This report discusses the relationship between the United States and Iran. The United States and Iran have been at odds politically and diplomatically, and U.S. policy has been intended to reduce the perceived threat posed by Iran to a broad range of U.S. interests. U.S. officials also express a broad range of concerns about Iran's human rights abuses, including its detentions of U.S.-Iran dual nationals.

This report presents a profile of the membership of the 115th Congress (2017-2018) as of January 4, 2017. Statistical information is included on selected characteristics of Members, including data on party affiliation, average age, occupation, education, length of congressional service, religious affiliation, gender, ethnicity, foreign births, and military service.

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 Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents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 report discusses the sanctions on Russia, imposed by United States in response to Russia's annexation of the Crimean region of neighboring Ukraine and its support of separatist militants in Ukraine's east.

This report briefly discusses various arguments regarding the introduction of additional ground forces to secure territory once it has been taken back from the Islamic State.

This report examines the current political state of Afghanistan at length, discussing the political background, security policy, and regional relations.

Newsletter of the Texas Credit Union Department containing departmental news and announcements, deadlines, and other information of importance to credit unions. Information provided covers CDFI guarantee bond program, FFIEC announces cyber security assessments, and policies and procedures

This report explores distinctions in the concept and composition of deficits and debt, explains how these two measures interact, and discusses their possible effects on the economy. The combination of persistent budget deficits and a large and increasing federal debt has generated discussions over the long-term sustainability of current budget projections. Federal debt totaled $18.922 trillion at the end of calendar year 2015, and as a percentage of GDP is at its highest value since the end of World War II; $13.673 trillion of that debt was held by the public.

This report discusses the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA's) budget and funding. In addition to its other missions, the IAEA is monitoring and verifying Iranian compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and is to report on these activities regularly. The accord is intended to lift nuclear related U.S., European Union, and United Nations sanctions on Iran in exchange for restrictions on the country's nuclear program.

This report provides an examination of family-based immigration policy. It outlines a brief history of U.S. policies, discusses current law governing admissions, and summarizes recommendations made by previous congressionally-mandated committees charged with evaluating immigration policy. It then presents descriptive figures on legal immigrants entering the United States during the past decade and discusses the sizable queue of approved immigrant petitioners waiting for an immigrant visa. It closes by discussing selected policy issues.

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas House of Representatives and Senate granting the legislature permission to adjourn for more than three days during the period beginning on Thursday, January 29, 2015, and ending on Monday, February 2, 2015.

Concurrent resolution introduced by the Texas House of Representatives and Senate inviting the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Texas to address a joint session of the legislature on February 18, 2015.

This report briefly describes recent scientific research and analysis regarding the potential role of pesticides among the factors affecting the health and well-being of bees.

This code supersedes any provision of a municipal charter or ordinance relating to property taxation and provides general provisions for the definition of property and taxation.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether a county sheriff may solicit and receive public donations for programs of the sheriffs department (RQ-1214-GA).

We conducted a series of experiments in Monterey Submarine Canyon to examine potential ecological impacts of deep-ocean CO2 sequestration. Our focus was on responses of meiofaunal invertebrates (< 1 mm body length) living within the sediment at depths ranging between 3000-3600 m. Our particular emphasis was on harpacticoid copepods and nematodes. In the first phase of our DOE funding, we reported findings that suggest substantial (~80%) mortality to harpacticoid copepods. In the second phase of our funding we published additional findings from phase one and conducted follow-up experiments in the Monterey Canyon and in the laboratory. In one experiment we looked for evidence that meiofauna seek to escape areas where CO2 concentrations are elevated. “Emergence traps” near the source of the CO2-rich seawater caught significantly more harpacticoids than those far from it. The harpacticoids apparently attempted to escape from the advancing front of carbon dioxide-rich seawater and therefore presumably found exposure to it to be stressful. Although most were adversely affected, species differed significantly in the degree of their susceptibility. Unexpectedly, six species showed no effect and may be resistant. The hypothesis that harpacticoids could escape the effects of carbon dioxide-rich seawater by moving deeper into the seabed was not …

Sludge samples from the DWPF Slurry Mix Evaporator (SME) heating coil frame and coil surface were characterized to identify differences that might help identify heat transfer fouling materials. The SME steam coils have seen increased fouling leading to lower boil-up rates. Samples of the sludge were taken from the coil frame somewhat distant from the coil (bulk tank material) and from the coil surface (coil surface sample). The results of the analysis indicate the composition of the two SME samples are very similar with the exception that the coil surface sample shows {approx}5-10X higher mercury concentration than the bulk tank sample. Elemental analyses and x-ray diffraction results did not indicate notable differences between the two samples. The ICP-MS and Cs-137 data indicate no significant differences in the radionuclide composition of the two SME samples. Semi-volatile organic analysis revealed numerous organic molecules, these likely result from antifoaming additives. The compositions of the two SME samples also match well with the analyzed composition of the SME batch with the exception of significantly higher silicon, lithium, and boron content in the batch sample indicating the coil samples are deficient in frit relative to the SME batch composition.

