A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "CMS has commissioned three studies to evaluate the QIS-based survey process but does not routinely monitor the extent to which the objectives established for the QIS are being met. The first two studies, completed in 2006 and 2007, were commissioned to determine whether the new survey process could be used in real-world settings and whether the QIS was helping the agency meet several of the objectives established for the process. The studies’ findings suggested that surveyors could use the survey process and recommended changes intended to help improve the QIS. CMS officials reported taking steps to address the studies’ findings and recommendations. In 2009, CMS commissioned a third study that was completed in 2011 and identified aspects of the QIS process that could affect the consistency with which surveyors identify quality problems. For example, the study found that during resident interviews, surveyors did not consistently probe for further information when provided with incomplete responses to interview questions. However, CMS does not have the means to routinely monitor the extent to which the QIS is helping improve the survey process as intended. Such routine, ongoing monitoring would …

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In a series of reviews, GAO found that OPM’s retirement modernization efforts were hindered by weaknesses in key management practices that are essential to successful IT modernization projects. For example, in 2005, GAO made recommendations to address weaknesses in the following areas:"

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

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

This report provides a background to the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2012, the Authorization to use Military Force act, and the President's power to detain "enemy combatants." It then gives a brief introduction to the law of war pertinent to the detention of different categories of individuals and an overview of U.S. practice during wartime to detain persons deemed dangerous to national security. It concludes by discussion Congress's role in prescribing rules for wartime detention as well as legislative proposals in the 112th Congress to address the detention of U.S. persons.

This report reviews the laws and regulations affecting leasing of federal lands for exploration and production of oil, natural gas, and coal, as well as the permits that lessees must obtain in order to explore for and produce these resources.

This Letter describes the current most precise measurement of the WZ production cross section as well as limits on anomalous WWZ couplings at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV in proton-antiproton collisions. The WZ candidates are reconstructed from decays containing three charged leptons and missing energy from a neutrino, where the charged leptons are either electrons or muons. Using data collected by the CDF II detector (7.1 fb{sup -1} of integrated luminosity), 64 candidate events are observed with the expected background contributing 8 {+-} 1 events. The measured total cross section {sigma}(p{bar p} {yields} WZ) = 3.93{sub -0.53}{sup +0.60}(stat){sub -0.46}{sup +0.59}(syst) pb is in good agreement with the standard model prediction of 3.50 {+-} 0.21. The same sample is used to set limits on anomalous WWZ couplings.

Wind Powering America shares best practices and lessons learned on the Wind Powering America website. This postcard is an outreach tool that provides a brief description of the success stories as well as the URL.

The Higgs boson is the only elementary particle predicted by the Standard Model (SM) that has neither been confirmed nor refuted. The CDF collaboration has performed SM Higgs searches in many channels using p{bar p} collisions at a centre-of-mass energy {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. We present the latest combined Higgs boson search at CDF. Since the previous year's combination, the sensitivity is increased through the addition of new channels, the improvement of existing channels and the addition of new data samples. We also use the latest parton distribution functions and gg {yields} H theoretical cross sections when modelling the signal event yields. Using integrated luminosities of up to 8.2 fb{sup -1}, we observe a good agreement between data and the background prediction. Since we do not see a Higgs boson excess, we set 95% CL upper limits on the Higgs boson cross section in the range between 100 and 200 GeV/c{sup 2}, with 5 GeV/c{sup 2} increments. The observed (expected) limits for a 115 and a 165 GeV/c{sup 2} Higgs boson are 1.55 (1.49) and 0.75 (0.79) x SM, respectively. Since last year, the Higgs boson excluded range by CDF is extended to 156.5 - 173.7 and 100 - 104.5 …

Effective implementation of the Safeguards-by-Design (SBD) approach can help meet the challenges of global nuclear energy growth, by designing facilities that have improved safeguardability and reduced safeguards-related life cycle costs. The ultimate goal of SBD is to implement effective and efficient safeguards that reduce the burden to both the facility operator and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Since 2008, the National Nuclear Security Administration's Next Generation Safeguards Initiative's Safeguards By Design Project has initiated multiple studies and workshops with industry and regulatory stakeholders, including the IAEA, to develop relevant documents to support the implementation of SBD. These 'Good Practices Guides' describe facility and process design features that will facilitate implementation of effective nuclear material safeguards starting in the earliest phases of design through to final design. These guides, which are in their final editorial stages, start at a high level and then narrow down to specific nuclear fuel cycle facilities such as Light Water Reactors, Generation III/IV Reactors, High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactors, and Gas Centrifuge Enrichment Plants. Most recently, NGSI has begun development of a facility safeguardability assessment toolkit to assist the designer. This paper will review the current status of these efforts, provide some examples of these documents, …

An important aspect of such offshore testing of a wind turbine floating platform is electrical loading of the wind turbine generator. An option of interconnecting the floating wind turbine with the onshore grid via submarine power cable is limited by many factors such as costs and associated environmental aspects (i.e., an expensive and lengthy sea floor study is needed for cable routing, burial, etc). It appears to be a more cost effective solution to implement a standalone grid simulator on a floating platform itself for electrical loading of the test wind turbine. Such a grid simulator must create a stable fault-resilient voltage and frequency bus (a micro grid) for continuous operation of the test wind turbine. In this report, several electrical topologies for an offshore grid simulator were analyzed and modeled.

