The emerging, interdisciplinary field of Bioinspired Materials focuses on developing a fundamental understanding of the synthesis, directed self-assembly and hierarchical organization of natural occurring materials, and uses this understanding to engineer new bioinspired artificial materials for diverse applications. The inaugural 2012 Gordon Conference on Bioinspired Materials seeks to capture the excitement of this burgeoning field by a cutting-edge scientific program and roster of distinguished invited speakers and discussion leaders who will address the key issues in the field. The Conference will feature a wide range of topics, such as materials and devices from DNA, reprogramming the genetic code for design of new materials, peptide, protein and carbohydrate based materials, biomimetic systems, complexity in self-assembly, and biomedical applications of bioinspired materials.

The 2012 Gordon Conference on Correlated Electron Systems will present cutting-edge research on emergent properties arising from strong electronic correlations. While we expect the discussion at the meeting to be wide-ranging, given the breadth of the title subject matter, we have chosen several topics to be the particular focus of the talks. These are New Developments in Single and Bilayer Graphene, Topological States of Matter, including Topological Insulators and Spin Liquids, the Interplay Between Magnetism and Unconventional Superconductivity, and Quantum Critical Phenomena in Metallic Systems. We also plan to have shorter sessions on Systems Far From Equilibrium, Low Dimensional Electron Fluids, and New Directions (which will primarily focus on new experimental methodologies and their interpretation).

This report discusses the current political state of Afghanistan, as well as the Afghan government. This report also discusses Afghanistan's relationship with the United States, particularly U.S. efforts to urge President Hamid Karzai to address corruption within the Afghan government.

This report discusses the issue of U.S. economic assistance to sub-Saharan Africa, highlighting the importance of continued assistance in light of U.S. national security and also various U.S.-led efforts to promote reform among African citizens themselves. U.S. assistance finds its way to Africa through a variety of channels, including the USAID-administered DA program, food aid programs, and indirect aid provided through international financial institutions and the United Nations.

This report briefly discusses the United Kingdom's (UK's) "Brexit" vote and what it means for the future of the European Union.

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The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) commitment to assuring the health and safety of its workers includes the conduct of illness and injury surveillance activities that provide an early warning system to detect health problems among workers. The Illness and Injury Surveillance Program monitors illnesses and health conditions that result in an absence, occupational injuries and illnesses, and disabilities and deaths among current workers.

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Tidal stream energy is one of the alternative energy sources that are renewable and clean. With the constantly increasing effort in promoting alternative energy, tidal streams have become one of the more promising energy sources due to their continuous, predictable and spatially-concentrated characteristics. However, the present lack of a full spatial-temporal assessment of tidal currents for the U.S. coastline down to the scale of individual devices is a barrier to the comprehensive development of tidal current energy technology. This project created a national database of tidal stream energy potential, as well as a GIS tool usable by industry in order to accelerate the market for tidal energy conversion technology. Tidal currents are numerically modeled with the Regional Ocean Modeling System and calibrated with the available measurements of tidal current speed and water level surface. The performance of the model in predicting the tidal currents and water levels is assessed with an independent validation. The geodatabase is published at a public domain via a spatial database engine and interactive tools to select, query and download the data are provided. Regions with the maximum of the average kinetic power density larger than 500 W/m2 (corresponding to a current speed of ~1 m/s), …

This report defines asylum seekers, and looks at the background of asylum seekers in the U.S. since the 1980s. It discusses current issues, including inconsistent approval rates for asylum seekers across different regions and jurisdictions. It ends with a discussion of the crux of the issue, and ways in directions that current law/new legislation could move to mitigate this issue.

This report discusses political, economic, and security challenges facing Azerbaijan, including the unsettled conflict in the breakaway Nagorno Karabakh region. A table provides basic facts and biographical information.

This report covers the recent history of Azerbaijan and the purposes for U.S. assistance, according to the Obama Administration. Azerbaijan has been a useful ally since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, granting over-flight rights to the U.S. and approving numerous landings in their civilian airport.

This report discusses the current state of Bahrain, which has undergone substantial political reforms since the late 1990s, but which still suffers from tension between the Shiite majority and the Sunni-led government. This report focuses particularly on Bahrain's relationship with Iran and Bahrain's relationship with the United States.

Catalyzed combustion offers the advantages of increased fuel efficiency, decreased emissions (both NOx and CO), and an expanded operating range. These performance improvements are related to the ability of the catalyst to stabilize a flame at or within the burner media and to combust fuel at much lower temperatures. This technology has a diverse set of applications in industrial and commercial heating, including boilers for the paper, food and chemical industries. However, wide spread adoption of catalyzed combustion has been limited by the high cost of precious metals needed for the catalyst materials. The primary objective of this project was the development of an innovative catalyzed burner media for commercial and small industrial boiler applications that drastically reduce the unit cost of the catalyzed media without sacrificing the benefits associated with catalyzed combustion. The scope of this program was to identify both the optimum substrate material as well as the best performing catalyst construction to meet or exceed industry standards for durability, cost, energy efficiency, and emissions. It was anticipated that commercial implementation of this technology would result in significant energy savings and reduced emissions. Based on demonstrated achievements, there is a potential to reduce NOx emissions by 40,000 TPY …

Final report summarizes technology used, system design and outcomes for US DoE Tribal Energy Program award to deploy Wind Heat Smart Grids in the Chaninik Wind Group communities in southwest Alaska.

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.