We introduce a jet shape observable defined for an ensemble of jets in terms of two-particle angular correlations and a resolution parameter R. This quantity is infrared and collinear safe and can be interpreted as a scaling exponent for the angular distribution of mass inside the jet. For small R it is close to the value 2 as a consequence of the approximately scale invariant QCD dynamics. For large R it is sensitive to non-perturbative effects. We describe the use of this correlation function for tests of QCD, for studying underlying event and pile-up effects, and for tuning Monte Carlo event generators.

Calibration parameters from the Connolly et al. (2007) algorithm cannot be applied to the Department of Energy's (DOE) CPI because the DOE CPI is version 2.0. Thus, Dr. Junshik Um and Prof. Greg McFarquhar brought the DOE CPI to the University of Manchester, UK, where facilities for calibrating it were available. In addition, two other versions of CPIs (1.0 and 1.5) were available on-site at the University of Manchester so that an intercomparison of three different versions of the CPI was possible. The three CPIs (versions 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0) were calibrated by moving glass calibration beads and ice analogues of known size parallel to the object plane. The distance between the object plane and a particle, the particle's focus, its apparent maximum dimension, and a background image were measured in order to derive calibration parameters for each CPI version. The calibration parameters are used in two empirical equations that are applied to in situ CPI data to determine particle size and depth of field, and hence particle size distributions (PSDs). After the tests with the glass calibration beads to derive the calibration parameters, the three CPIs were installed at the base of the Manchester Ice Cloud Chamber and connected …

We apply the Basis Light-Front Quantization (BLFQ) approach to the Hamiltonian field theory of Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) in free space. We solve for the mass eigenstates corresponding to an electron interacting with a single photon in light-front gauge. Based on the resulting non-perturbative ground state light-front amplitude we evaluate the electron anomalous magnetic moment. The numerical results from extrapolating to the infinite basis limit reproduce the perturbative Schwinger result with relative deviation less than 1.2%. We report significant improvements over previous works including the development of analytic methods for evaluating the vertex matrix elements of QED.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over the past decade, the executive branch has taken steps to improve the management of used federal electronics. Notably, in 2003, EPA helped to pilot the Federal Electronics Challenge (FEC)—a voluntary partnership program that encourages federal facilities and agencies to purchase environmentally friendly electronic products, reduce the impacts of these products during their use, and manage used electronics in an environmentally safe way. EPA also led an effort and provided initial funding to develop third-party certification so that electronics recyclers could show that they are voluntarily adhering to an adopted set of best practices for environmental protection, worker health and safety, and security practices. In 2006, GSA issued its Personal Property Disposal Guide to assist agencies in understanding the hierarchy for disposing of excess personal property, including used electronic products: reutilization, donation, sale, and abandonment or destruction. In 2007 and 2009, executive orders were issued that, among other things, established improvement goals and directed agencies to develop and implement improvement plans for the management of used electronics. The Office of Management and Budget, the Council on Environmental Quality, and the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive …

Parker Precision Cooling Business Unit was awarded a Department of Energy grant (DE-EE0000412) to support the DOE-ITP goal of reducing industrial energy intensity and GHG emissions. The project proposed by Precision Cooling was to accelerate the development of a cooling technology for high heat generating electronics components. These components are specifically related to power electronics found in power drives focused on the inverter, converter and transformer modules. The proposed cooling system was expected to simultaneously remove heat from all three of the major modules listed above, while remaining dielectric under all operating conditions. Development of the cooling system to meet specific customer's requirements and constraints not only required a robust system design, but also new components to support long system functionality. Components requiring further development and testing during this project included pumps, fluid couplings, cold plates and condensers. All four of these major categories of components are required in every Precision Cooling system. Not only was design a key area of focus, but the process for manufacturing these components had to be determined and proven through the system development.

In 2010 a proposal (Modernizing the Fission Basis) was prepared to 'resolve long standing differences between LANL and LLNL associated with the correct fission basis for analysis of nuclear test data'. Collaboration between LANL/LLNL/TUNL has been formed to implement this program by performing high precision measurements of neutron induced fission product yields as a function of incident neutron energy. This new program benefits from successful previous efforts utilizing mono-energetic neutrons undertaken by this collaboration. The first preliminary experiment in this new program was performed between July 24-31, 2011 at TUNL and had 2 main objectives: (1) demonstrating the capability to measure characteristic {gamma}-rays from specific fission products; (2) studying background effects from room scattered neutrons. In addition, a new dual fission ionization chamber has been designed and manufactured. The production design of the chamber is shown in the picture below. The first feasibility experiment to test this chamber is scheduled at the TUNL Tandem Laboratory from September 19-25, 2011. The dual fission chamber design will allow simultaneous exposure of absolute fission fragment emission rate detectors and the thick fission activation foils, positioned between the two chambers. This document formalizes the earlier experimental report demonstrating the experimental capability to make accurate …

The federal budget is central to Congress's ability to exercise its “power of the purse.” Over the last several fiscal years the imbalance between spending and revenues has grown as a result of the economic downturn and policies enacted in response to financial turmoil. This report looks at ways in which Congress and the Obama Administration have acted in order to reduce US budgetary issues.