A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Safe and accessible federal courthouses are critical to the U.S. judicial process. The Federal Protective Service (FPS), within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Marshals Service (Marshals Service), within the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC), and the General Services Administration (GSA) are the federal stakeholders with roles related to courthouse security. As requested, this report addresses (1) attributes that influence courthouse security considerations and (2) the extent to which stakeholders have collaborated in implementing their responsibilities and using risk management. GAO analyzed laws and documents, such as security assessments; reviewed GAO's work on key practices for collaboration and facility protection; visited 11 courthouse facilities, selected based on geographic dispersion, age, size, and other criteria; and interviewed agency and judiciary officials. While the results from site visits cannot be generalized, they provided examples of courthouse security activities."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (RSIA) overhauled requirements for how much time certain freight railroad workers can spend on the job (called "hours of service"). Changes included limiting the number of consecutive days on duty before rest is required, increasing minimum rest time from 8 to 10 hours, and requiring rest time to be undisturbed. RSIA also provided for pilot projects and waivers. RSIA's changes became effective for freight railroads in July 2009. GAO was asked to assess (1) the impact of these changes on covered train and engine (T&E) employees, including implications for fatigue, (2) the impact of the changes on the rail industry, and (3) actions the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has taken to oversee compliance with hours of service requirements and implement RSIA provisions for pilot projects and waivers. To perform this work, GAO analyzed covered employee work schedules and used models to assess fatigue, surveyed the railroad industry, analyzed FRA inspection and enforcement data, and interviewed federal and railroad officials as well as fatigue and sleep experts."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The 40 poorest countries in the world, known as low-income countries (LICs), have been negatively impacted by successive food, fuel, and financial crises since 2007. In response, international financial institutions (IFI), including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), have taken actions to increase financial assistance for affected countries. Between 2008 and 2010, Congress appropriated $3.3 billion to the World Bank's International Development Association, which funds development programs in LICs. Congress also authorized the U.S. representative at the IMF to vote to approve the sale of some of the IMF's gold to increase lending to LICs. LICs' ability to repay debt remains important as financing levels rise and decisions are made about the mix of loans and grants they receive. GAO was asked to examine (1) the economic impact of the crises on LICs, (2) IFIs' responses and reported results, and (3) IFIs' assessment of the impact of the crises on LICs' ability to repay their debt. GAO analyzed documents and information from the World Bank and the IMF, including data on macroeconomic indicators, financial commitments, and debt analyses. GAO interviewed staff from the World …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The United States and other member states have long-standing concerns about the management and operations of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a United Nations (UN) specialized agency charged with leading international efforts to defeat hunger. After an external evaluation found that FAO needed to reform, FAO adopted its reform plan, called the Immediate Plan of Action for FAO Renewal (IPA), which includes 272 action items. This report examines (1) the methodology that FAO uses to report on the status of its reform plan, (2) factors that affect FAO's ability to implement its reform plan, and (3) actions the United States has undertaken to support FAO reform efforts. GAO analyzed FAO documents, including FAO's most recent 2010 IPA progress report; interviewed U.S. and UN officials, and representatives of FAO member states; and analyzed 30 IPA action items from FAO's reform plan."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In fiscal year 2010, more than half of the $367 billion dollars the Department of Defense (DOD) spent on contracts was spent on services. Buying services is fundamentally different than buying weapon systems, yet most acquisition regulations, policies, processes, and training remain structured for acquiring weapon systems. Over the last decade, reports from GAO, DOD, and Congress have raised issues about services acquisitions and have also highlighted the importance of acquisition training. GAO previously reported on the training provided to the acquisition workforce as defined by the Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA). This report addresses personnel working on services acquisitions who were outside the DAWIA acquisition workforce--termed non-DAWIA personnel with acquisition-related responsibilities--and the extent to which (1) DOD knows the composition of this population, (2) this population is taking acquisition training, and (3) DOD has implemented past recommendations related to this population. To complete this work, GAO reviewed a nongeneralizable sample of 29 service contracts, relevant policies, and recommendations from previous reports and met with key DOD officials."

"This guide is intended to explain the responsibilities campaign finance filing authorities in cities, school districts, and other political subdivisions other than counties."