A commercial ready fuel cell charger has been further developed, demonstrated, and field tested during the three phases of this project. The work performed and demonstrated has shown the commercialization readiness of this future product and underlying technology. The tasks in phase 1 of the project focused on component cost reduction, redesign for manufacturability, performance & reliability testing, and system integration. The end of phase 1 was completed on time and was signified by passing the Go/No-Go checkpoint. As shown in the report all technical metrics have been met or exceeded and the Go/No-Go checkpoint was passed in November of 2009. The tasks in phase 2 focused on tool fabrication and tooled component prove-out in working systems. The end of Phase 2 was the accomplishment of building working systems made almost completely of tooled components. The tasks in phase 3 of the project were preparing for and executing a 75 unit field test of the DMFC charger product developed in Phase 1 and phase 2. This field test demonstrated the functionality of the DMFC in the hands of real users while also providing feedback for potential design improvements. This was the first time a significant number of MTI units were …

The work done in this paper is based on our earlier work on developing an extended Miedema model and then using it to downselect potential alloy systems. Our approach is to closely couple the semi-empirical methodologies to more accurate ab initio methods to dentify the best candidates for ternary alloying additions. The architectural framework for our material's design is a refractory base metal with a high temperature intermetallic which provides both high temperature creep strength and a source of oxidatively stable elements. Potential refractory base metals are groups IIIA, IVA and VA. For Fossil applications, Ni-Al appears to be the best choice to provide the source of oxidatively stable elements but this system requires a 'boost' in melting temperatures to be a viable candidate in the ultra-high temperature regime (> 1200C). Some late transition metals and noble elements are known to increase the melting temperature of Ni-Al phases. Such an approach suggested that a Mo-Ni-Al system would be a good base alloy system that could be further improved upon by dding Platinum group metals (PGMs). In this paper, we demonstrate the variety of microstructures that can be synthesized for the base alloy system, its oxidation behavior as well as the …

The discovery and understanding of new, improved materials to advance fuel cell technology are the objectives of the Cornell Fuel Cell Institute (CFCI) research program. CFCI was initially formed in 2003. This report highlights the accomplishments from 2006-2009. Many of the grand challenges in energy science and technology are based on the need for materials with greatly improved or even revolutionary properties and performance. This is certainly true for fuel cells, which have the promise of being highly efficient in the conversion of chemical energy to electrical energy. Fuel cells offer the possibility of efficiencies perhaps up to 90 % based on the free energy of reaction. Here, the challenges are clearly in the materials used to construct the heart of the fuel cell: the membrane electrode assembly (MEA). The MEA consists of two electrodes separated by an ionically conducting membrane. Each electrode is a nanocomposite of electronically conducting catalyst support, ionic conductor and open porosity, that together form three percolation networks that must connect to each catalyst nanoparticle; otherwise the catalyst is inactive. This report highlights the findings of the three years completing the CFCI funding, and incudes developments in materials for electrocatalyts, catalyst supports, materials with structured and …

This CRS report provides estimates of the costs of major U.S. wars from the American Revolution through current conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. It presents figures both in "current year dollars," that is, in prices in effect at the time of each war, and in inflation-adjusted "constant dollars" updated to the most recently available estimates of FY2011 prices.

The purpose of ATF2 is to deliver a beam with stable very small spotsizes as required for future linear colliders such as ILC or CLIC. To achieve that, precise controls of aberrations such as dispersion and coupling are necessary. Theoretically, the complete reconstruction of the beam matrix is possible from the measurements of horizontal, vertical and tilted beam sizes, combining skew quadrupole scans at several wire-scanner positions. Such measurements were performed in the extraction line (EXT) of ATF2 in May 2009. We present analysis results attempting to resolve the 4 x 4 beam matrix. We aimed to reconstruct the full beam matrix using only skew quadrupole scans at different EXT wire-scanner locations, with measurements of horizontal, vertical and two tilted beam size projections. Checking the coherence of the {sigma}{sub 13} reconstruction from the {sigma}{sub 80{sup o}} and the {sigma}{sub 100{sup o}} measurements was essential to perform this analysis. We have shown that reconstruction of the coupling element can not be performed independantly of the 4 x 4 diagonal ones since it leads to unphysical results. A more accurate and automatisable method was find, leading to physical beam matrix reconstruction, compatible with the measurements. Another analysis should be performed based on …

This report discusses the relations between U.S. and Cuba after President Raúl Castro succeeded his long-ruling brother Fidel Castro in 2006.

This report reviews cyber supply chain risks, discusses ways in which they are currently managed, and provides issues that Congress may consider.

The Commodity Credit Corporation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (CCC/USDA) operated a grain storage facility in Waverly, Nebraska, from 1952 to 1974. During this time, the grain fumigant '80/20' (carbon tetrachloride/carbon disulfide) was used to preserve stored grain. In 1982, sampling by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found carbon tetrachloride contamination in the town's groundwater. After an investigation of the contaminant distribution, the site was placed on the National Priority List (NPL) in 1986, and the CCC/USDA accepted responsibility for the contamination. An Interagency Compliance Agreement between the EPA and the CCC/USDA was finalized in May 1988 (EPA 1990). The EPA (Woodward-Clyde Consultants, contractor) started immediate cleanup efforts in 1987 with the installation of an air stripper, a soil vapor extraction system, a groundwater extraction well, and groundwater and soil gas monitoring wells (Woodward-Clyde 1986, 1988a,b). After the EPA issued its Record of Decision (ROD; EPA 1990), the CCC/USDA (Argonne National Laboratory, contractor) took over operation of the treatment systems. The CCC/USDA conducted a site investigation (Argonne 1991, 1992a,b), during which a carbon tetrachloride plume in groundwater was discovered northeast of the former facility. This plume was not being captured by the existing groundwater extraction system. The remediation …