A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In GAO's opinion, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) fairly presented, in all material respects, the 2012 and 2011 financial statements for the two funds it administers--the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) and the FSLIC Resolution Fund (FRF). Also, in GAO's opinion, FDIC maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting relevant to the DIF and the FRF as of December 31, 2012. Further, GAO did not find any reportable instances of noncompliance with provisions of the laws and regulations it tested."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Census Bureau (Bureau) issued significant changes to rules governing the records that communities use to challenge the Bureau's population estimates. Previously, the Bureau routinely accepted all challenges, largely without regard to the data sources cited or provided so long as they supported the calculations and covered the appropriate reporting periods. According to Bureau officials, these changes are based on research that shows that estimates based on some methods and records (e.g., births, deaths, and migration) are substantially more accurate than estimates based on others. Among other changes, the Bureau modified procedures so that challenges by subcounty governments to the Bureau's estimates of people living in housing units will no longer affect countylevel population estimates. Moving forward, any such challenge resulting in an increase in the estimate of a subcounty population will be offset by a downward revision to the population estimate of all other communities in the same county. Also, the Bureau plans to routinely review population challenges in light of each community's population growth trend.Corroborating data will be required for challenges inconsistent with the trend."

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas House of Representatives and Senate recognizing Municipal Government Day at the State Capitol.

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas House of Representatives and Senate in memory of the Honorable M. A. Taylor of Waco.

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas House of Representatives and Senate congratulating Johnny Manziel of Texas A&M University on winning the 2012 Heisman Trophy.

This report provides an overview of North American trade liberalization before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), an overview of NAFTA provisions, the economic effects of NAFTA, and policy considerations.

This report looks at how the debate over family planning within the U.S. is spilling over to U.S.-funded family planning programs abroad.

This report discusses the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA; P.L. 112-25), which established new budget enforcement mechanisms for reducing the federal deficit by at least $2.1 trillion over the 10-year period FY2012-FY2021. The BCA places statutory limits, or caps, on discretionary spending for each of those 10 fiscal years, which will save an estimated $0.9 trillion during that period. In addition, it creates a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (Joint Committee), which is instructed to develop legislation to reduce the federal deficit by at least another $1.5 trillion through FY2021.

This report focuses on selected environmental concerns raised in conjunction with the proposed pipeline and the oil sands crude it will transport. As such, the environmental issues discussed in this report do not represent an exhaustive list of concerns raised by environmental groups.

This report focuses on the first major step in managing border-related risks: assessing the risk posed by different types of threats at U.S. borders.

This report discusses the case of Bond v. United States, and implications in regards to the Necessary and Proper Clause. Carol Anne Bond, upon discovering that her husband had impregnated another woman, repeatedly dusted the woman's mail box, front door knob, and car door handles with a toxic chemical. Mrs. Bond was indicted in federal court and pled guilty to possessing a chemical weapon, but reserved the right to appeal. The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected her constitutional challenge. A concurring member of the panel, however, urged the Supreme Court to clarify the nearly century-old pronouncement in Missouri v. Holland.

This report provides an estimate of the initial impact of the changing oil prices on the nation's merchandise trade balance.

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Guiding center simulations are routinely used for the discovery of mode-particle resonances in tokamaks, for both resistive and ideal instabilities and to find modifications of particle distributions caused by a given spectrum of modes, including large scale avalanches during events with a number of large amplitude modes. One of the most fundamental properties of ideal magnetohydrodynamics is the condition that plasma motion cannot change magnetic topology. The conventional representation of ideal magnetohydrodynamic modes by perturbing a toroidal equilibrium field through δ~B = ∇ X (ξ X B) however perturbs the magnetic topology, introducing extraneous magnetic islands in the field. A proper treatment of an ideal perturbation involves a full Lagrangian displacement of the field due to the perturbation and conserves magnetic topology as it should. In order to examine the effect of ideal magnetohydrodynamic modes on particle trajectories the guiding center equations should include a correct Lagrangian treatment. Guiding center equations for an ideal displacement ξ are derived which perserve the magnetic topology and are used to examine mode particle resonances in toroidal confinement devices. These simulations are compared to others which are identical in all respects except that they use the linear representation for the field. Unlike the case …