This guide provides information on candidates and officeholders who file with the Texas Ethics Commission.

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

Weekly newspaper from Rusk, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

Weekly student newspaper from Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth, Texas that includes campus and local news along with advertising.

Efforts to fabricate and study a new photovoltaic material, copper indium boron diselenide (CuInxB1-xSe2 or CIBS), were undertaken. Attempts to prepare CIBS using sputtering deposition techniques resulted in segregation of boron from the rest of elements in the material. CIBS nanocrystals were prepared from the reaction of elemental Se with CuCl, InCl3, and boric acid in solution, but the product material quickly decomposed upon heating that was required in attempts to convert the nanocrystals into a thin film. The investigation of the reasons for the lack of CIBS material stability led to new structure-property studies of closely-related photovoltaic systems as well as studies of new solar cell materials and processing methods that could enhance the development of next-generation solar technologies. A detailed compositional study of CuIn1-xAlxSe2 (CIAS, a system closely related to CIBS) revealed a non-linear correlation between crystal lattice size and the Al/(In+Al) ratios with dual-phase formation being observed. A new nanocrystal-to-thin-film processing method was developed for the preparation of CuIn1-xGaxSe2 (CIGS) thin films in which colloidal Se particles are sprayed in contact with CuIn1-xGaxS2 nanoparticles and heated in an argon atmosphere with no other Se source in the system. The process is non-vacuum and does not require toxic …

Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) was asked to prepare saltstone from samples of Tank 50H obtained by SRNL on April 5, 2011 (Tank 50H sampling occurred on April 4, 2011) during 2QCY11 to determine the non-hazardous nature of the grout and for additional vault classification analyses. The samples were cured and shipped to Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Group-Radioisotope and Analytical Chemistry Laboratory (B&W TSG-RACL) to perform the Toxic Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) and subsequent extract analysis on saltstone samples for the analytes required for the quarterly analysis saltstone sample. In addition to the eight toxic metals - arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, mercury, lead, selenium and silver - analytes included the underlying hazardous constituents (UHC) antimony, beryllium, nickel, and thallium which could not be eliminated from analysis by process knowledge. Additional inorganic species determined by B&W TSG-RACL include aluminum, boron, chloride, cobalt, copper, fluoride, iron, lithium, manganese, molybdenum, nitrate/nitrite as Nitrogen, strontium, sulfate, uranium, and zinc and the following radionuclides: gross alpha, gross beta/gamma, 3H, 60Co, 90Sr, 99Tc, 106Ru, 106Rh, 125Sb, 137Cs, 137mBa, 154Eu, 238Pu, 239/240Pu, 241Pu, 241Am, 242Cm, and 243/244Cm. B&W TSG-RACL provided subsamples to GEL Laboratories, LLC for analysis for the VOCs benzene, toluene, and 1-butanol. GEL also …

This study evaluated different upscaling methods to predict thermal conductivity in loaded nuclear waste form, a heterogeneous material system. The efficiency and accuracy of these methods were compared. Thermal conductivity in loaded nuclear waste form is an important property specific to scientific researchers, in waste form Integrated performance and safety code (IPSC). The effective thermal conductivity obtained from microstructure information and local thermal conductivity of different components is critical in predicting the life and performance of waste form during storage. How the heat generated during storage is directly related to thermal conductivity, which in turn determining the mechanical deformation behavior, corrosion resistance and aging performance. Several methods, including the Taylor model, Sachs model, self-consistent model, and statistical upscaling models were developed and implemented. Due to the absence of experimental data, prediction results from finite element method (FEM) were used as reference to determine the accuracy of different upscaling models. Micrographs from different loading of nuclear waste were used in the prediction of thermal conductivity. Prediction results demonstrated that in term of efficiency, boundary models (Taylor and Sachs model) are better than self consistent model, statistical upscaling method and FEM. Balancing the computation resource and accuracy, statistical upscaling is a computational …

