A discussion is given of a figure of merit indicative of the stability of high intensity beam transport systems. A table is provided giving this quantity under various conditions, and the limits for solenoidal focusing systems are obtained. (PMA)

Because there is no limit to the energy or power that can be delivered by a neutral-beam injector, its use will be restricted by either its cost, size, or reliability. Studies show that these factors can be improved by the injector design, and several examples, taken from mirror reactor studies, are given.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "For many years, the Department of Defense (DOD) has been attempting to modernize its business systems, and GAO has made numerous recommendations to help it do so. To further assist DOD, Congress included provisions in the Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005 aimed at ensuring that DOD develop a well-defined business enterprise architecture and transition plan by September 30, 2005, as well as establish and implement effective structures and processes for managing information technology (IT) business system investments. In response to the act's mandate, GAO is reporting on DOD's compliance with requirements relating to DOD's architecture, transition plan, budgetary disclosure, and business system review and approval structures and processes. Given GAO's existing recommendations, it is not making additional recommendations at this time. In comments on a draft of this report, DOD recognized that GAO has been a constructive player in its business transformation efforts. While not specifically commenting on most of the report's findings and its conclusions, DOD also said that it disagreed with two points: the level of development for its "As Is" architecture and instances of nonintegration within the …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Information technology (IT) is critical to the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) ability to carry out its home ownership and community development mission. By statutory mandate, HUD is to develop and submit to Congress an expenditure plan for its efforts to modernize the department's IT environment that satisfies certain conditions, including being reviewed by GAO. GAO's objectives were to determine the extent to which (1) HUD's expenditure plan meets statutory conditions and (2) HUD has in place key institutional IT modernization management capabilities. To accomplish this, GAO assessed the plan against the statutory conditions and assessed department documentation of efforts to institutionalize IT modernization management capabilities against open GAO recommendations."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Protecting Seniors from Fraud Act of 2000 directed the Comptroller General to submit a report to Congress on the effectiveness of the Triad program by April 4, 2005. The program, sponsored at the national level by the National Sheriffs' Association (NSA), provides advice, training, and technical assistance to communitybased crime prevention programs for senior citizens but does not fund them. These community-based groups typically are partnerships among local law enforcement officials, seniors, and sometimes other community members to develop and expand crime prevention programs for seniors in their communities. NSA has sponsored the Triad program with funds provided by various Department of Justice (DOJ) grants. The act's provisions included support for the Triad senior fraud prevention program, the dissemination of information to states to raise awareness about the dangers of telemarketing and sweepstakes fraud, and mandates to study crimes against seniors and to collect statistics on crimes disproportionately affecting seniors. With regard to our report, the act specified that it include an analysis of the Triad program and activities, identify impediments to establishing community-based Triad groups across the nation, and make recommendations to improve the effectiveness of …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1994, FCC has made over 520 megahertz (a measure of quantity) of spectrum available for new uses, such as wireless broadband, through a process that can be lengthy. Because most of the usable spectrum in the United States has been allocated to existing uses, FCC must change its rules to move spectrum from an existing use to a new use, a process known as repurposing spectrum. Yet, this process can be lengthy—from 7 to 15 years for the six repurposings that GAO reviewed. Four factors contribute to the time it takes FCC to repurpose spectrum: the regulatory nature of the process, which to some extent is guided by statute; opposition of incumbent users, who could be required to vacate spectrum; coordination challenges between FCC and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which oversees federal agencies’ use of spectrum, on the repurposing of federal spectrum for commercial use; and concerns about interference from users of spectrum in adjacent bands of spectrum. FCC has identified voluntary approaches that it thinks could speed the process, but these approaches generally require congressional approval and face some stakeholder opposition."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Recent congressional initiatives seek to focus funds for certain federal social programs on interventions for which randomized experiments show sizable, sustained benefits to participants or society. The private, nonprofit Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy undertook the Top Tier Evidence initiative to help federal programs identify interventions that meet this standard. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to examine (1) the validity and transparency of the Coalition's process, (2) how its process compared to that of six federally supported efforts to identify effective interventions, (3) the types of interventions best suited for assessment with randomized experiments, and (4) alternative rigorous methods used to assess effectiveness. GAO reviewed documents, observed the Coalition's advisory panel deliberate on interventions meeting its top tier standard, and reviewed other documents describing the processes the federally supported efforts had used. GAO reviewed the literature on evaluation methods and consulted experts on the use of randomized experiments. The Coalition generally agreed with the findings. The Departments of Education and Health and Human Services provided technical comments on a draft of this report. The Department of Justice provided no comments."

