A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO estimates that under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), about three-quarters of approximately 7 million children who were uninsured in January 2009 would be eligible for Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), or the new premium tax credit. The remaining children had family incomes too high to be eligible, were noncitizens, or would be ineligible for the premium tax credit because they would be considered to have access to affordable employer-sponsored insurance per the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) proposed affordability standard, in which IRS interpreted PPACA as defining affordability for an employee’s eligible family members based on the cost of an employee-only plan. Some commenters raised concerns that IRS’s interpretation was inconsistent with PPACA’s goal of increasing access to affordable health insurance as it does not consider the higher cost of family insurance and could result in some children remaining uninsured. Under PPACA, CHIP is not funded beyond 2015, and states may opt to reduce CHIP eligibility or eliminate programs in fiscal year 2020. Without CHIP, more children could become uninsured. In May 2012, IRS finalized its rule but deferred …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Annual pay adjustments for the General Schedule (GS), the pay system covering the majority of federal workers, are either determined through the process specified in the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990 (FEPCA) or set based on percent increases authorized directly by Congress. GS employees receive an across-the-board increase (ranging from 0 to 3.8 percent since FEPCA was implemented) that has usually been made in accordance with a FEPCA formula linking increases to national private sector salary growth. This increase is the same for each employee. GS employees also receive a locality increase that varies based on their location; there were 34 pay localities in 2012. While FEPCA specifies a process designed to reduce federal-nonfederal pay gaps in each locality, in practice locality increases have usually been far less than the recommended amount, which has been over 15 percent in recent years. For 2012, when there was a freeze on annual pay adjustments, the FEPCA process had recommended a 1.1 percent across-the-board increase and an average 18.5 percent locality increase."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "While the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has established a framework for protecting the privacy and security of Medicare beneficiaries’ prescription drug use information when used for purposes other than direct clinical care through its issuance of regulations, outreach, and enforcement activities, it has not issued all required guidance or fully implemented required oversight capabilities. HHS has issued regulations including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules to safeguard protected health information from unauthorized use and disclosure. Through its Office for Civil Rights (OCR), HHS has undertaken a variety of outreach and educational efforts to inform members of the public and covered entities about the uses of protected health information. Specifically, OCR has made available on its website guidance and other materials informing the public about the uses to which their personal information may be put and the protections afforded to that information by federal laws. It has also made available guidance to covered entities and their business associates that is intended to promote compliance with the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not maintain complete information on New Source Review (NSR) permits issued to fossil fuel electricity generating units. State and local permitting agencies track the NSR permits they issue, but EPA does not maintain complete or centralized information on permits, despite a 2006 recommendation by the National Research Council that it do so. EPA maintains several databases that compile data on draft and issued NSR permits, but these sources are incomplete and thus cannot be used to identify all of the NSR permits that have been issued nationwide. In addition, EPA has the opportunity to review and comment on every draft NSR permit issued by state and local permitting agencies, but it does not compile data on whether the permitting agencies address EPA’s comments in final permits. The absence of more complete information on NSR permitting makes it difficult to know which units have obtained NSR permits or to assess how state and local permitting agencies vary from EPA in their interpretations of NSR requirements."

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Agency strategic plan for the Texas Health Professions Council describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 2013 through 2017.

Agency strategic plan for the Railroad Commission of Texas describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 2013 through 2017.

Agency strategic plan for the Texas Commission on the Arts describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 2013 through 2017.

Agency strategic plan for the Texas Adjutant General's Department describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 2013 through 2017.

Agency strategic plan for the Texas Juvenile Justice Department describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 2013 through 2017.

Agency strategic plan for the Texas Animal Health Commission describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 2013 through 2017.

Agency strategic plan for the Texas Department of Savings and Mortgage Lending describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 2013 through 2017.

Agency strategic plan for the Texas State Board of Podiatric Medical Examiners describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 2013 through 2017.

Agency strategic plan for the Texas Ethics Commission describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 2013 through 2017.

Agency strategic plan for the Texas Funeral Service Commission describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 2013 through 2017.

Agency strategic plan for the Texas Board of Chiropractic Examiners describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 2013 through 2017.

Agency strategic plan for the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 2013 through 2017.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

This report looks at President Obama's FY2013 budget request, which included an $11.2 billion for military construction appropriations.

This report looks at the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to “assist the development and support of a sustainable commercial biofuels industry" which was entered into by the Secretaries of Energy, Agriculture, and the Navy. It raises issues and concerns for Congress to consider when deciding how to fund MOU.

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.

There are many simulation codes for accelerator modelling; each one has some strength but not all. A platform which can host multiple modelling tools would be ideal for various purposes. The model platform along with infrastructure support can be used not only for online applications but also for offline purposes. Collaboration is formed for the effort of providing such a platform. In order to achieve such a platform, a set of common physics data structure has to be set. Application Programming Interface (API) for physics applications should also be defined within a model data provider. A preliminary platform design and prototype is discussed.

A new proton synchrotron, the PS2, is under design study to replace the current proton synchrotron at CERN for the LHC upgrade. Nonlinear space charge effects could cause significant beam emittance growth and particle losses and limit the performance of the PS2. In this paper, we report on studies of the potential space-charge effects at the PS2 using three-dimensional self-consistent macroparticle tracking codes, IMPACT, MaryLie/IMPACT, and Synergia. We will present initial benchmark results among these codes. Effects of space-charge on the emittance growth, especially due to synchrotron coupling, aperture sizes, initial painted distribution, and RF ramping scheme will also be discussed.

Recent initiatives at UCLA concerning ultra-short, GeV electron beam generation have been aimed at achieving sub-fs pulses capable of driving X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) in single-spike mode. This use of very low Q beams may allow existing FEL injectors to produce few-100 attosecond pulses, with very high brightness. Towards this end, recent experiments at the LCLS have produced {approx}2 fs, 20 pC electron pulses. We discuss here extensions of this work, in which we seek to exploit the beam brightness in FELs, in tandem with new developments in cryogenic undulator technology, to create compact accelerator-undulator systems that can lase below 0.15 {angstrom}, or be used to permit 1.5 {angstrom} operation at 4.5 GeV. In addition, we are now developing experiments which use the present LCLS fs pulses to excite plasma wakefields exceeding 1 TV/m, permitting a table-top TeV accelerator for frontier high energy physics applications.