Report that discusses Tunisia's pro-democracy movement; concerns over potential instability in a previously secure, pro-Western area; and U.S.-Tunisian relations.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "GAO's 2013 annual report identifies 31 new areas where agencies may be able to achieve greater efficiency or effectiveness. Seventeen areas involve fragmentation, overlap, or duplication. For example, GAO reported that the Department of Defense could realize up to $82 million in cost savings and ensure equivalent levels of performance and protection by taking action to address its fragmented approach to developing and acquiring combat uniforms. Additionally, GAO reported that a total of 31 federal departments and agencies collect, maintain, and use geospatial information. Better planning and implementation could help reduce duplicative investments and save of millions of dollars."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Student veterans face many challenges pursuing higher education, and problems with the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) administration of the Post-9/11 GI Bill create financial challenges that also affect veterans' academic success. Veterans already cope with challenges transitioning into college as nontraditional students (older or with family obligations) while they are readjusting to civilian life and potentially managing disabilities. However, veterans and school officials told GAO that delays in VA benefit payments create financial challenges for veterans that threaten their ability to pursue higher education. In fiscal year 2012, VA's average processing times for new Post-9/11 GI Bill applications (31 days) and benefit payments claims (17 days) were over a third higher than its performance targets. Processing times during the fall of 2012 were at times even longer. These delays led many veterans GAO spoke with to take on personal debt to cover their housing expenses or consider dropping out of school. VA has taken steps to reduce processing delays, and GAO previously made recommendations to address these issues. However, VA provides limited information about benefit processing timelines and payment policies to student veterans prior to …

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

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "States, in consultation with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), participate in the cleanup of hazardous waste sites in several ways. Under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980, sites that meet certain risk thresholds are eligible for placement on the National Priorities List (NPL)--a list that includes some of the nation's most contaminated sites. In this context, states may notify EPA of potential hazardous waste sites, evaluate the health and environmental risks at sites being considered for the NPL, or oversee cleanups of NPL sites. In some cases, EPA may elect to defer sites that are eligible for the NPL to other federal or state cleanup programs. As GAO reported in April 2013, EPA had deferred to states the oversight of the cleanup of 47 percent of sites eligible for the NPL. GAO recommended that EPA provide guidance on the most common type of deferral to states, and EPA agreed with GAO's recommendation. In addition, 47 states have their own versions of the Superfund program."

This report discusses the revolution and post-conflict transition in Libya, triggered in mid-February 2011 by a chain of events resulting in the death of the Prime Minister (Qadhafi); a new government was elected in July. The report also looks at the military and economic state of the country, including human rights, Islam and politics, and Libya's oil assets.

This report provides references to analytical reports on cybersecurity from CRS, other government agencies, trade associations, and interest groups. The reports and related websites are grouped under the following cybersecurity topics: policy overview; National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC); cloud computing and FedRAMP; critical infrastructure; cybercrime, data breaches and data security; national security, cyber espionage, and cyberwar (including Stuxnet); international efforts; education/training/workforce; and research and development (R&D).

This report discusses a wide range of proposals aimed at reforming holds (an informal practice among Senators to communicate policy views and scheduling preferences) to infuse more accountability, uniformity, and transparency in their use and to make it clear that holds are not a veto on the majority leader's prerogative of calling up measures or matters.

This report explores several important statutes that regulate agencies and these statutes' respective definitions of "agency." These statutes include the Administrative Procedure Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Records Act, statutes governing federal employees, and the Paperwork Reduction Act.

This report discusses the Spectrum Act, a provision of the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012. It includes an overview of the Spectrum Act, the specific policy revisions (deficit reduction, directed auctions, incentive auctions, federal spectrum use and reallocation, and unlicensed spectrum) and a conclusion discussing geographic coverage of spectrum licenses, spectrum caps, and planning for future needs.

This report briefly summarizes four community assistance-related tax provisions included in the EXPIRE Act, which are (1) the New Markets Tax Credit, (2) Empowerment Zone Tax Incentives, (3) allocation of bond limitations for Qualified Zone Academy Bonds, and (4) the American Samoa Economic Development Credit.

The size of current and projected federal deficits and the accumulation of federal debt are central to current congressional deliberations regarding fiscal reforms. This report provides a broad overview of the federal debt, annual budget deficits, and debt service costs. Federal debt is the accumulated sum of unrepaid borrowing by the federal government over time. The total federal debt consists of debt held by the public and intragovernmental debt. Debt owed to the public represents borrowing from entities other than the federal government, and includes borrowing from state and local governments, foreign governments and investors, the Federal Reserve System, and foreign central banks, as well as private investors in the United States.

This guide is a summary of the judicial campaign finance regulations set out in title 15 of the Election Code and in the rules adopted by the Texas Ethics Commission.

This report provides an overview and analysis of FY2018 appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The primary focus is on Congressional direction and funding provided through the appropriations process, but also notes funding made available to DHS outside this process (e.g., user fees and trust funds). It includes an appendix with definitions of key budget terms, and lists other Congressional Research Service reports that provide context and additional details regarding specific component appropriations and issues.

Technological innovation is a primary engine of long-term economic growth, and research and development (R&D) serves as the lifeblood of innovation. The federal government encourages businesses to invest more in R&D than they otherwise would in several ways, including a tax credit for increases in spending on qualified research above a base amount. This report describes the current status of the credit, summarizes its legislative history, discusses policy issues it raises, and describes legislation to modify and extend it.

