This report addresses the Legislative Initiatives in the 110th Congress of the Alternative Minimum Tax for Individuals.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In 2002, Medicare implemented a national fee schedule designed to standardize payments for ambulance services. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) required GAO to study ambulance service costs. GAO examined providers' costs of ground ambulance transports in 2004 and factors that contributed to cost differences; average Medicare ambulance payments expected under the national fee schedule in 2010 and how those payments will relate to providers' costs per transport; and changes that occurred in Medicare beneficiaries' use of ambulance transports from 2001 to 2004. GAO estimated costs of ambulance transports based on a nationally representative survey of 215 ambulance providers that did not share costs with nonambulance services. Providers that shared costs with other institutions or services and could not report their costs for ambulance services separately, such as fire departments, were excluded because their reported costs appeared unreliable. GAO used its survey, Medicare claims, and other data for its analyses."

This report consists of the amending process in the house of representatives.

The recent record-setting performance of the Fermilab Tevatron is the culmination of a long series of efforts to optimize the many parameters that go into generating integrated luminosity for the colliding beams experiments. The instantaneous luminosity is a function of the number of particles of each particle species, the physical extent at the collision point of the transverse and longitudinal particle distributions, and the bunch collision frequency. Meanwhile, the integrated luminosity also depends upon the rate at which particles are lost due to collisions or other means, as well as the rate at which the initial store luminosity can be restored after the end - intentional or otherwise - of the previous store. While many numerical computer models already exist that are used to help optimize the performance of the Tevatron complex, here we take an analytical approach in an attempt to illustrate the most fundamental aspects of integrating luminosity in the Tevatron. We find that the essential features, including recent values of the weekly integrated luminosity, can be understood in a transparent way from basic operational parameters such as antiproton stacking rate and beam emittance growth rate in the Tevatron.

This report is on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed regulations that would revise a 2003 Clean Water Act rule governing waste discharges.

This report--the first in what is envisioned to be an ongoing annual series--attempts to fill this need by providing a detailed overview of developments and trends in the U.S. wind power market, with a particular focus on 2006.

This Report contains the U.S. Wind Power Installation, Cost, performance trends in 2006.

This white paper provides information and guidance to the Department of Energy (DOE) sites on Agile software development methods and the impact of their application on weapon/weapon-related software development. The purpose of this white paper is to provide an overview of Agile methods, examine the accepted interpretations/uses/practices of these methodologies, and discuss the applicability of Agile methods with respect to Nuclear Weapons Complex (NWC) Technical Business Practices (TBPs). It also provides recommendations on the application of Agile methods to the development of weapon/weapon-related software.

In my five years as the Director of the Advanced Photon Source (APS), I have been fortunate to see major growth in the scientific impact from the APS. This year I am particularly enthusiastic about prospects for our longer-term future. Every scientific instrument must remain at the cutting edge to flourish. Our plans for the next generation of APS--an APS upgrade--got seriously in gear this year with strong encouragement from our users and sponsors. The most promising avenue that has emerged is the energy-recovery linac (ERL) (see article on page xx), for which we are beginning serious R&D. The ERL{at}APS would offer revolutionary performance, especially for x-ray imaging and ultrafast science, while not seriously disrupting the existing user base. I am very proud of our accelerator physics and engineering staff, who not only keep the current APS at the forefront, but were able to greatly impress our international Machine Advisory Committee with the quality of their work on the possible upgrade option (see page xx). As we prepare for long-term major upgrades, our plans to develop and optimize all the sectors at APS in the near future are advancing. Several new beamlines saw first light this year, including a dedicated …

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Argonne National Laboratory founded the Laboratory Computing Resource Center (LCRC) in the spring of 2002 to help meet pressing program needs for computational modeling, simulation, and analysis. The guiding mission is to provide critical computing resources that accelerate the development of high-performance computing expertise, applications, and computations to meet the Laboratory's challenging science and engineering missions. In September 2002 the LCRC deployed a 350-node computing cluster from Linux NetworX to address Laboratory needs for mid-range supercomputing. This cluster, named 'Jazz', achieved over a teraflop of computing power (10{sup 12} floating-point calculations per second) on standard tests, making it the Laboratory's first terascale computing system and one of the 50 fastest computers in the world at the time. Jazz was made available to early users in November 2002 while the system was undergoing development and configuration. In April 2003, Jazz was officially made available for production operation. Since then, the Jazz user community has grown steadily. By the end of fiscal year 2006, there were 76 active projects on Jazz involving over 380 scientists and engineers. These projects represent a wide cross-section of Laboratory expertise, including work in biosciences, chemistry, climate, computer science, engineering applications, environmental science, geoscience, information science, materials …

This report contains the authorization and appropriations of the army corps of engineers water resources projects.

This report describes the Regulatory Developments and Issues related to Arsenic in Drinking Water.

Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) is conducting pilot scale evaluations of the performance and cost of innovative water treatment technologies aimed at meeting the recently revised arsenic maximum contaminant level (MCL) for drinking water. The standard of 10 {micro}g/L (10 ppb) is effective as of January 2006. The first pilot tests have been conducted in New Mexico where over 90 sites that exceed the new MCL have been identified by the New Mexico Environment Department. The pilot test described in this report was conducted in Socorro New Mexico between January 2005 and July 2005. The pilot demonstration is a project of the Arsenic Water Technology Partnership program, a partnership between the American Water Works Association Research Foundation (AwwaRF), SNL and WERC (A Consortium for Environmental Education and Technology Development). The Sandia National Laboratories pilot demonstration at the Socorro Springs site obtained arsenic removal performance data for five different adsorptive media under constant ambient flow conditions. Well water at Socorro Springs has approximately 42 ppb arsenic in the oxidized (arsenate-As(V)) redox state with moderate amounts of silica, low concentrations of iron and manganese and a slightly alkaline pH (8). The study provides estimates of the capacity (bed volumes until breakthrough at 10 …

