CVI to allow characterization of non-activated interstitial particles outside of clouds in contrast to particles activated in clouds. Trace gases including ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and a series of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were also measured, as were key meteorological state parameters including liquid …

Project overview provides background on carbonic anhydrase transport mechanism for CO2 in the human body and proposed approach for ARPA-E project to create a synthetic enzyme analogue and utilize it in a membrane for CO2 capture from flue gas.

Carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) sensors are often deployed in commercial buildings to obtain CO{sub 2} data that are used, in a process called demand-controlled ventilation, to automatically modulate rates of outdoor air ventilation. The objective is to keep ventilation rates at or above design specifications and code requirements and also to save energy by avoiding excessive ventilation rates. Demand controlled ventilation is most often used in spaces with highly variable and sometime dense occupancy. Reasonably accurate CO{sub 2} measurements are needed for successful demand controlled ventilation; however, prior research has suggested substantial measurement errors. Accordingly, this study evaluated: (a) the accuracy of 208 CO{sub 2} single-location sensors located in 34 commercial buildings, (b) the accuracy of four multi-location CO{sub 2} measurement systems that utilize tubing, valves, and pumps to measure at multiple locations with single CO{sub 2} sensors, and (c) the spatial variability of CO{sub 2} concentrations within meeting rooms. The field studies of the accuracy of single-location CO{sub 2} sensors included multi-concentration calibration checks of 90 sensors in which sensor accuracy was checked at multiple CO{sub 2} concentrations using primary standard calibration gases. From these evaluations, average errors were small, -26 ppm and -9 ppm at 760 and 1010 …

This report provides background information and oversight issues for Congress on the Coast Guard's Deepwater acquisition programs for replacing and modernizing the service's aging fleet of deepwater-capable ships and aircraft.

This report provides background information and issues for Congress on the modernization of the Coast Guard's polar icebreaker fleet, which performs a variety of missions supporting U.S. interests in polar regions.

We summarize and combine direct measurements of the width of the W boson in data collected by the Tevatron experiments CDF and D0 at Fermilab. Results from CDF and D0 Run-I (1992-1995) have been combined with the CDF 200 pb{sup -1} results from the first period of Run-II (2001-2004) and the recent 1 fb{sup -1} result in the electron channel from D0 (2002-2006). The results are corrected for any inconsistencies in parton distribution functions and assumptions about electroweak parameters used in the different analyses. The resulting Tevatron average for the width of the W boson is {Lambda}{sub W} = 2,046 {+-} 49 MeV.

The use of methods to create large arrays of potential catalysts for the reaction H2O ½ O2 + 2H+ on the anode of an electrolysis system were investigated. This reaction is half of the overall reaction involved in the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. This method consisted of starting with an array of electrodes and developing patterned electrochemical approaches for creating a different, defined peptide at each position in the array. Methods were also developed for measuring the rate of reaction at each point in the array. In this way, the goal was to create and then tests many thousands of possible catalysts simultaneously. This type of approach should lead to an ability to optimize catalytic activity systematically, by iteratively designing and testing new libraries of catalysts. Optimization is important to decrease energy losses (over-potentials) associated with the water splitting reaction and thus for the generation of hydrogen. Most of the efforts in this grant period were focused on developing the chemistry and analytical methods required to create pattern peptide formation either using a photolithography approach or an electrochemical approach for dictating the positions of peptide bond formation. This involved testing a large number of different …

Combined results are presented on the search for a neutral Higgs boson in the di-tau final state using 1.8 fb{sup -1} and 2.2 fb{sup -1} of integrated luminosity collected at the CDF and D0 experiments respectively. Data were collected in p{bar p} collisions at a centre of mass energy of 1.96 TeV during RunII of the Tevatron. Limits are set on the cross section x branching ratio ranging from 13.6 pb to 0.653 pb for Higgs masses from 90 GeV to 200 GeV respectively. The results are then interpreted as limits in four different benchmark scenarios within the framework of the MSSM.

Presentation providing an overview of the roles, responsibilities, and funding for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice - Community Justice Assistance Division.

Complexation of Np(V) with N,N-dimethyl-3-oxa-glutaramic acid (DMOGA) was studied in comparison with its diamide analog, N,N,N{prime},N{prime}-tetramethyl-3-oxa-glutaramide (TMOGA), and dicarboxylate analog, oxydiacetic acid (ODA). Thermodynamic parameters, including the stability constant and the enthalpy of complexation, were determined by spectrophotometry and calorimetry. Single-crystal structure of NpO{sub 2}(H{sub 2}O)(DMOGA){center_dot}H{sub 2}O(c) was identified by X-ray diffractometry using synchrotron radiation. Like ODA and TMOGA, DMOGA forms a tridentate Np(V) complex, with three oxygen atoms coordinating to the linear NpO{sub 2}{sup +} moiety via the equatorial plane. The stability constants, enthalpy and entropy of complexation generally decrease in the order ODA > DMOGA > TMOGA, suggesting that the complexation is entropy driven and the substitution of a carboxylate group with an amide group reduces the strength of complexation with Np(V) due to the decrease in the entropy of complexation.

