This report discusses the current political conditions in Guinea, as well as the considerable changes to Guinea's political landscape that have taken place over the past two years. The report also discusses U.S. interests and associated policy challenges in Guinea, centering around democratization, counternarcotics issues, regional stability, and socioeconomic development, among other issues.

This report briefly discusses non-legislative debate in the House of Representatives, specifically special order speeches, one-minute speeches, and morning hour debate. The purpose of these practices is to permit Members to address the House for specified durations and at specified times of their own choosing, outside the consideration of legislative business.

This report briefly discusses the processes of sponsoring, cosponsoring, and gaining cosponsors for bills in the House of Representatives.

The nation's energy choices embody many tradeoffs. Water use is one of those tradeoffs. The energy choices before Congress represent vastly different demands on domestic freshwater. The energy sector's water consumption is projected to rise 50% from 2005 to 2030. This rising water demand derives from both an increase in the amount of energy demanded and shifts to more water-intense energy sources and technologies. This report discusses this issue as well as related issues that may arise for the 112th Congress.

National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) are often of considerable interest to many Members of Congress. NIEs address issues of major national security importance which may require congressional action. However, NIEs have occasionally proved unreliable because they were based on insufficient evidence or contained faulty analysis. This report explores this issue and discusses the NIE process and its relevance to congressional policymaking.

This report briefly discusses the procedure for introducing a bill or resolution in the House of Representatives.

This report discusses U.S.-Venezuela relations, including an historical overview. It also discusses the current political conditions in Venezuela, and certain Venezuela-related concerns the 111th Congress faces, such as Venezuela's human rights situation and its deepening relations with Iran.

This report discusses the implications of North Korea's May 25, 2009, underground nuclear test, related issues such as the the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), containment of radioactive materials, and other concerns for Congress, such as improving nuclear monitoring capability.

The United States and Russia signed a new strategic arms reduction treaty - known as New START - on April 8, 2010. This treaty is designed to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START), which expired, after 15 years of implementation, on December 5, 2009. This report provides an overview of New START, including a comparison to the original START Treaty, the belief of the Obama Administration and outside analysts that New START will enhance U.S. national security, and the criticisms of those who say that New START (and, indeed, the entire issue of U.S.-Russian arms control) is a distraction from more important items on the nonproliferation agenda.

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

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Bremstrahlung Isochromat Spectroscopy (BIS). The XES spectra were collected using a Specs electron gun for the excitation and the XES 350 grating monochromator and channel plate system from Scienta as the photon detection. Spectra were collected in 'normal mode,' where the electron gun kinetic energy (KE) and the energy position of the center of the channel plate were both fixed and the energy distribution in the photon (hv) spectrum was derived from the intensities distributed across the channel plate detector in the energy dispersal direction. The polycrystalline Ce sample was oxidized by exposure to air at ambient pressures. After introduction to the ultra-high vacuum system, the oxidized sample was bombarded with Ar, to clean the topmost surface region and stabilize the surface and near surface regions. Although CeO{sub 2} would be the thermodynamically preferred composition in an oxygen rich environment, the combination of a vacuum environment and ion etching may have driven the near surface region into a Ce{sub 2}O{sub 3} stoichiometry. XES data collection occurred with the sample at or near room temperature. The base pressure of the system was 3 x 10{sup -10} torr, but the pressure changed depending the energy and current of the electron gun. For …

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently completed a rulemaking process in which it amended the existing energy efficiency standards for residential water heaters. A key factor in DOE?s consideration of new standards is the economic impacts on consumers. Determining such impacts requires a comparison of the additional first cost of energy efficiency design options with the savings in operating costs. This paper describes the method used to conduct the life-cycle cost (LCC) and payback period analysis for gas and electric storage water heaters. It presents the estimated change in LCC associated with more energy-efficient equipment, including heat pump electric water heaters and condensing gas water heaters, for a representative sample of U.S. homes. The study included a detailed accounting of installation costs for the considered design options, with a focus on approaches for accommodating the larger dimensions of more efficient water heaters. For heat pump water heaters, the study also considered airflow requirements, venting issues, and the impact of these products on the indoor environment. The results indicate that efficiency improvement relative to the baseline design reduces the LCC in the majority of homes for both gas and electric storage water heaters, and heat pump electric water heaters and …

The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) is the leading scientific computing facility for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, providing high-performance computing (HPC) resources to more than 3,000 researchers working on about 400 projects. NERSC provides large-scale computing resources and, crucially, the support and expertise needed for scientists to make effective use of them. In November 2009, NERSC, DOE's Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR), and DOE's Office of High Energy Physics (HEP) held a workshop to characterize the HPC resources needed at NERSC to support HEP research through the next three to five years. The effort is part of NERSC's legacy of anticipating users needs and deploying resources to meet those demands. The workshop revealed several key points, in addition to achieving its goal of collecting and characterizing computing requirements. The chief findings: (1) Science teams need access to a significant increase in computational resources to meet their research goals; (2) Research teams need to be able to read, write, transfer, store online, archive, analyze, and share huge volumes of data; (3) Science teams need guidance and support to implement their codes on future architectures; and (4) Projects need predictable, rapid turnaround of their computational …