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The Lithium Tokamak eXperiment (LTX) is a small, low aspect ratio tokamak, which is fitted with a stainless steel-clad copper liner, conformal to the last closed flux surface. The liner can be heated to 350{degree}C. Several gas fueling systems, including supersonic gas injection, and molecular cluster injection have been studied, and produce fueling efficiencies up to 35%. Discharges are strongly affected by wall conditioning. Discharges without lithium wall coatings are limited to plasma currents of order 10 kA, and discharge durations of order 5 msec. With solid lithium coatings discharge currents exceed 70 kA, and discharge durations exceed 30 msec. Heating the lithium wall coating, however, results in a prompt degradation of the discharge, at the melting point of lithium. These results suggest that the simplest approach to implementing liquid lithium walls in a tokamak - thin, evaporated, liquefied coatings of lithium - does not produce an adequately clean surface.

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This report summarizes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identification number of each generator from which the Permittee received a waste stream, a description and quantity of each waste stream in tons and cubic feet received at the facility, the method of treatment, storage, and/or disposal for each waste stream, a description of the waste minimization efforts undertaken, a description of the changes in volume and toxicity of waste actually received, any unusual occurrences, and the results of tank integrity assessments. This Annual Summary/Waste Minimization Report is prepared in accordance with Section 2.13.3 of Permit Number NEV HW0101, issued 10/17/10.

The Arabidopsis thaliana ABSCISIC ACID-INSENSITIVE8 locus encodes a highly conserved plant-specific protein that mediates abscisic acid (ABA) and sugar responses essential for growth. Although initial database comparisons revealed no domains of predictable function, it has recently been re-annotated as a member of the Glycosyltransferase family A. However, this function has not been demonstrated experimentally and no specific substrates have been identified. Mutations affecting ABI8 are near-lethal due to pleiotropic yet specific effects including altered ABA signaling, sugar transport, cell wall synthesis, root meristem maintenance, vascular patterning, and male sterility. Because the predicted sequence initially provided no clues, we used a “guilt by association” strategy to address function of this protein by determining its subcellular localization and identifying interacting proteins. Our studies showed that ABI8 is localized to the endomembrane system and may interact with proteins implicated in Golgi trafficking, lignification, and stress signaling. We found that the root meristem arrest reflects decreased auxin accumulation and resulting decreases in regulators required for meristem identity, all of which can be rescued by added glucose. Further studies showed that this glucose-dependence reflects reduced glucose uptake as well as the decreased expression of sugar-mobilizing enzymes. This work suggests that ABI8 may regulate trafficking of …

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As part of the Actinide Removal Process (ARP)/Modular Caustic-side Solvent Extraction Unit (MCU) Life Extension Project, a next generation solvent (NGS) and new strip acid will be deployed. Processing will begin with a blend of the current solvent and the NGS. Compositional changes in the NGS solvent and blending with the current solvent require review of previously performed work to determine if additional experimental work is required to address any impacts to the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) Chemical Process Cell (CPC). The composition change involved the substitution of the N,N’-dicyclohexyl-N”-isotridecylguanidine LIX® 79 guanidine suppressor with N,N’,N”-tris (3,7-dimethyloctyl) guanidine (TiDG) guanidine suppressor. The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) was requested by DWPF to evaluate any impacts to offgas generation, solvent buildup or carryover, chemical, thermal, and radiolytic stability of the blended and pure TiDG based NGS. Previous work has been performed by SRNL to evaluate impacts to CPC processing using the next generation solvent containing LIX® 79 suppressor with boric acid strip effluent. Based on previous experimental work and current literature, the following conclusions are made for processing in the CPC: No mechanism for a change in the catalytic hydrogen evolution in the CPC was identified for the NGS TiDG …

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There are classes of materials that are important to DOE and to the science and technology community, generically referred to as strongly correlated electron systems (SCES), which have proven very difficult to understand and to simulate in a material-specific manner. These range from actinides, which are central to the DOE mission, to transition metal oxides, which include the most promising components of new spin electronics applications as well as the high temperature superconductors, to intermetallic compounds whose heavy fermion characteristics and quantum critical behavior has given rise to some of the most active areas in condensed matter theory. The objective of the CMSN cooperative research team was to focus on the application of these new methodologies to the specific issue of Mott transitions, multi-electron magnetic moments, and dynamical properties correlated materials. Working towards this goal, the W&M team extended its first-principles phaseless auxiliary-field quantum Monte Carlo (AFQMC) method to accurately calculate structural phase transitions and excited states.