A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

Daily newspaper from Altus, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The purpose of this report is to provide a concise status update for value-added products (VAP) implemented by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility. The report is divided into the following sections: (1) new VAPs for which development has begun, (2) progress on existing VAPs, (3) future VAPs that have been recently approved, (4) other work that leads to a VAP, and (5) top requested VAPs from the archive.

The research documented within this report examines the use of autonomous demand response to provide primary frequency response in an interconnected power grid. The work builds on previous studies in several key areas: it uses a large realistic model (i.e., the interconnection of the western United States and Canada); it establishes a set of metrics that can be used to assess the effectiveness of autonomous demand response; and it independently adjusts various parameters associated with using autonomous demand response to assess effectiveness and to examine possible threats or vulnerabilities associated with the technology.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "OPM’s reported costs to conduct background investigations increased by almost 79 percent, from about $602 million in fiscal year 2005 to almost $1.1 billion in fiscal ear 2011 (in fiscal year 2011 dollars). However, the extent to which OPM’s cost data are reliable is unknown because an audit of OPM’s revolving fund, which finances business-type operations, has not been conducted. Independent audits of OPM’s overall financial management system, where revolving fund transactions are recorded, identified material weaknesses in internal controls, which could affect the reliability of these cost data. OPM’s background investigation program has three principal cost drivers. The first cost driver is investigation fieldwork and support contracts, which represent nearly half of OPM’s fiscal year 2011 reported costs— about $532 million. These contracts allow OPM to assign an investigation to a contractor and buy clerical support for case-management. The second cost driver is personnel compensation and benefits for OPM's background investigation federal workforce, which represents about 25 percent of OPM’s fiscal year 2011 reported costs—about $265 million. The third cost driver is OPM’s information technology investments. While these investments represent less than 10 percent of …

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

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The threats to systems supporting critical infrastructures are evolving and growing. In a February 2011 testimony, the Director of National Intelligence noted that there had been a dramatic increase in cyber activity targeting U.S. computers and systems in the previous year, including a more than tripling of the volume of malicious software since 2009. Varying types of threats from numerous sources can adversely affect computers, software, networks, organizations, entire industries, and the Internet itself. These include both unintentional and intentional threats, and may come in the form of targeted or untargeted attacks from criminal groups, hackers, disgruntled employees, hostile nations, or terrorists. The interconnectivity between information systems, the Internet, and other infrastructures can amplify the impact of these threats, potentially affecting the operations of critical infrastructures, the security of sensitive information, and the flow of commerce. Moreover, the smart grid’s reliance on IT systems and networks exposes the electric grid to potential and known cybersecurity vulnerabilities, which could be exploited by attackers."

This report discusses Disallowance of Deduction for Political Expenditures and Constitutionality of IRC Section 162(e).

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Voertman Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "DOD has invested billions of dollars and will invest billions more to develop and implement its ERPs. The ERPs play a key role in DOD’s goal of audit readiness by fiscal year 2017. Furthermore, in light of the Secretary of Defense’s decision that the Statement of Budgetary Resources is to be audit ready by fiscal year 2014, it is critical that DOD effectively implement the ERPs to support its auditability goals."

"The objective of this study was to conduct an economic analysis of how the 50/50 management standard would impact irrigated producers in the region and the overall agricultural economy. Specifically this analysis was conducted on three levels: county, hydro-logic area, and representative farm. The study focused on the dynamic changes in agricultural production, saturated thickness, farm revenue, and the capacity to irrigate. A socioeconomic model was subsequently used to estimate changes in the regional economy due to changes in gross farm income that may occur under the 50/50 management standard." (p. 5).

Daily newspaper from Chickasha, Oklahoma that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

A faculty recital performed at the UNT College of Music Keaton Hall.

The funds allocated through the Wind Powering America (WPA) grant were utilized by the State of Montana to support broad outreach activities communicating the benefits and opportunities of increased wind energy and transmission development. The challenges to increased wind development were also clearly communicated with the understanding that a clearer comprehension of the challenges would be beneficial in overcoming the obstacles to further development. The ultimate purpose of these activities was to foster the increased development of Montana's rich wind resources through increased public acceptance and wider dissemination of technical resources.