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The production of the heavy (c{bar c})-quarkonium, (c{bar b})-quarkonium, and (b{bar b})-quarkonium states [({bar Q}') quarkonium for short], via the W{sup +} semi-inclusive decays, has been systematically studied within the framework of the nonrelativistic QCD. In addition to the two color-singlet S-wave states, we also discuss the production of the four color-singlet P-wave states |(Q{bar Q}')({sup 1}P{sub 1}){sub 1}> and |(Q{bar Q}')({sup 3}P{sub J}){sub 1}> [with J = (0,1,2)] together with the two color-octet components |(Q{bar Q}')({sup 1}S{sub 0}){sub 8}> and |(Q{bar Q}')({sup 3}S{sub 1}){sub 8}>. Improved trace technology is adopted to derive the simplified analytic expressions at the amplitude level, which shall be useful for dealing with the following cascade decay channels. At the LHC with the luminosity L {proportional_to} 10{sup 34} cm{sup -2} s{sup -1} and the center-of-mass energy {radical}S = 14 TeV, sizable heavy-quarkonium events can be produced through the W{sup +} boson decays; i.e., 2.57 x 10{sup 6} {eta}{sub c}, 2.65 x 10{sup 6} J/{Psi}, and 2.40 x 10{sup 6} P-wave charmonium events per year can be obtained, and 1.01 x 10{sup 5} B{sub c}, 9.11 x 10{sup 4} B*{sub c}, and 3.16 x 10{sup 4} P-wave (c{bar b})-quarkonium events per year can be obtained. Main …

During the past decades, considerable theoretical efforts have been devoted to studying the electronic and geometric structures and related properties of surfaces. Such efforts are particularly important for systems like the actinides for which experimental work is relatively difficult to perform due to material problems and toxicity. The actinides are characterized by a gradual filling of the 5f-electron shell with the degree of localization increasing with the atomic number Z along the last series of the periodic table. The open shell of the 5f electrons determines the atomic, molecular, and solid state properties of the actinide elements and their compounds and understanding the quantum mechanics of the 5f electrons is the defining issue in the chemistry and physics of actinide elements. These elements are also characterized by the increasing prominence of relativistic effects and their studies can, in fact, help us understand the role of relativity throughout the periodic table. However, the electronic and geometric structures of the actinides, specifically the trans-uranium actinides and the roles of the 5f electrons in chemical bonding are still not well understood. This is crucial not only for our understanding of the actinides but also for the fact that the actinides constitute 'the missing …

The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) has developed prototype equipment to demonstrate remote surveying of Inner and Outer DOE Standard 3013 containers for fixed and transferable contamination in accordance with DOE Standard 3013 and 10 CFR 835 Appendix B. When fully developed the equipment will be part of a larger suite of equipment used to package material in accordance with DOE Standard 3013 at the Pit Disassembly and Conversion Project slated for installation at the Savannah River Site. The prototype system consists of a small six-axis industrial robot with an end effector consisting of a force sensor, vacuum gripper and a three fingered pneumatic gripper. The work cell also contains two alpha survey instruments, swipes, swipe dispenser, and other ancillary equipment. An external controller interfaces with the robot controller, survey instruments and other ancillary equipment to control the overall process. SRNL is developing automated equipment for the Pit Disassembly and Conversion (PDC) Project that is slated for the Savannah River Site (SRS). The equipment being developed is automated packaging equipment for packaging plutonium bearing materials in accordance with DOE-STD-3013-2004. The subject of this paper is the development of a prototype Radiological Survey Station (RSS). Other automated equipment being developed for …

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We propose a new search strategy for directly-produced sbottoms at the LHC with a small mass splitting between the sbottom and its decayed stable neutralino. Our search strategy is based on boosting sbottoms through an energetic initial state radiation jet. In the final state, we require a large missing transverse energy and one or two b-jets besides the initial state radiation jet. We also define a few kinematic variables to further increase the discovery reach. For the case that the sbottom mainly decays into the bottom quark and the stable neutralino, we have found that even for a mass splitting as small as 10 GeV sbottoms with masses up to around 400 GeV can be excluded at the 95% confidence level with 20 inverse femtobarn data at the 8 TeV LHC.

Executive Summary 1. We investigated the impacts of wind power development on the demography, movements, and population genetics of Greater Prairie-Chickens (Tympanuchus cupido) at three sites in northcentral and eastern Kansas for a 7-year period. Only 1 of 3 sites was developed for wind power, the 201MW Meridan Way Wind Power Facility at the Smoky Hills site in northcentral Kansas. Our project report is based on population data for prairie chickens collected during a 2-year preconstruction period (2007-2008), a 3-year postconstruction period (2009-2011) and one final year of lek surveys (2012). Where relevant, we present preconstruction data from our field studies at reference sites in the northern Flint Hills (2007-2009) and southern Flint Hills (2006-2008). 2. We addressed seven potential impacts of wind power development on prairie chickens: lek attendance, mating behavior, use of breeding habitat, fecundity rates, natal dispersal, survival rates, and population numbers. Our analyses of pre- and postconstruction impacts are based on an analysis of covariance design where we modeled population performance as a function of treatment period, distance to eventual or actual site of the nearest wind turbine, and the interaction of these factors. Our demographic and movement data from the 6-year study period at the …