This report discusses the current political state of Afghanistan, focusing particularly on the influence of the Taliban and other militant groups and on the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. This report also discusses the U.S.-Afghanistan relationship, in both the short and long term, and U.S. efforts under the Obama Administration to provide military, reconstructive, and stabilization aid.

The objective of this project was to discover the protein complexes and control mechanisms that determine the location of actin filament roadways in plant cells. Our work provided the first molecular description of protein complexes that are converted from inactive complexes to active actin filament nucleators in the cell. These discoveries provided a conceptual framework to control to roadways in plant cells that determine the location and delivery of plant metabolites and storage molecules that are relevant to the bioenergy economy.

Thermoelectric materials have generated interest as a means of increasing the efficiency of power generation through the scavenging of waste heat. Materials containing nanometer-sized structural and compositional features can exhibit enhanced thermoelectric performance due to the decoupling of certain electrical and thermal properties, but the extent to which these features can be controlled is often limited. Here we report a simple synthesis of M{sub 2}O{sub 3}(ZnO){sub n} (M = In, Ga, Fe) nanowires with controllable polytypoid structures, where the nanostructured features are tuned by adjusting the amount of metal precursor. After the introduction of nanometer-scale features (individual atomic layers and alloying), thermal and electrical measurements on single In{sub 2-x}Ga{sub x}O3(ZnO){sub n} nanowires reveal a simultaneous improvement in all contributing factors to the thermoelectric figure of merit, indicating successful modification of the nanowire transport properties.

This report discusses Background on the Scheduled Reduction to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Benefits.

This guide is a summary of the campaign finance regulations applicable to political committees.

On June 1, 200, the European Union (EU) began to implement a new law governing chemicals in EU commerce: Registration, Evaluation, Authorization, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH). It is intended to protect human health and the environment from hazardous chemicals while at the same time protecting the competitiveness of European industry. This report contains information on the background, how each part of the REACH law are implemented, and related materials.

This report discusses disposal of nuclear waste, primarily highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants. Presidential and Congressional actions regarding nuclear waste disposal sites and the Yucca Mountain Project, other alternatives previously proposed by the Obama Administration, and temporary solutions are discussed.

The I2B coal seam in the Charqueadas coal field has been evaluated as a target for enhanced coal bed methane production and CO{sub 2} sequestration. The samples were low rank coals (high volatile bituminous and sub-bituminous) obtained from the I2B seam as �3� cores. Such properties as sorption capacity, internal structure of the samples, porosity and permeability were of primary interest in this characterization study.

In this paper, we discuss the design of a compact gamma camera for high-resolution prostate cancer imaging using Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CdZnTe or CZT) radiation detectors. Prostate cancer is a common disease in men. Nowadays, a blood test measuring the level of prostate specific antigen (PSA) is widely used for screening for the disease in males over 50, followed by (ultrasound) imaging-guided biopsy. However, PSA tests have a high false-positive rate and ultrasound-guided biopsy has a high likelihood of missing small cancerous tissues. Commercial methods of nuclear medical imaging, e.g. PET and SPECT, can functionally image the organs, and potentially find cancer tissues at early stages, but their applications in diagnosing prostate cancer has been limited by the smallness of the prostate gland and the long working distance between the organ and the detectors comprising these imaging systems. CZT is a semiconductor material with wide band-gap and relatively high electron mobility, and thus can operate at room temperature without additional cooling. CZT detectors are photon-electron direct-conversion devices, thus offering high energy-resolution in detecting gamma rays, enabling energy-resolved imaging, and reducing the background of Compton-scattering events. In addition, CZT material has high stopping power for gamma rays; for medical imaging, a …

This report discuses recently proposed bills in the Senate (KIDS Act) and the House (HEALTHY KIDS Act) to extend funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) which is currently unfunded for the 2018 fiscal year and running off of unused funds in each state from previous years. On October 4, 2017, both the Senate Finance Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee had markups on different bills that would extend CHIP federal funding through FY2022, among other provisions.

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A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO identified 15 key aerostat and airship efforts that were underway or had been initiated since 2007, and the Department of Defense (DOD) had or has primary responsibility for all of these efforts. None of the civil agency efforts met GAO's criteria for a key effort. Most of the aerostat and airship efforts have been fielded or completed, and are intended to provide intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) support. The estimated total funding of these efforts was almost $7 billion from fiscal years 2007 through 2012. However, funding estimates beyond fiscal year 2012 decline precipitously for aerostat and airship efforts under development, although there is an expectation that investment in the area will continue."

