A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "According to Pew Hispanic Center estimates, approximately 4 million to 5.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States entered the country legally on a temporary basis but then overstayed their authorized periods of admission--referred to as overstays. As requested, GAO examined the extent to which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (1) takes action to address overstays and its reported results; and (2) identifies overstays and shares this information among its border security and immigration enforcement components. GAO reviewed relevant documents, such as standard operating procedures, DHS guidance, and overstay investigations data from fiscal years 2006 through 2010; interviewed officials from DHS components; and visited 6 DHS field offices and 12 ports of entry based on geographic dispersion, among other factors. The results of these visits are not generalizable, but provided insights into DHS operations."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To stem the flow of illegal traffic from Mexico into the United States over the last 5 years along the U.S. southwestern border, the Border Patrol has nearly doubled the number of agents on patrol, constructed hundreds of miles of border fences, and installed a variety of surveillance equipment. About 40 percent of these border lands are managed by the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture, and coordination and cooperation between Border Patrol and land management agencies is critical to ensure national security. As requested, this statement summarizes GAO's findings from two reports issued on southwest border issues in the fall of 2010. The first report, GAO-11-38, focused on the key land management laws that Border Patrol must comply with and how these laws affect the agency's operations. The second report, GAO-11-177, focused on the extent to which Border Patrol and land management agencies' law enforcement units share threat information and communications."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO's work over the past several years has highlighted long-standing, widespread, and significant problems with improper payments in the federal government. Fiscal year 2010 marked the 7th year of implementation of the Improper Payments Information Act of 2002 (IPIA). IPIA requires executive-branch agencies to identify programs and activities susceptible to significant improper payments, estimate annual amounts improperly paid, and report these estimates and actions taken to reduce them. On July 22, 2010, the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 (IPERA) was enacted. IPERA amended IPIA and expanded requirements for recovering overpayments across a broad range of federal programs. This testimony addresses (1) progress federal agencies have reported in estimating and reducing improper payments in fiscal year 2010, (2) challenges that continue to hinder full reporting of improper payment information, and (3) recent efforts by Congress and the executive branch intended to improve transparency and accountability for reporting, reducing, and recovering improper payments. This testimony is primarily based on prior GAO reports. GAO summarized available fiscal year 2010 improper payment information reported by federal executive-branch agencies and actions taken by the executive branch and Congress intended to …

This report discusses the trend of depreciation of the dollar since 2002. This raises concern among some in Congress and the public that the dollar's decline is a symptom of broader economic problems, such as a weak economic recovery, rising public debt, and a diminished standing in the global economy. However, a falling currency is not always a problem, but possibly an element of economic adjustments that are, on balance, beneficial to the economy.

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

This program implemented advanced computer optimization into an adaptive mesh, finite element, 3D, charged particle code. The routines can optimize electron gun performance to achieve a specified current, beam size, and perveance. It can also minimize beam ripple and electric field gradients. The magnetics optimization capability allows design of coil geometries and magnetic material configurations to achieve a specified axial magnetic field profile. The optimization control program, built into the charged particle code Beam Optics Analyzer (BOA) utilizes a 3D solid modeling package to modify geometry using design tables. Parameters within the graphical user interface (currents, voltages, etc.) can be directly modified within BOA. The program implemented advanced post processing capability for the optimization routines as well as the user. A Graphical User Interface allows the user to set up goal functions, select variables, establish ranges of variation, and define performance criteria. The optimization capability allowed development of a doubly convergent multiple beam gun that could not be designed using previous techniques.