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "The Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service manage more than 41 million acres of federal lands in Oregon and Washington, including 122,000 miles of roads that use culverts--pipes or arches that allow water to flow from one side of the road to the other. Many of the streams that pass through these culverts are essential habitat for fish and other aquatic species. More than 10,000 culverts exist on fish-bearing streams in Oregon and Washington, but the number that impede fish passage is unknown. Ongoing agency inventory and assessment efforts have identified nearly 2,600 barrier culverts, but agency officials estimate that more than twice that number may exist. Although the agencies recognize the importance of restoring fish passage, several factors inhibit their efforts. Most significantly, the agencies have not made enough money available to do all the necessary culvert work. In addition, the often lengthy process of obtaining federal and state environmental clearances and permits, as well as the short seasonal "window of opportunity" to do the work, affects the agencies' ability to restore fish passages quickly. Furthermore, the shortage of experienced engineering staff limits …

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the effects of the marketing assistance loan program on cash payments to farm producers, focusing on: (1) which producers received cash payments through the program, by type of crop and state; (2) why some producers did not participate in the program; and (3) what types of concerns have been raised about the program's effect on cash payments and potential forfeitures."

Military uniforms are procured through the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), an agency of the Department of Defense (DOD). DLA is DOD's largest combat support agency, providing worldwide logistics support for the United States (U.S.) military services, civilian agencies, and foreign countries. With headquarters in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, DLA operates three supply centers, one of which is the Defense Supply Center Philadelphia (DSCP), in Philadelphia, PA. DSCP is responsible for procuring nearly all of the food, clothing, and medical supplies used by the military; about 90% of the construction material used by troops in the field, as well as repair parts for aircraft, combat vehicles, and other weapons system platforms. According to DLA Troop Support's website, sales of goods exceeded $14.5 billion during 2009.

Efforts were concentrated on plant operating modes. The Heber plant, which was previously designed for consistant brine temperature, was reviewed and changes necessary to accomodate declining brine temperature were determined. Resultant required modifications to the computer code GEOTHM were made. The engineering, in terms of sketches and equipment lists, needed to support the capital cost estimate was determined. Attempts to use the computer program GEOTHM to develop the heat and mass balances for plants with declining geothermal fluid temperature disclosed that this code alone cannot be used for this purpose because it does not include turbine stage pressure-drop equations. It was determined that the most expedient method for obtaining the data needed for this study would be to develop a separate small computer program containing these turbine equations. With the assistance of a turbine consultant, the detailed methodology for the program was developed, and coding was started. (MHR)

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Most U.S. households have access to television broadcast programming through cable or satellite services. Cable and satellite operators offer this programming by providing a secondary transmission of the over-the-air programming from television broadcast stations. Three statutory licenses permit operators to offer copyrighted broadcast programming in return for paying a government-set royalty fee. Although Congress created the licenses as a cost-effective way for operators to clear the copyrights to the programming, some policymakers and others believe the licenses should be phased out and a market-based approach adopted. The Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act of 2010 directed GAO to study and evaluate possible effects if Congress phased out the statutory licenses. This report addresses (1) the potential implications for the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) regulations if such a phaseout were enacted; as well as how such a phaseout might affect (2) the market and regulatory environment and (3) consumer prices for cable and satellite television service and access to television programming. To address these objectives, GAO analyzed price, carriage, and royalty data; reviewed relevant laws; and interviewed industry stakeholders. GAO provided FCC and the U.S. Copyright Office …

This report provides an overview of Senate standing committee sizes and ratios for the 94th Congress through the 111th Congress. Also included are data on permanent select committees with legislative jurisdiction. A table for each Congress shows the party division in the Senate, total number of seats on each committee, number of seats assigned to the majority and minority parties, and, where present, number of seats assigned to independents. The tables also provide the number of majority-minority caucus seat margins in the chamber and for each committees.

The President's FY2011 budget request, released February 1, 2010, included $733.3 billion in new budget authority for national defense. This report discusses and break downs these defense appropriations.

Temperature and salinity are two of the key properties of ocean water masses. The distribution of these two independent but related characteristics reflects the interplay of incoming solar radiation (insolation) and the uneven distribution of heat loss and gain by the ocean, with that of precipitation, evaporation, and the freezing and melting of ice. Temperature and salinity to a large extent, determine the density of a parcel of water. Small differences in temperature and salinity can increase or decrease the density of a water parcel, which can lead to convection. Once removed from the surface of the ocean where 'local' changes in temperature and salinity can occur, the water parcel retains its distinct relationship between (potential) temperature and salinity. We can take advantage of this 'conservative' behavior where changes only occur as a result of mixing processes, to track the movement of water in the deep ocean (Figure 1). The distribution of density in the ocean is directly related to horizontal pressure gradients and thus (geostrophic) ocean currents. During the Quaternary when we have had systematic growth and decay of large land based ice sheets, salinity has had to change. A quick scaling argument following that of Broecker and Peng …

