The United States provides assistance to 47 African countries, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has 23 missions in Africa. In recent years, U.S. assistance to Africa saw a major increase, especially in health-related programs. This report provides an overview of U.S. aid to Africa, including the strategic objectives that shape U.S. aid to Africa, information about specific aid programs and initiatives, and the Obama Administration's FY2011 foreign aid budget request.

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The past two years have seen the Congress and DOD take meaningful steps towards addressing long-standing weapon acquisition issues--an area that has been on GAO's high risk list since 1990. This testimony focuses on the progress DOD has made in improving the planning and execution of its weapon acquisition programs and the potential for recent acquisition reforms to improve program outcomes. The testimony includes observations about (1) DOD's efforts to manage its portfolio of major defense acquisition programs, (2) the knowledge attained at key junctures of a subset of 42 weapon programs from the 2009 portfolio, (3) other factors that can affect program execution, and (4) DOD's implementation of recent acquisition reforms. The testimony is based on the results of our annual assessment of weapon programs. To conduct the assessment, GAO analyzed data on the composition of DOD's portfolio of major defense acquisition programs. GAO also collected data from program offices on technology, design, and manufacturing knowledge, as well as on other factors that can affect program execution. GAO has made numerous recommendations on weapon system acquisition in prior work but is not making any new recommendations in …

We examine the degree of 5f electron localization in URu{sub 2}Si{sub 2} using spin-orbit sum rule analysis of the U N{sub 4,5} (4d {yields} 5f) edge. When compared to {alpha}-U metal, US, USe, and UTe, which have increasing localization of the 5f states, we find that the 5f states of URu{sub 2}Si{sub 2} are more localized, although not entirely. Spin-orbit analysis shows that intermediate coupling is the correct angular momentum coupling mechanism for URu{sub 2}Si{sub 2} when the 5f electron count is between 2.6 and 2.8. These results have direct ramifications for theoretical assessment of the hidden order state of URu{sub 2}Si{sub 2}, where the degree of localization of the 5f electrons and their contribution to the Fermi surface are critical.

The NO?A Experiment will construct a detector optimized for electron neutrino detection in the existing Neutrino at Main Injector (NuMI) beamline. This beamline is capable of operating at 400 kW of primary beam power and the upgrade will allow up to 700 kW. The cavities will operate at 53 MHz and three of them will be installed in the Recycler beamline. Thermal stability of the cavities is crucial since this affects the tuning. Results of finite element thermal and structural analysis involving the copper RF cavity will be presented.

A high-resolution X-ray imaging crystal spectrometer, whose instrumental concept was thoroughly tested on NSTX and Alcator C-Mod, is presently being designed for LHD. The instrument will record spatially resolved spectra of helium-like Ar16+ and provide ion temperature profiles with spatial and temporal resolutions of 1 cm and > 10 ms which are obtained by a tomographic inversion of the spectral data, using the stellarator equilibrium reconstruction codes, STELLOPT and PIES. Since the spectrometer will be equipped with radiation hardened, high count rate, PILATUS detectors,, it is expected to be operational for all experimental conditions on LHD, which include plasmas of high density and plasmas with auxiliary RF and neutral beam heating. The special design features required by the magnetic field structure at LHD will be described.

This report discusses the Economic Development Administration, which was created with the enactment of the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965 and has a 45-year history of supporting job creation and long-term economic recovery efforts in the nation's economically distressed areas.

Physics experiments aimed at deducing key parameters for use in a variety of programs critical to the mission of the National Laboratories require actinide targets placed onto various substrates. The target material quantity and the substrate desired depend upon the type of experiment being designed. The physicist(s) responsible for the experimental campaign will consult with the radiochemistry staff as to the feasibility of producing a desired target/substrate combination. In this report they discuss the production of U and Pu targets on very thin C and Ti substrates. The techniques used, plating cells designed for, tips, and limits is discussed.

Daily publication of the U.S. Office of the Federal Register contains rules and regulations, proposed legislation and rule changes, and other notices, including "Presidential proclamations and Executive Orders, Federal agency documents having general applicability and legal effect, documents required to be published by act of Congress, and other Federal agency documents of public interest" (p. ii). Table of Contents starts on page iii.

This presentation summarizes hydrogen production fundamentals and case studies, including hydrogen to wind case studies.

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Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 1997, GAO has identified information security as a governmentwide high-risk issue. This has been particularly true at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), where the department has been challenged in protecting the availability, confidentiality, and integrity of its information and systems. Since the 1990s, GAO has highlighted the challenges the department has faced, including the need to safeguard personal information. GAO was asked to testify on VA's progress in implementing information security and the department's compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA), a comprehensive framework for securing federal information resources. In preparing this testimony, GAO analyzed prior GAO, Office of Management and Budget, VA Office of Inspector General, and VA reports related to the department's information security program."

While intermittent filamentary structures, also known as blobs, are routinely seen in the low-field-side scrape-off layer of the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) (Ono et al 2000 Nucl. Fusion 40 557), fine structured filaments are also seen on the lower divertor target plates of NSTX. These filaments, not associated with edge localized modes, correspond to the interaction of the turbulent blobs seen near the midplane with the divertor plasma facing components. The fluctuation level of the neutral lithium light observed at the divertor, and the skewness and kurtosis of its probability distribution function, is similar to that of midplane blobs seen in Dα; e.g. increasing with increasing radii outside the outer strike point (OSP) (separatrix). In addition, their toroidal and radial movement agrees with the typical movement of midplane blobs. Furthermore, with the appropriate magnetic topology, i.e. mapping between the portion of the target plates being observed into the field of view of the midplane gas puff imaging diagnostic, very good correlation is observed between the blobs and the divertor filaments. The correlation between divertor plate filaments and midplane blobs is lost close to the OSP. This latter observation is consistent with the existence of ‘magnetic shear disconnection’ due to …

During Justice John Paul Stevens's tenure on the Supreme Court, the Court has continued to develop its jurisprudence on these constitutional provisions in resolving tension between federal versus state authority. Justice Stevens himself has written notable opinions on a range of federalism issues.

