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, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether the Calhoun County Navigation District may enact a tax limitation under article VIII, section 1-b(h) of the Texas Constitution.

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, Greg Abbott, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification: Whether an individual may simultaneously serve as a constable in Goliad County and as a member of the board of directors of the Goliad County Groundwater Conservation District.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "When GAO originally placed the U.S. Postal Service's (the Service) transformation efforts and long-term outlook on its high-risk list in early 2001, it was to focus urgent attention on the Service's deteriorating financial situation. Aggressive action was needed, particularly in cutting costs, improving productivity, and enhancing financial transparency. GAO testified several times since 2001 that comprehensive postal reform legislation was needed to address the Service's unsustainable business model, which assumed that increasing mail volume would cover rising costs and mitigate rate increases. This outdated model limited its flexibility and incentives needed to realize sufficient cost savings to offset rising costs, declining First-Class Mail volumes, unfunded obligations, and an expanding delivery network. This limitation threatened the Service's ability to achieve its mission of providing affordable, high-quality universal postal services on a self-financing basis. This testimony will focus on (1) why GAO recently removed the Service's transformation efforts and outlook from GAO's high-risk list, (2) the Service's financial condition in fiscal year 2007, (3) the opportunities and challenges facing the Service, and (4) major issues and areas for congressional oversight. This testimony is based on GAO's past work, review of …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has spent about $107 billion since the mid-1980s to develop a capability to destroy incoming ballistic missiles. DOD has set key decision points for deciding whether to further invest in capabilities to destroy missiles during the initial phases after launch. In March 2006, DOD issued a report on these capabilities in response to two mandates. To satisfy a direction from the House Appropriations Committee, GAO agreed to review the report. To assist Congress in evaluating DOD's report and preparing for future decisions, GAO studied the extent to which DOD (1) analyzed technical and operational issues and (2) presented complete cost information. To do so, GAO assessed the report's methodology, explanation of assumptions and their effects on results, and whether DOD followed key principles for developing life-cycle costs."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The legal staff of key Department of Homeland Security (DHS) components--Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)--perform important immigration enforcement, inspection, and service functions. This report addresses the actions ICE, USCIS, and CBP legal offices are taking to identify attorney needs, determine where those attorneys should be deployed, and address staffing shortfalls. To conduct its work, GAO interviewed component senior legal office officials in headquarters and regional offices and reviewed available documentation on staffing."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) must strive to balance its competing goals of facilitating trade, providing port security, and collecting trade revenues. CBP's in-bond system, which allows goods to transit the United States without formally entering U.S. commerce, must also balance these goals. In response to concerns that previously identified weaknesses in the in-bond system have not been remedied, GAO examined (1) the purpose of the in-bond system and the extent of its use (2) CBP efforts to ensure that revenues are collected and trade concerns are minimized, and (3) CBP efforts to ensure that security-related inspections are properly targeted. GAO examined audit reports and agency documents, interviewed officials at CBP headquarters and at 10 CBP port offices. GAO also discussed the in-bond system with trade groups impacted by the in-bond system."

This report gives a brief description of the structure of the Fed. It then discusses the economics of how Fed independence affects monetary policy. The report does not consider how Fed independence may affect the Fed's other duties, such as its oversight of the financial system. It then examines the probable economic ramifications of proposals to curb the independence of the Fed.

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This report focuses on one particular responsibility: to act as a lender of last resort to the financial system to prevent financial panics.

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This report briefly summarizes the Adam Walsh Child Protection Act. The report specifically notes the four intentions the law has such as reformulating the federal standards for sex offender registration, and amending criminal law and procedure at the federal level. Finally, the report calls for the creation of the National Child Abuse Registry which will provide regulation on child safety.

Obtaining precise values of the undulator parameter, K, is critical for producing high-gain FEL radiation. At the LCLS [1], where the FEL wavelength reaches down to 1.5 {angstrom}, the relative precision of K must satisfy ({Delta}K/K){sub rms} {approx}< 0.015% over the full length of the undulator. Transverse misalignments, construction errors, radiation damage, and temperature variations all contribute to errors in the mean K values among the undulator segments. It is therefore important to develop some means to measure relative K values, after installation and alignment. We propose a method using the angle-integrated spontaneous radiation spectrum of two nearby undulator segments, and the natural shot-to-shot energy jitter of the electron beam. Simulation of this scheme is presented using both ideal and measured undulator fields. By ''leap-frogging'' to different pairs of segments with extended separations we hope to confirm or correct the values of K, including proper tapering, over the entire 130-m long LCLS undulator.

We developed a relativistic dynamical mean field approach to study the properties of Plutonium Americium mixtures.

The Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) will be the world's first x-ray free-electron laser (FEL) when it becomes operational in 2009. The LCLS is currently in the construction phase. The beam position monitor (BPM) system planned for the LCLS undulator will incorporate a high-resolution X-band cavity BPM system described in this paper. The BPM system will provide high-resolution measurements of the electron beam trajectory on a pulse-to-pulse basis and over many shots. The X-band cavity BPM size, simple fabrication, and high resolution make it an ideal choice for LCLS beam position detection. We will discuss the system specifications, design, and prototype test results.

