A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has implemented one of GAO’s four recommendations from June 2011 to strengthen the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) implementation efforts by scheduling the development of performance measures for the PPACA program. IRS has made varying degrees of progress on the other three recommendations:"

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The four Medicaid options for home- and community-based services (HCBS) included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) provide states with new incentives and flexibilities to help increase the availability of services for Medicaid beneficiaries. Two of the options were newly created by PPACA, and the other two were existing options amended by the law. Three of the options provide states with financial incentives in the form of enhancements to the Medicaid matching rate that determines the federal share of the program’s costs."

This report looks at how photovoltaic (PV) solar modules can help increase energy supply for the U.S. It looks at the current status of PV manufacturers, safety of PV imports, and competition within the PV market.

This report looks at the cost of funding the Coast Guard's program of record's (POR) call for procuring eight National Security Cutters (NSCs), 25 Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPCs), and 58 Fast Response Cutters (FRCs) as replacements for 90 aging Coast Guard cutters and patrol craft. It also addresses issues for maintenance, future acquisition, and definitions of the types of cutters.

This report looks at the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) entered into by the secretaries of Energy, Agriculture, and the Navy in order to “assist the development and support of a sustainable commercial biofuels industry.” The report specifically discusses how and why this understanding should be funded and why it is important for the U.S.

This report looks at how the Navy carries out irregular warfare (IW) and counterterrorism (CT) activities. It looks at recent successes with these measures, such as the assassination of Osama bin Laden. It also looks at the ways in which these two programs can grow. The report ends with a discussion of how these programs can change the definition of Navy IW activities and how they will affect Navy budgeting.

This report provides background information and potential issues for Congress on the Navy's irregular warfare (IW) and counterterrorism (CT) operations. News reports about the May 1, 2011, U.S. military operation in Pakistan that killed Osama Bin Laden state that the operation was carried out by a team of 20 to 25 Navy special operations forces, known as SEALs, specifically an elite unit known as Seal Team 6.

This report provides information on the historical budget authority of the Department of Veterans Affairs (formerly the Veterans Administration) for FY1940 through FY2012.

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; Authority of the Texas Lottery Commission to conduct second-chance drawings and other games via the Internet (RQ1037-GA)

This report describes who will be eligible for the premium credits, and how the credit amounts will be calculated. It also highlights key issues raised by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on the premium credits. The Appendix provides analysis of the concept of "affordability" as applicable to the premium credits.

This report examines the spending trends of 10 major need-tested benefit programs or groups of programs: (1) health care from Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP); (2) the refundable portion of the health insurance tax credit enacted in the 2010 health care reform law; (3) The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP); (4) assisted housing; (5) financial assistance for post-secondary students (Pll Grants); (6) compensatory education grants to school districts; (7) Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); (8) The Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC); (9) Supplemental Security Income (SSI); (10) Family Support Payment

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The Ecological Monitoring and Compliance (EMAC) Program, funded through the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Site Office, monitors the ecosystem of the Nevada National Security Site and ensures compliance with laws and regulations pertaining to NNSS biota. This report summarizes the program's activities conducted by National Security Technologies, LLC, during calendar year 2011. Program activities included (a) biological surveys at proposed construction sites, (b) desert tortoise compliance, (c) ecosystem monitoring, (d) sensitive plant species monitoring, (e) sensitive and protected/regulated animal monitoring, (f) habitat restoration monitoring, and (g) monitoring of the Nonproliferation Test and Evaluation Complex. During 2011, all applicable laws, regulations, and permit requirements were met, enabling EMAC to achieve its intended goals and objectives.

We present a measurement of the B{sup +} {yields} {omega}{ell}{sup +}{nu} branching fraction based on a sample of 467 million B{bar B} pairs recorded by the BABAR detector at the SLAC PEP-II e{sup +}e{sup -} collider. We observe 1041 {+-} 133 signal decays, corresponding to a branching fraction of {Beta}(B{sup +} {yields} {omega}{ell}{sup +}{nu}) = (1.15 {+-} 0.15 {+-} 0.12) x 10{sup -4}, where the first error is statistical and the second is systematic. The dependence of the decay rate on q{sup 2}, the momentum transfer squared to the lepton system, is compared to QCD predictions of the form factors based on a quark model and light-cone sum rules.

SRNL analyzed the pre-filter and Decontamination Salt Solution (DSS) coalescer from MCU by several analytical methods. The results of these analyses indicate that overall there is light to moderate solids fouling of both the coalescer and pre-filter elements. The majority of the solids contain aluminum, sodium, silicon, and titanium, in oxide and/or hydroxide forms that we have noted before. The titanium is presumably precipitated from leached, dissolved monosodium titanate (MST) or fines from MST at ARP, and the quantity we find is significantly greater than in the past. A parallel report discusses potential causes for the increased leaching rate of MST, showing that increases in free hydroxide concentration of the feed solutions and of chemical cleaning solutions lead to faster leaching of titanium.

