A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Almost all public housing authorities (PHA) met their spending deadlines for the Public Housing Capital Fund formula and competitive grant programs. As mandated, all but one PHA spent 100 percent of their formula grants by March 17, 2012. According to Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) officials, PHAs with competitive grants were on track to meet their September 2012 spending deadlines. PHAs we interviewed cited various challenges to meeting the grant deadlines, such as the tight time frames and many attributed their ability to meet deadlines to good planning within their organizations and help from HUD. According to analyses of HUD data, about 3,100 PHAs planned to undertake improvements with their formula grants that affected about 495,000 housing units. Many used their grants to make improvements that enhanced energy efficiency, such as installing energy-efficient windows and appliances. GAO determined that HUD’s monitoring strategy for these programs incorporated key internal controls, such as developing and implementing measures that allowed HUD staff to compare actual with planned results. At specific sites that GAO visited, PHAs were able to demonstrate work was under way or had been completed."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not developed a process to identify and analyze program risks since assuming responsibility for the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) in 2003, in accordance with internal controls standards and risk management guidance. Within ICE, officials from SEVP and the Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit (CTCEU), which tracks, coordinates, and oversees school fraud investigations, have expressed concerns about the fraud risks posed by schools that do not comply with requirements. Investigators said that identifying and assessing risk factors, such as the type of school, are critical to addressing potential vulnerabilities posed across the more than 10,000 SEVP-certified schools. However, SEVP does not have processes to (1) evaluate prior and suspected cases of school noncompliance and fraud and (2) obtain and assess information from CTCEU and ICE field offices on school investigations and outreach events. For example, ICE reported that it has withdrawn at least 88 schools since 2003 for non-compliance; however, ICE has not evaluated schools’ withdrawals to determine potential trends from their noncompliant actions because case information is not well-organized, according to SEVP officials. Without a process to …

Agency strategic plan for the Texas State Soil and Water Conservation Board describing the organization's planned services, activities, and other goals during fiscal years 2013 through 2017.

This report discusses the purpose of the June 2012 United Nations (U.N.) Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD or “Rio+20”) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It looks at issues that could be addressed during the conference as well as how this conference may differ from the last U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio in 1992.

This report looks at how free trade areas (FTAs) affect U.S. trade in regards to trade policy, specifically tariffs. It looks closely at the Bush Administration's Trade Promotion Policy, and pending FTAs leftover from this administration. Additionally, it looks at the Obama Administration's work in the prospective Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP).

This report looks at political instability that has plagued the country since 2009. It address other concerns that Congress has about the country as well, specifically threats to Madagascar's unique ecosystem.

This report looks at the purposes and results of U.S. sanctions on Iran, which were initiated as a result of Iran's nuclear program and human rights issues. It ends by discussing future issues that Congress can consider regarding the sanctions.

This report discusses Tunisia's "Jasmine Revolution," the common term for President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's flight from the country following weeks of mounting anti-government protests. This report discusses how the Jasmine Revolution appears to have added momentum to anti-government sentiment in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and other countries. This report discusses Tunisia's pro-democracy movement; concerns over potential instability in a previously secure, pro-Western area; and U.S.-Tunisian relations.

This report covers two proposed permit drafts by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding Vessel General Permits (VGPs): one for large vessels to replace the 2008 VGP (draft VGP), and one for smaller vessels that currently are covered by a congressionally-enacted temporary moratorium (draft sVGP).

This report looks at the history, purpose, and current status of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

This report focuses on the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). The VHA is primarily a direct service provider of primary care, specialized care, and related medical and social support services to veterans through the nation's largest integrated health care system.

This report discusses basic methodology of life-cycle assessments and compares several publicly-available assessments of life-cycle emissions data for Canadian oil sands crudes against each other and against those of other global reference crudes. It also includes a survey of the scientific literature and the findings of the State Department's Keystone XL Project Envoronmental Impact Statement, and concludes with a discussion of tools for policymakers who are interested in using the assessments to investigate the potential impacts of U.S. energy policy choices onthe environment.

This report provides an estimate of the initial impact of the changing oil prices on the nation's merchandise trade deficit.