This report summarizes radiological monitoring performed on samples from specific groundwater monitoring wells associated with the Industrial Wastewater Reuse Permit for the Materials and Fuels Complex Industrial Waste Ditch and Industrial Waste Pond (No.LA-000160-01). The radiological monitoring was performed to fulfill Department of Energy requirements under the Atomic Energy Act.

This report describes conditions, as required by the state of Idaho Industrial Wastewater Reuse Permit (LA 000161 01, Modification B), for the wastewater land application site at the Idaho National Laboratory Site's Advanced Test Reactor Complex Cold Waste Pond from November 1, 2010 through October 31, 2011. The report contains the following information: Facility and system description Permit required effluent monitoring data and loading rates Groundwater monitoring data Status of compliance activities Noncompliance and other issues Discussion of the facility's environmental impacts During the 2011 permit year, approximately 166 million gallons of wastewater were discharged to the Cold Waste Pond. This is well below the maximum annual permit limit of 375 million gallons. As shown by the groundwater sampling data, sulfate and total dissolved solids concentrations are highest near the Cold Waste Pond and decrease rapidly as the distance from the Cold Waste Pond increases. Although concentrations of sulfate and total dissolved solids are elevated near the Cold Waste Pond, both parameters were below the Ground Water Quality Rule Secondary Constituent Standards in the down gradient monitoring wells.

In order to meet future regulatory requirements, the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Project must fully establish and validate the mechanistic modular high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) source term. This is not possible at this stage in the project, as significant uncertainties in the final design remain unresolved. In the interim, however, there is a need to establish an approximate characterization of the source term. The NGNP team developed a simplified parametric model to establish mechanistic source term estimates for a set of proposed HTGR configurations.

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is regarded as a center for unbiased expertise in testing and evaluation of geophysical sensors and instrumentation for ground-based nuclear explosion monitoring (GNEM) systems. This project will sustain and enhance our component evaluation capabilities. In addition, new sensor technologies that could greatly improve national monitoring system performance will be sought and characterized. This work directly impacts the Ground-based Nuclear Explosion Monitoring mission by verifying that the performance of monitoring station sensors and instrumentation is characterized and suitable to the mission. It enables the operational monitoring agency to deploy instruments of known capability and to have confidence in operational success. This effort will ensure that our evaluation capabilities are maintained for future use.

A novel method of producing intense short wavelength radiation from relativistic electrons is described. The electrons are periodically bunched at the wavelength of interest enabling in-phase super-radiant emission that is far more intense than from unbunched electrons. The periodic bunching is achieved in steps beginning with an array of beamlets emitted from a nanoengineered field emission array. The beamlets are then manipulated and converted to a longitudinal density modulation via a transverse to longitudinal emittance exchange. Periodic bunching at short wavelength is shown to be possible, and the partially coherent x-ray properties produced by Inverse Compton scattering from an intense laser are estimated. The proposed method increases the efficiency of x-ray production by several orders of magnitude, potentially enabling compact x-ray sources to produce brilliance and flux similar to major synchrotron facilities.

This white paper evaluates the origins and usefulness of the capacity penetration screen, offer short-term solutions which could effectively allow fast-track interconnection to many PV system applications, and considers longer-term solutions for increasing PV deployment levels in a safe and reliable manner while reducing or eliminating the emphasis on the penetration screen. Short-term and longer-term alternatives approaches are offered as examples; however, specific modifications to screening procedures should be discussed with stakeholders and must ultimately be adopted by state and federal regulatory bodies.

This fact sheet describes the current state of the offshore wind industry in the United States and the offshore wind research and development activities conducted the U.S. Department of Energy Wind and Water Power Program.

This document is intended to provide a Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) Project tool in which to collect and identify key definitions, plant capabilities, and inputs and assumptions to be used in ongoing efforts related to the licensing and deployment of a high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR). These definitions, capabilities, and assumptions are extracted from a number of sources, including NGNP Project documents such as licensing related white papers [References 1-11] and previously issued requirement documents [References 13-15]. Also included is information agreed upon by the NGNP Regulatory Affairs group's Licensing Working Group and Configuration Council. The NGNP Project approach to licensing an HTGR plant via a combined license (COL) is defined within the referenced white papers and reference [12], and is not duplicated here.