This report explains the Department of Defense's (DOD's) personnel tempo (PERSTEMPO) management, policies and programs. PERSTEMPO refers to the pace of operations for servicemembers and can affect quality of life, work satisfaction, and overall morale for members and their families.

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Range clearance operations at munitions testing grounds must discriminate Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) from clutter items and distinguish UXO filled with High Explosives (HE) from those with inert fillers. Non-destructive technologies are thus necessary for the cost-effective disposal of UXO during remediation of such sites. The only technique showing promise so far for the non-destructive elemental characterization of UXO fillers utilizes neutron interactions with the material to detect carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and oxygen (O) which have unique ratios in HE. However, several unresolved issues hinder the wide application of this potentially very suitable technique. The most important one is that neutrons interact with all surrounding matter in addition to the interrogated material, leading to a very high gamma-ray background in the detector. Systems requiring bulky shielding and having poor signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) for measuring elements are unsuitable for field deployment. The inadequacies of conventional neutron interrogation methods are overcome by using the tagged-neutron approach, and the availability of compact sealed neutron generators exploiting this technique offers field deployment of non-intrusive measurement systems for detecting threat materials, like explosives and drugs. By accelerating deuterium ions into a tritium target, the subsequent fusion reaction generates nearly back-to-back emissions of neutrons and alpha …

Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CdZnTe or CZT) is a very attractive material for room-temperature semiconductor detectors because of its wide band-gap and high atomic number. Despite these advantages, CZT still presents some material limitations and poor hole mobility. In the past decade most of the developing CZT detectors focused on designing different electrode configurations, mainly to minimize the deleterious effect due to the poor hole mobility. A few different electrode geometries were designed and fabricated, such as pixelated anodes and Frisch-grid detectors developed at Brookhaven National Lab (BNL). However, crystal defects in CZT materials still limit the yield of detector-grade crystals, and, in general, dominate the detector's performance. In the past few years, our group's research extended to characterizing the CZT materials at the micro-scale, and to correlating crystal defects with the detector's performance. We built a set of unique tools for this purpose, including infrared (IR) transmission microscopy, X-ray micro-scale mapping using synchrotron light source, X-ray transmission- and reflection-topography, current deep level transient spectroscopy (I-DLTS), and photoluminescence measurements. Our most recent work on CZT detectors was directed towards detailing various crystal defects, studying the internal electrical field, and delineating the effects of thermal annealing on improving the material properties. In …

Second generation (2G) technologies to fabricate high-performance superconducting wires developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) were transferred to American Superconductor via this CRADA. In addition, co-development of technologies for over a decade was done to enable fabrication of commercial high-temperature superconducting (HTS) wires with high performance. The massive success of this CRADA has allowed American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) to become a global leader in the fabrication of HTS wire and the technology is fully based on the Rolling Assisted Biaxially Textured Substrates (RABiTS) technology invented and developed at ORNL.

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This report briefly poses and answers several "frequently asked questions" in relation to the floor proceedings used to elect a Speaker of the House. Current practice for electing a Speaker, either at the start of a Congress or in the event of a vacancy, is by roll-call vote, during which Members state aloud the name of their preferred candidate.

This report discusses veterans' employment trends and programs. The first section presents data on veterans' employment outcomes, identifying recent trends, and discussing issues to consider when interpreting veterans' employment data. The following sections present brief discussions of existing programs that provide employment-related services to veterans. These services are divided into (1) general programs that are broadly available to veterans, (2) programs that target veterans with service-connected disabilities, and (3) competitive grant programs that provide additional employment-related services to veterans but may be limited in scope or availability.

Report that discusses the FY2012 budget for energy and water development as approved by Congress, including how the funding will be used.

EPA report establishes the final ruling on state guidelines for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (specifically CO2) from existing electric generating units powered by fossil fuels. Interim emission goals are established for each state in years 2022-2029, and final goals start with years 2030-2031.

Ion Exchange column loading and elution of cesium from spherical resorcinol-formaldehyde resin have been conducted for two potential non-acid eluants -(NH{sub 4}){sub 2}CO{sub 3} and CH{sub 3}COONH{sub 4}. The results revealed encouraging cesium elution performance. 100% elution was achieved in at most 22 hours ({approx}28 bed volumes) of elution. Elution performance was fairly high at 6 hours ({approx}8 bed volumes) of elution for some of the eluants and also practically comparable to the benchmark acid eluant (HNO{sub 3}). Hence, it is quite possible 100% percent elution will be closer to the 6th hour than the 22nd hour. Elution is generally enhanced by increasing the concentration and pH of the eluants, and combining the eluants.

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