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 a private retail establishment may charge an itemized and disclosed "service fee" on a consumer transaction (RQ-1036-GA)

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; Final authority to set the salary of the official court reporter in the Van Zandt County Court at Law, and to determine whether the position is full-time or part-time (RQ-1039-GA)

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 a county to issue bonds pursuant to article VIII, section 1-g(b), Texas Constitution (RQ-1040-GA)

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Containment Program performed a review of nuclear test-related data for the Norbo underground nuclear test in U8c to assist in evaluating this legacy site as a test bed for application technologies for use in On-Site Inspections (OSI) under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This request is similar to one made for the Salut site in U8c (Pawloski, 2012b). Review of the Norbo site is complicated because the test first exhibited subsurface collapse, which was not unusual, but it then collapsed to the surface over one year later, which was unusual. Of particular interest is the stability of the ground surface above the Norbo detonation point. Proposed methods for on-site verification include radiological signatures, artifacts from nuclear testing activities, and imaging to identify alteration to the subsurface hydrogeology due to the nuclear detonation. Aviva Sussman from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has also proposed work at this site. Both proposals require physical access at or near the ground surface of specific underground nuclear test locations at the Nevada Nuclear Security Site (NNSS), formerly the Nevada Test Site (NTS), and focus on possible activities such as visual observation, multispectral measurements, and shallow and deep geophysical …

We explore the sonification of x-ray scattering data, which are two-dimensional arrays of intensity whose meaning is obscure and non-intuitive. Direct mapping of the experimental data into sound is found to produce timbral sonifications that, while sacrificing conventional aesthetic appeal, provide a rich auditory landscape for exploration. We discuss the optimization of sonification variables, and speculate on potential real-world applications. We have presented a case study of sonifying x-ray scattering data. Direct mapping of the two-dimensional intensity values of a scattering dataset into the two-dimensional matrix of a sonogram is a natural and information-preserving operation that creates rich sounds. Our work supports the notion that many problems in understanding rather abstract scientific datasets can be ameliorated by adding the auditory modality of sonification. We further emphasize that sonification need not be limited to time-series data: any data matrix is amenable. Timbral sonification is less obviously aesthetic, than tonal sonification, which generate melody, harmony, or rhythm. However these musical sonifications necessarily sacrifice information content for beauty. Timbral sonification is useful because the entire dataset is represented. Non-musicians can understand the data through the overall color of the sound; audio experts can extract more detailed insight by studying all the features of …

The Magnetic Centrifugal Mass Filter concept represents a variation on the plasma centrifuge, with applications that are particularly promising for high-throughput separation of ions with large mass differences. A number of considerations, however, constrain the parameter space in which this device operates best. The rotation speed, magnetic field intensity and ion temperature are constrained by the ion confinement requirements. Collisions must also be large enough to eject ions, but small enough not to eject them too quickly. The existence of favorable regimes meeting these constraints is demonstrated by a single-particle orbit code. As an example of interest, it is shown that separation factors of about 2:3 are achievable in a single pass when separating Aluminum from Strontium ions

By restating geometrical optics within the eld-theoretical approach, the classical concept of a photon in arbitrary dispersive medium is introduced, and photon properties are calculated unambiguously. In particular, the canonical and kinetic momenta carried by a photon, as well as the two corresponding energy-momentum tensors of a wave, are derived straightforwardly from rst principles of Lagrangian mechanics. The Abraham-Minkowski controversy pertaining to the de nitions of these quantities is thereby resolved for linear waves of arbitrary nature, and corrections to the traditional formulas for the photon kinetic quantities are found. An application of axiomatic geometrical optics to electromagnetic waves is also presented as an example.

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This project was a program to develop high-throughput methods to identify and characterize spatially localized multiprotein complexes in bacterial cells. We applied a multidisciplinary “systems engineering” approach to the detailed characterization of localized multi-protein structures in vivo – a problem that has previously been approached on a fragmented, piecemeal basis.

During the period of this project, the Holographic Detector for Clouds 2 (HOLODEC 2) instrument has advanced from a laboratory-proven instrument with some initial field testing to a fully flight-tested instrument capable of providing useful cloud microphysics measurements. This can be summarized as 'Technology Readiness Level 8: Technology is proven to work - Actual technology completed and qualified through test and demonstration.' As part of this project, improvements and upgrades have been made to the optical system, the instrument power control system, the data acquisition computer, the instrument control software, the data reconstruction and analysis software, and some of the basic algorithms for estimating basic microphysical variables like droplet diameter. Near the end of the project, the instrument flew on several research flights as part of the IDEAS 2011 project, and a small sample of data from the project is included as an example. There is one caveat in the technology readiness level stated above: the upgrades to the instrument power system were made after the flight testing, so they are not fully field proven. We anticipate that there will be an opportunity to fly the instrument as part of the IDEAS project in fall 2012.

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