Power through Policy: 'Best Practices' for Cost-Effective Distributed Wind is a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)-funded project to identify distributed wind technology policy best practices and to help policymakers, utilities, advocates, and consumers examine their effectiveness using a pro forma model. Incorporating a customized feed from the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE), the Web-based Distributed Wind Policy Comparison Tool (Policy Tool) is designed to assist state, local, and utility officials in understanding the financial impacts of different policy options to help reduce the cost of distributed wind technologies. The project's final products include the Distributed Wind Policy Comparison Tool, found at www.windpolicytool.org, and its accompanying documentation: Distributed Wind Policy Comparison Tool Guidebook: User Instructions, Assumptions, and Case Studies. With only two initial user inputs required, the Policy Tool allows users to adjust and test a wide range of policy-related variables through a user-friendly dashboard interface with slider bars. The Policy Tool is populated with a variety of financial variables, including turbine costs, electricity rates, policies, and financial incentives; economic variables including discount and escalation rates; as well as technical variables that impact electricity production, such as turbine power curves and wind speed. The Policy Tool allows …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins ""

Industrial gear box lubricants typically are hydrocarbon based mineral oils with considerable amounts of additives to overcome the lack of base fluid properties like wear protection, oxidation stability, load carrying capacity, low temperature solidification and drop of viscosity at higher temperatures. For today's wind turbine gearboxes, the requirements are more severe and synthetic hydrocarbon oils are used to improve on this, but all such hydrocarbon based lubricants require significant amounts of Extreme Pressure (EP) additives to meet performance requirements. Perfluoropolyether (PFPE) fluids provide load carrying capacity as an inherent property. During the course of the project with the main tasks of 'Establish a Benchmark', 'Lubricant Evaluation', 'Full Scale Gearbox Trial' and 'Economic Evaluation', the PAO Reference oil exhibited significant changes after laboratory gear testing, in service operation in the field and full scale gearbox trial. Four hydrocarbon base oils were selected for comparison in the benchmarking exercise and showed variation with respect to meeting the requirements for the laboratory micro-pitting tests, while the PFPE fluid exceeded the requirements even with the material taken after the full scale gear box trial. This is remarkable for a lubricant without EP additives. Laboratory bearing tests performed on the PFPE fluids before and after …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Multiple factors contribute to the risk of duplication among four FEMA grant programs that GAO studied—the State Homeland Security Program (SHSP), Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), Port Security Grant Program, and Transit Security Grant Program. Specifically, these programs share similar goals, fund similar projects, and provide funds in the same geographic regions. Further, DHS’s ability to track grant funding, specific funding recipients, and funding purposes varies among the programs, giving FEMA less visibility over some grant programs. Finally, DHS’s award process for some programs bases decisions on high-level, rather than specific, project information. Although GAO’s analysis identified no cases of duplication among a sample of grant projects, the above factors collectively put FEMA at risk of funding duplicative projects. FEMA officials stated that there is a trade-off between enhancing management visibility and reducing administrative burden, but also recogized that FEMA should use more specific project-level information for award decisions and have taken initial steps towards this goal. For example, FEMA is considering how to better use existing grant information and has also begun to phase in a grants management system that includes an explicit goal of …

Appliance energy efficiency standards and labeling (S&L) programs have been important policy tools for regulating the efficiency of energy-using products for over 40 years and continue to expand in terms of geographic and product coverage. The most common S&L programs include mandatory minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) that seek to push the market for efficient products, and energy information and endorsement labels that seek to pull the market. This study seeks to review and compare some of the earliest and most well-developed S&L programs in three countries and one region: the U.S. MEPS and ENERGY STAR, Australia MEPS and Energy Label, European Union MEPS and Ecodesign requirements and Energy Label and Japanese Top Runner programs. For each program, key elements of S&L programs are evaluated and comparative analyses across the programs undertaken to identify best practice examples of individual elements as well as cross-cutting factors for success and lessons learned in international S&L program development and implementation. The international review and comparative analysis identified several overarching themes and highlighted some common factors behind successful program elements. First, standard-setting and programmatic implementation can benefit significantly from a legal framework that stipulates a specific timeline or schedule for standard-setting and revision, product …

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

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