Corrective Action Unit (CAU) 569 is located in Area 3 of the Nevada National Security Site, which is approximately 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. Corrective Action Unit 569 comprises the nine numbered corrective action sites (CASs) and one newly identified site listed below: (1) 03-23-09, T-3 Contamination Area (hereafter referred to as Annie, Franklin, George, and Moth); (2) 03-23-10, T-3A Contamination Area (hereafter referred to as Harry and Hornet); (3) 03-23-11, T-3B Contamination Area (hereafter referred to as Fizeau); (4) 03-23-12, T-3S Contamination Area (hereafter referred to as Rio Arriba); (5) 03-23-13, T-3T Contamination Area (hereafter referred to as Catron); (6) 03-23-14, T-3V Contamination Area (hereafter referred to as Humboldt); (7) 03-23-15, S-3G Contamination Area (hereafter referred to as Coulomb-B); (8) 03-23-16, S-3H Contamination Area (hereafter referred to as Coulomb-A); (9) 03-23-21, Pike Contamination Area (hereafter referred to as Pike); and (10) Waste Consolidation Site 3A. Because CAU 569 is a complicated site containing many types of releases, it was agreed during the data quality objectives (DQO) process that these sites will be grouped. These sites are being investigated because existing information on the nature and extent of potential contamination is insufficient to evaluate and recommend corrective action …

Science for Society, a workshop held at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) on September 27, 20111, explored ways to move Laboratory science toward use. It sought actionable recommendations. Thus the workshop focused on: (1) current practices that promote and inhibit the translation of science into use, (2) principles that could lead to improving ORNL's translational knowledge and technology transfer efforts, and (3) specific recommendations for making these principles operational. This highly interactive workshop struck a positive chord with participants, a group of 26 ORNL staff members from diverse arenas of science and technology (S and T), technology transfer, and external laboratory relations, who represented all levels of science, technology, and management. Recognizing that the transformation of fundamental principles into operational practices often follows a jagged path, the workshop sought to identify key choices that could lead to a smoother journey along this path, as well as choices that created roadblocks and bottlenecks. The workshop emphasized a portion of this pathway, largely excluding the marketplace. Participants noted that research translation includes linkages between fundamental and applied research and development (R and D), and is not restricted to uptake by manufacturers, consumers, or end users. Three crosscutting ideas encapsulate workshop participants …

An assessment has been conducted for the DOE Vehicle Technologies Program to determine the state of the art of advanced flywheel high power energy storage systems to meet hybrid vehicle needs for high power energy storage and energy/power management. Flywheel systems can be implemented with either an electrical or a mechanical powertrain. The assessment elaborates upon flywheel rotor design issues of stress, materials and aspect ratio. Twelve organizations that produce flywheel systems submitted specifications for flywheel energy storage systems to meet minimum energy and power requirements for both light-duty and heavy-duty hybrid applications of interest to DOE. The most extensive experience operating flywheel high power energy storage systems in heavy-duty and light-duty hybrid vehicles is in Europe. Recent advances in Europe in a number of vehicle racing venues and also in road car advanced evaluations are discussed. As a frame of reference, nominal weight and specific power for non-energy storage components of Toyota hybrid electric vehicles are summarized. The most effective utilization of flywheels is in providing high power while providing just enough energy storage to accomplish the power assist mission effectively. Flywheels are shown to meet or exceed the USABC power related goals (discharge power, regenerative power, specific power, …

Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) continues to deliver the most powerful resources in the U.S. for open science. At 2.33 petaflops peak performance, the Cray XT Jaguar delivered more than 1.4 billion core hours in calendar year (CY) 2011 to researchers around the world for computational simulations relevant to national and energy security; advancing the frontiers of knowledge in physical sciences and areas of biological, medical, environmental, and computer sciences; and providing world-class research facilities for the nation's science enterprise. Users reported more than 670 publications this year arising from their use of OLCF resources. Of these we report the 300 in this review that are consistent with guidance provided. Scientific achievements by OLCF users cut across all range scales from atomic to molecular to large-scale structures. At the atomic scale, researchers discovered that the anomalously long half-life of Carbon-14 can be explained by calculating, for the first time, the very complex three-body interactions between all the neutrons and protons in the nucleus. At the molecular scale, researchers combined experimental results from LBL's light source and simulations on Jaguar to discover how DNA replication continues past a damaged site so a mutation can be repaired later. Other …