Geological repositories have been considered a feasible option worldwide for storing high-level nuclear waste. Clay rock is one of the rock types under consideration for such purposes, because of its favorable features to prevent radionuclide transport from the repository. Coupled hydromechanical processes have an important impact on the performance of a clay repository, and establishing constitutive relationships for modeling such processes are essential. In this study, we propose several constitutive relationships for elastic deformation in indurated clay rocks based on three recently developed concepts. First, when applying Hooke's law in clay rocks, true strain (rock volume change divided by the current rock volume), rather than engineering strain (rock volume change divided by unstressed rock volume), should be used, except when the degree of deformation is very small. In the latter case, the two strains will be practically identical. Second, because of its inherent heterogeneity, clay rock can be divided into two parts, a hard part and a soft part, with the hard part subject to a relatively small degree of deformation compared with the soft part. Third, for swelling rock like clay, effective stress needs to be generalized to include an additional term resulting from the swelling process. To evaluate …

This report analyzed the potential for increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) in the non-residential building and the industrial sectors in India. The first two sections describe the research and analysis supporting the establishment of baseline energy consumption using a bottom up approach for the non residential sector and for the industry sector respectively. The third section covers the explanation of a modeling framework where GHG emissions are projected according to a baseline scenario and alternative scenarios that account for the implementation of cleaner technology.

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas House of Representatives and Senate recognizing April 13, 2011, as Leadership Highland Lakes Day at the State Capitol.

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas House of Representatives and Senate recognizing April 13, 2011, as Leadership Killeen Day at the State Capitol.

Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition is increasing rapidly in tropical regions, adding N to ecosystems that often have high background N availability. Tropical forests play an important role in the global carbon (C) cycle, yet the effects of N deposition on C cycling in these ecosystems are poorly understood. We used a field N-fertilization experiment in lower and upper elevation tropical rain forests in Puerto Rico to explore the responses of above- and belowground C pools to N addition. As expected, tree stem growth and litterfall productivity did not respond to N fertilization in either of these Nrich forests, indicating a lack of N limitation to net primary productivity (NPP). In contrast, soil C concentrations increased significantly with N fertilization in both forests, leading to larger C stocks in fertilized plots. However, different soil C pools responded to N fertilization differently. Labile (low density) soil C fractions and live fine roots declined with fertilization, while mineral-associated soil C increased in both forests. Decreased soil CO2 fluxes in fertilized plots were correlated with smaller labile soil C pools in the lower elevation forest (R2 = 0.65, p\0.05), and with lower live fine root biomass in the upper elevation forest (R2 = 0.90, …

Current climate models produce quite heterogeneous projections for the responses of precipitation extremes to future climate change. To help understand the range of projections from multimodel ensembles, a series of idealized 'aquaplanet' Atmospheric General Circulation Model (AGCM) runs have been performed with the Community Atmosphere Model CAM3. These runs have been analysed to identify the effects of horizontal resolution on precipitation extreme projections under two simple global warming scenarios. We adopt the aquaplanet framework for our simulations to remove any sensitivity to the spatial resolution of external inputs and to focus on the roles of model physics and dynamics. Results show that a uniform increase of sea surface temperature (SST) and an increase of low-to-high latitude SST gradient both lead to increase of precipitation and precipitation extremes for most latitudes. The perturbed SSTs generally have stronger impacts on precipitation extremes than on mean precipitation. Horizontal model resolution strongly affects the global warming signals in the extreme precipitation in tropical and subtropical regions but not in high latitude regions. This study illustrates that the effects of horizontal resolution have to be taken into account to develop more robust projections of precipitation extremes.

This report presents the results of an analysis performed by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the City of Sacramento--under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Office of Weatherization and Intergovernmental Projects Technical Assistance Program--to help determine the potential for incorporating energy efficiency standards into the City’s existing Rental Housing Inspection Program as part of Sacramento’s efforts to create a Climate Action Plan.

This report discusses the history and political background of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia since breaking away from the former Soviet Union at the end of 1991. It looks at key issues for the 112th Congress including economies, energy, regional politics, local crime, and terrorism.

This report discusses the current political conditions of Kenya, which has long been an important ally of the United States. The report focuses particularly on the December 2007 elections, which many international observers have declared as rigged and deeply flawed. The report also discusses violence that erupted once election results were announced, as well as U.S. efforts to urge Kenya toward election reforms.

This report discusses the right of the Secretary of the Interior (SOI) to take Narragansett Indian Tribe land into trust. It looks at issues before the Supreme Court in the case of Carcieri v. Salazar (2009), and subsequent bills related to this case that have been introduced by Congress.

