This report analyzes National Science Foundation funding trends and selected closely related STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education policy issues in order to place conversations about FY2013 funding in broader fiscal and policy context. It concludes with an analysis of potential policy options.

This project had two primary goals: (1) development of stochastic radiative transfer as a parameterization that could be employed in an AGCM environment, and (2) exploration of the stochastic approach as a means for representing shortwave radiative transfer through mixed-phase layer clouds. To achieve these goals, climatology of cloud properties was developed at the ARM CART sites, an analysis of the performance of the stochastic approach was performed, a simple stochastic cloud-radiation parameterization for an AGCM was developed and tested, a statistical description of Arctic mixed phase clouds was developed and the appropriateness of stochastic approach for representing radiative transfer through mixed-phase clouds was assessed. Significant progress has been made in all of these areas and is detailed in the final report.

The Defense Waste Processing Facility has experienced significant issues with the stripping and recovery of mercury in the Chemical Processing Cell (CPC). The stripping rate has been inconsistent, often resulting in extended processing times to remove mercury to the required endpoint concentration. The recovery of mercury in the Mercury Water Wash Tank has never been high, and has decreased significantly since the Mercury Water Wash Tank was replaced after the seventh batch of Sludge Batch 5. Since this time, essentially no recovery of mercury has been seen. Pertinent literature was reviewed, previous lab-scale data on mercury stripping and recovery was examined, and new lab-scale CPC Sludge Receipt and Adjustment Tank (SRAT) runs were conducted. For previous lab-scale data, many of the runs with sufficient mercury recovery data were examined to determine what factors affect the stripping and recovery of mercury and to improve closure of the mercury material balance. Ten new lab-scale SRAT runs (HG runs) were performed to examine the effects of acid stoichiometry, sludge solids concentration, antifoam concentration, form of mercury added to simulant, presence of a SRAT heel, operation of the SRAT condenser at higher than prototypic temperature, varying noble metals from none to very high concentrations, …

This report summarizes the President's budget estimates for each section of the CMS budget. Then, for each legislative proposal included in the President's budget, this report provides a description of current law and the President's proposal. The explanations of the President's legislative proposals are grouped by the following program areas: Medicare, Medicaid, program integrity, and health insurance programs.

The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and computational structural mechanics (CSM) focus areas at Argonne's Transportation Research and Analysis Computing Center (TRACC) initiated a project to support and compliment the experimental programs at the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC) with high performance computing based analysis capabilities in August 2010. The project was established with a new interagency agreement between the Department of Energy and the Department of Transportation to provide collaborative research, development, and benchmarking of advanced three-dimensional computational mechanics analysis methods to the aerodynamics and hydraulics laboratories at TFHRC for a period of five years, beginning in October 2010. The analysis methods employ well-benchmarked and supported commercial computational mechanics software. Computational mechanics encompasses the areas of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), Computational Wind Engineering (CWE), Computational Structural Mechanics (CSM), and Computational Multiphysics Mechanics (CMM) applied in Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) problems. The major areas of focus of the project are wind and water effects on bridges - superstructure, deck, cables, and substructure (including soil), primarily during storms and flood events - and the risks that these loads pose to structural failure. For flood events at bridges, another major focus of the work is assessment of the risk to bridges caused by scour …

During the period of February 14 to 15, 2012, ORISE performed radiological confirmatory survey activities for the former Fuel Oil Tank Area (FOTA) and additional radiological surveys of portions of the Humboldt Bay Power Plant site in Eureka, California. The radiological survey results demonstrate that residual surface soil contamination was not present significantly above background levels within the FOTA. Therefore, it is ORISE’s opinion that the radiological conditions for the FOTA surveyed by ORISE are commensurate with the site release criteria for final status surveys as specified in PG&E’s Characterization Survey Planning Worksheet. In addition, the confirmatory results indicated that the ORISE FOTA survey unit Cs-137 mean concentrations results compared favorably with the PG&E FOTA Cs-137 mean concentration results, as determined by ORISE from the PG&E characterization data. The interlaboratory comparison analyses of the three soil samples analyzed by PG&E’s onsite laboratory and the ORISE laboratory indicated good agreement for the sample results and provided confidence in the PG&E analytical procedures and final status survey soil sample data reporting.

On August 5, 2004, the United States entered into the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR). This permanent, comprehensive, and reciprocal trade agreement eliminates tariff and non-tariff barriers to two-way trade, building on unilateral trade preferences begun under the 1983 Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). CAFTA-DR reinforces the idea that growth in trade correlates closely with policies that promote economic stability, private investment in production, public investment in education, infrastructure, logistics, and good governance in general.

