A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "About half of the seafood imported into the U.S. comes from farmed fish (aquaculture). Fish grown in confined aquacultured areas can have bacterial infections, which may require farmers to use drugs like antibiotics. The residues of some drugs can cause cancer and antibiotic resistance. The Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is charged with ensuring the safety of seafood against residues from unapproved drugs, and the Department of Commerce's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) provides inspection services on request. In 2009, these agencies signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance seafood oversight and leverage inspection resources. GAO was asked to assess the extent to which (1) FDA's program is able to ensure the safety of seafood imports against residues from unapproved drugs and (2) FDA and NMFS have implemented the 2009 MOU. GAO reviewed data and documents from each agency and interviewed agency officials and other key stakeholders."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the E-Verify program, which provides employers a tool for verifying an employee's authorization to work in the United States. The opportunity for employment is one of the most powerful magnets attracting immigrants to the United States. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, as of March 2010, approximately 11.2 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the country, and an estimated 8 million of them, or about 70 percent, were in the labor force. Congress, the administration, and some states have taken various actions to better ensure that those who work here have appropriate work authorization and to safeguard jobs for authorized employees. Nonetheless, opportunities remain for unauthorized workers to fraudulently obtain employment by using borrowed or stolen documents and for unscrupulous employers to hire unauthorized workers. Immigration experts have noted that deterring illegal immigration requires, among other things, a more reliable employment eligibility verification process and a more robust worksite enforcement capacity. E-Verify is a free, largely voluntary, Internet-based system operated by the Verification Division of the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA). The goals of …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony discusses the Department of Labor's (Labor) procedures for determining prevailing wage rates under the Davis-Bacon Act. Davis-Bacon wages must be paid to workers on certain federally funded construction projects, and their vulnerability to the use of inaccurate data has long been an issue for Congress, employers, and workers. More recently, the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, focused attention on the need for accurate and timely wage determinations, with more than $300 billion estimated to provide substantial funding for, among other things, federally funded building and infrastructure work potentially subject to Davis-Bacon wage rates. In the 1990s, we issued two reports that found process changes were needed to increase confidence that wage rates were based on accurate data. A third report found that changes then planned by Labor, if successfully implemented, had the potential to improve the wage determination process. However, in 2004, Labor's Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that wage data errors and the timeliness of surveys used to gather wage information from contractors and others, continued to be issues. The testimony will discuss (1) the extent to which Labor …

This report addresses causes, prevalence, and consequences of violence against women. It provides examples of completed and ongoing U.S. activities that address VAW directly or include anti-VAW components. It outlines possible policy issues for the 112th Congress, including the scope and effectiveness of U.S. programs in addressing international VAW; further integrating anti-VAW programs into U.S. assistance and foreign policy mechanisms; U.S. funding for anti-VAW activities worldwide, particularly in light of the global financial crisis, economic recession, and subsequent calls to reduce the U.S. budget deficit; and strengthening U.S. government coordination of anti-VAW activities.

This report examines three labor issues and arguments related to the pending U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement (CFTA; H.R. 5724 and S. 2830): violence against trade unionists; impunity (accountability for or punishment of the perpetrators); and worker rights protections for Colombians.

This report outlines the various aspects of the Andean Trade Preference Act (ATPA), including significant dates and modifications. The ATPA extends special duty treatment to certain U.S. imports from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru that meet domestic content and other requirements. The purpose of ATPA is to promote economic growth in the Andean region and to encourage a shift away from dependence on illegal drugs by supporting legitimate economic activities.

None

During the last months of this project, our project activities have concentrated on four areas: (1) performing a stochastic inversion of pattern 16 seismic data to deduce reservoir bulk/shear moduli and density; the need for this inversion was not anticipated in the original scope of work, (2) performing a stochastic inversion of pattern 16 seismic data to deduce reservoir porosity and permeability, (3) complete the software needed to perform geochemical inversions and (4) use the software to perform stochastic inversion of aqueous chemistry data to deduce mineral volume fractions. This report builds on work described in progress reports previously submitted (Ramirez et al., 2009, 2010, 2011 - reports fulfilled the requirements of deliverables D1-D4) and fulfills deliverable D5: Field-based single-pattern simulations work product. The main challenge with our stochastic inversion approach is its large computational expense, even for single reservoir patterns. We dedicated a significant level of effort to improve computational efficiency but inversions involving multiple patterns were still intractable by project's end. As a result, we were unable to fulfill Deliverable D6: Field-based multi-pattern simulations work product.

