A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since 2003, a global epidemic of avian influenza has raised concern about the risk of an influenza pandemic among humans, which could cause millions of deaths. The United States and its international partners have begun implementing a strategy to forestall (prevent or delay) a pandemic and prepare to cope should one occur. Disease experts generally agree that the risk of a pandemic strain emerging from avian influenza in a given country varies with (1) environmental factors, such as disease presence and certain high-risk farming practices, and (2) preparedness factors, such as a country's capacity to control outbreaks. This report describes (1) U.S. and international efforts to assess pandemic risk by country and prioritize countries for assistance and (2) steps that the United States and international partners have taken to improve the ability to forestall a pandemic. To address these objectives, we interviewed officials and analyzed data from U.S. agencies, international organizations, and nongovernmental experts. The U.S. and international agencies whose efforts we describe reviewed a draft of this report. In general, they concurred with our findings. Several provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate."

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Intermodal transportation enables freight and passengers to cross between different modes of transportation efficiently and can improve mobility, reduce congestion, and cut costs. In 1991 Congress called for a National Intermodal Transportation System and created the Office of Intermodalism within the Department of Transportation (DOT). However, as GAO and others have reported, there are barriers to planning and implementing intermodal projects. GAO's report examines (1) barriers that inhibit intermodal transportation; (2) actions DOT has taken to address these barriers and support Congress' goal; and (3) additional actions, if any, that DOT could take to better address barriers. GAO analyzed information from DOT and transportation experts and talked with transportation officials from various states and localities throughout the country."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center (WTC) turned Lower Manhattan into a disaster site. As the towers collapsed, Lower Manhattan was blanketed with building debris and combustible materials. This complex mixture created a major concern: that thousands of residents and workers in the area would now be exposed to known hazards in the air and in the dust, such as asbestos, lead, glass fibers, and pulverized concrete. In May 2002, New York City formally requested federal assistance to address indoor contamination. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted an indoor clean and test program from 2002 to 2003. Several years later, after obtaining the views of advisory groups, including its Inspector General and an expert panel, EPA announced a second test and clean program in December 2006. Program implementation is to begin later in 2007, more than 5 years after the disaster. GAO's testimony, based on preliminary work evaluating EPA's development of its second program, addresses (1) EPA's actions to implement recommendations from the expert panel and its Inspector General, (2) the completeness of information EPA provided to the public in its second plan, …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Department of Defense (DOD) has increasingly relied on reserve personnel to carry out its military operations. Congress and DOD have taken steps to enhance reserve compensation, such as improving health care benefits. Concerns exist, however, that rising compensation costs may not be sustainable in the future, especially given the nation's large and growing long-range fiscal imbalance. Under the statutory authority of the Comptroller General to conduct work on his own initiative, GAO (1) reviewed how much it has cost the federal government to compensate reserve personnel since fiscal year 2000; (2) assessed the extent to which DOD's mix of cash, noncash, and deferred compensation has helped DOD meet its human capital goals; and (3) evaluated the extent to which DOD's approach to reserve compensation provides transparency over total cost to the federal government. To address these objectives, GAO analyzed budget data and relevant legislation and also interviewed appropriate officials. GAO focused this review on part-time reservists and full-time, active guard and reserve."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "To protect and mitigate threats and attacks against the United States, 22 federal agencies and organizations were merged to form the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2002. One of the department's components, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), is responsible for securing the nation's borders. DHS and CBP rely on a variety of computerized information systems to support their operations and assets. GAO has reported for many years that poor information security is a widespread problem with potentially devastating consequences. In reports to Congress since 1997, GAO has identified information security as a governmentwide high-risk issue. In this testimony, GAO discusses DHS's information security program and computer security controls for key information systems. GAO based its testimony on agency, inspector general, and GAO issued and draft reports on DHS information security."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Since fiscal year 1992, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded more than $6 billion in HOPE VI program grants to public housing authorities to revitalize severely distressed public housing and provide supportive services to residents. HUD has encouraged housing authorities to use their HOPE VI grants to attract, or leverage, funding from other sources, including other federal, state, local, and private-sector sources. Projects funded with public and private funds are known as mixed-finance projects. This testimony is based primarily on three reports that GAO issued between November 2002 and November 2003, focusing on (1) the financing of HOPE VI projects, including the amounts of funds leveraged from non-HOPE VI sources; (2) HUD's oversight and administration of the program; and (3) the program's effects on public housing residents and neighborhoods surrounding HOPE VI sites. As requested, the statement summarizes the key findings from these reports, the recommendations GAO made to HUD for improving HOPE VI program management, and HUD's actions in response to the recommendations."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "H.R. 928, Improving Government Accountability Act, contains proposals intended to enhance the independence of the inspectors general and to create a Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency. This testimony provides information and views about the specific proposals based on GAO's prior work. We believe that effective, ongoing coordination of the federal oversight efforts of GAO and the Inspectors General (IG) is more critical than ever, due to the challenges and risks currently facing our nation including our immediate and long-term fiscal challenges, increasing demands being made for federal programs, and changing risk. Close strategic planning and ongoing coordination of audit efforts between GAO and the IGs would help to enhance the effectiveness and impact of work performed by federal auditors. In May of this year the Comptroller General hosted a meeting with the IGs for the principal purpose of improving the coordination of federal oversight between the IGs and GAO. Working together, and in their respective areas, GAO and the IGs can leverage each other's work and provide valuable input on the broad range of high-risk programs and management challenges across government."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This testimony summarizes GAO's October 2006 report on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) operations centers--centers run by three DHS components and operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to conduct monitoring and surveillance activities of potential terrorist activities and other crises. Specifically, GAO assessed the extent to which the centers implemented key practices GAO's work has shown will enhance and sustain collaboration. In addition, GAO is aware of Congress's concerns about the performance of certain DHS components with regard to situational awareness during Hurricane Katrina, and the recent efforts made in response to these concerns identified in hurricane after-action studies and reports. Because these efforts to some extent affect DHS's response to the recommendations made in GAO's previous report, this testimony briefly describes some of the steps DHS reported that it has taken to address situational awareness problems Katrina exposed. However, because these actions are relatively new, it is too early to assess how well they are being implemented."

