A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO's continuing reviews of the acquisition workforce, focusing on the Department of Defense (DOD); the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force; the Departments of Veterans Affairs, Energy, and Health and Human Services; the General Services Administration; and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, indicate that some of the government's largest procurement operations are not run efficiently. GAO found that requirements are not clearly defined, prices and alternatives are not fully considered, or contracts are not adequately overseen. The ongoing technological revolution requires a workforce with new knowledge, skills, and abilities, and the nature of acquisition is changing from routine simple buys toward more complex acquisitions and new business practices. DOD has adopted multidisciplinary and multifunctional definitions of their acquisition workforce, but the civilian agencies have not. DOD and the civilian agencies reviewed have developed specific training requirements for their acquisition workforce and mechanisms to track the training of acquisition personnel. All of the agencies reviewed said they had sufficient funding to provide current required core training for their acquisition workforce, but some expressed concerns about funding training for future requirements and career development, particularly …

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Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. This report is a guide to one of the 13 regular appropriations bills that Congress considers each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government.

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Both shared memory and distributed memory models have advantages and shortcomings. Shared memory model is much easier to use but it ignores data locality/placement. Given the hierarchical nature of the memory subsystems in the modern computers this characteristic might have a negative impact on performance and scalability. Various techniques, such as code restructuring to increase data reuse and introducing blocking in data accesses, can address the problem and yield performance competitive with message passing[Singh], however at the cost of compromising the ease of use feature. Distributed memory models such as message passing or one-sided communication offer performance and scalability but they compromise the ease-of-use. In this context, the message-passing model is sometimes referred to as?assembly programming for the scientific computing?. The Global Arrays toolkit[GA1, GA2] attempts to offer the best features of both models. It implements a shared-memory programming model in which data locality is managed explicitly by the programmer. This management is achieved by explicit calls to functions that transfer data between a global address space (a distributed array) and local storage. In this respect, the GA model has similarities to the distributed shared-memory models that provide an explicit acquire/release protocol. However, the GA model acknowledges that remote data …

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The purpose of this report is to document the environmental aspects and associated environmental impacts of the Bechtel SAIC Company (BSC) scope of work, evaluate the significance of those environmental aspects based on established criteria, and establish environmental objectives and targets for specific environmental aspects. This report is intended to be used by environmental staff in the evaluation of BSC work packages during the annual risk-based planning process. This report shall be fully reviewed and revised annually during the annual work planning process to reflect changes in BSC operations, facilities, and scope of work. Planned BSC work will be evaluated to determine if the work is covered by a previously defined activity, product or service (see Table 2); if work activities require redefinition or addition of a new activity; and if the significant evaluation for each environment aspect is still valid based on scope of planned work. New workscope initiated during the fiscal year through the Baseline Change Proposal process (i.e., not as part of the annual work plan) also will be reviewed for new environmental aspects and determination of whether the new workscope would change the significance rating of any environmental aspect. If a new environmental aspect is identified …

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Eyeglass is a very large aperture (25-100 meter) space telescope consisting of two distinct spacecraft, separated in space by several kilometers. A diffractive lens provides the telescope's large aperture, and a separate, much smaller, space telescope serves as its mobile eyepiece. Use of a transmissive diffractive lens solves two basic problems associated with very large aperture space telescopes; it is inherently fieldable (lightweight and flat, hence packagable and deployable) and virtually eliminates the traditional, very tight, surface shape tolerances faced by reflecting apertures. The potential drawback to use of a diffractive primary (very narrow spectral bandwidth) is eliminated by corrective optics in the telescope's eyepiece. The Eyeglass can provide diffraction-limited imaging with either single-band, multiband, or continuous spectral coverage. Broadband diffractive telescopes have been built at LLNL and have demonstrated diffraction-limited performance over a 40% spectral bandwidth (0.48-0.72 {micro}m). As one approach to package a large aperture for launch, a foldable lens has been built and demonstrated. A 75 cm aperture diffractive lens was constructed from 6 panels of 1 m thick silica; it achieved diffraction-limited performance both before and after folding. This multiple panel, folding lens, approach is currently being scaled-up at LLNL. We are building a 5 meter …

Experimental investigations of a planar ferroelectric cathode in a transverse magnetic field up to 3 kGs are presented. It is shown that the transverse magnetic field affects differently the operation of ferroelectric plasma cathodes in ''bright'' and ''dark'' modes in vacuum. In the ''bright'' mode, when the surface plasma is formed, the application of the transverse magnetic field leads to an increase of the surface plasma density. In the ''dark'' mode, the magnetic field inhibits the development of electron avalanches along the surface, as it does similarly in other kinds of surface discharges in the pre-breakdown mode.

This work focuses on the investigation of the distribution of contaminants in individual sediment particles from the New York/New Jersey Harbor. Knowledge of the spatial distribution of the contaminants within the particles is needed to enable (1) more sophisticated approaches to the understanding of the fate and transport of the contaminants in the environment and (2) more refined methods for cleaning the sediments. The size of the investigated particles ranges from 30-80 microns. Due to the low concentration of the elements of interest and the microscopic size of the environmental particles in these measurements, the small size and high intensity of the analyzing X-ray beam was critical. The high photon flux at the ESRF Microfocus beam line (ID13) was used as the basis for fluorescence tomography to investigate whether the inorganic compounds are taken upon the surface organic coating or whether they are distributed through the volume of the grains being analyzed. The experiments were done using a 13 keV monochromatic beam of approximately 2 {micro}m in size having an intensity of 10{sup 10} ph/s, allowing absolute detection limits on the 0.04-1 fg level for Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, and Zn.