The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), under the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Environmental Management (EM), is modifying and testing the SpinTek{trademark} rotary microfilter (RMF) for radioactive filtration service in the Department of Energy (DOE) complex. The RMF has been shown to improve filtration throughput when compared to other conventional methods such as cross-flow filtration. A concern with the RMF was that backpressure, or reverse flow through the disk, would damage the filter membranes. Reverse flow might happen as a result of an inadvertent valve alignment during flushing. Testing was completed in the Engineering Development Laboratory (EDL) located in SRNL to study the physical effects of backpressure as well as to determine the maximum allowable back-pressure for RMF disks. The RMF disks tested at the EDL were manufactured by SpinTek{trademark} Filtration and used a Pall Corporation PMM050 filter membrane (0.5 micron nominal pore size) made from 316L stainless steel. Early versions of the RMF disks were made from synthetic materials that were incompatible with caustic solutions and radioactive service as well as being susceptible to delaminating when subjected to backpressure. Figure 1-1 shows the essential components of the RMF; 3 rotating disks and 3 stationary turbulence promoters (or shear …

The effect of a weakly coupled periodic lattice in terms of achieving emittance exchange between the transverse and longitudinal directions is investigated using the generalized Courant-Snyder theory for coupled lattices. Recently, the concept and technique of transverse-longitudinal emittance coupling have been proposed for applications in the Linac Coherent Light Source and other free-electron lasers to reduce the transverse emittance of the electron beam. Such techniques can also be applied to the driver beams for the heavy ion fusion and beam-driven high energy density physics, where the transverse emittance budget is typically tighter than the longitudinal emittance. The proposed methods consist of one or several coupling components which completely swap the emittances of one of the transverse directions and the longitudinal direction at the exit of the coupling components. The complete emittance exchange is realized in one pass through the coupling components. In the present study, we investigate the effect of a weakly coupled periodic lattice in terms of achieving emittance exchange between the transverse and longitudinal directions. A weak coupling component is introduced at every focusing lattice, and we would like to determine if such a lattice can realize the function of emittance exchange.

Postshot drilling provided essential data on the results of the underground nuclear tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site (NTS), now identified as the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS). It was the means by which samples from the zone of interest were obtained for radiochemical analysis. This handbook describes how Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) conducted postshot drilling operations at the NTS, and it provides a general understanding of the process. Postshot drilling is a specialized application of rotary drilling. Accordingly, this handbook gives a brief description of rotary drilling in Section 2 to acquaint the reader with the general subject before proceeding to the specialized techniques used in postshot drilling. In Section 3, the handbook describes the typical postshot drilling situation at the former NTS and the drilling methods used. Section 4 describes the typical sequence of operations in postshot drilling at the former NTS. Detailed information on special equipment and techniques is given in a series of appendices (A through F) at the end of the handbook.

None

The primary objectives of the tracer infiltration test were to 1) determine whether field-scale hydraulic properties for the compacted roadbed materials and underlying Hanford fm. sediments comprising the zone of water table fluctuation beneath the site are consistent with estimates based laboratory-scale measurements on core samples and 2) characterize wetting front advancement and distribution of soil moisture achieved for the selected application rate. These primary objectives were met. The test successfully demonstrated that 1) the remaining 2 to 3 ft of compacted roadbed material below the infiltration gallery does not limit infiltration rates to levels that would be expected to eliminate near surface application as a viable amendment delivery approach and 2) the combined aqueous and geophysical monitoring approaches employed at this site, with some operational adjustments based on lessons learned, provides an effective means of assessing wetting front advancement and the distribution of soil moisture achieved for a given solution application. Reasonably good agreement between predicted and observed tracer and moisture front advancement rates was observed. During the first tracer infiltration test, which used a solution application rate of 0.7 cm/hr, tracer arrivals were observed at the water table (10 to 12 ft below the bottom of the infiltration …

Successful commercialization of fusion energy requires economic viability as well as technical and scientific feasibility. To assess economic viability, we have conducted a pre-conceptual level evaluation of LIFE economics. Unit costs are estimated from a combination of bottom-up costs estimates, working with representative vendors, and scaled results from previous studies of fission and fusion plants. An integrated process model of a LIFE power plant was developed to integrate and optimize unit costs and calculate top level metrics such as cost of electricity and power plant capital cost. The scope of this activity was the entire power plant site. Separately, a development program to deliver the required specialized equipment has been assembled. Results show that LIFE power plant cost of electricity and plant capital cost compare favorably to estimates for new-build LWR's, coal and gas - particularly if indicative costs of carbon capture and sequestration are accounted for.

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. The Coast Guard's FY2012 budget appears to request $957.2 million in acquisition funding for Deepwater programs, including $271.6 million for aircraft, $512.0 million for surface ships and boats, and $173.6 million for other items. Congress's decisions on Deepwater acquisition programs could substantially affect Coast Guard capabilities and funding requirements, as well as contractors involved in these programs.

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.

