The MERIT experiment, which ran at CERN in 2007, is a proof-of-principle test for a target system that converts a 4-MW proton beam into a high-intensity muon beam for either a neutrino factory complex or a muon collider. The target system is based on a free mercury jet that intercepts an intense proton beam inside a 15-T solenoidal magnetic field. Here, we describe the design and performance of the 15-T, liquid-nitrogen-precooled, copper solenoid magnet.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "An accurate decennial census relies on finding and counting people-- only once--in their usual place of residence, and collecting complete and correct information on them. This is a daunting task as the nation's population is growing steadily larger, more diverse, and according to the U.S. Census Bureau (Bureau), increasingly difficult to find and reluctant to participate in the census. Historically, undercounts have plagued the census and the differential impact on various subpopulations such as minorities and children is particularly problematic. GAO was asked to describe (1) key activities the Bureau plans to use to help reduce the differential undercount and improve participation, (2) the various challenges and opportunities that might affect the Bureau's ability to improve coverage in 2010, and (3) how different population estimates can impact the allocation of federal grant funds. This testimony is based primarily on GAO's issued work in which it evaluated the performance of various Census Bureau operations."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Among the efforts of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies, the agency provides funding to states and organizations that offer abstinence-until-marriage education. GAO was asked to testify on the oversight of federally funded abstinence-until-marriage education programs. This testimony is primarily based on Abstinence Education: Efforts to Assess the Accuracy and Effectiveness of Federally Funded Programs, GAO-07-87 (Oct. 3, 2006). In this testimony, GAO discusses efforts by (1) HHS and states to assess the scientific accuracy of materials used in abstinence-until-marriage education programs and (2) HHS, states, and researchers to assess the effectiveness of abstinence-until-marriage education programs. GAO also discusses a Public Health Service Act requirement regarding medically accurate information about condom effectiveness. GAO focused on the three main federally funded abstinence-until-marriage programs and reviewed documents and interviewed HHS officials in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and the Office of Population Affairs (OPA). To update certain information, GAO contacted officials from ACF and OPA."

Driven by beam stability requirements at the NSLS II synchrotron, such that the desired small beam sizes and high brightness are both realized and stable, a comprehensive study has been launched seeking to provide assurances that stability at the nanometer level at critical x-ray beam-lines, is achievable, given the natural and cultural vibration environment at the selected site. The study consists of (a) an extensive investigation of the site to evaluate the existing ground vibration, in terms of amplitude, frequency content and coherence, and (b) of a numerical study of wave propagation and interaction with the infrastructure of the sensitive lines. The paper presents results from both aspects of the study.

The central government's limited writ and perceived corruption are helping sustain a Taliban insurgency and painting President Hamid Karzai as a weak leader. However, ethnic disputes have been confined to political debate and competition, enabling Karzai to focus on reversing the security deterioration and on his re-election bid in the fall of 2009. See CRS Report RL30588, Afghanistan: Post-War Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy, by Kenneth Katzman.

This report discusses the failing effort to stabilize Afghanistan. Specifically, the report points to Pakistan's inability to prevent Al Qaeda from entering Afghanistan and corruption in the new Afghan government. The future strategy of the U.S. in Afghanistan has been rendered unclear.

This report provides statistics on the current numbers and roles of African American Members of Congress as well as historical data on African American Members of Congress.

Dual partial snake scheme has been used for the Brookhaven AGS (Alternating Gradient Synchrotron) polarized proton operation for several years. It has provided polarized proton beams with 1.5 x 10{sup 11} intensity and 65% polarization for RHIC spin program. There is still residual polarization loss. Several schemes such as putting horizontal tune into the spin tune gap, and injection-on-the-fly were tested in the AGS to mitigate the loss. This paper presents the experiment results and analysis.

This report provides an overview of Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spending on HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome) as well as budget numbers for other federal government programs targeting HIV/AIDS.

The report discusses the KC-X program which is expected to acquire 179 new, commercial, off-the-shelf airliners modified to accomplish air refueling.

Various methods are described to translate Faraday rotation measurements into a useful representation of the dynamic current under investigation[1]. For some experiments, simply counting the “fringes” up to the turnaround point in the recorded Faraday rotation signal is sufficient in determining the peak current within some allowable fringe uncertainty. For many other experiments, a higher demand for unfolding the entire dynamic current profile is required. In such cases, investigators often rely extensively on user interaction on the Faraday rotation data by visually observing the data and making logical decisions on what appears to be turnaround points and/or inflections in the signal. After determining extrema, inflection points, and locations, a piece-wise, ΔI/Δt, representation of the current may be revealed with the proviso of having a reliable Verdet constant of the Faraday fiber or medium and time location for each occurring fringe. In this paper, a unique software program is reported which automatically decodes the Faraday rotation signal into a time-dependent current representation. System parameters such as the Faraday fiber’s Verdet constant and number of loops in the sensor are the only user-interface inputs. The central aspect of the algorithm utilizes a short-time Fourier transform (STFT) which reveals much of the Faraday …

The wave-particle α-channeling effect is generalized to include rotating plasma. Specifically, radio frequency waves can resonate with α particles in a mirror machine with E × B rotation to diffuse the α particles along constrained paths in phase space. Of major interest is that the α-particle energy, in addition to amplifying the RF waves, can directly enhance the rotation energy which in turn provides additional plasma confinement in centrifugal fusion reactors. An ancillary benefit is the rapid removal of alpha particles, which increases the fusion reactivity.