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This report documents progress made on all LDRD-funded projects during fiscal year 2011. The following topics are discussed: (1) Advanced sensors and instrumentation; (2) Biological Sciences; (3) Chemistry; (4) Earth and space sciences; (5) Energy supply and use; (6) Engineering and manufacturing processes; (7) Materials science and technology; (8) Mathematics and computing sciences; (9) Nuclear science and engineering; and (10) Physics.

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As part of regulatory requirements for shallow-water habitat (SWH) restoration, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) completes periodic estimates of the quantity of SWH available throughout the lower 752 mi of the Missouri River. To date, these estimates have been made by various methods that consider only the water depth criterion for SWH. The USACE has completed estimates of SWH availability based on both depth and velocity criteria at four river bends (hereafter called reference bends), encompassing approximately 8 river miles within the lower 752 mi of the Missouri River. These estimates were made from the results of hydraulic modeling of water depth and velocity throughout each bend. Hydraulic modeling of additional river bends is not expected to be completed for deriving estimates of available SWH. Instead, future estimates of SWH will be based on the water depth criterion. The objective of this project, conducted by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the USACE Omaha District, was to develop geographic information system methods for estimating the quantity of available SWH based on water depth only. Knowing that only a limited amount of water depth and channel geometry data would be available for all the remaining bends within the lower …

Objectives: To synthesize and characterize a C-Dot silica-based nanoparticle containing 'clickable' groups for the subsequent attachment of targeting moieties (e.g., peptides) and multiple contrast agents (e.g., radionuclides with high specific activity) [1,2]. These new constructs will be tested in suitable tumor models in vitro and in vivo to ensure maintenance of target-specificity and high specific activity. Methods: Cy5 dye molecules are cross-linked to a silica precursor which is reacted to form a dye-rich core particle. This core is then encapsulated in a layer of pure silica to create the core-shell C-Dot (Figure 1) [2]. A 'click' chemistry approach has been used to functionalize the silica shell with radionuclides conferring high contrast and specific activity (e.g. 64Cu and 89Zr) and peptides for tumor targeting (e.g. cRGD and octreotate) [3]. Based on the selective Diels-Alder reaction between tetrazine and norbornene, the reaction is bioorthogonal, highyielding, rapid, and water-compatible. This radiolabeling approach has already been employed successfully with both short peptides (e.g. octreotate) and antibodies (e.g. trastuzumab) as model systems for the ultimate labeling of the nanoparticles [1]. Results: PEGylated C-Dots with a Cy5 core and labeled with tetrazine have been synthesized (d = 55 nm, zeta potential = -3 mV) reliably and …

This project had goals of advancing the performance capabilities of the numerical general circulation model EULAG and using it to produce a fully operational atmospheric global climate model (AGCM) that can employ either static or dynamic grid stretching for targeted phenomena. The resulting AGCM combined EULAG's advanced dynamics core with the 'physics' of the NCAR Community Atmospheric Model (CAM). Effort discussed below shows how we improved model performance and tested both EULAG and the coupled CAM-EULAG in several ways to demonstrate the grid stretching and ability to simulate very well a wide range of scales, that is, multi-scale capability. We leveraged our effort through interaction with an international EULAG community that has collectively developed new features and applications of EULAG, which we exploited for our own work summarized here. Overall, the work contributed to over 40 peer-reviewed publications and over 70 conference/workshop/seminar presentations, many of them invited.

The protection of data, particularly data that can be used to identify individuals, has become an issue of great concern to Congress. This report discusses relevant legislation regarding data security.

This report discusses water quality legislation. A number of Clean Water Act issues have been the subject of congressional oversight and legislation, including the environmental and economic impacts of Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts, federal promulgation of water quality standards in Florida, regulation of surface coal mining activities in Appalachia, and other CWA regulatory actions. Congressional interest in several of these issues has been reflected in debate over policy provisions of legislation providing FY2012 appropriations for EPA (P.L. 112-74).

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Little research exists on the effect of workplace safety incentive programs and other workplace safety policies on workers' reporting of injuries and illnesses, but several experts identified a link between certain types of programs and policies and reporting. Researchers distinguish between rate-based safety incentive programs, which reward workers for achieving low rates of reported injuries or illnesses, and behavior-based programs, which reward workers for certain behaviors, such as recommending safety improvements. Of the six studies GAO identified that assessed the effect of safety incentive programs, two analyzed the potential effect on workers’ reporting of injuries or illnesses, but they concluded that there was no relationship between the programs and injury and illness reporting. Experts and industry officials, however, suggest that rate-based programs may discourage reporting of injuries and illnesses. Experts and industry officials also reported that certain workplace polices, such as post-incident drug and alcohol testing, may discourage workers from reporting injuries and illnesses. Researchers and workplace safety experts also noted that how safety is managed in the workplace, including employer practices such as fostering open communication about safety issues, may encourage reporting of injuries and …