This report is divided into five sections that cover the following: major economic concepts underlying consumer food behavior; descriptions how U.S. food price inflation rates have evolved since 1915, when federal price data collection for inflation-measuring purposes began; information on recent history and projections for U.S. food expenditure shares relative to total household budget; an examination of retail food price inflation; and a discussion on the impact that rapid food price inflation can have on government food programs and the more vulnerable consumer groups.

An isotropic constitutive model for the parenchyma of lung has been derived from the theory of hypo-elasticity. The intent is to use it to represent the mechanical response of this soft tissue in sophisticated, computational, fluid-dynamic models of the lung. This demands that the continuum model be accurate, yet simple and effcient. An objective algorithm for its numeric integration is provided. The response of the model is determined for several boundary-value problems whose experiments are used for material characterization. The effective elastic, bulk, and shear moduli, and Poisson’s ratio, as tangent functions, are also derived. The model is characterized against published experimental data for lung. A bridge between this continuum model and a dodecahedral model of alveolar geometry is investigated, with preliminary findings being reported.

Crossflow filtration is a key process step in many operating and planned waste treatment facilities to separate undissolved solids from supernate slurries. This separation technology generally has the advantage of self cleaning through the action of wall shear stress, which is created by the flow of waste slurry through the filter tubes. However, the ability of filter wall self cleaning depends on the slurry being filtered. Many of the alkaline radioactive wastes are extremely challenging to filtration, e.g., those containing compounds of aluminum and iron, which have particles whose size and morphology reduces permeability. Low filter flux can be a bottleneck in waste processing facilities such as the Salt Waste Processing Facility at the Savannah River Site and the Waste Treatment Plant at the Hanford Site. Any improvement to the filtration rate would lead directly to increased throughput of the entire process. To date, increased rates are generally realized by either increasing the crossflow filter axial flowrate, which is limited by pump capacity, or by increasing filter surface area, which is limited by space and increases the required pump load. In the interest of accelerating waste treatment processing, DOE has funded studies to better understand filtration with the goal of …

The Community Assessment Tool (CAT) for Public Health Emergencies Including Pandemic Influenza (hereafter referred to as the CAT) was developed as a result of feedback received from several communities. These communities participated in workshops focused on influenza pandemic planning and response. The 2008 through 2011 workshops were sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Feedback during those workshops indicated the need for a tool that a community can use to assess its readiness for a disaster - readiness from a total healthcare perspective, not just hospitals, but the whole healthcare system. The CAT intends to do just that - help strengthen existing preparedness plans by allowing the healthcare system and other agencies to work together during an influenza pandemic. It helps reveal each core agency partners (sectors) capabilities and resources, and highlights cases of the same vendors being used for resource supplies (e.g., personal protective equipment [PPE] and oxygen) by the partners (e.g., public health departments, clinics, or hospitals). The CAT also addresses gaps in the community's capabilities or potential shortages in resources. This tool has been reviewed by a variety of key subject matter experts from federal, state, and local agencies and organizations. It also has …

The objective of this project is to provide DHS a comprehensive evaluation of the current genomic technologies including genotyping, Taqman PCR, multiple locus variable tandem repeat analysis (MLVA), microarray and high-throughput DNA sequencing in the analysis of biothreat agents from complex environmental samples. This report focuses on the design, testing and results of samples on the Census Array. We designed a Census/Detection Array to detect all sequenced viruses (including phage), bacteria (eubacteria), and plasmids. Family-specific probes were selected for all sequenced viral and bacterial complete genomes, segments, and plasmids. Probes were designed to tolerate some sequence variation to enable detection of divergent species with homology to sequenced organisms, and to be unique relative to the human genome. A combination of 'detection' probes with high levels of conservation within a family plus 'census' probes targeting strain/isolate specific regions enabled detection and taxonomic classification from the level of family down to the strain. The array has wider coverage of bacterial and viral targets based on more recent sequence data and more probes per target than other microbial detection/discovery arrays in the literature. We tested the array with purified bacterial and viral DNA/RNA samples, artificial mixes of known bacterial/viral samples, spiked DNA against …

None

None

The temperature profile of two different BSCCO 2212 coils has been analyzed. The profiles are obtained from thermocouples imbedded in the windings during the heat treatment that activates the 2212. The melting and freezing of the 2212 is clearly observed. A model that describes the data and can be used to guide the processing of new coils has been developed. We have obtained the thermal history of two BSCCO coils, one from NHMFL (1) that had 10 layers of 1 mm diameter wire with 0.15 mm insulation and a second coil from OST that had 24 layers with similar insulation and conductor size. Both coils had thermocouples imbedded in the windings and excellent recordings of the temperature over the whole reaction cycle were available for analysis. There are several features that we will address in this note. Measurements have shown that the I{sub c} of the conductor is a sensitive function of its thermal history. This brings up the question of the absolute accuracy of the thermometry in the range around 882 C, the MP of 2212. The reference for the treatment profile is really related to this MP and to small deviations around it. Since the heat of fusion …