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This paper describes an optimization of the detector configuration, based on the Shannon-Nyquist theory, for two major x-ray diagnostic systems on tokamaks and stellarators: x-ray imaging crystal spectrometers and x-ray pinhole cameras. Typically, the spectral data recorded with pixilated detectors are oversampled, meaning that the same spectral information could be obtained using fewer pixels. Using experimental data from Alcator C-Mod, we quantify the degree of oversampling and propose alternate uses for the redundant pixels for additional diagnostic applications.

The anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence is a powerful tool that promises to provide new insights toward a full understanding of field theories under extreme conditions, including but not limited to quark-gluon plasma, Fermi liquid, and superconductor. In many such applications, one typically models the field theory with asymptotically AdS black holes. These black holes are subjected to stringy effects that might render them unstable. Horava-Lifshitz gravity, in which space and time undergo different transformations, has attracted attention due to its power-counting renormalizability. In terms of AdS/CFT correspondence, Horava-Lifshitz black holes might be useful to model holographic superconductors with Lifshitz scaling symmetry. It is thus interesting to study the stringy stability of Horava-Lifshitz black holes in the context of AdS/CFT. We find that uncharged topological black holes in {lambda} = 1 Horava-Lifshitz theory are nonperturbatively stable, unlike their counterparts in Einstein gravity, with the possible exceptions of negatively curved black holes with detailed balance parameter {epsilon} close to unity. Sufficiently charged flat black holes for {epsilon} close to unity, and sufficiently charged positively curved black holes with {epsilon} close to zero, are also unstable. The implication to the Horava-Lifshitz holographic superconductor is discussed.

Information concerning to a stability of LCLS RF linac modulators is allocated in this paper. In general a 'pulse-to-pulse' modulator stability (and RF phase as well) is acceptable for the LCLS commission and FEL programs. Further modulator stability improvements are possible and approaches are discussed based on our experimental results.

Discoveries of very high energy (VHE) photons from distant blazars suggest that, after correction by extragalactic background light (EBL) absorption, there is a flatness or even a turn-up in their spectra at the highest energies that cannot be easily explained by the standard framework. Here, it is shown that a possible solution to this problem is achieved by assuming the existence of axion-like particles (ALPs) with masses {approx} 1 neV. The ALP scenario is tested making use of observations of the highest redshift blazars known in the VHE energy regime, namely 3C 279, 3C 66A, PKS 1222+216 and PG 1553+113. In all cases, better fits to the observed spectra are found when including ALPs rather than considering EBL only. Interestingly, quite similar critical energies for photon/ALP conversions are also derived, independently of the source considered.

The atmosphere is composed of a complex mixture of gases and suspended microscopic aerosol particles. The ability of these particles to take up water (hygroscopicity) and to act as nuclei for cloud droplet formation significantly impacts aerosol light scattering and absorption, and cloud formation, thereby influencing air quality, visibility, and climate in important ways. A substantial, yet poorly characterized component of the atmospheric aerosol is organic matter. Its major sources are direct emissions from combustion processes, which are referred to as primary organic aerosol (POA), or in situ processes in which volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are oxidized in the atmosphere to low volatility reaction products that subsequent condense to form particles that are referred to as secondary organic aerosol (SOA). POA and VOCs are emitted to the atmosphere from both anthropogenic and natural (biogenic) sources. The overall goal of this experimental research project was to conduct laboratory studies under simulated atmospheric conditions to investigate the effects of the chemical composition of organic aerosol particles on their hygroscopicity and cloud condensation nucleation (CCN) activity, in order to develop quantitative relationships that could be used to more accurately incorporate aerosol-cloud interactions into regional and global atmospheric models. More specifically, the project aimed …

The BABAR Collaboration performed a search for x (2220) production in the initial-state radiation process e{sup +}e{sup -} {yields} {gamma} J/{Psi}, J/{Psi} {yields} {gamma}K{sup +}K{sup -} or J/{Psi} {yields} {gamma}K{sub S}{sup 0}K{sub S}{sup 0}. No evidence for the {xi} (2220) resonance has been found. The 90% confidence level upper limits on the product of branching fractions are sensitive to the spin and helicity hypotheses. These upper limits are of the order 10{sup -5}, below the values reported in previous experiments. Also at BABAR, the decays B {yields} J/{Psi} {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup 0}K are studied to search for the decay X(3872) {yields} J/{Psi}{gamma}. This search yields a four standard deviation evidence for X(3872) {yields} J/{Psi}{omega}, with product branching fractions of {Beta}(B{sup +} {yields} X(3872)K{sup +}) x {Beta}(X(3872) {yields} J/{Psi}{omega}) = [0.6 {+-} 0.2(stat) {+-} 0.1(syst)] x 10{sup -5}, and {Beta}(B{sup 0} {yields} X(3872)K{sup 0}) x {Beta}(X(3872) {yields} J/y{Psi}) = [0.6 {+-} 0.3(stat) {+-} 0.1(syst)] x 10{sup -5}. A detailed study of the {pi}{sup +}{pi}{sup -}{pi}{sup 0} mass distribution from X(3872) decay favors a negative-parity assignment but does not rule out the positive-parity hypothesis.

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