The beam intensity of ion beams in RHIC is limited by a fast transverse instability at transition, driven by the machine impedance and electron clouds. For gold and deuteron beams we analyze the dependence of the instability threshold on beam and machine parameters from recent operational data and dedicated experiments. We fit the machine impedance to the experimental data.

We compute the effect on a tokamak of applying a nonaxisymmetric magnetic perturbation δΒ. An equilibrium with scalar pressure p yields zero net radial current, and therefore zero torque. Thus, the usual approach, which assumes scalar pressure, is not self-consistent, and masks the close connection which exists between that radial current and the in-surface currents, which provide shielding or amplification of δΒ. Here, we analytically compute the pressure anisoptropy, anisoptropy, pll, p⊥ ≠ p, and from this, both the radial and in-surface currents. The surface-average of the radial current recovers earlier expressions for ripple transport, while the in-surface currents provide an expression for the amount of self-consistent shielding the plasma provides.

A mathematical model of entry-time processes was developed, and a computational method for solving that model was verified. This methodology was demonstrated via application to a succession of increasingly more complex subsystems of nuclear power plants. The effort culminated in the application to main generators that constituted the PhD dissertation of Shuwen (“Eric”) Wang. Dr. Wang is now employed by ABS Consulting, in Anaheim, CA. ABS is a principal provider to the nuclear industry of technical services related to reliability and safety.

This project is for the design of a wind turbine that can generate most or all of the net energy required for homes and small businesses in moderately windy areas. The purpose is to expand the current market for residential wind generators by providing cost effective power in a lower wind regime than current technology has made available, as well as reduce noise and improve reliability and safety. Robert W. Preus’ experience designing and/or maintaining residential wind generators of many configurations helped identify the need for an improved experience of safety for the consumer. Current small wind products have unreliable or no method of stopping the wind generator in fault or high wind conditions. Consumers and their neighbors do not want to hear their wind generators. In addition, with current technology, only sites with unusually high wind speeds provide payback times that are acceptable for the on-grid user. Abundant Renewable Energy’s (ARE) basic original concept for the ARE660 was a combination of a stall controlled variable speed small wind generator and automatic fail safe furling for shutdown. The stall control for a small wind generator is not novel, but has not been developed for a variable speed application with a …

Asian Pacific Americans have served in both houses of Congress representing California, Hawaii, Louisiana, Oregon, Virginia, American Samoa, and Guam. They have served in leadership positions, including committee and subcommittee chairmanships. This report presents information on Senators, Representatives, and Delegates, including party affiliations, length and dates of service, and committee assignments.

This report contains a background about the nine Asian Pacific Americans who served in the first session of the 110th Congress: two Senators, six Representatives, and on delegate.

There is great demand for thin functional coatings in the semiconductor, optics, electronics, medical, automotive and aerospace industries [1-13]. As fabricated components become smaller and more complex, the properties of the materials’ surface take on greater importance. Thin coatings play a key role in tailoring surfaces to give them the desired hardness, wear resistance, chemical inertness, and electrical characteristics. Diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings possess an array of desirable properties, including outstanding abrasion and wear resistance, chemical inertness, hardness, a low coefficient of friction and exceptionally high dielectric strength [14-22]. Diamond-like carbon is considered to be an amorphous material, containing a mixture of sp2 and sp3 bonded carbon. Based on the percentage of sp3 carbon and the hydrogen content, four different types of DLC coatings have been identified: tetrahedral carbon (ta-C), hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) hard, a-C:H soft, and hydrogenated tetrahedral carbon (ta-C:H) [20,24,25]. Possessing the highest hardness of 80 GPa, ta-C possesses an sp3 carbon content of 80 to 88u%, and no appreciable hydrogen content whereas a-C:H soft possesses a hardness of less than 10 GPa, contains an sp3 carbon content of 60% and a hydrogen content between 30 to 50%. Methods used to deposit DLC coatings include ion beam …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Recognizing the importance of child support, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 requires that if a parent with child support obligations files for bankruptcy, a bankruptcy trustee must notify the relevant custodial parent and state child support enforcement agency so that they may participate in the case. The act also required GAO to study the feasibility of matching bankruptcy records with child support records to assure that filers with child support obligations are identified. GAO therefore (1) identified the percent of bankruptcy filers with obligations nationwide, (2) examined the potential for routine data matching to facilitate the identification of filers with child support obligations, and (3) studied the feasibility and cost of doing so. GAO interviewed child support enforcement and bankruptcy officials at the federal level and in six states. GAO also conducted a nationwide test data match and reviewed national bankruptcy filings for people with support obligations in Texas for an indication of whether filers are failing to provide this information."

State-of-the-art tracking tools were recently developed at CERN to study the cleaning efficiency of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) collimation system. In order to estimate the prediction accuracy of these tools, benchmarking studies can be performed using actual beam loss measurements from a machine that already uses a similar multistage collimation system. This paper reviews the main results from benchmarking studies performed with specific data collected from operations at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).

This report describes several scientifically-emerging animal biotechnologies that are raising a variety of questions concerning risks to humans, animals, and the environment, as well as ethical concerns. The report examines applications of the technologies and discusses major issues that may arise.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is used to produce certain types of plastic. Containers made of these plastics may expose people to small amounts of BPA in food and water. Some animal experiments have found that fetal and infant development may be harmed by small amounts of BPA, but scientists disagree about the value of the animal studies for predicting harmful effects in people. This report discusses this issue and relevant legislation, as well as inquiries into studies currently underway to determine the true harm inherent in BPA and the degree to which people are regularly exposed to BPA.

None