Fire barriers, and physical separation are key components in managing the fire risk in Nuclear Facilities. The expected performance of these features have often been predicted using rules-of-thumb or expert judgment. These approaches often lack the convincing technical bases that exist when addressing other Nuclear Facility accident events. This paper presents science-based approaches to demonstrate the effectiveness of fire separation methods.

The University of Dayton (UD) performed energy assessments, trained students and supported USDOE objectives. In particular, the UD Industrial Assessment Center (IAC) performed 96 industrial energy assessment days for mid-sized manufacturers. The average identified and implemented savings on each assessment were $261,080 per year and $54,790 per year. The assessments served as direct training in industrial energy efficiency for 16 UD IAC students. The assessments also served as a mechanism for the UD IAC to understand manufacturing energy use and improve upon the science of manufacturing energy efficiency. Specific research results were published in 16 conference proceedings and journals, disseminated in 22 additional invited lectures, and shared with the industrial energy community through the UD IAC website.

The objective of this work is to investigate the thick diffusion limit of various spatial discretizations of the one-dimensional, steady-state, monoenergetic, discrete ordinates neutron transport equation. This work specifically addresses the two lowest order nodal methods, AHOT-N0 and AHOT-N1, as well as reconsiders the asymptotic limit of the Diamond Difference method. The asymptotic analyses of the AHOT-N0 and AHOT-N1 nodal methods show that AHOT-N0 does not possess the thick diffusion limit for cell edge or cell average fluxes except under very limiting conditions, which is to be expected considering the AHOT-N0 method limits to the Step method in the thick diffusion limit. The AHOT-N1 method, which uses a linear in-cell representation of the flux, was shown to possess the thick diffusion limit for both cell average and cell edge fluxes. The thick diffusion limit of the DD method, including the boundary conditions, was derived entirely in terms of cell average scalar fluxes. It was shown that, for vacuum boundaries, only when {sigma}{sub t}, h, and Q are constant and {sigma}{sub a} = 0 is the asymptotic limit of the DD method close to the finite-differenced diffusion equation in the system interior, and that the boundary conditions between the systems will …

This project consisted primarily of conducting energy efficiency, productivity improvement, and waste reduction assessments of small- and medium-sized industrial facilities. These assessments were carried out by groups of engineering students, mostly from Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering and Industrial Engineering, led by faculty members at Arizona State University. The assessed industries were generally energy-intensive manufacturers located throughout Arizona, as well as some facilities in the Las Vegas, Nevada area. During the first four years of the project period, on average our recommended annual savings per plant were $224,717, of which $71,135 were energy savings. Of these recommended savings, on average $49,659 were implemented, of which $31,679 were implemented annual energy savings. These implemented savings greatly exceeded our budgeted cost to DOE, which was approximately $8,000/assessment. In addition, a number of undergraduate and graduate students were employed and trained at the IAC, and have gone on to graduate studies and engineering careers.

Abstract: The technical objective in Phase I was to enhance the detection limit of beryllium using fluorescence system by a minimum factor of 10. This was to be achieved by modifying the chemistry and instrumentation. Both of these were completed independently. In each case we were able to lower the detection limit as desired. The objectives in Phase II are to adapt these changes for commercial activity (chemicals and instrument changes including automation).

A large fraction of the anticipated source detections by the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST-LAT) will initially be unidentified. We argue that traditional approaches to identify individuals and/or populations of gamma ray sources will encounter procedural limitations. Those limitations are discussed on the background of source identifications from EGRET observations. Generally, our ability to classify (faint) source populations in the anticipated GLAST dataset with the required degree of statistical confidence will be hampered by sheer source wealth. A new paradigm for achieving the classification of gamma ray source populations is discussed.

Successful implementation of both the nuclear safety program and fire protection program is best accomplished using a coordinated process that relies on sound technical approaches. When systematically prepared, the documented safety analysis (DSA) and fire hazard analysis (FHA) can present a consistent technical basis that streamlines implementation. If not coordinated, the DSA and FHA can present inconsistent conclusions, which can create unnecessary confusion and can promulgate a negative safety perception. This paper will compare the scope, purpose, and analysis techniques for DSAs and FHAs. It will also consolidate several lessons-learned papers on this topic, which were prepared in the 1990s.

Fires in facilities containing nuclear material have the potential to transport radioactive contamination throughout buildings and may lead to widespread downwind dispersal threatening both worker and public safety. Development and implementation of control strategies capable of providing adequate protection from fire requires realistic characterization of ventilation system response which, in turn, depends on an understanding of fire development timing and suppression system response. This paper discusses work in which published HEPA filter data was combined with CFAST fire modeling predictions to evaluate protective control strategies for a hypothetical DOE non-reactor nuclear facility. The purpose of this effort was to evaluate when safety significant active ventilation coupled with safety class passive ventilation might be a viable control strategy.