Testimony issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "Over 580,000 reservists have been activated for military operations between September 2001 and March 2007. The challenges of continuing to mobilize large numbers of reserve component servicemembers for ongoing operations while balancing their support to homeland defense missions have led to questions about whether changes are needed in the way the reserve components are structured and resourced, particularly in light of mounting 21st century fiscal imbalances. This testimony focuses on: (1) the nation's fiscal and security challenges and their implications for the Department of Defense (DOD) and the National Guard and Reserves; (2) the need for DOD to better align its reserve component business model, including human capital strategies, with the reserve forces' current and future needs; and (3) the extent to which DOD's current compensation system for reserve and National Guard personnel is helping the department to meet its human capital goals of recruiting and retaining a high-quality force. The testimony is based on GAO's body of work on the nation's long-term fiscal outlook, National Guard and reserve readiness, military personnel issues such as recruitment and retention, and the report GAO is issuing today on reserve and …

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "An influenza pandemic could impair the military's readiness, jeopardize ongoing military operations abroad, and threaten the day-to-day functioning of the Department of Defense (DOD) due to a large percentage of sick or absent personnel. GAO was asked to examine DOD's pandemic influenza planning and preparedness efforts. GAO previously reported that DOD had taken numerous actions to prepare departmentwide, but faced four management challenges as it continued its efforts. GAO made recommendations to address these challenges and DOD generally concurred with them. This report focuses on DOD's combatant commands (COCOM) and addresses (1) actions the COCOMs have taken to prepare and (2) management challenges COCOMs face going forward. GAO reviewed guidance, plans, and after-action reports and interviewed DOD officials and more than 200 officials at the 9 COCOMs."

The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) willdemonstrate ionization cooling in a short section of a realistic coolingchannel using a muon beam at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in theUK. A five-coil, superconducting spectrometer solenoid magnet at each endof the cooling channel will provide a 4 T uniform field region for thescintillating fiber tracker within the magnet bore tubes. The trackermodules are used to measure the muon beam emittance as it enters andexits the cooling channel. The cold mass for the 400 mm warm bore magnetconsists of two sections: a three-coil spectrometer magnet and a two-coilmatching section that matches the uniform field of the solenoid into theMICE cooling channel. The spectrometer solenoid detailed designandanalysis has been completed, and the fabrication of the magnets is wellunder way. The primary features of the spectrometer solenoid magnet andmechanical designs are presented along with a summary of key fabricationissues and photos of the construction.