Numerical weather prediction models (ECMWF, NCEP) are evaluated using ARM observational data collected at the Southern Great Plains (SGP) site. Cloud forecasts generated by the models are compared with cloud microphysical quantities, retrieved using a variety of parameterizations. Information gained from this comparison will be utilized during the FASTER project, as models are evaluated for their ability to reproduce fast physical processes detected in the observations. Here the model performance is quantified against the observations through a statistical analysis. Observations from remote sensing instruments (radar, lidar, radiometer and radiosonde) are used to derive the cloud microphysical quantities: ice water content, liquid water content, ice effective radius and liquid effective radius. Unfortunately, discrepancies in the derived quantities arise when different retrieval schemes are applied to the observations. The uncertainty inherent in retrieving the microphysical quantities using various retrievals is estimated from the range of output microphysical values. ARM microphysical retrieval schemes (Microbase, Mace) are examined along with the CloudNet retrieval processing of data from the ARM sites for this purpose. Through the interfacing of CloudNet and “ARM” processing schemes an ARMNET product is produced and employed as accepted observations in the assessment of cloud model predictions.

The authors examine the effect of ignition site topology on the rate of reaction of a detonating material. The hot plane, hot line, and hot finite patch topologies are added to previous work on hot spot ignition. The hot plane and hot patch ignition forms would arise from ignition due to shear banding, and the hot line ignition form is shown to complete the topological set. The limiting behavior of instantaneous ignition is considered and used to construct simple reaction rate vs. extent of reaction forms. they fit simple form factor reaction rates, as might be available in most hydro codes with reactive flow modes, to the simple topologies. The difference between the rate vs. extent forms are examined with the objective that one should be able to use this information to distinguish between the different topological ignition forms.

This paper presents results of experiments on some data sets using bagging on the MLEM2 rule induction algorithm. Three different methods of ensemble voting, based on support (a non-democratic voting in which ensembles vote with their strengths), strength only (an ensemble with the largest strength decides to which concept a case belongs) and democratic voting (each ensemble has at most one vote) were used. Our conclusions are that though in most cases democratic voting was the best, it is not significantly better than voting based on support. The strength voting was the worst voting method.

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The effect of pressure on the crystal structure of white phosphorus has been studied up to 22.4 GPa. The ?alpha phase was found to transform into the alpha' phase at 0.87 +- 0.04 GPa with a volume change of 0.1 +- 0.3 cc/mol. A fit of a second order Birch- Murnaghan equation to the data gave Vo = 16.94 ? 0.08 cc/mol and Ko = 6.7 +- 0.5 GPa for the alpha phase and Vo = 16.4 +- 0.1 cc/mol and Ko = 9.1 +- 0.3 GPa for the alpha' phase. The alpha' phase was found to transform to the A17 phase of black phosphorus at 2.68 +- 0.34 GPa and then with increasing pressure to the A7 and then simple cubic phase of black phosphorus. A fit of a second order Birch-Murnaghan equation to our data combined with previous measurements gave Vo = 11.43 +- 0.05 cc/mol and Ko = 34.7 +- 0.5 GPa for the A17 phase, Vo = 9.62 +- 0.01 cc/mol and Ko = 65.0 +- 0.6 GPa for the A7 phase and , Vo = 9.23 +- 0.01 cc/mol and Ko = 72.5 +- 0.3 GPa for the simple cubic phase.

The purpose of this project is to develop a long shafted pump to operate at high temperatures for the purpose of producing energy with renewable resources. In Phase I of this three phase project we developed molten salt pump requirements, evaluated existing hardware designs for necessary modifications, developed a preliminary design of the pump concept, and developed refined cost estimates for Phase II and Phase III of the project. The decision has been made not to continue the project into Phases II and III. There is an ever increasing world-wide demand for sources of energy. With only a limited supply of fossil fuels, and with the costs to obtain and produce those fuels increasing, sources of renewable energy must be found. Currently, capturing the sun's energy is expensive compared to heritage fossil fuel energy production. However, there are government requirements on Industry to increase the amount of energy generated from renewable resources. The objective of this project is to design, build and test a long-shafted, molten salt pump. This is the type of pump necessary for a molten salt thermal storage system in a commercial-scale solar trough plant. This project is under the Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies …

This report describes the Select Committees on Intelligence and then the former Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, often cited as a model for a counterpart on intelligence. The study also sets forth proposed characteristics for a joint committee on intelligence, differences among these, and their pros and cons.

This report details the ways in which the Library of Congress supports and serves the members of Congress