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The first and second field integrals in the LCLS undulators must be below a specified limit. To accurately measure the field integrals, a long coil system is used. This note describes a set of tests which were used to check the performance of the long coil system. A long coil system was constructed to measure the first and second field integrals of the LCLS undulators. The long coil measurements of the background fields were compared to field integrals obtained by sampling the background fields and numerically calculating the integrals. This test showed that the long coil has the sensitivity required to measure at the levels specified for the field integrals. Tests were also performed by making long coil measurements of short magnets of known strength placed at various positions The long coil measurements agreed with the known field integrals obtained by independent measurements and calculation. Our tests showed that the long coil measurements are a valid way to determine whether the LCLS undulator field integrals are below the specified limits.

National Security Technologies, LLC, initiated an evaluation of treatment technologies that they would manage and operate as part of the mixed low-level waste (MLLW) disposal facilities at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). The NNSS Disposal Facility has been receiving radioactive waste from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) complex since the 1960s, and since 2005 the NNSS Disposal Facility has been receiving radioactive and MLLW for disposal only. In accordance with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), all mixed waste must meet land disposal restrictions (LDRs) prior to disposal. Compliance with LDRs is attained through treatment of the waste to mitigate the characteristics of the listed waste hazard. Presently, most generators utilize commercial capacity for waste treatment prior to shipment to the NNSS Disposal Facility. The objectives of this evaluation are to provide a conceptual study of waste treatment needs (i.e., demand), identify potential waste treatment technologies to meet demand, and analyze implementation considerations for initiating MLLW treatment capacity at the NNSS Disposal Facility. A review of DOE complex waste generation forecast data indicates that current and future Departmental demand for mixed waste treatment capacity will remain steady and strong. Analysis and screening of over 30 treatment technologies …

This note presents the LCLS undulator fiducialization plan. The undulators will be fiducialized in the Magnetic Measurement Facility at SLAC. The note begins by summarizing the requirements for the fiducialization. A brief discussion of the measurement equipment is presented, followed by the methods used to perform the fiducialization and check the results. This is followed by the detailed fiducialization plan in which each step is enumerated. Finally, the measurement results and data storage format are presented.

The SSRL Gun Test Facility (GTF) was built to develop a high brightness electron injector for the LCLS and has been operational since 1996. A total of five different metal cathodes (4 Cu and 1 Mg) have been installed on the GTF gun. The rf processing history with the different cathodes will be presented including peak field achieved at the cathode. The LCLS gun is intended to operate at 120 MV/m and fields up to 140 MV/m have been achieved in the GTF gun. After installing a new cathode the number of rf pulses required to reach 120 MV/m is approximately 5-10 million. Total emitted dark current and Fowler Nordheim plots are also shown over the life of the cathode. The GTF photo-injector gun is an S-band standing-wave structure, with two resonant cavities and an intervening thick washer (Figure 1). The flat, back wall of the first cavity is a copper plate that serves as photocathode when illuminated with ultraviolet light from a pulsed, high-power laser. RF power enters the gun through an iris on the outer wall of the second cavity, and is coupled to the first through the axial opening of the washer. The first cavity is often …

The MAS was flown aboard the NASA ER-2 for the CLASIC field experiment, and for all data collected, provided calibrated and geolocated (Level-1B) radiance data for it’s 50 spectral bands (ranging in wavelength for 0.47 to 14.3 µm). From the Level-1B data, as directed in the Statement of Work, higher order (Level-2) data products were derived. The Level-2 products include: a) cloud optical thickness, b) cloud effective radius, c) cloud top height (temperature), d) cloud fraction, e) cloud phase products. Preliminary Level-1B and Level-2 products were provided during the field experiment (typically within one or two days of data collection). Final version data products were made available in December 2008 following considerable calibration analysis. Data collection, data processing (to Level-2), and discussion of the calibration work are summarized below.

Early in the commissioning it was noticed by Cecile Limborg that the calibration of the BXS spectrometer magnet seemed to be different from the strength of the BX01/BX02 magnets. First the BX01/BX02 currents were adjusted to 135 MeV and the beam energy was adjusted to make the horizontal orbit flat. Then BX01/BX02 magnets were switched off and BXS was adjusted to make the horizontal orbit in the spectrometer line flat, without changing the energy of the beam. The result was that about 140-141 MeV were required on the BXS magnet. This measurement was repeated several times by others with the same results. It was not clear what was causing the error: magnet strength or layout. A position error of about 19 mm of the BXS magnet could explain the difference. Because there was a significant misalignment of the vacuum chamber in the BXS line, the alignment of the whole spectrometer line was checked. The vacuum chamber was corrected, but the magnets were found to be in the proper alignment. So we were left with one (or conceivably two) magnet calibration errors. Because BXS is a wedged shaped magnet, the bend angle depends on the horizontal position of the incoming beam. …