This report provides background information and issues for Congress on the Navy's proposal to homeport a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (CVN) at Mayport, Florida. Transferring a CVN from Norfolk, Virginia, to Mayport would also shift the local economic activity associated with homeporting a CVN, which some sources estimate as being worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

This report provides an overview of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and describes its background, objectives, and structure, including the role of the Convention's monitoring body, the CEDAW Committee. It examines U.S. policy and issues in the U.S. ratification debate, including the Convention's possible impact on U.S. sovereignty, its effectiveness in combating discrimination, and its role as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy.

Four species of non-indigenous Asian carp are expanding their range in U.S. waterways, resulting in a variety of concerns and problems. This report details the environmental and economic threats from this invasion, as well as ways to combat the spread of Asian carp in U.S. water.

Obtaining formal quotes and engineering conceptual designs for carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) sequestration sites and facilities is costly and time-consuming. Frequently, when looking at potential locations, managers, engineers and scientists are confronted with multiple options, but do not have the expertise or the information required to quickly obtain a general estimate of what the costs will be without employing an engineering firm. Several models for carbon compression, transport and/or injection have been published that are designed to aid in determining the cost of sequestration projects. A number of these models are used in this study, including models by J. Ogden, MIT's Carbon Capture and Sequestration Technologies Program Model, the Environmental Protection Agency and others. This report uses the information and data available from several projects either completed, in progress, or conceptualized by the Southwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership on Carbon Sequestration (SWP) to determine the best approach to estimate a project's cost. The data presented highlights calculated versus actual costs. This data is compared to the results obtained by applying several models for each of the individual projects with actual cost. It also offers methods to systematically apply the models to future projects of a similar scale. Last, the cost …

Data-intensive, graph-based computations are pervasive in several scientific applications, and are known to to be quite challenging to implement on distributed memory systems. In this work, we explore the design space of parallel algorithms for Breadth-First Search (BFS), a key subroutine in several graph algorithms. We present two highly-tuned par- allel approaches for BFS on large parallel systems: a level-synchronous strategy that relies on a simple vertex-based partitioning of the graph, and a two-dimensional sparse matrix- partitioning-based approach that mitigates parallel commu- nication overhead. For both approaches, we also present hybrid versions with intra-node multithreading. Our novel hybrid two-dimensional algorithm reduces communication times by up to a factor of 3.5, relative to a common vertex based approach. Our experimental study identifies execu- tion regimes in which these approaches will be competitive, and we demonstrate extremely high performance on lead- ing distributed-memory parallel systems. For instance, for a 40,000-core parallel execution on Hopper, an AMD Magny- Cours based system, we achieve a BFS performance rate of 17.8 billion edge visits per second on an undirected graph of 4.3 billion vertices and 68.7 billion edges with skewed degree distribution.

The purpose of Illinois State University’s wind project was to further the education and outreach of the university concerning wind energy. This project had three major components: to initiate and coordinate a Wind Working Group for the State of Illinois, to launch a Renewable Energy undergraduate program, and to develop the Center for Renewable Energy that will sustain the Illinois Wind Working Group and the undergraduate program.

Argonne National Laboratory is carrying out a research program to create, prepare, and evaluate catalysts to promote Fischer-Tropsch (FT) chemistry - specifically, the reaction of hydrogen with carbon monoxide to form long-chain hydrocarbons. In addition to needing high activity, it is desirable that the catalysts have high selectivity and stability with respect to both mechanical strength and aging properties. The broad goal is to produce diesel fraction components and avoiding excess yields of both light hydrocarbons and heavy waxes. Originally the goal was to prepare shape-selective catalysts that would limit the formation of long-chain products and yet retain the active metal sites in a protected 'cage.' Such catalysts were prepared with silica-containing fractal cages. The activity was essentially the same as that of catalysts without the cages. We are currently awaiting follow-up experiments to determine the attrition strength of these catalysts. A second experimental stage was undertaken to prepare and evaluate active FT catalysts formed by atomic-layer deposition [ALD] of active components on supported membranes and particulate supports. The concept was that of depositing active metals (i.e. ruthenium, iron or cobalt) upon membranes with well defined flow channels of small diameter and length such that the catalytic activity and product …

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