Arizona Public Service Company (APS) expects that by 2027, renewable energy will account for 6,590 GWh in energy consumption by its customers. While much of this future energy will come from large centrally-located power plants, distributed renewable energy, sited at the point of end-use will also play an important role in meeting the needs of APS customers and is expected to provide 1,734 GWh. With increasing penetration of residential and commercial photovoltaic (PV) systems at the point of end-use, PV power generation not only offsets the load, but could also cause significant shifts in power flow patterns through the distribution system, and could possibly cause reversal of flow through some branches of a distribution circuit. Significant changes to power flow introduced into existing distribution systems due to the increased amount of PV systems may cause operational issues, including over-voltage on the distribution feeder (loss of voltage regulation) and incorrect operation of control equipment, which may lead to an increase in the number of operations and related equipment wear that could affect equipment reliability and customer power quality. Additionally, connecting generation resources to a distribution feeder can introduce additional sources of short-circuit current to the distribution system. This could potentially result …

Our objective is to develop a mathematical model to optimize energy consumption at multiple levels in networked data centers, and develop abstract algorithms to optimize not only individual servers, but also coordinate the energy consumption of clusters of servers within a data center and across geographically distributed data centers to minimize the overall energy cost and consumption of brown energy of an enterprise. In this project, we have formulated a variety of optimization models, some stochastic others deterministic, and have obtained a variety of qualitative results on the structural properties, robustness, and scalability of the optimal policies. We have also systematically derived from these models decentralized algorithms to optimize energy efficiency, analyzed their optimality and stability properties. Finally, we have conducted preliminary numerical simulations to illustrate the behavior of these algorithms. We draw the following conclusion. First, there is a substantial opportunity to minimize both the amount and the cost of electricity consumption in a network of datacenters, by exploiting the fact that traffic load, electricity cost, and availability of renewable generation fluctuate over time and across geographical locations. Judiciously matching these stochastic processes can optimize the tradeoff between brown energy consumption, electricity cost, and response time. Second, given the …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

This document describes the results of our investigations on the potential use of nitrogen trifluoride as the fluorinating and oxidizing agent in fluoride volatility-based used nuclear fuel reprocessing. The conceptual process uses differences in reaction temperatures between nitrogen trifluoride and fuel constituents that produce volatile fluorides to achieve separations and recover valuable constituents. We provide results from our thermodynamic evaluations, thermo-analytical experiments, kinetic models, and provide a preliminary process flowsheet. The evaluations found that nitrogen trifluoride can effectively produce volatile fluorides at different temperatures dependent on the fuel constituent.

The goal of this project was to establish an innovation center to accelerate the transition to a 'hydrogen economy' an infrastructure of vehicles, fuel resources, and maintenance capabilities based on hydrogen as the primary energy carrier. The specific objectives of the proposed project were to: (a) define the essential attributes of the innovation center; (b) validate the concept with potential partners; (c) create an implementation plan; and (d) establish a pilot center and demonstrate its benefits via a series of small scale projects.

This is a report by the Science Advisory Board (SAB) Drinking Water Committee Augmented for the Review of the Effectiveness of Partial Lead Service Line Replacement. Issues covered is blood level of lead in children, tap water sampling, partial vs. full service replacement, galvanic corrosion, and costs.

An online article about LGBT history, especially in regards to the Catholic popes of the past.

Weekly newspaper from Cuero, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Sweetwater, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

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

Arizona Public Service Company (APS) expects that by 2027, renewable energy will account for 6,590 GWh in energy consumption by its customers. While much of this future energy will come from large centrally-located power plants, distributed renewable energy, sited at the point of end-use will also play an important role in meeting the needs of APS’ customers and is expected to provide 1,734 GWh. With increasing penetration of residential and commercial photovoltaic (PV) systems at the point of end-use, PV power generation not only offsets the load, but could also cause significant shifts in power flow patterns through the distribution system, and could possibly cause reversal of flow through some branches of a distribution circuit. Significant changes to power flow introduced into existing distribution systems due to the increased amount of PV systems may cause operational issues, including over-voltage on the distribution feeder (loss of voltage regulation) and incorrect operation of control equipment, which may lead to an increase in the number of operations and related equipment wear that could affect equipment reliability and customer power quality. Additionally, connecting generation resources to a distribution feeder can introduce additional sources of short-circuit current to the distribution system. This could potentially result …