Narasimhan Consulting Services, Inc. (NCS), under a contract with the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), designed and operated pilot scale evaluations of the adsorption and coagulation/filtration treatment technologies aimed at meeting the recently revised arsenic maximum contaminant level (MCL) for drinking water. The standard of 10 {micro}g/L (10 ppb) is effective as of January 2006. The pilot demonstration is a project of the Arsenic Water Technology Partnership program, a partnership between the American Water Works Association Research Foundation (AwwaRF), SNL and WERC (A Consortium for Environmental Education and Technology Development). The pilot evaluation was conducted at Well 30 of the City of Weatherford, OK, which supplies drinking water to a population of more than 10,400. Well water contained arsenic in the range of 16 to 29 ppb during the study. Four commercially available adsorption media were evaluated side by side for a period of three months. Both adsorption and coagulation/filtration effectively reduced arsenic from Well No.30. A preliminary economic analysis indicated that adsorption using an iron oxide media was more cost effective than the coagulation/ filtration technology.

Some white light-emitting diode (LED) light sources haverecently attained levels of efficiency and cost that allow them tocompete with fluorescent lighting for off-grid applications in thedeveloping world. Additional attributes (optics, size, ruggedness, andservice life) make them potentially superior products. Enormousreductions in energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions are thus possible,and system costs can be much lower given the ability to downsize thecharging and energy storage components compared to a fluorescentstrategy. However, there is a high risk of "market-spoiling" if inferiorproducts are introduced and result in user dissatisfaction. Completesystems involve the integration of light sources and optics, energysupply, and energy storage. A natural starting point for evaluatingproduct quality is to focus on the individual light sources. This reportdescribes testing results for batches of 10 5mm white LEDs from 26manufacturers. Efficacies and color properties are presented.

By some accounts, catalysis impacts ≥ 30% of GDP in developed countries [Maxwell, I. E. Nature 394, 325-326 (1998)]. Catalysis is the enabling technology for petroleum production, for control of gaseous emissions from petroleum combustion, and for the production of industrial and consumer chemicals. Future applications of catalysis are potentially even more far reaching. There is an ever-growing need to move the economy from a fossil-fuel energy base to cleaner alternatives. Hydrogen-based combustion systems and fuel cells could play a dominant role, given a plentiful and inexpensive source of hydrogen. Photocatalysis is the most promising clean technology for hydrogen production, relying solely on water and sunlight, but performance enhancements in photocatalysis are needed to make this technology economically competitive. Given the enormously wide spread utilization of catalysts, even incremental performance enhancements would have far-reaching benefits for multiple end-use sectors. In the area of fuel and chemical production, such improvements would translate into vast reductions in energy consumption. At the consumption end, improvements in the catalysts involved would yield tremendous reductions in pollution. In the area of photocatalysis, such efficiency improvements could finally render hydrogen an economically viable fuel. Prerequisite to the non-empirical design and refinement of improved catalysts is the …

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to charity care and indigent care at health-related institutions, patient eligibility for indigent care, contract terms with the contracted counties for indigent care, and appropriate billing processes and classification for charity care.

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to determining whether the Commission on State Emergency Communications is accurately reporting its performance measures to ABEST and has adequate controls in place over the collection, calculation, and reporting of its performance measures.

Report of the Texas State Auditor's Office related to determining whether the Department of Insurance is accurately reporting selected performance measures to the Automated Budget and Evaluation System of Texas (ABEST) database, and whether the Department has adequate control systems in place over the collection, calculation, and reporting of selected performance measures.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Passenger prescreening--a process that includes matching passengers' identifying information against records extracted from the U.S. government terrorist watch list--is one of several security measures in place to help ensure the safety of commercial flights traveling to or from the United States. DHS has several efforts underway to strengthen international aviation passenger prescreening. This report focuses on certain elements of the passenger prescreening process as well as some of the actions that DHS is taking or has planned to strengthen prescreening procedures. This report is a limited version of the original November 2006 report as various agencies that we reviewed deemed some of the information in the original report to be security sensitive. GAO's work included interviewing officials and assessing relevant documentation from federal agencies, U.S. and foreign air carriers, industry groups, and several foreign countries."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) efforts to evaluate the security of foreign airports and air carriers that service the United States are of great importance, particularly considering that flights bound for the United States from foreign countries continue to be targets of coordinated terrorist activity, as demonstrated by the alleged August 2006 liquid explosives terrorist plot. For this review, GAO evaluated the results of foreign airport and air carrier evaluations; actions taken and assistance provided by TSA when security deficiencies were identified; TSA's oversight of its foreign airport and air carrier evaluation programs; and TSA's efforts to address challenges in conducting foreign airport and air carrier evaluations. To conduct this work, GAO reviewed foreign airport and air carrier evaluation results and interviewed TSA officials, foreign aviation security officials, and air carrier representatives."

Current work on the Integrated Stockpile Evaluation (ISE) project is evidence of Sandia's commitment to maintaining the integrity of the nuclear weapons stockpile. In this report, we undertake a key element in that process: development of an analytical framework for determining the reliability of the stockpile in a realistic environment of time-variance, inherent uncertainty, and sparse available information. This framework is probabilistic in nature and is founded on a novel combination of classical and computational Bayesian analysis, Bayesian networks, and polynomial chaos expansions. We note that, while the focus of the effort is stockpile-related, it is applicable to any reasonably-structured hierarchical system, including systems with feedback.

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