We present details about X-ray yields measured with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) diagnostics in soft and moderately hard X-ray bands from laser-driven, doped-aerogel targets shot on 07/14/06 during the OMEGA II test series. Yields accurate to {+-}25% in the 5-15 keV band are measured with Livermore's HENWAY spectrometer. Yields in the sub-keV to 3.2 keV band are measured with LLNL's DANTE diagnostic, the DANTE yields are accurate to 10-15%. SNL ran a PCD-based diagnostic that also measured X-ray yields in the spectral region above 4 keV, and also down to the sub-keV range. The PCD and HENWAY and DANTE numbers are compared. The time histories of the moderately hard (h{nu} > 4 keV) X-ray signals are measured with LLNL's H11 PCD, and from two SNL PCDs with comparable filtration. There is general agreement between the H11 PCD and SNL PCD measured FWHM except for two of the shorter-laser-pulse shots, which is shown not to be due to analysis techniques. The recommended X-ray waveform is that from the SNL PCD p66k10, which was recorded on a fast, high-bandwidth TDS 6804 oscilloscope. X-ray waveforms from target emission in two softer spectral bands are also shown; the …

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NESHAPs limits the emission of radionuclides to the ambient air from DOE facilities to levels resulting in an annual effective dose equivalent (EDE) of 10 mrem (100 {micro}Sv) to any member of the public. The EDEs for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) site-wide maximally exposed members of the public from operations in 2006 are summarized here. Livermore site: 0.0045 mrem (0.045 {micro}Sv) (36% from point source emissions, 64% from diffuse source emissions). The point source emissions include gaseous tritium modeled as tritiated water vapor as directed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region IX; the resulting dose is used for compliance purposes. Site 300: 0.016 mrem (0.16 {micro}Sv) (87.5% from point source emissions, 12.5% from diffuse source emissions). The EDEs were calculated using the EPA-approved CAP88-PC air dispersion/dose-assessment model, except for doses for two diffuse sources that were estimated using measured radionuclide concentrations and dose coefficients. Specific inputs to CAP88-PC for the modeled sources included site-specific meteorological data and source emissions data, the latter variously based on continuous stack effluent monitoring data, stack flow or other release-rate information, ambient air monitoring data, and facility knowledge.

The Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) [1]willdemonstrate ionization cooling in a short section of a realistic coolingchannel using a muon beam at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in theUK. The MICE RF and Coupling Coil (RFCC) Module consists of asuperconducting solenoid mounted around four normal conducting 201.25-MHzRF cavities. The coil package that surrounds the RF cavities is to bemounted in a 1.4 m diameter vacuum vessel. The coupling coil confines thebeam in the RFCC module within the radius of the RF cavity beam windows.Each coupling magnet will be powered by a 300 A, 10 V power supply. Themaximum design longitudinal force that will be carried by the cold masssupport system is 0.5 MN. The detailed design and analysis of thecoupling magnet has been completed by ICST. The primary magnetic andmechanical design features of the coils are presented in thispaper.

Contamination from electrons is a concern for solenoid-focused ion accelerators being developed for experiments in high-energy-density physics. These electrons, produced directly by beam ions hitting lattice elements or indirectly by ionization of desorbed neutral gas, can potentially alter the beam dynamics, leading to a time-varying focal spot, increased emittance, halo, and possibly electron-ion instabilities. The electrostatic particle-in-cell code WARP is used to simulate electron-cloud studies on the solenoid-transport experiment (STX) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. We present self-consistent simulations of several STX configurations and compare the results with experimental data in order to calibrate physics parameters in the model.

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The current design for the injection and extraction linesintoand out of the ILC Damping Rings is presented as well as the designfor the abort line. Due to changes of the geometric boundary conditionsby other subsystems of the ILC, a modular approach has been used to beable to respond to recurring layout changes whilereusing previouslydesigned parts.

Designing a lattice with sufficient dynamic aperture for theILCDamping Rings is very challenging as the lattice needs to provide asmall equilibrium emittance and at the same time a large aperture for theinjected beam (including a large momentum acceptance). In addition,outside constraints have forced layout changes in the damping ring. Someof the layout changes had an impact on thedynamic aperture. In order tobetter understand the changes indynamic aperture, frequency maps arestudied. Those studies can help in identifying the reason for the changeddynamic apertureand in finding a good location for the betatron tunes anddetermining an upper limit for the chromaticities. A summary of recentstudies and suggestions for improving the dynamic aperture bychoosing adifferent tune are presented.

Using examples from active research areas in combustion andastrophysics, we demonstrate a computationally efficient numericalapproach for simulating multiscale low Mach number reacting flows. Themethod enables simulations that incorporate an unprecedented range oftemporal and spatial scales, while at the same time, allows an extremelyhigh degree of reaction fidelity. Sample applications demonstrate theefficiency of the approach with respect to a traditional time-explicitintegration method, and the utility of the methodology for studying theinteraction of turbulence with terrestrial and astrophysical flamestructures.