Several factors limit the energy savings potential and increase the costs of energy-efficient technologies to consumers. These factors may usefully be placed into two categories; one category is what economists would define as market failures and the other is related to consumer preferences. This paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding the roles of these factors, and develops a methodology to quantify their effects on costs and potentials of two energy efficient end uses - residential lighting and clothes washers. It notes the significant roles played by the high implicit cost of obtaining information about the benefits of the two technologies and the apparent inability to process and utilize information. For compact fluorescent lamps, this report finds a conservative estimate of the cost of conserved energy of 3.1 cents per kWh. For clothes washers, including water savings reduces the cost of conserved energy from 13.6 cents to 4.3 cents per equivalent kWh. Despite these benefits, market share remains low. About 18 million tons of CO2 could be saved cost effectively from 2005 sales of these two technologies alone. The paper also notes that trading of carbon emissions will incur transaction costs that will range from less than 10 cents per …

Patent for a new and useful improvements in Axle-Nuts for wagons and carriages.

Patent for a canopy top for vehicles, which can be adjusted to different angles and is light but sturdy.

Patent for "agricultural implements in which a single frame is utilized to support various kinds of mechanisms, and in the present invention there is included a frame of simple and improved construction adapted for carrying and to be used in connection with earth-engaging, implements, such as harrow-teeth and cultivator blades, as well as rollers, for the purpose of crushing clods and leveling the surface of the land." (lines 8-18). Includes description and illustrations.

Annual report of the Texas Department of Insurance describing goals, activities, and accomplishments during fiscal year 2016.

We use a test particle simulation code to investigate electron cyclotron heating in a magnetic mirror well. A comparison is made between heating with one frequency and heating with two closely spaced frequencies. The code follows electron orbits in the presence of one or two monochromatic ECRH waves using guiding center equations and an equation for the electron gyrophase. Coulomb collisions with electrons and ions are simulated as a Monte Carlo scattering process. We find for the parameters of SM-1 that at the fundamental resonance the heating rate, or velocity rf diffusion coefficient, begins to decrease significantly from the quasilinear value for epsilon/sub e/ greater than or equal to 10 keV due to superadiabatic effects. As suggested by Howard et al., using multiple frequencies pushes the superadiabatic boundary to higher energies. For a given energy, the optimum frequency separations for two frequencies are those which cause the axial bounce resonances to interlace; i.e., odd multiples of the bounce frequency, ..omega../sub b/. This interlacing increases the chance of resonance overlap and thus stochasticity. If the frequency difference is equal to an even multiple of ..omega../sub b/, the diffusion coefficient returns to near its one frequency value. More generally, for more than …

Rainout commonly denotes the aggregate of phenomena associated with precipitation scavenging of radioactivity from a cloud of nuclear debris that is within a natural rain cloud. (In contrast, the term, washout, is applicable when the nuclear cloud is below the rain cloud and the term, fallout, commonly denotes the direct gravitational settling of contaminated solid material from a nuclear cloud.) Nuclear debris aerosols may be scavenged within natural clouds by a variety of different physical processes which may involve diffusion, convection, impaction, nucleation, phoresis, turbulence, and/or electricity among others. Processes which involve electrical aspects are scrutinized for their susceptibility to the intimate presence of the radioactive-cloud environment. This particular choice of electrical processes is not accidental. Nearly all of the listed processes were examined earlier by Williams. His rough estimates suggested that electrical effects, and to a lesser extent turbulence, could enhance the scavenging of those submicron aerosols which reside in the size-range that bridges the minimum in the scavenging rate coefficient which is commonly called the Greenfield gap. This minimum in the scavenging-rate coefficient is created by the simultaneous reduction of scavenging via diffusion and the reduction of scavenging via inertial impaction. However, Williams omitted the specific influence of …

Most neutral beamlines contain an iron-core ion-bending magnet that requires shielding between the end of the neutralizer and this magnet. This shielding allows the gas pressure to drop prior to the beam entering the magnet and therefore reduces beam losses in this drift region. We have found that the beam losses can be reduced even further by eliminating the iron-core magnet and the magnetic shielding altogether. The required bending field can be supplied by current coils without the iron poles. In addition, placement of the baffles and apertures can affect the cold gas entering the plasma region and the losses in the neutral beam due to re-ionization. In our study we varied the placement of the baffles, which determine the amount of pumping in each chamber, and the apertures, which determine the beam loss. Our results indicate that a baffle/aperture configuration can be set for either minimum cold gas into the plasma region or minimum beam losses, but not both.

Summary: "This report investigates photographic methods of measuring beta radiation and includes a study of temperature effects on these measurements. Experimental data are submitted to show that an increase in film temperature before and during beta irradiation causes a definite increase in density for the same dosage. Recommendations drawn from experience gained in the experimental works are offered."