High resolution X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) was used to analyze thin layers of germanium oxide grown on germanium substrates under various conditions. The results reveal the presence of high density of electron states located at the oxide/germanium interface that lead to the energy band bending. The surface of native oxide layers and that of thin oxide layer grown under dry oxygen correspond to GeO2 composition. Under Ar etching, lower oxidation states were revealed. Short in-situ heat treatment at T=400 degrees C under ultra high vacuum leads to the removal of the oxide layer. In addition, the analysis of the layer grown at T=380 degrees C under dry oxygen suggest that carbides form at the oxide/substrate interface.

This report provides data on federal employee unions and employees who would be potentially affected by the creation by the creation of a new Department of Homeland Security, as proposed by the President.

The effect of pre-irradiation heat treatments on thermal non-equilibrium grain boundary segregation (TNES) and subsequent radiation-induced grain boundary segregation (RIS) is studied in a series of model austenitic stainless steels. The alloys used for this study are based on AISI 316 stainless steel and have the following nominal compositions: Fe-16Cr-13Ni-1.25Mn (base 316), Fe-16Cr-13Ni-1.25Mn-2.0Mo (316 + Mo) and Fe-16Cr-13Ni-1.25Mn-2.0Mo-0.07P (316 + Mo + P). Samples were heat treated at temperatures ranging from 1100 to 1300 C and cooled at 4 different rates (salt brine quench, water quench, air cool and furnace cool) to evaluate the effect of annealing temperature and quench rate on TNES. The alloys were than processed with the treatment (temperature and cooling rate) that resulted in the maximum Cr enrichment. Alloys with and without the heat treatment to enrich the grain boundaries with Cr were characterized following irradiation to 1 dpa at 400 C with high-energy protons in order to understand the influence of alloying additions and pre-irradiation grain boundary chemistry on irradiation-induced elemental enrichment and depletion profiles. Various mechanistic models will be examined to explain the observed behavior.

A well-adapted spectrograph concept has been developed for the SNAP (SuperNova/Acceleration Probe) experiment. The goal is to ensure proper identification of Type Ia supernovae and to standardize the magnitude of each candidate by determining explosion parameters. An instrument based on an integral field method with the powerful concept of imager slicing has been designed and is presented in this paper. The spectrograph concept is optimized to have very high efficiency and low spectral resolution (R {approx} 100), constant through the wavelength range (0.35-1.7{micro}m), adapted to the scientific goals of the mission.

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We provide a detailed description of a model and its computational algorithm for the secondary electron emission process. The model is based on a broad phenomenological fit to data for the secondary emission yield (SEY) and the emitted-energy spectrum. We provide two sets of values for the parameters by fitting our model to two particular data sets, one for copper and the other one for stainless steel.

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The Nearby Supernova Factory (SNfactory) is an international experiment designed to lay the foundation for the next generation of cosmology experiments (such as CFHTLS, wP, SNAP and LSST) which will measure the expansion history of the Universe using Type Ia supernovae. The SNfactory will discover and obtain frequent lightcurve spectrophotometry covering 3200-10000 {angstrom} for roughly 300 Type Ia supernovae at the low-redshift end of the smooth Hubble flow. The quantity, quality, breadth of galactic environments, and homogeneous nature of the SNfactory dataset will make it the premier source of calibration for the Type Ia supernova width-brightness relation and the intrinsic supernova colors used for K-correction and correction for extinction by host-galaxy dust. This dataset will also allow an extensive investigation of additional parameters which possibly influence the quality of Type Ia supernovae as cosmological probes. The SNfactory search capabilities and follow-up instrumentation include wide-field CCD imagers on two 1.2-m telescopes (via collaboration with the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking team at JPL and the QUEST team at Yale), and a two-channel integral-field-unit optical spectrograph/imager being fabricated for the University of Hawaii 2.2-m telescope. In addition to ground-based follow-up, UV spectra for a subsample of these supernovae will be obtained with HST. …

The SuperNova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP) is a space-based experiment to measure the expansion history of the Universe and study both its dark energy and the dark matter. The experiment is motivated by the startling discovery that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating. A 0.7 square-degree imager comprised of 36 large format fully-depleted n-type CCD's sharing a focal plane with 36 HgCdTe detectors forms the heart of SNAP, allowing discovery and lightcurve measurements simultaneously for many supernovae. The imager and a high-efficiency low-resolution integral field spectrograph are coupled to a 2-m three mirror anastigmat wide-field telescope, which will be placed in a high-earth orbit. The SNAP mission can obtain high-signal-to-noise calibrated light-curves and spectra for over 2000 Type Ia supernovae at redshifts between z = 0.1 and 1.7. The resulting data set can not only determine the amount of dark energy with high precision, but test the nature of the dark energy by examining its equation of state. In particular, dark energy due to a cosmological constant can be differentiated from alternatives such as ''quintessence'', by measuring the dark energy's equation of state to an accuracy of {+-} 0.05, and by studying its time dependence.

The Cr-Ta alloy with an eutectic structure has a good combination of high strength and oxidation resistance at elevated temperatures up to 1200 C. It is an ideal candidate for ultrahigh-temperature applications. However, the material shows low ductility and fracture toughness at room temperature. A possible way to improve the ductility and fracture toughness is to obtain an aligned microstructure of eutectic Cr-based alloys, using a directional-solidification (DS) process, in which the feed materials with eutectic compositions are preferred. In the present work, a quantitative technique was developed to assist in monitoring and controlling the composition of the Cr-based alloys at each stage of the processing at elevated temperatures. The eutectic composition of the binary Cr-Ta alloy was determined to be Cr-9.7 at.% (atomic percent) Ta, and a drop-cast ternary Cr-9.7 at.% Ta-1.0 at.% Mo alloy was found to possess a fully eutectic structure.