A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Homelessness programs are fragmented across multiple agencies and some show evidence of overlap. In fiscal year 2010, eight federal agencies obligated roughly $2.8 billion to administer 26 homelessness programs. Three agencies—the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Veterans Affairs (VA)—are responsible for the majority of programs and dollars, 22 of 26 programs, and 89 percent of total funds. GAO found that these agencies and the Department of Labor (Labor) have multiple programs that offer similar services to similar beneficiaries. Fragmentation of services and overlap in some programs is partly due to their legislative creation and partly due to programs evolving to offer services that meet the variety of needs of persons experiencing homelessness. Fragmentation and overlap can lead to inefficient use of resources. For example, both HHS and VA have programs that provide similar services, but each agency separately manages its programs under different administrative units. In addition, some local service providers told us that managing multiple applications and reporting requirements was burdensome, difficult, and costly. Moreover, according to providers, persons experiencing homelessness have difficulties navigating services that are …

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

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "PCORI received an unqualified audit opinion on its 2011 and 2010 financial statements. In its audit of PCORI’s financial statements, the IPA found that the financial statements were presented fairly, in all material respects, and there was no reportable noncompliance with selected provisions of laws and regulations the IPA tested as part of its audit. However, the IPA identified a deficiency in PCORI’s internal control over financial reporting related to PCORI reporting on its receipt of appropriated funds. The IPA determined the deficiency to be significant enough to constitute a material weakness. We found no instances in which the IPA did not comply, in all material respects, with U.S. generally accepted auditing standards and generally accepted government auditing standards in the conduct of the financial statement audit. In e-mailed comments from PCORI’s Director of Finance, PCORI stated that the identified deficiency in financial reporting related to appropriations received resulted from uncertainty over differences between the federal government’s and PCORI’s fiscal years and cited action taken to adjust its records to correct the deficiency."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In its October 2010 report, GAO noted that oil shale development presents the following opportunities for the United States:"

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "DOD is estimating and publishing approximate costs for selected types of internally and externally required reports, but in some cases its approach is not fully consistent with relevant cost estimating best practices and cost accounting standards. Specifically, DOD entities have been directed to use the cost estimating tool to capture marginal costs of activities associated with completing a report or study that would not have been performed otherwise. These costs consist of certain manpower costs (such as the prorated salaries of military and civilian personnel based on the time they spent) and nonlabor costs (such as contract services, travel, or printing). In comparing DOD’s approach to (1) GAO’s Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide—which states that high-quality, reliable cost estimates should be comprehensive, well documented, and accurate—and (2) relevant accounting standards, we found the following."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In determining that Salmonella is the primary food safety hazard in catfish, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) officials stated that the agency focused on Salmonella at the direction of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which considered Salmonella the most practical hazard to evaluate. However, GAO found that FSIS used outdated and limited information in its risk assessment as its scientific basis for a catfish inspection program that seeks to mitigate that hazard. For example, FSIS identified a single outbreak of Salmonella-caused illnesses, but this outbreak was not clearly linked to catfish. FSIS noted that this outbreak was before the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) 1997 Seafood Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point regulations, which required firms to identify hazards in their processing systems and implement controls to prevent or mitigate these hazards; no similar outbreaks have occurred since. Other federal agencies questioned if FSIS had adequately demonstrated a Salmonella problem in catfish. For example, FDA does not generally have such concerns. Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) also stated that FSIS …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has taken steps to establish its concept for conducting security force assistance, including broadly defining the term and identifying actions needed to plan for and prepare forces to execute these activities. For example, in October 2010, the department issued an instruction that broadly defines security force assistance and outlines responsibilities for key stakeholders, including the geographic combatant commands and military services. DOD also identified gaps in key areas of doctrine, organization, and training related to the implementation of security force assistance and tasks needed to address those gaps. The tasks include reviewing joint and service-level doctrine to incorporate security force assistance as needed and developing measures to assess progress in partner nations. Citing a need to clarify the definition of security force assistance beyond the DOD Instruction, DOD published a document referred to as a Lexicon Framework in November 2011 that included information to describe how security force assistance relates to other existing terms, such as security cooperation."

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Weekly newspaper from Port Aransas, Texas on Mustang Island that includes local, state and national news along with extensive advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

This report discusses how the current legislative framework for cybersecurity might need to be revised.

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

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Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy project sheet summarizing general information about a new program to generate liquid fuels from bacteria, carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight (project title "Engineering a Bacterial Reverse Fuel Cell") including critical needs, innovation and advantages, impacts, and contact information. This sheet is the first open solicitation, announcing funding opportunities for involvement in the project.

Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) evaluated methods to mix and blend the contents of the blend tanks to ensure the contents are properly blended before they are transferred from the blend tank such as Tank 21 and Tank 24 to the Salt Waste Processing Facility (SWPF) feed tank. The tank contents consist of three forms: dissolved salt solution, other waste salt solutions, and sludge containing settled solids. This paper focuses on developing the computational model and estimating the operation time of submersible slurry pump when the tank contents are adequately blended prior to their transfer to the SWPF facility. A three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics approach was taken by using the full scale configuration of SRS Type-IV tank, Tank 21H. Major solid obstructions such as the tank wall boundary, the transfer pump column, and three slurry pump housings including one active and two inactive pumps were included in the mixing performance model. Basic flow pattern results predicted by the computational model were benchmarked against the SRNL test results and literature data. Tank 21 is a waste tank that is used to prepare batches of salt feed for SWPF. The salt feed must be a homogeneous solution satisfying the acceptance criterion of …

We present the promise of generating gigawatt mode-locked multichromatic x rays in a seeded free-electron laser (FEL). We show that, by using a laser to imprint periodic modulation in electron beam phase space, a single-frequency coherent seed can be amplified and further translated to a mode-locked multichromatic output in an FEL. With this configuration the FEL output consists of a train of mode-locked ultrashort pulses which span a wide frequency gap with a series of equally spaced sharp lines. These gigawatt multichromatic x rays may potentially allow one to explore the structure and dynamics of a large number of atomic states simultaneously. The feasibility of generating mode-locked x rays ranging from carbon K edge ({approx}284 eV) to copper L{sub 3} edge ({approx}931 eV) is confirmed with numerical simulation using the realistic parameters of the linac coherent light source (LCLS) and LCLS-II. We anticipate that the mode-locked multichromatic x rays in FELs may open up new opportunities in x-ray spectroscopy (i.e. resonant inelastic x-ray scattering, time-resolved scattering and spectroscopy, etc.).

Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy project sheet summarizing general information about the Electrofuels program including critical needs, innovation and advantages, impacts, and contact information. This sheet discusses the modification of E. coli to consume carbon dioxide and produce liquid fuel as part of the "Engineering E. coli as an Electrofuels Chassis for Isooctane Production" project.

Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy project sheet summarizing general information about the Electrofuels program including critical needs, innovation and advantages, impacts, and contact information. This sheet discusses a new program to develop a bacteria that uses electricity to convert carbon dioxide into liquid fuels as part of the "Development of Rhodobacter as a Versatile Platform for Fuels Production" project.

Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy project sheet summarizing general information about the 13 projects that are a part of the Electrofuels program including project goals, innovation needs, and potential impacts.

Significant progress has been made on the development of a control strategy for the supercritical carbon dioxide (S-CO{sub 2}) Brayton cycle enabling removal of power from an autonomous load following Sodium-Cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) down to decay heat levels such that the S-CO{sub 2} cycle can be used to cool the reactor until decay heat can be removed by the normal shutdown heat removal system or a passive decay heat removal system such as Direct Reactor Auxiliary Cooling System (DRACS) loops with DRACS in-vessel heat exchangers. This capability of the new control strategy eliminates the need for use of a separate shutdown heat removal system which might also use supercritical CO{sub 2}. It has been found that this capability can be achieved by introducing a new control mechanism involving shaft speed control for the common shaft joining the turbine and two compressors following reduction of the load demand from the electrical grid to zero. Following disconnection of the generator from the electrical grid, heat is removed from the intermediate sodium circuit through the sodium-to-CO{sub 2} heat exchanger, the turbine solely drives the two compressors, and heat is rejected from the cycle through the CO{sub 2}-to-water cooler. To investigate the effectiveness …

Glycolic acid (GA) is being studied as an alternate reductant in the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) feed preparation process. It will either be a total or partial replacement for the formic acid that is currently used. A literature review has been conducted on the impact of glycolate on two post-DWPF downstream systems - the 2H Evaporator system and the Effluent Treatment Facility (ETF). The DWPF recycle stream serves as a portion of the feed to the 2H Evaporator. Glycolate enters the evaporator system from the glycolate in the recycle stream. The overhead (i.e., condensed phase) from the 2H Evaporator serves as a portion of the feed to the ETF. The literature search revealed that virtually no impact is anticipated for the 2H Evaporator. Glycolate may help reduce scale formation in the evaporator due to its high complexing ability. The drawback of the solubilizing ability is the potential impact on the criticality analysis of the 2H Evaporator system. It is recommended that at least a theoretical evaluation to confirm the finding that no self-propagating violent reactions with nitrate/nitrites will occur should be performed. Similarly, identification of sources of ignition relevant to glycolate and/or update of the composite flammability analysis to …

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.