This report provides the current conditions and the challenges ahead of Kenya.

This report covers developments in Liberia, a small, poor West African country.

This is a collaborative project between the principal investigators. However, as is to be expected, different PIs have greater focus on different aspects of the project. This report lists these major directions of research which were pursued during the funding period: (1) Computational Homology in Fluids - For the computational homology effort in thermal convection, the focus of the work during the first two years of the funding period included: (1) A clear demonstration that homology can sensitively detect the presence or absence of an important flow symmetry, (2) An investigation of homology as a probe for flow dynamics, and (3) The construction of a new convection apparatus for probing the effects of large-aspect-ratio. (2) Computational Homology in Cardiac Dynamics - We have initiated an effort to test the use of homology in characterizing data from both laboratory experiments and numerical simulations of arrhythmia in the heart. Recently, the use of high speed, high sensitivity digital imaging in conjunction with voltage sensitive fluorescent dyes has enabled researchers to visualize electrical activity on the surface of cardiac tissue, both in vitro and in vivo. (3) Magnetohydrodynamics - A new research direction is to use computational homology to analyze results of large …

This report provides an overview of the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START), including a comparison to the original START Treaty, the belief of the Obama Administration and outside analysts that New START will enhance U.S. national security, and the criticisms of those who say that New START is a distraction from more important items on the nonproliferation agenda.

A substantial fraction of HVAC energy use in large commercial buildings is due to fan operation. Fan energy use depends in part on the relationship between system pressure drop and flow through the fan, which is commonly called a "system curve." As a step toward enabling better selections of air-handling system components and analyses of common energy efficiency measures such as duct static pressure reset and duct leakage sealing, this paper shows that a simple four-parameter physical model can be used to define system curves. Our model depends on the square of the fan flow, as is commonly considered. It also includes terms that account for linear-like flow resistances such as filters and coils, and for supply duct leakage when damper positions are fixed or are changed independently of static pressure or fan flow. Only two parameters are needed for systems with variable-position supply dampers (e.g., VAV box dampers modulating to control flow). For these systems, reducing or eliminating supply duct leakage does not change the system curve. The parametric system curve may be most useful when applied to field data. Non-linear techniques could be used to fit the curve to fan pressure rise and flow measurements over a range …

This report discusses the current U.S.-Puerto Rico relationship, the history of said relationship, and the current political state of Puerto Rico, as well as relevant pieces of U.S. Congressional legislation concerning Puerto Rico.

The low aspect ratio, low magnetic field, and wide range of plasma beta of NSTX plasmas provide new insight into the origins and effects of magnetic field errors. An extensive array of magnetic sensors has been used to analyze error fields, to measure error field amplification, and to detect resistive wall modes in real time. The measured normalized error-field threshold for the onset of locked modes shows a linear scaling with plasma density, a weak to inverse dependence on toroidal field, and a positive scaling with magnetic shear. These results extrapolate to a favorable error field threshold for ITER. For these low-beta locked-mode plasmas, perturbed equilibrium calculations find that the plasma response must be included to explain the empirically determined optimal correction of NSTX error fields. In high-beta NSTX plasmas exceeding the n=1 no-wall stability limit where the RWM is stabilized by plasma rotation, active suppression of n=1 amplified error fields and the correction of recently discovered intrinsic n=3 error fields have led to sustained high rotation and record durations free of low-frequency core MHD activity. For sustained rotational stabilization of the n=1 RWM, both the rotation threshold and magnitude of the amplification are important. At fixed normalized dissipation, kinetic …

Tevatron electron lenses have been successfully used to mitigate bunch-to-bunch differences caused by longrange beam-beam interactions. For this purpose, the electron beam with uniform transverse density distribution was used. Another planned application of the electron lens is the suppression of tune spread due to head-on beam-beam collisions. For this purpose, the transverse distribution of the E{sup -} beam must be matched to that of the antiproton beam. In 2009, the Gaussian profile electron gun was installed in one of the Tevatron electron lenses. We report on the first experiments with non-linear beam-beam compensation. Discussed topics include measurement and control of the betatron tune spread, importance of the beam alignment and stability, and effect of electron lens on the antiproton beam lifetime.

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The precise and accurate measurement of X-rays in the 2 keV to 100 keV region is crucial to the understanding of HED plasmas and warm dense matter in general. With the emergence of inertially confined plasma facilities as the premier platforms for ICF, laboratory astrophysics, and national security related plasma experiments, the need to calibrate diagnostics in the high energy X-ray regime has grown. At National Security Technologies High Energy X-ray Calibration Facility (HEX) in Livermore, California, X-ray imagers, filter-fluorescer spectrometers, crystal spectrometers, image plates, and nuclear diagnostics are calibrated. The HEX can provide measurements of atomic line radiation, X-ray flux (accuracy within 10%), and X-ray energy (accuracy within 1%). The HEX source is comprised of a commercial 160 kV X-ray tube, a fluorescer wheel, a filter wheel, and a lead encasement. The X-ray tube produces a Tungsten bremsstrahlung spectrum which causes a foil to fluoresce line radiation. To minimize bremsstrahlung in the radiation for calibration we also provide various foils as filters. For experimental purposes, a vacuum box capable of 10{sup -7} Torr, as well as HPGe and CdTe radiation detectors, are provided on an optical table. Most geometries and arrangements can be changed to meet experimental needs.

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