A high-yield neutron source to screen sea-land cargocontainers for shielded Special Nuclear Materials (SNM) has been designedat LBNL [1,2]. The Accelerator-Driven Neutron Source (ADNS) uses theD(d,n)3He reaction to create a forward directed neutron beam. Keycomponents are a high-current radio-frequency quadrupole (RFQ)accelerator and a high-power target capable of producing a neutron fluxof>107 n/(cm2 cdot s) at a distance of 2.5 m. The mechanical designand analysis of the four-module, bolt-together RFQ will be presentedhere. Operating at 200 MHz, the 5.1 m long RFQ will accelerate a 40 mAdeuteron beam to 6 MeV. At a 5 percent duty factor, the time-average d+beam current on target is 1.5 mA. Each of the 1.27 m long RFQ moduleswill consist of four solid OFHC copper vanes. A specially designed 3-DO-ring will provide vacuum sealing between both the vanes and themodules. RF connections are made with canted coil spring contacts. Aseries of 60 water-cooled pi-mode rods provides quadrupole modestabilization. A set of 80 evenly spaced fixed slug tuners is used forfinal frequency adjustment and local field perturbationcorrection.

We present the results of a study for the design of a fastextraction kicker to be installed in the Accelerator Test Facility ringat KEK. This activity is carried on in the framework of the ATF2 project,which will be built on the KEK Tsukuba campus as an extension of theexisting ATF, taking advantage of the world s smallest normalizedemittance achieved there. ATF2's primary goal is to operate as a testfacility and establish the hardware and beam handling technologiesenvisaged for the International Linear Collider. In particular, the fastextraction kicker object of the present paper is an important componentof the ILC damping rings, since its rise and fall time define the minimumdistance between bunches and ultimately the damping rings length itself.Building on the initial results presented at EPAC '06, we report on thepresent status of the kicker design and define the minimumcharacteristics for pulsers and other subsystems. In addition to theoriginal scheme with multiple stripline modules producing a totaldeflection of 5 mrad, we also investigated a scheme with a single kickermodule for a reduced deflection of 1 mrad placed inside a closed orbitbump, which takes the electron closer to the extractionseptum.

The objective of this project is the delivery of an application that will provide a unified, web-based system for collecting, verifying and analyzing the achievements for Laboratory employees. The application will enable individual Directorates to manage and report achievement record data for their employees using an LLNL standard web browser. In addition, cross directorate data reporting and analysis will be available for such organizations as LSTO and programmatic directorates. This system is intended to store reference data and metadata for employee achievements. Abstracts and entire publications will not be stored in this system.Directorates are expected to use this system at all levels of management in preparing for Annual Self-Assessments, peer reviews, LDRD reviews, work force reviews, performance appraisals, and requests from sponsors. This document represents the primary deliverable for the Requirements Definition stage of system development. As part of a successful Requirements Definition, this document provides the development staff, the project sponsor, and the user community with a clear understanding of the product's operational, data, and other requirements. With this understanding, the development staff will take the opportunity to refine estimates regarding the cost, schedule, and deliverables reflected in it.

Part I: Electrochemical and X-ray Characterization of Solid-Oxide Electrolysis Cell Oxygen Electrodes on Electrolyte Substrates--The governing reaction mechanisms, and the electrode and electrolyte material compositions and structures, that controls the efficiency and durability of the solid oxide electrolysis cells (SOEC) need to be identified and well-understood for a significant improvement in nuclear hydrogen production using high temperature steam electrolysis. ANL conducted experimental analysis of SOEC electrolyte and electrodes to progress in this objective. Our study on the oxygen electrode focused on specifically the effect of electrode crystal structure on its electrochemical performance, and the evolution of the electronic and structural properties of the electrodes while under electrochemical conditions and high temperature. We found through electrochemical impedance spectroscopy experiments that, while different crystal orientations in La{sub 0.8}Sr{sub 0.2}MnO{sub 3+d} (LSM) show different initial performance and different electrochemical activation under SOEC conditions, a good mixed ionic electronic conductor La{sub 0.8}Sr{sub 0.2}CoO{sub 3+d} (LSC) does not seem to exhibit similar variations. Our in-situ x-ray and electrochemical measurements at the Advanced Photon Source of ANL have identified the chemical states of the A-site elements of the doped lanthanum manganite electrodes. We found that the changes in the concentration and in the electronic state of …